4 Steps to Turning Challenges into Opportunities

We’re living through challenging times. But inherent in nearly all challenges are opportunities for renewal and transformation. The current economic crisis offers the chance to re-evaluate how you live your life, to be more mindful and strategic about how you spend money, and to take stock of your values and priorities. Corporate lay-offs can provide the opportunity to find a more meaningful job, transition into a new career, or pursue the dream of starting your own business. How you respond to crises has a lot to do with the lens through which you habitually perceive the world. If you tend to see the world through a “gloom and doom” lens, you may be reacting to current events with feelings of fear, anxiety, or a sense of despair or powerlessness. And even if you tend to view things through the lens of optimism, you may be reacting to the constant barrage of negative media messages with milder feelings of concern and insecurity.

Wherever you may be on this continuum of perception and reaction, deliberately shifting your focus to unearth and explore the opportunities inherent in these challenges can help you move from a state of insecurity, powerlessness, or fear into a state of empowerment, inspiration, and action.

Below are 4 steps you can take to help you make this shift:

1. Notice how often you expose yourself to the negative messages of the news media. Try to keep your exposure to a minimum, enough to keep yourself informed, but not so much that it’s feeding your fear over and over again.

2. Make a list of the ways the current crises are impacting you or your life. For example, “I’m worried I’m going to lose my job”, “I have less money to go out to eat”, “Sales are down and business is slow”, “I’ve lost 30% of my retirement savings.”

3. Write down the opportunities inherent in each challenge. Using the examples listed above, your opportunities might include some of these:

Challenge: I’m worried I’m going to lose my job. Opportunity: Get my resume updated and start networking to find that rewarding and fulfilling job I’ve been thinking about pursuing for the last two years.        

Challenge: I have less money to go out to eat. Opportunity: Download some new recipes from the internet to expand my cooking skills and start having intimate dinners at home with family and friends. 

Challenge: Sales are down and business is slow. Opportunity: Use this slow time to get my office organized, update my marketing materials, and reconnect with past customers I’ve had no time call.

4. Recognize that there are some challenges that are simply beyond your control. For those that are—for example, the decreased value of a home you may own—instead of expending energy worrying and complaining about it, turn your attention to those challenges with opportunities you can act upon.

© 2010 Lauren Mackler

This article also appeared in the Huffington Post. Click here to go to the Huffington Post article. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/lauren-mackler/4-steps-for-turning-chall_b_482336.html

Alone on February 14? 6 tips to becoming your own Valentine.

Valentine’s Day is, for many singles, a holiday to dread instead of one to celebrate. I experienced my own loneliness on more than one Valentine’s Day. Then, several years ago, I had a revelation. I could be my own Valentine! I know, being your own Valentine might sound like a desperate attempt to soothe the sting of single life. I thought so, too—until I actually experienced it. The first year of becoming my own Valentine, I organized a dinner at a nice restaurant for a group of single men and women. On the invitation I wrote a request: “buy, have gift-wrapped, and bring to dinner a gift for yourself in recognition of the magnificent person you are.”

It was one of my favorite Valentine’s Day celebrations! We took turns opening our gifts and sharing what we admired about ourselves. Some people were moved to tears, as they realized how hard they usually were on themselves.

Since then I’ve celebrated myself every Valentine’s Day—regardless of my relationship status. I do something special like get a massage, take a day trip, or buy a bottle of my favorite champagne. Last year I ordered and had delivered a dozen, long-stemmed roses in a box, with a card to myself that said, “I admire the fabulous woman you are.” For the next couple of weeks I felt infused with love each time I looked at the beautiful roses on my table and the card hung on my refrigerator.

Below are more ways to “become your own Valentine”—all of which will build your self-esteem and a loving relationship with yourself.

Plan a “Self-Celebration” Valentine’s Day pot-luck party. Ask each guest to bring their own favorite food dish and a wrapped gift to give to themselves.

Order in a delicious meal, put on your pajamas, and hunker down with a great book or movie. Some of my favorite Valentine’s Day movies are Trading Places, Mermaids, and The Associate.

Treat a friend, family member, or co-worker to an evening out. Valentine’s Day is a great opportunity to return a kindness or to reconnect with someone you haven’t seen in a while.

Organize a girls’ or guys’ night out that includes something entertaining like karaoke, playing pool, shooting darts, seeing a play, or listening to live music.

Spend the day volunteering. Helping others is gratifying and makes you feel good about yourself. To find opportunities in your city, visit the Single Volunteers Web site.

Attend a social event. If you don’t know of any in your area, do a Google search with the words, “Singles events Valentine's Day <your city>.” Then click on the links to find an event that sounds appealing.

Ask yourself what you would like, then commit to giving it to yourself. And remember, you always have a choice. You can either spend Valentine’s Day feeling bad, or you can do something that uplifts, nurtures, or delights you.

This article appeared on HealYourLife.com.  Click here to see Lauren’s video on HealYourLife.com.

Is the Role You Play Playing with Your Life?

Every living system seeks balance. In nature, this process is called homeostasis. Within a family system, homeostasis explains why members adopt certain roles. In healthy families, members take on different roles at various times to meet the family’s needs. But in dysfunctional families, the roles are more rigid. For example, if one parent is addicted to alcohol, the other may be busy providing for the family and seldom home. One child may take on the role of Caretaker, preparing meals for younger siblings while another becomes the Hero—the one who strives to do everything perfectly. But the family dynamics that shape family roles aren’t limited to severe dysfunctions like substance abuse. One of my coaching clients grew up in a loving, close-knit family in which he was the Hero. Because his parents wanted him to have opportunities they never had, he was expected to get straight A’s, a good education, and a successful career. And while this role enabled him to become an accomplished and wealthy lawyer, his life was falling apart. High blood pressure was causing health problems, workaholism threatened his marriage, and the responsibilities of providing for his elderly parents, an expensive home, and three children in private schools overwhelmed him.

Another example is Casey, who dreamed of becoming a professional photographer. Casey was in a financial-services job she hated, but in which she felt trapped. Growing up, both of her parents struggled to hold down jobs. Casey started babysitting at the age of 12, and had been helping her parents financially ever since. She lived with her boyfriend, who was supporting his ex-wife and son. He was unsupportive of her making a career change, because they needed her income to pay the bills. By continuing to make others’ needs more important than her own, she had unconsciously recreated her family role of Caretaker in her adult relationship.

While our family role may have made sense growing up, it often wreaks havoc in our adult lives. As our primary role takes hold, parts of us become suppressed—parts we need to live a healthy and fulfilling adult life. These can include the part that feels like a worthwhile, deserving person; the part that feels intelligent and competent; the spontaneous, playful part, or the part that can feel and express joy.

If the role you play is sabotaging your life, change the behaviors that reinforce it. If you play the People-pleaser who always says what others expect for approval, start expressing your real thoughts and feelings to others. If you’re the Hero who works relentlessly to achieve, bring fun into your life. Take an improvisational comedy class, do karaoke, visit a water park, or anything else to reclaim your spontaneous, playful part.

Many people’s unhappiness is rooted in the habitual role they play. By consciously shedding your limiting role, not only will you achieve greater well-being, but you’ll reclaim the innate wholeness with which you were born, that’s critical to living a healthy, balanced, and fulfilling life.

© 2010 Lauren Mackler

  WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE, BLOG, OR WEB SITE?

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© 2010 Lauren Mackler

Lauren Mackler is a coach, psychotherapist, and host of the Life Keys radio show on hayhouseradio.com. She’s the author of the international bestseller, Solemate: Master the Art of Aloneness & Transform Your Life. Sign up for her Live Boldly newsletter at www.laurenmackler.com.

This article was also appeared on Sheerbalance.com.

Are You Addicted to ‘Gloom and Doom’?

How affirmations really work. Chronic negative thinking and the emotions it invokes is, like many destructive behaviors, a form of addiction.

An old acquaintance of mine recently wrote an article about positive thinking—a subject that is often misunderstood. For many years I, like many people on the personal-development path, believed that by writing down and repeating positive affirmations (positive statements about yourself or your life, written in the present tense as if they were already true), I would think more positively and the changes I sought in myself and in my life would happen automatically. I hung these inspiring statements up all over my house, memorized them, and repeated them out loud, sometimes as much as 100 times a day. But it seemed that no matter how many times I said them, the changes I hoped to achieve continued to elude me.

It would be nearly 20 years before I finally realized that while affirmations are a powerful tool for clarifying and focusing on what you want, positive action is also required to achieve it. Positive action generates positive thinking, which generates more positive action and positive thinking. Positive action and thinking are a choice, a choice that can be challenging, especially for people who have experienced much suffering and pain in their lives—but it’s still a choice.

For example, you feel lonely and sad, but instead of isolating yourself, you do something positive. Maybe you attend a cooking class, volunteer at a soup kitchen, or go out for a run—something that refocuses your thoughts and produces a more positive experience rather than sitting home alone eating cookies and feeling sorry for yourself.

Chronic negative thinking and the emotions it invokes is, like many destructive behaviors, a form of addiction. People become addicted to habitual, “gloom and doom” thoughts, as well as to the emotions they produce—such as fear and anger. It becomes their comfort zone—it may not be very pleasant, but it’s familiar.

To break this self-defeating addiction, you have to first understand its roots (almost always found in your life conditioning), and consciously change your behaviors and actions to ones that create more positive results. Over time, you’ll build a string of positive experiences that solidifies a new internal reference point and makes a positive mindset in your new habitual way of thinking.

7 Steps To Healthier Relationships

Healthy relationships are critical to our well-being, yet many people never learned the skills to cultivate them. Not all people have what it takes to be supportive, and not all unsupportive people can be avoided--for example, family members and co-workers. But the idea is to identify the qualities that support you, spend time with people who demonstrate those qualities, and, as much as possible, avoid people who are detrimental to your well-being. There are many ways to cultivate healthy relationships, the first of which is to become a supportive friend to others. Below are qualities and behaviors that foster positive relationships that you can develop within yourself and seek out in others.

Be a good sounding board. When a friend wants to talk to you about something he's going through, the best approach is simply to listen. Don't offer advice without asking permission, because it may be... Click here to read the entire article.

Alone on February 14?

Valentine’s Day is, for many singles, a holiday to dread instead of one to celebrate. I experienced my own loneliness on more than one Valentine’s Day. Then, several years ago, I had a revelation. I could be my own Valentine! I know, being your own Valentine might sound like a desperate attempt to soothe the sting of single life. I thought so, too—until I actually experienced it. The first year of becoming my own Valentine, I organized a dinner at a nice restaurant for a group of single men and women. On the invitation I wrote a request: “buy, have gift-wrapped, and bring to dinner a gift for yourself in recognition of the magnificent person you are.”

It was one of my favorite Valentine’s Day celebrations! We took turns opening our gifts and sharing what we admired about ourselves. Some people were moved to tears, as they realized ... Click here to read the entire article on HealYourLife.com.

Trouble Keeping Your New Year's Resolutions? Uncover Your Self-Sabotaging Tendencies

At start of a new year, many people make resolutions for change. In fact, many of these are the same ones every year! Yours may be to increase your income, expand your social circle or find your dream job. But the foundation for achieving any goal is the ability to move beyond self-sabotaging patterns to create the results you seek. In my work, I often talk about how the core beliefs and behaviors adopted in childhood affect our adult lives. Although rooted in the unconscious and hidden from most people, our core beliefs drive our everyday behaviors. And while these beliefs and behaviors allowed us to adapt to our families growing up, they often negate our adult lives. So identifying and shedding your limiting beliefs and behaviors is a critical key to success.

To better understand how your own limiting beliefs and behaviors may be sabotaging your New Year's resolutions, here are three examples of self-defeating behaviors ... Click here to read the entire article on the Huffington Post.

8 Principles of Fun for 2010

During a recent trip to Japan, I realized I wanted more fun in my life. I am, by nature, a fun-loving person. But I’m so energized by my work that it doesn’t feel much like work. That’s a mixed blessing. The good news is that I love what I do. The bad news is that because I enjoy it, I work a lot, leaving little time for simply having fun.

Synchronicity was at work when an old friend suddenly popped back into my life. Since I had seen Lori, she quit her corporate job to launch Tomgirl Tours, an outdoor adventure company dedicated to helping women “do the unthinkable.” Her motivation was to have more fun in her life and help others do the same. Lori shared a video posted on her blog, The Eight Irresistible Principles of Fun, by Michael Bungay Stanier. I loved the video’s message, and felt compelled to share it with others.

I hope you enjoy these 8 Principles of Fun, and are inspired to bring more fun into your own life in 2010 and beyond!

Stop hiding who you really are. Although it feels like the path of least resistance, it actually takes more energy to live from your Conditioned Self than to live authentically—the person you were born to be.

Start being intensely selfish. Many people believe that making themselves the key person in their lives is a bad thing. It’s simply good common sense. After all, you’re the only person who’s with you 24/7 until you draw your last breath.

Stop following the rules. While some rules are necessary and good for us, living a life based on others’ rules, needs, and expectations can stifle your self-expression and creativity, and keep a lid on your potential.

Start scaring yourself. People avoid expanding their comfort zones out of fear, missing out on people and experiences that can enrich their lives. Know that fear is a normal reaction to taking risks and learn how to override them. My article, Manage Fear So It Doesn’t Manage You, can help.

Stop taking it all so damn seriously. Our time on earth is short, and as someone once said, “No one gets out of this alive.” Instead of ruminating about how bad things are, bring laughter into your world and focus on what’s good about your self and your life.

Start getting rid of the crap. Being bogged down by possessions you don’t need can be an energy-drain. Many people go into debt because they buy things to fill the voids in their lives. Clear out clutter that distracts you, and you’ll free up energy to create a life you enjoy.

Stop being busy. Being busy and being productive are not necessarily the same. Many people keep busy to avoid taking action on things they’re afraid to pursue. Identify your priorities and allocate your time and energy to achieving the goals to which you aspire.

Start something. Procrastination is a common reaction to feeling overwhelmed or fear of failure. Instead of taking on too much at once and overwhelming yourself, break things down and take one small action step at a time.

© 2010 Lauren Mackler

  WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE, BLOG, OR WEB SITE?

You can, as long as you include this complete statement at the end of the article:

© 2010 Lauren Mackler

Lauren Mackler is a coach, psychotherapist, and host of the Life Keys radio show on hayhouseradio.com. She’s the author of the international bestseller, Solemate: Master the Art of Aloneness & Transform Your Life. Sign up for her Live Boldly newsletter at www.laurenmackler.com.

Giving Thanks on Thanksgiving

The Pilgrims held their first Thanksgiving in 1621 to thank the Wampanoag Indian tribe for teaching them the skills they needed to survive in the New World. As you give thanks this Thanksgiving, remember to thank the special person who’s been with you since you drew your first breath, and with whom you’ll live for the rest of your life—yourself!

 

I also want to give thanks. To my magnificent coaching clients, to the listeners of my Life Keys radio show, and to the hundreds of people I’ve been honored to meet over this past year during my book tour and workshops. And to the thousands of people who made Solemate: Master the Art of Aloneness & Transform Your Life an international bestseller within eight days of its April release! I feel very blessed to do the work I do, and to connect with so many amazing people committed to positive change in their own lives, and out in the world.

 

I thank you all for your loving support, and I wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving. And for those of you who are coming to the Solemate workshop this weekend at Kripalu, I look forward to being with you!

Warmly, Lauren

 

Illumineer Your Life!

Illumineering™ is a method I developed from my work as a mind-body psychotherapist and coach. It’s a unique integration of what I’ve found to be the three most effective modalities for helping people break free of self-defeating patterns, and create the personal and professional lives they want. It can be used in a variety of settings by professionals certified in the Illumineering™ method, including psychotherapists, clinical psychologists, psychiatrists, social workers, and life, career, relationship, and executive coaches.

Illumineering™ is based on the premise that when we're born, we are whole, integrated human beings with tremendous potential. Growing up, we respond to our life conditioning by adopting habitual thought and behavior patterns, many of which erode our innate wholeness. We carry these patterns into adulthood, and they shape our feelings about ourselves, our relationships, our personal lives, and our careers. Illumineering™ helps people break free of the shackles of their life conditioning, reclaim their innate wholeness, and create the lives to which they aspire.

The three modalities that comprise the Illumineering™ method are family systems work (to identify client blocks and their origins), psychodynamic psychology (to access limiting beliefs and habitual behaviors rooted in the subconscious), and coaching (to identify and implement action-based strategies to override self-defeating patterns, develop a new default operating system, and achieve transformational change).

In my own coaching practice, I offer four types of Illumineering™ Coaching Programs. Below is a description of the programs and the people for whom they’re appropriate.

Illumineering™ Life Coaching: for individuals looking to achieve specific personal goals, address life challenges or transitions, create healthier relationships, or move to the next level of success in their lives.

Illumineering™ Career Coaching: for people in professional transition who want to use their passions, skills, and experience in a new position, career, or business—or entrepreneurs who want to take an existing business to the next level of success.

Illumineering™ Relationship Coaching: for singles seeking a healthy and fulfilling relationship, couples looking to create a more joyful and fulfilling partnership, family members experiencing relationship challenges, or business partners facing interpersonal issues.

Illumineering™ Executive Coaching: for business leaders looking to enhance their leadership skills, achieve new goals in their careers or organizations, or address specific performance challenges.

I’m often asked how Illumineering™ differs from traditional psychotherapy or other coaching methods. Psychotherapy is generally more focused on the present and past, and most practitioners use talk-therapy to help clients process their feelings, or cognitive-behavioral approaches to help them think and behave differently.  Coaching is typically more future-oriented, with a focus on identifying client goals and the steps needed to achieve them. Illumineering™ integrates family systems work, psychodynamic psychology, and coaching to identify client blocks at their deepest level, and develop and implement action-based strategies to override these barriers and achieve the results they seek. 

When hiring a coach, it’s good to inquire about their training, methodology, and experience. For a check list of what to look for, refer to my article, Tips for Hiring the Right Coach.      © 2009 Lauren Mackler

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE, BLOG, OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete statement at the end of the article:   © 2009 Lauren Mackler

Lauren Mackler is a coach, psychotherapist, and host of the Life Keys radio show on hayhouseradio.com. She’s the author of the international bestseller, Solemate: Master the Art of Aloneness & Transform Your Life. Sign up for her free Live Boldly newsletter at www.laurenmackler.com.

Jon & Kate Gosselin: Healing the Wounds of Divorce

In a CNN interview a couple of weeks ago, I was asked what the next steps should be for estranged reality TV couple Kate and Jon Gosselin, who are engaged in a contentious divorce. Although the Gosselins are unique in that they are the parents of 8 children, their bitter divorce is not unusual. Nearly 50% of all marriages end in divorce, many of which are as acrimonious as the Gosselins’. My recent interview below addresses why many marriages fall apart, and how to stop the destructive patterns that turn relationships into battlefields.

What causes a relationship to deteriorate to the point of a separation or divorce? The things that draw people together in a relationship are the same ones that drive them apart. People typically fall in love with partners who have the qualities they lack in themselves—their opposite—in an unconscious quest to feel complete. While they’re initially enamored by those differences, over time, they often become points of conflict and disdain. And since most people lack good communication and conflict management skills, the real issues never get addressed. Over time, resentment builds, trust is eroded, and the relationship becomes a constant battlefield.

It’s one thing not to get along, but in many relationships, things become downright ugly. What causes such intense anger and bitterness? Intimate relationships tend to invoke our deepest wounds. We’re all the product of our life conditioning. And since most people come from families with some level of dysfunction, most of us carry emotional pain and dysfunctional patterns into our relationships. Many of these patterns are like viruses, infecting our self-esteem, our lives, and our relationships. Those closest to us know exactly how to invoke our deepest wounds, which is why people react so badly in the midst of divorce. They think it’s the other person who’s causing their pain, when, in fact, they’re both replicating the dysfunctional patterns learned in childhood in their own marriage.

How can people stop the cycle of anger and destructive behavior in the midst of a separation or divorce? When a relationship deteriorates to the point where the partners become what I call “intimate enemies”, the best approach is to find a professional who can help them cut through the symptoms of their issues—which are often disguised as anger, resentment, jealousy, or infidelity—and  address the root causes of their problems. This is especially important when there are children involved, because they still have to interact as parents. Regardless of whether the couple stays together or divorces, the only way they can co-parent in an amicable and constructive manner is for them to become aware of the dysfunctional patterns they each brought into the relationship. Once they’ve identified what they are, they need to do the personal-development work needed to change them. If the destructive behavior continues, it will inevitably cause deep emotional and psychological damage to their children, and the legacy of dysfunction will pass on to the next generation.

© 2009 Lauren Mackler

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR E-ZINE, BLOG, OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include this complete statement at the end of the article:

© 2009 Lauren Mackler

Lauren Mackler is a coach, psychotherapist, and host of the Life Keys radio show on hayhouseradio.com. She’s the author of the international bestseller, Solemate: Master the Art of Aloneness & Transform Your Life. Sign up for her Live Boldly newsletter at www.laurenmackler.com.This article also appeared on the following web sites.

Huffington Post Basil and Spice Chicago Sun Times

Lauren's article on Love in the Huffington Post

Carl Jung wrote that "...it is the strength of the bond to the parents that unconsciously influences the choice of husband or wife, either positively or negatively." As my own divorce drama unfolded, it became clear that there were deeper issues between my husband and me than appeared on the surface. As I explored Jung's premise that who we choose as partners is greatly influenced by our past experiences with our parents, I realized the tremendous influence our upbringing has on our adult relationships. Romantic love has been studied from several perspectives, resulting in a deeper understanding of human relationships. Three popular perspectives include the bio-logic, social-exchange, and persona theories...

Click here to read the entire article.

Lauren's article on Fear in The Huffington Post

Manage Fear So It Doesn't Manage You Fear is one of the biggest barriers to living a joyful and fulfilling life. If you're living life from a place of fear, you're not free to take risks or pursue your dreams. If your energy is expended in avoiding failure or rejection, then that energy is used to stay safe, instead of being available to create the life you envision.

Through evolution, we're hard-wired to respond to fear with intensity. For our evolutionary precursors, the fight-or-flight response was a valuable survival mechanism. It's not as useful when triggered by modern-day fears. In addition to affecting the autonomic nervous system, the hormone cortisol is released in higher quantities than normal. Cortisol helps the system react and normalize once the threat has passed. However, chronic stress and elevated cortisol levels have adverse effects, including impaired cognitive performance, suppressed thyroid function, blood-sugar imbalances, higher blood pressure, and increased abdominal fat. It can also compromise your immune system ... Click here to read the entire article.

The Three Keys to Success

Many people fail to achieve their goals because they never learned the skills that produce success. No one ever taught them how to set clear goals, create effective action plans, or sustain their motivation. Whether you want to become a better leader, create a more fulfilling career, or bring greater balance into your life, there are three keys to achieving any type of goal: focus, strategy, and commitment.

Focus. A teacher of mine once said, “Where you focus is where you go.” Without a clear picture of what you want, you’re at the mercy of whatever life brings your way—and you might not like what you’re getting. To find your focus, ask yourself, “What would I do, be, or experience if I knew I would not fail?” Notice the things you feel passionate about or that you wish you could change. Finding your focus doesn’t have to involve taking a major leap over your comfort zone. It might be shorter-term goals like eating fresh vegetables everyday, or bigger goals that require a longer time span, such as completing a graduate degree or starting your own business.

Strategy. Your strategy is the road map for bringing your goals to fruition. It involves identifying the steps needed to accomplish your goal, and the resources that can help you achieve it. Ask yourself, “What are the steps I need to take to achieve this goal?” Be careful not to overwhelm yourself by taking on too much at once. Start with three to six action steps for each goal. Once your initial action steps are completed, identify the next three to six action steps, continuing this process until your goal is achieved. It’s also good to set a clear timeline for each action step and put them into your daily or weekly calendar.

Commitment. Being committed to your goals means honoring your agreements to yourself.  To be committed, you have to feel deserving of what you want to achieve, and you have to love yourself. After all, you’re not going to feel compelled to invest your time and energy in someone you don’t like very much. This is why so many people lose their motivation to follow through on their goals. Instead of extending patience and compassion toward themselves, they berate and judge themselves—further eroding their sense of worthiness. If you have a hard time keeping your commitments to yourself due to low self-esteem, developing a more loving relationship with yourself is a great first goal on which to focus.

These three keys are important tools for “living deliberately”—aligning your thoughts and actions with the results you want to have. As you start living more deliberately, recognize that you’ll slip into old, self-defeating patterns from time to time. Being committed doesn’t mean doing this process perfectly or following through on your action steps 100 percent of the time. It means acknowledging when you do slip up, being compassionate with yourself when you do, then gently moving yourself back on-course.  

Lauren’s keynote presentation, Live Boldly: Unleashing Your Potential in Life, Work, & Relationships uncovers the hidden drivers that keep people stuck in unsatisfying careers, relationships, and life circumstances. This is one of several events designed to help people live a life that’s aligned with who they are, and the life vision to which they aspire. Click here for more information on my workshops.

© 2009 Lauren Mackler all rights reserved

This article also appeared on The Huffington Post.

Mastering the Art of Aloneness on Huffington Post

More people are living as singles today than ever before. In the United States, there are 95.7 million single adults -- a number that represents 43 percent of all U.S. adults. Why? Not only are people marrying later, but given high divorce rates and that women outlive men by an average of seven years, it's likely that a married adult will again be single at some point in his or her life. Despite these numbers, attitudes have changed remarkably little. There's still a mindset that if you're single, there must be something wrong with you. Many people believe that marriage is the ideal lifestyle and we're barraged by messages reinforcing this notion. Movies and music tell the same story: Without love, we have nothing. It's difficult to even imagine a movie that ends with the hero living joyfully alone instead of happily-ever-after with a mate. The classic line in the film, Jerry Maguire--"You complete me" -- reinforces what many singles believe: If I could only find my soul mate, I'd be happy.

Opposites attract for the same reason that relationships fall apart. Most relationships are driven by an unconscious need to recreate or compensate for childhood experiences. Take the example of a man who grows up in a family where he's never allowed to express joy or excitement; he'll be looking for someone else to bring those expressions into his life. Or a woman who never feels safe or secure on her own... Click here to read more. 

Solemate article in Dr. Christiane Northrup's Newsletter

“By embracing your aloneness and reclaiming your innate wholeness, you create new results in every aspect of your life.” - Lauren Mackler A Note from Dr. Northrup

I often say that, physiologically, midlife presents you with the perfect opportunity to reinvent yourself, especially if there are aspects of your life that you wish were different. Many women find themselves alone at midlife—something they never expected. This happened to me. And although it took a while, I’m much happier today than I’ve ever been. Why? Because I learned what lights me up—what I need to live a life full of joy and pleasure. This also meant mastering what Lauren Mackler, my guest author this month, calls the art of aloneness. It’s something women of every age should become skilled at, regardless of whether they’re in a relationship. I agree fully with the message in her inspiring and insightful book Solemate: Master the Art of Aloneness and Transform Your Life If you want to be truly happy in your relationships, you have to become “your own cherished solemate.” – Christiane Northrup, M.D.

You can sign up and read on to learn more. – Dr. Christian Northrup’s Newsletter.

Solemate Master the Art of Aloneness and Transform Your Life By Lauren Mackler

Many people spend years waiting for Prince or Princess Charming to make them happy and complete. Others settle for unfulfilling relationships out of fear of being alone. Mastering the art of aloneness is about achieving mastery of your life so you can experience a sense of wholeness and well being whether you’re on your own or in a relationship. It’s about treating yourself well, and shedding the old beliefs and behaviors that limit your ability to realize your greatest potential. It’s about becoming your own cherished solemate. 

When we’re born, we are whole, integrated human beings filled with tremendous potential. We feel good about ourselves and are able to express the full range of human emotions. As we grow up, we adapt to the peculiarities of our families by adopting habitual patterns of thought and behavior, some of which erode our innate wholeness and self-esteem. We carry these patterns into adulthood, and they shape our lives, our feelings about ourselves, and our relationships with others.

In one way or another, just about every family is dysfunctional. Everyone emerges from their family of origin with a distinctive set of issues. Within some families, children grow up experiencing extreme dysfunctions such as physical, verbal, or sexual abuse. Others experience subtler dysfunctions that shape their core beliefs and behavior—maybe taboos that impede their ability to express their feelings, frequent criticism that erodes their self-esteem, or rigid rules that inhibit self-expression. We are all products of our families’ unique patterns and dysfunctions. Some of these patterns are like viruses, infecting our lives and sense of well being. And, until we become aware of what they are and how to move beyond them, none of us is truly whole.

Mastering the art of aloneness is about reclaiming your innate wholeness. It’s a process that involves understanding where your self-defeating patterns come from and how to move beyond them. It means uncovering and retrieving your authentic self—the person you really are beneath the layers of your life conditioning—and living in a conscious way so you can achieve the results that you want from life and feel complete and happy on your own.

If you don’t feel whole you’re always going to be seeking someone else to complete you. Take the example of a man who grows up in a family where he’s never allowed to express joy or enthusiasm; he’ll be looking for someone else to bring those expressions into his life. Or a woman who never feels secure on her own—she’ll spend her life seeking security from others. In my coaching practice, I’m amazed by the number of people who come to me with little understanding of the human conditioning process and how it affects their lives. Many have invested countless hours and dollars in self-help approaches focused on changing their behavior—but they still struggle with the same issues over and over because they haven’t addressed their family-of-origin issues. Others spend years in therapy talking about their families. They may come away with an intellectual understanding of their families and dysfunctional patterns, but they lack the strategies to change them. The challenge is to connect the dots. That means focusing in on the core beliefs and behavioral patterns you adopted in your family of origin and developing workable strategies that will help you change them.

Mastering the art of aloneness is not about being alone. It means living a life in which you feel whole and happy, and can take care of yourself emotionally and financially. It involves embracing aloneness as an opportunity to develop the self-awareness and life skills needed to live a full and gratifying life. Pursuing self-mastery not only enhances the quality of your relationship with yourself, but it changes your relationships with others. Instead of expecting another person to make you whole, you engage in relationships with a sense of being complete on your own. Self-sufficiency builds self-esteem, allowing you to participate in relationships with others out of conscious choice, rather than out of neediness or fear of being alone. By embracing your aloneness and reclaiming your innate wholeness, you create new results in every aspect of your life. Below are a few of many steps you can take to strengthen your relationship with yourself and use your “aloneness” to develop greater self-esteem, personal fulfillment, and financial security.

• Learn about and develop who you are: Imagine how life would be if we all put as much energy into developing a healthy and loving relationship with ourselves as we do in our relationships with others. Personal-development work (coaching, workshops, therapy, etc.) is a process that involves deep self-examination and awareness of who you are, how you behave, and the results your actions generate. With greater awareness comes a more conscious choice of who you want to be and how you want to behave and interact with others. It involves making deliberate decisions about the results you want to achieve in your life and relationships. Personal transformation requires a high level of awareness in your day-to-day life. It means living deliberately so that you can override the negative patterns of your life conditioning, change your limiting beliefs and behaviors, and bring your life goals to reality.

• Build an inner support system: You develop an inner support system by incorporating activities into your life that replenish your inner resources and maintain your emotional, physical, and mental health. Your inner support system should meet two specific criteria: These are activities that you do on a regular basis and can do independently of anyone else. By building your inner support system, you’ll be developing the inner resources you need to achieve your life goals, while practicing self-love and building your self-esteem. As you experience the benefits of your efforts—whether it’s a sense of inner peace, a healthier body, higher energy, or greater self-confidence—it will reinforce the value of what you’re doing. In addition, you’ll be mastering the art of aloneness by taking responsibility for creating your own well being, instead of depending on others to provide it for you. Examples of activities that build your inner support system include stress-reducing strategies such as getting enough sleep and exercise, meditating, scheduling leisure activities, extending compassion to yourself through supportive “self talk” (“great job!”, “you’re magnificent!”, etc.), and maintaining a diet that supports your physical and emotional well being.

• Develop an outer support system: An outer support system refers to people and environments that support who you really are, and provides the connection and assistance of others. Developing caring and supportive relationships is a way of nurturing yourself. However, not all people have what it takes to be supportive, and not all unsupportive people can be avoided—for example, sometimes you can’t escape family members and co-workers. The idea here is to identify the qualities that support you, spend time with people who embody those qualities, and, as much as possible, avoid people who are detrimental to you and your personal development. Another important aspect of your outer support system is utilizing external resources to help you achieve your full potential (a holistic physician, nutritionist, fitness trainer, life coach, psychotherapist, financial planner, etc.).

• Take financial control: If you’re a woman, don’t fall into the trap of imagining that you’d be better off with a mate to support you financially—a limiting belief that many women still hold. In truth, 90 percent of all American women will be in charge of their own finances at some point in their lives. As Leslie Bennetts points out in The Feminine Mistake: “In striving to become a fully mature, fully realized human being, there is no substitute for taking complete responsibility for your own life.” Make a list of your monthly expenses and income. If you live beyond your means, you need to alter your lifestyle or develop a plan for earning the money to support it. Being financially dependent on another person is a risk; if that person disappears from your life, so does your financial security and quality of life. 

• Do work you love, in which you can excel: The smaller the gap between who you are in your personal life and who you are at work, the happier you will be. A job aligned with your innate strengths and passions makes going to work a joy, versus a daily source of frustration. Many people settle for a job or career that is unsatisfying or miserable. They’re held back from pursuing their dream job out of a fear of change or failure—or simply by not knowing what other career they can do. Staying in a job you dislike not only reduces your life quality, but it can affect your health and well-being. Chronic stress can compromise your immune system, making you more susceptible to illness. If you’re unsure about what kind of work is best suited to your innate personality traits, skills, and passions—or you know what you want to do but are unclear about how to make it happen—hiring a good career coach can help.

As you take the first steps toward mastering aloneness, it’s important to recognize that you’ll slip up. Imagine how a typical smoker quits smoking. She throws away that first pack of cigarettes. Then she might weaken and buy another pack, then just smoke a few cigarettes, then give it up for another few days or weeks, then start up again. And then, one day, she’s just done with it. She’s tried to quit, and finally she just stops. That back-and-forth is part of the process. Like quitting smoking, mastering aloneness is about changing your habitual patterns of behavior. As you begin the process, it’s important to be gentle with yourself. When you slip up, think of it as simply getting more information about what doesn’t work for you. Making a commitment to mastering the art of aloneness means accepting the fact that you will slip up; treating yourself with love and compassion when you do, and then moving forward in becoming the person you were born to be.

© 2009 Lauren Mackler all rights reserved

Reprinted with permission from Dr. Christiane the Women’s Wisdom Circle at www.drnorthrup.com. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

Christiane Northrup, M.D., a board-certified ob/gyn, is a visionary pioneer, beloved authority in women’s health and wellness, and the author of the ground breaking New York Times bestsellers Women's Bodies, Women’s Wisdom and The Wisdom of Menopause. Her third book, Mother-Daughter Wisdom, was voted Amazon’s #1 book of the 2005 (in two categories). Her latest books, The Secret Pleasures of Menopause and The Secret Pleasures of Menopause Playbook, teach how to experience joy, pleasure, prosperity, fulfillment, and vibrant health.

Following a 25-year career in both academic medicine and private practice, Dr. Northrup now devotes her time to helping women truly flourish on all levels through tapping into their inner wisdom.

Through her exclusive Women’s Wisdom Circle, Dr. Northrup shares cutting-edge medical and lifestyle advice. For more information about Dr. Northrup and her Wisdom Circle go to www.DrNorthrup.com.

Positive Action Produces Positive Thinking

An old acquaintance of mine recently wrote an article about positive thinking—a subject that is often misunderstood. For many years I, like many people on the personal-development path, believed that by writing down and repeating positive affirmations (positive statements about yourself or your life, written in the present tense as if they were already true), I would think more positively and the changes I sought in myself and in my life would happen automatically. I hung them up all over my house, memorized them, and repeated them out loud, sometimes as much as a hundred times a day. But it seemed like no matter how many times I said them, the changes I hoped to achieve eluded me. It would be nearly twenty years before I finally realized that while affirmations were helpful in clarifying what I wanted, positive action was required to achieve it. Positive action generates positive thinking, not the other way around. Positive action is a choice, one that can be challenging, especially for people who’ve experienced much suffering and pain in their lives—but it’s still a choice. For example, maybe you feel lonely and sad, but instead of isolating yourself, you do something positive like attend a cooking class, volunteer at a soup kitchen, or go out for a run—something that refocuses your thoughts and produces a more positive experience than sitting home alone eating cookies and feeling sorry for yourself.

Chronic negative thinking and the emotions it invokes is, like many destructive behaviors, a form of addiction. People become addicted to habitual, “gloom and doom” thoughts, as well as to the emotions they produce like fear and anger. It becomes their comfort zone—not very pleasant, but familiar. To break this addiction, you have to first understand its roots (nearly always found in your life conditioning), and consciously change your behaviors and actions to ones that create more positive results. Over time, you’ll build a string of positive experiences that solidifies a new internal reference point, and makes a positive mindset your new habitual way of thinking.

Self-Doubt is a Symptom - Not the Root Problem

I just read an article on The Huffington Post about self-doubt that compelled me to share some thoughts. While it's natural to experience moments when we feel less confident, chronic self-doubt is a symptom of the core belief: "I'm not good enough." We adopt these types of limiting beliefs in response to our family and childhood experiences, and they become rooted in the subconscious. We take them with us into adulthood and they are like viruses, infecting our feelings about ourselves, our relationships, and our lives. When we go beyond our comfort zone or attempt to do something that violates a core limiting belief such as, "I'm not good enough," the part of us that holds it gets triggered, setting off an "alarm" that we experience as fear and self-doubt. When we understand the roots of self-doubt, we then have the ability to take action to override it, versus be paralyzed by it.

Managing Fear So It Doesn’t Manage You

Fear is one of the biggest challenges people face in managing change and moving forward in their lives. If you’re living your life based on avoiding the things that you fear, you’re not free to take risks or pursue your dreams. If your energy is being expended in avoiding failure, rejection, physical harm, and emotional pain by avoiding the people, places, and situations that trigger your fears—then that energy is tied up in your vigilance to stay safe instead of in fulfilling your potential. To override fear, you first have to understand it, as well as the fight-or-flight response that’s been with us from our earliest beginnings. Through evolution, we’re hard-wired to respond to fear with intensity. For our evolutionary precursors out in the wild, the fight-or-flight response was a valuable survival mechanism. It’s not as useful when triggered by modern-day fears. In addition to inducing changes in the autonomic nervous system, cortisol, known as the “stress hormone,” is released in higher quantities than normal in response to the stress invoked by fear. Cortisol helps the system react and return to its normal state once the threat has passed. However, chronic stress causes elevated levels of cortisol, which has many adverse effects, including impaired cognitive performance, suppressed thyroid function, blood-sugar imbalances, higher blood pressure, and increased abdominal fat. In addition, chronic stress can compromise your immune system, making you more susceptible to illness. Ultimately, living with chronic states of fear and stress is unhealthy for our bodies and for our spirits.

Most of our fears are not based on our current reality. They are the product of imagined fears conjured up in our minds—the product of our own fantasies. I refer to FEAR as “Fantasized Events As Real,” because that’s precisely the process that takes place. Of course, if you’re walking alone to your car in a dark parking lot at 2 A.M., you may have every reason to experience fear. That fear is going to propel you to your car, key at the ready, as fast you can move. However, the other kind of fear—the fear that has no basis in reality—is one of the biggest things that keeps people from pursuing the life they desire. Fear of meeting new people or trying something new. Fear of success and fear of failure. Fear of leaving a job you hate, getting out of a relationship that isn’t working, or moving to a new city. Fear of defying convention. Fear of change.

Fear rears its head when people attempt to move beyond their comfort zones. Each of us has a comfort zone—a set of boundaries within which we live. These are the situations and circumstances that we know, that give us a sense of security because they represent what’s familiar. Staying within your comfort zone doesn’t necessarily mean you’re happy there. It’s just what you’re used to. Your willingness to expand your comfort zone allows you greater experiences and freedom. To move outside your comfort zone, you have to be able to manage fear. Below are four steps you can take to move beyond the shackles of fear, and create the life experiences and circumstances to which you aspire.  

• Instead of resisting it, acknowledge your fear. For example, “I’m afraid I will fail” or “I’m afraid I’ll be rejected” or “I’m afraid I won’t make enough money.”

• Identify the “gloom and doom” movie you’re running in your mind. Ask yourself, what am I imagining will happen?

• Do a reality check. Figure out if your fears have any real basis in fact. Be as methodical as you need to be.

• Replace the gloom and doom movie with one that supports your goals—focus on the movie of the future state you want to achieve.

© 2009 Lauren Mackler all rights reserved

This article also appeared on Basil & Spice.com.

Tips for Hiring the Right Coach

There are no legal requirements for becoming a life, career, or executive coach, so it’s important to interview potential coaches about their qualifications. Inquire about their training, how long they’ve been in practice, their client results, and people you can contact who have used their services. Do your due diligence to ensure they have the qualifications to provide the services you need. Below is an overview of the qualities and expertise of a good coach, which you can use when interviewing potential coaches. Effective methodology and processes. Ad-hoc and unstructured coaching are less effective than a structured program. Ask about their coaching method and processes, their strategies for helping clients clarify and achieve their goals, how much time it requires, and what their fees and payment policies are.

Expertise in psychology and human behavior. Personal-development work, life and career transitions, or meeting professional demands can take you to the edge of your comfort zone, triggering fears of failure, insecurity, or habitual, self-sabotaging behaviors. Life, career, and executive coaches with a background in psychology have the leading edge, as they can help you address your fears and self-defeating patterns at the root level, and change limiting patterns that can sabotage your success.

A supportive and comfortable environment. A good coach is compassionate, establishes trust, maintains confidentiality, and creates an environment in which you feel supported. Whether you’re doing phone or in-person coaching, notice how comfortable you are, and whether the person feels like someone you can trust.      

Exceptional problem-solving, goal setting, and organizational skills. The bigger the coach’s “tool kit”, the better able they’ll be to facilitate effective coaching sessions. Ask how they go about problem-solving and goal-setting, and notice how organized they appear to be. The more organized they are, the more ground you can cover in each session.

Fosters client accountability. Continuity, self-discipline, and follow through are critical factors for success—things that many people find difficult to develop or maintain. Find out what methods they use to help clients stay motivated, and how they get clients who’ve become discouraged or unfocused back on track.

In addition to the qualities and expertise listed above, below are added skills and expertise for specific types of coaching.

Career Coaching

Proven experience in the career transition field. This is a must-have for people making a career change or searching for a new job. Ask career coaches about their methodology for identifying a job or career that’s the best fit, and about their expertise in job sourcing, resumes and cover letters, self-marketing strategies, networking, interviewing, and salary negotiation.

Entrepreneurial and business planning skills: This is critical if you’re considering starting your own business. Find a career coach with a successful track record not only in helping clients identify a new business idea, but also in turning that idea into a business.    

A resourceful, innovative, and strategic thinker: To stand out from the competition, you have to think and do things differently than everyone else. Ask prospective career coaches for specific examples of strategies they’ve developed to help clients differentiate themselves, and how those strategies have helped clients achieve their desired results.  

Executive Coaching

Client Confidentiality: If your company is hiring an executive coach to work with you, ask how confidentiality issues will be handled. The more authentic you are the better results you’ll achieve in your coaching work. However, you need to feel confident that the coach can effectively balance honoring your confidentiality with meeting your company’s expectations for coaching results.

Business and Leadership Expertise: In addition to strategic business and leadership expertise, the best executive coaches have real-world corporate experience, giving them a deeper understanding of the complex challenges and demands of the executive role.  

Life Coaching

Expertise in psychology and human behavior: While it’s an added plus to find a career or executive coach with a background in psychology, it’s a must-have for life coaching. Without an in-depth understanding of what drives human behavior—and how to change self-defeating patterns that are often rooted in the subconscious—it’s very difficult to help clients achieve transformational and lasting change.

© 2009 Lauren Mackler all rights reserved

Life, career, and relationship coach Lauren Mackler is the author of the international bestseller, Solemate: Master the Art of Aloneness & Transform Your Life and host of the weekly Life Keys radio show on www.hayhouseradio.com. She is the creator of Illumineering™, a groundbreaking method integrating family systems work, psychodynamic psychology, and coaching to help people free themselves from the shackles of their life conditioning, and create the personal lives, careers, and relationships to which they aspire. Visit Lauren’s website at www.laurenmackler.com.