But change is easier said than done. It’s almost impossible to notice those aspects of ourselves that cause problems relating to others, or that keep us from reaching our full potential, if we can’t see ourselves clearly.
Kristin Neff
We start where we are of course. And sometimes we don’t know where we are…so this can make starting difficult. So what to do with that 🤷🏻♀️?
Well…the answer is in building our self-awareness. These skills are undervalued and nearly un-taught these days. And any therapist or counselor will tell you that self-awareness is pivotal in wellness work.
Why? Well you can’t change what you don’t know! And long before that, you can’t know you want to change if you’re not first self-aware.
Seems simple I know, but believe me…a month is just scratching the surface in building this skill set. It most definitely is the foundation for the Personal Development Course, and a skill that will benefit you in life regardless.
If you haven’t read my blog introducing the Learn to Love Your Story Personal Development Course, do so now. There is a short video on the course and also a link to get some free gifts. If you’d like to register for the course, click here and we can get you started.
Hello Everybody! Happy New Year! And I hope…Happy New You! I’d like to help you on that journey. I have spent about the last 20 years formally studying, the last 16 years clinically practicing, and the past many months working to put together all of that wisdom into a comprehensive Personal Development Course to walk you through how you can become a new and better you.
This course will include education, training, and tools to help you improve your self-awareness, create more self-compassion, buck the parts of culture that don’t work for you, learn how “Selfish” is the new “Selfless”, and ultimately find the New You.
Why may you ask, have I decided to develop this course? Well…
I love the featured image on this page. This is me around age two. It was about 1978 and aren’t I just adorable! What I love most about it though was the spirit that you see there. I was a fierce pursuer of whatever I was running after that day…and that hasn’t changed much.
What is not shown there are the years of life between 1978 – 2021. The dash is where the magic happened, and that magic was not always the alchemy I wanted. I look at this picture and can see the unadulterated spirit of my childhood self and know that deep down that person still exists in me. But after a lifetime of losses, divorces, financial struggles, aging, job ups and downs, etc…well, let’s just say there are days its hard to find that inner spirit from this beautiful little girl inside of me.
So, why then did I start to become curious about the elements in the Learn to Love Your Story Personal Development Course? Easy, because the stuff I will teach here is the stuff I have come to learn to help me in my own journey. It’s also the stuff I have spent about 20 years studying and practicing with clients, so you can rest assured this course will change you…its already helped so many. Take a look here as I talk about this.
https://youtu.be/wkLCzIll8YQ
If you are interested in some free resources that are shared in the first week of the course, please click the button below and complete the form to join our mailing list. You will receive a link to download your goodies and an email with a coupon for a discount on the first month of the course!
Learn to Love Your Story is so excited to be able to offer this monthly subscription Personal Development Course for you at only $74.95 a month. This is A STEAL!!!
Dr. Marr has put together all of the materials that she would normally use as psycho-education for her clients receiving therapy and put it all into one handy place.
Course like this are usually hundreds of dollars! Because this is Dr. Marr’s first try at helping others through a platform like this, she has decided to offer it at this low rate. Plus, she really wants others to help themselves right now, during such difficult times in the world!
So don’t miss out! Here is a video on what the course entails. And don’t forget to pre-register here!
I have fond memories of December 24, when my dad would finally get around to going Christmas shopping for his wife and five kids! It was his usual. So was “wrapping” those gifts in the bags that they came in from the store (you were lucky if he remembered to take the receipt out of the bag:).
So, if you find yourself in a similar spot today…rushing to get a gift in last minute…let Learn to Love Your Story help you out. Pre-register your loved on for our course here, and we will send them a free journal (seen in the image below) to use along with the course.
And for those of you who haven’t heard about the Personal Development Course yet, please watch this video to learn more.
So much of the stress that we endure has to do with the way that we manage what is happening to us, and very little to do with what is actually happening.
I want to help you learn how your brain and nervous system work, in order to help you feel more skilled in how you manage yourself in all circumstances.
Check out my video on the Learn to Love Your Story Personal Development Course that is starting January 1, 2021. And pre-register for the course here.
“I am still learning how to go back and re-read my own chapters without feeling like I want to set all of my pages on fire.”
E. V. Rogina
Ever feel like this? Ever think that you wish you could scratch out a part of your past? Ever want to lie (or actually did lie) about something you have done, thought, felt, because you’re afraid if people actually knew who you really are or what you’ve really done, well they wouldn’t want anything to do with someone like that.
Well guess what? You’re not alone. Many of us do this. We are scared of our pasts. Ashamed of them. Haunted by the idea that the choices we presently make are so incongruent with that past, people wouldn’t…dare I say couldn’t believe we have changed.
Yet we have changed. All of us. We cannot stay in the same place. We are always moving. We may carry with us the dead weight of choices we have made, yet it won’t stop us from evolving. We are literally wired to do this. To adapt. To grow. To become better versions of ourselves. To not only survive, but to thrive in this world.
So now you’re asking…”What is that Dr. Marr rambling about now?” Here it is folks: Nothing about our mistakes in the past define who we are in our present. One of my favorite quotes by Maya Angelou is “Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.” Our brains not only compel us to do this, our genetic makeup actually wires us to do this.
So guess what that means? Your mistakes. Those shameful events from your past. Those are as integral a part of your beauty today as are the successes you’ve made. Indeed they are some of your greatest successes. (That’s right, I just said the mistakes you feel ashamed of having done in your past are some of the most beautiful aspects of who you are today!)
So, Dr. Marr is rambling today to tell you…we NEED to love these mistakes as much as we love our successes. We don’t have to love them the same way though. Having a reverence for our failings as much as we have for the goals we’ve met is a matter of how much relevance we allow those lessons to mean in our life. It is not about how much we like them.
So stop thinking compassion means we have to “like” our past. It merely means we hold these lessons in as high a regard as we do things that we easily want to elevate from our pasts.
So go on. Love it. All of it! The bad and the good. The ugly and the beautiful.
Ever get the feeling that someone is giving you a vibe? You know…that kind of vibe that lets you know they are in a mood of some kind and you better tread lightly. Or ever feel energized after doing a bunch of work outside, even though it was a lot of work and you have no business having that kind of energy after all that? Or maybe you have that friend in your life that no matter when or where you see them, brings you pure joy just being around them. Or worse, someone that seems to suck the life out of you, even if its just them texting you. Not even needing to be around them personally for them to drain you.
Why do you think it is that you can sense that vibe? Feel energized after being outdoors? Or always feel rejuvenated or drained when you encounter that certain person in your life? How is that possible?
For starters you are made up of about 7 Billion Billion Billion atoms. Seriously!!! And atoms are the stuff that makes up everything in the universe. The building blocks for all living and non-living matter. Everything. Meaning at a basic level we are all made of the same stuff. People. The air. What you eat. The chair you’re sitting on. All of it, made up of the same stuff.
Not to mention that the atoms that make up all this stuff have been around a Billion years, and they have made many different things in that time and they will continue to go on and make many more different things. So atoms not only make up the stuff of us, they also connect us over time to ALL of the stuff that ever WAS or ever WILL be.
And it doesn’t stop there. Atoms are quite small. In fact there are more atoms in a cup of water, than there are cups of water in all of the oceans combined. Right?!? And yet an atom is not even the smallest building block. Scientists have found about 150 subatomic particles. And these particles are in motion most of the time. In fact, an atom is about 99.9% empty space for these subatomic particles to be moving about in. In fact, if you took the space out of all the atoms in all of the stuff of our universe, the universe itself could fit inside a container the size of a sugar cube. Bonkers!
Hence, it is the energy that these subatomic particles are creating that is in fact what is doing the “building” of the matter it transforms into. So it is in the spaces in between that things really become what they are. And how these subatomic particles behave is really mind bending. Subatomic particles just come into existence from seemingly nowhere at times. Other times they can be in two places at the same time. Their behavior is known to change just by the act of observing them. And research has shown that a subatomic particle can travel the distance between two points without ever traveling the space in between OR by traveling all conceivable paths that can be traveled between these two points. What?!? Is your mind going a little numb right now?
And still the interconnectivity between all things doesn’t stop there. Atoms make up molecules and molecules combine to make up cells and cells combine to become the systems of our biology. Meaning the systems that make up a human, like the circulatory system. Or a system that makes up a rose or a tree. And these things then connect with other like things to become larger systems, like a family of people or a forest of trees. And then these things connect to things unlike themselves as an inter-dependent ecosystem. Shall I keep going?
It’s probably not necessary for me to keep expounding on this, yet the subject matter is so very fascinating to me. You see we have connection to so many things, yet we tend to overlook this very scientific fact. When it is said, there is so much more that is the same about us than there is different, there is actual science to back this up.
Yet, we continue to focus on things as being very separate. We continue to see the internal system of ourselves as separate from those around us and our environments. While at a subatomic level we are continually recycling in and out of the very same small building blocks of atoms and subatomic particles as everything else in and around us.
Our own cells are dying off continuously to the point that every seven years all the cells of our body have been replaced. And even so, our body hasn’t forgotten to be us. It hasn’t taken on some new form or function. And where did the atoms and subatomic building blocks come from that those new cells are made of? Why, they came from the billion year old atoms that are continually surrounding us becoming and unbecoming other things.
So, when you just know something in your gut. Or you feel energized or drained just from being in a certain environment or with certain people. I want you to think about the 99.9% of space and the trillions upon trillions of subatomic particles that are coming into existence and creating all of the stuff around you all the time. I want you to listen in your bones to the messages that these atoms and subatomic particles are telling you. I want you to remember that which you came from is also that which is energetically telling you what you need to know at any given moment and will continue to tell other things these same messages as they become the building blocks of all things going forward.
Really…pain and suffering are the ties that bind? Hard pass!!! No thank you!!!
Wait a second though…What if pain and suffering are the GLUE that unite us? Think about it…when you meet someone that you don’t even know, what are the kinds of things that quickly communicate to you that this person really understands you? Is it that you both like the color blue? Probably not. What about if you both like some of the same music? Ok…we may be getting warmer. But really, there is something about having both experienced the same kind of awful thing that really seals the deal right? Like you don’t have to wonder at all if they know what you are talking about, because they have experienced the same thing. Am I right?!?
I recently was scrolling through social media in an aimless moment of escaping from the chores I needed to do (don’t we all do this?). I came across one of those TLDR (too long; don’t read) posts that have no pics and challenge the reader to “read to the end” of the post and comment “Done”, so you KNOW they have read it all and are “a true friend“. (As an aside, what the heck is that about?)
At any rate, on this day the post happened to be about whether or not you had ever known anyone who had suffered with or died from cancer. Well, because I was in the mood to really procrastinate from the load of dishes in the dishwasher that I needed to empty and the laundry that was screaming my name, I read the whole TLDR post. And, because I was a caretaker for my mother during her three year battle with cancer, I also commented “Done” (signifying what an excellent friend that I am) AND I shared a little about what my experience helping my mom through the last three years of her life was like for me. The person who posted replied back to me and shared more details about their experience. Together we felt the bond that those who care for and watch their loved ones suffer from this disease have together, without ANYTHING else in common needed. And it is a BOND.
So all this got me thinking. Here I am conversing with someone via social medial and I am also feeling their pain and re-experiencing my own with just a few words exchanged. And my compassion for this person has now grown from being a fleeting thought about “Yeah, I know what that’s like” while scrolling through social media, to “I see you. I know your pain. I’ve TOTALLY been there before.”
How is that? And a better question: How can we use this known phenomena to our advantage as a human race? Especially in this country right now! With all the hateful divisiveness that is being spewed all about at the moment, I think we could really use some connection. Don’t you?
I mean think about it. When you have suffered through something and find out someone has experienced the same thing, it creates an instant bond. You feel like you’ve known this person forever. And the amount of pain and suffering is key to the depth of this bond. It wouldn’t be the same thing if you asked on a post like this, “Who else has owned 10 vehicles?”, “Who else has tried ground turkey in place of ground beef?”, or “Who else loves when you get that extra 3 rolls of toilet paper with your favorite brand?” (Ok that last one may lean more towards suffering in this day and age). But when you ask something like, “Who else has watched someone they love waste away more from the treatments they have received than the cancer itself?” Well, that kind of connection really leads to feeling like someone gets it. Like they get you.
So why would I want to plant the seed that pain and suffering may be used to help us bond? What is that about? I’ll tell you. There is a lot of suffering in our world right now. And yes there always is suffering if you are paying attention and aware. However, right now it is happening during a time when all of us have had many of the comforts and patterns of our daily lives stripped away and altered in the midst of a pandemic. So we are already raw and then you layer on the animosity we are seeing and the divisiveness this causes. This primes us for a game of “Us versus Them“, which has NO WINNERS. EVER!!!
Sometimes what happens to us when we suffer is that we become open to the mercy and grace and gratitude and gift and appreciation and joy that are always around us all the time…
Rob Bell
So think about this with me a minute. What if we all started to ask ourselves questions about our mutual pain and suffering? What if we started to see that we have people right in our midst that we may otherwise overlook, who know our experiences on a deep level and we know theirs? And what if we took this mutual experience of pain and used it as a conduit for reaching out to one another to co-regulate from our fears and tendencies to be defensive when we are in this anxious and uncertain state? What if instead of seeing another’s pain as a weakness to exploit in an argument, we see it as a mirror of our own wounds and seek to join and connect in this pain with one another as a means to help us both transcend our pain?
We could really use this kind of understanding, empathy and compassion right now. And to be honest, we are wired to want to co-regulate in this way. Our brains want us to seek out one another and feel the comfort of having someone else really see us…really know our pain…and really understand our struggle.
So rather than stay in our fight or flight sympathetic nervous system response at the state of our pain right now…why don’t we seek to try and connect to one another in our mutual pain right now? Just think of what we could accomplish if in regulating to a calmer/safer state of being, we were also expanding our connections with others. And some of those people we connect with, we may never have seen things in common with before that. What if?
One bit of advice as you try this…don’t start with TLDR posts that make someone read to the end to “show what a good friend” they are. That is likely to defeat this purpose…only die hard procrastinators like myself are likely to get through a TLDR. Instead, be creative. Think of the opportunities and ways you may start doing this in your life right now. You stand only to feel better. Connection is a salve that we need on our collective wound of humanity right now. So do your part…ask someone “Are you feeling this pain that I am right now?” You’ll be surprised how many folks might answer you and how much better you will feel knowing someone sees and understands what you’re going through. Try it…I dare you!
And if you are a woman in midlife looking for more connection with people that are experiencing some of the same painful life transitions as you are (divorce, empty nest, career upheaval, general disinterest in your life) than visit our Courses page and learn about the new Group Coaching and Community Support Packages.
FREE Group Coaching For a Year – Join ANYTIME!
Join us monthly as we work together to help you design the life you have always wanted for yourself. No gimmicks! Just results! Dr. Natalie has nearly two decades of experience as a Clinical Psychologist and she is ready to help women in midlife break the chains of living in constant survival mode.
Please be sure to sign up. Even if you can’t join every month, you will also have access to online courses, workbooks, guided meditations, and get the video highlights sent out after each months group coaching event. It is well worth it!!! Make 2023 your year!!!
Did you know that you can book a call and talk to Dr. Natalie directly! She would love to help you personally and answer any questions you have about her offerings. Sign up for her complimentary DEEP DIVE CALL now. No charge. No obligation. Just 30 minutes 1:1 with Dr. Natalie herself.
This is the last in Dr. Marr’s series of videos to help us learn ways to promote our emotional wellness during COVID-19 and sheltering in place during the pandemic. Take a look at her insights on why our tendency to start hyper-focusing on getting things done during this time, as if its just a break we are taking from work or something, is actually driving us more deeply into our difficulty managing our mood during this time.
Right about now in COVID-19, we might all feel like we’ve completely lost it. Dr. Marr describes in this video the neurological basis for this and helps normalize our experience. She refers to a brain model by Dr. Dan Siegel in the video, which is easily accessible by googling his name and the phrase “hand model for brain”. Incidentally she also butchers the pronunciation of his name and felt compelled to clarify here.
So here we are in the middle of COVID-19 and what seems to be stressing us out the most is that we don’t know what to DO. And we really don’t like it when we don’t know what to DO. Or have a plan at least on what we can DO.
Dr. Marr breaks this down for us in terms of our struggle with BEING. We struggle with this concept or that our worth comes from the WHO we are and not the WHAT we DO in the world. Enjoy her take and the tips she has on how to manage this while sheltering in place.
