Dr. Natalie shares with us in her latest Vlog, a new way to look at ourselves. She walks us through her tip on how to see ourselves through the lens of others, who love and care about us. It may seem like an obvious way to practice more self-love, yet most of us never think to do this for ourselves. Do yourself a favor and take a listen to this and learn to love the version of “You” others have been in love with all along.
Why wouldn’t we change some thing about ourselves that’s irritating? I’ll tell you why…because it’s not a part of us that needs changing. It’s a part of us that needs acceptance. It’s a part of us that needs loving. It’s a part of us. And therefore it should not be something that we reject but some thing that we pull close. But what if these aspects of our self are in opposition to other aspects of our self? How do we accept those? This is the paradox. That two seemingly opposite things can be true at the same time, even when they are opposite things about ourselves. These can be excepted. These can coexist. And the way we facilitate peace about this is through loving all aspects of our self…the good, the not good, and everything in between.
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Or, if you are looking for something a little more in depth, take a look at the Online Courses that I offer to help people with their personal growth and development.
We do this funny thing in our culture. We have set an arbitrary age as the age when one becomes an adult. And it’s not in our 30s or even in our 20s. This is the age of 18. And how ridiculous is it that we find ourselves telling 18 year old humans that they are adults?
Today my son turns 18. He’s my firstborn and the one that so lovingly allowed for me to become a mother. Not unlike many other women that I know, becoming a mother was really the becoming of me in general. Something about being responsible for another human as they grow, really creates space for us to become aware of ourself. My experience has been no different. I learned who I was in the process of helping this human make it to 18 years of age.
We are not at 18 years old ready for this world. I promise you that many of us aren’t even ready for this world when we hit our 40s, 50s, or even 60s. I have done enough hours of therapy with clients across the couch to know that this arbitrary idea that there is an “age of adulthood” is one that messes with us. We have the sense that we “should” know better, however we only end up “shoulding” on ourselves. And by the time we have contorted ourselves so many times that we are feeling anxious and depressed and show up in the office of a therapist, we have really caused ourselves some damage.
So here is a bit of advice that I have gained over the course of the last 18 years as I have parented my children and more importantly come to discover my own adult self. It isn’t earth shattering, and it isn’t even stuff that you haven’t heard others talk about. Yet these lessons are the ones I most want to impart on my young son as he passes this arbitrary age from innocence to adulthood. They are also the very lessons that I aspire to follow daily. And I think they could be lessons that are helpful for you too.
1. Lead with love, kindness, and understanding. This little cocktail can get you through almost anything. When we come to even the most difficult of situations with our attention on staying loving and kind, it is nearly impossible not to become understanding. When we lead in our own resentment, fear, and misunderstanding, what tends to occur is that we miss that folks on the other side are just human and doing the best that they know how with what they have and know at that time. The issue is not that people aren’t trying. It’s that they don’t know different. When we lead with love, kindness, and understanding we can open up the doorway to knowing better, for ourselves and for others.
2. Fail a whole ton. And I mean it! Fail so many times that it’s epic. Why would I say this? Because the key to risk-taking, creativity, and discovery in one’s life is in their willingness to fall flat on their face. You cannot expect any human to be able to do things well on a first try. Once in a while we may get lucky, yet most of the time it takes us several iterations before we get there. So in the meantime…fail generously. We need you to take risks, because we need you. We need what is unique about you. The world is craving whatever wonder it is that you are here to give us. Yet if you are too scared to fail and restrict yourself from ever trying, we may miss out on learning what this wonder is entirely.
3. This last one has been a stickler for me. I would tell you that I am still actively working on doing this well. And I imagine I will continue to work on it. It is definitely one of the hardest lessons that I have learned, yet one of the most valuable. So here goes…
Disappoint as many people as you need to in order to NEVER disappoint yourself. I’m serious! There has been some cultural/social conditioning we have all undergone that tells us we should actually contort ourselves in order to please others. It creeps into things that we do all of the time. Go back to number two above. If we were able to allow ourselves to be fallible and make mistakes, we would never miss out on being creative. Yet, this unsaid rule that we are somehow responsible to be the best version of ourselves the first time for the sake of others, cripples us from taking the risks we need to and making the mistakes we have to, in order to be the very people we are supposed to be. The only remedy to this is to disappoint others. Do it every single time that you need to in order to never sacrifice yourself. Who you are is your most precious resource! Guard this with your life! And most certainly guard against EVER disappointing this life.
So there it is. My little bit of advice to my 18-year-old son as he enters into “adulthood“. Adulting is hard. Being human is REALLY hard. These are just a few guide posts. Easy to remember, yet effortful to practice. I promise you however, there is no time in your life when you won’t find these useful.
Where are the role models for women? Especially those in midlife. Who are we to look up to as the ideal for living our best life once we hit that “certain” age? Its like there are no narratives in our culture for how to be “killing it” at our age. So what are we to do?
Watch Dr. Natalie’s vlog on this issue and her suggestion for how we start to re-write our stories, so that we learn to love the narratives for women in midlife, instead of fighting against the narrow stories that our culture, families, and religions have handed to us. She helps us to understand how in having very few narratives in our culture that guide us on how to be living our BEST mid-LIFE as women, we are actually lead to believe we are not good enough. She offers us a tip on how to start and re-write our own narratives and learn to love our stories.
Do any of these sound like you?
Feel a sense of lack, despite success in life or having done everything “right”
Struggle to articulate how you feel to others
Experience guilt about how you’re feeling
Have lost your way
Are struggling to overcome turmoil in your life
Have become resigned to accepting a life you don’t love
Many of us are suffering like this — daily life has become an ordeal, and we don’t know where or how to find help.
Dr. Natalie’s Online Courses and Coaching CAN HELP. Click below and get started.
You don’t want to miss a thing we are doing here at LearnToLoveYourStory.com. From our weekly podcasts to our library of blogs and videos that can help you step into a more centered life. Allow Dr. Natalie to guide you on this empowering adventure to break free, rediscover your passion, and create the life you’ve always envisioned for yourself. Your journey to empowerment starts here. Join our Mailing List today!
Need more clarity on your midlife journey? Sign up for a complimentary call with Dr. Natalie to explore if her transformative coaching program aligns with your aspirations. Get personalized answers to your questions and discover if Dr. Natalie can help you untangle where you life is now and design the life you want to be living. Don’t miss the opportunity to embark on a life-changing experience – schedule your complimentary call today and take the first step toward designing the life you deserve! Please press the “START” button below to answer a few questions and schedule your consultation:
Keywords: self-care, self-awareness, midlife, midlife crisis, Dr. Natalie Marr, Dr. Natalie’s Tips on Living, Learn To Love Your Story
Disclaimer
The content in this podcast and video is not a replacement for therapy and is not clinical, medical, or mental health treatment. Dr. Natalie Marr is a Licensed Psychologist in the state of Minnesota. Her work with LearnToLoveYourStory.com and all affiliate social media entities is educational and coaching based ONLY. She IS NOT offering therapeutic services of any kind on these mediums.
If you or someone you know is having a mental health crisis or having thoughts of suicide, please use the following crisis resources (this is not an exhaustive list of available resources):
One of the single most devastatingly undermining stories we tell ourselves is that we are not good enough. The worst part of this is how it is held in place by culture…particularly marketing that is seeking to create a pain point of your being not good enough in order to sell you on the idea that a product may make you good enough. All of it is a giant fallacy, yet one that has real life consequences on our sense of self-worth or lack of it. Listen to Dr. Natalie talk on this issue and offer a tip on how to crawl out of this rut and into feeling better about ourselves.
Do you remember the DARE programs that started with First Lady Nancy Reagan in the 1980s (or as my kids tell me…in the ancient times:)? There motto, “Say No to drugs”. Those DARE programs are still around in some format in schools, still trying to tell our kids to “Say No to drugs” and I am not sure that its working out as well as we would like.
Saying “No” to perfectionism is also not working. I know we all want to “Say No”, yet then we all fall back into our same old ruts with it. We want to be the ideal. We think that if we are not working towards this ideal than we will not be making progress. We think that we are “lazy” or “don’t have a passion” for what we are doing if we aren’t striving towards perfection.
Listen…perfection is not just armor against shame as Dr. Brené Brown has so aptly demonstrated for us in her shame research over the last two decades. Perfectionism is a coreset. It is a self-inflicted restraint that we place on ourselves to look and be the way we think others want us to be, while it slowly takes our breath away and our own inner strength to be authentic in the face of what culture, society, or our family tell us to be.
So what are we to do to stop this beast? First of all, you must change your mindset about what you are doing. We will not be able to “stop” perfectionism’s pervasiveness in our society, nor remove it from the habitual way in which we approach our lives. What we can do is start to be more aware of it and make adjustments for how we will show up in the different areas of our life that perfectionism has taken up residence.
“That sounds hard Dr. Natalie!” Indeed, it is hard and the effort we exert to do this work will help us strengthen our resources in many other ways. Think of it like this, perfectionism becomes the rumble strip we work with in order to strength train our healthy emotional wellness skills. This is the mindset shift I am referring to. Instead of thinking of perfectionism as an enemy to get rid of, think of it as a set of weights that you are using to strengthen your muscles around new skills you are building. When perfectionism shows up, you can choose to use or not use the new skills you’re building to let go of the old perfectionism pattern.
If this sounds interesting to you…please join us for our next FREE Summer Workshop with Dr. Natalie LIVE, coming up on Tuesday July 20 at 7pm CST. Click Here to register.
I know it seems impossible that you could get a gold star without trying to be perfect, yet the true paradox is that you can only achieve excellence when you avoid being a perfectionist. I know right?!? It just doesn’t seem like this works that way. Take a listen to Dr. Natalie as she explains why it is that those of us who like gold stars and have since we were children, struggle as much as we do with perfectionism. She also offers us a tip for continuing to get our gold stars without the corset of trying to be a perfectionist.
So many of us struggled during COVID feeling isolated from one another and unable to reach out to our usual tribe. We know that this resulted in even higher rates of overwhelm than usual. Especially for those of us that are the caregivers, who were taking on even more than usual during this time. Listen to Dr. Natalie’s thoughts on how connection with others can be a remedy to this added overwhelm that we have suffered during COVID.
In many ways women have been handed the short end of the stick. One of the most powerful social roles that we have been given is the “selfless” giver. Our very self-worth is tied to how well we give of ourselves to those around us. And this is not just to those who are in our families, or in our friend groups, or who are in our community groups. This also means to be a “human doing” in all we do, to all we meet.
When we decide to set limits and have boundaries, we often will be called “selfish“, “self-centered”, or “bitchy”. As in, “ I can’t believe that mom chose to go on a vacation with her girlfriends and not save that money to go on an extra vacation with her family.“ Or “She really is quite self-centered, deciding that her own exercise class is more important than enrolling her child in another extracurricular.“ Or “She didn’t have to be that bitchy, telling us she has no time for volunteering, while balancing work and personal life.”
This is a very genderized distinction, as we offer much more opportunity to men in American/western culture to be independent, putting themselves first as a means to be more creative and productive for the betterment of society. Not that this role is any easier, as their self-worth gets very tied up in how well they perform. Their paycheck size sometimes equating to their worthiness.
What can happen over time, is that women stop understanding that this “selfless” role is a construct…a definition that has been given to them to define themselves by. It is not itself defining, in actuality, they’re worth. And it sometimes takes women until a major life event happens to start to recognize this. By the time women hit my office, it is usually because of divorce, children moving out of their home and aging, a major shift in their work, or a significant loss in their life. Suddenly, life transition becomes a disruptor large enough to crack open the false nature that this definition of being “selfless” defines them.
Women can no longer keep up, and this may even be the reason for their life transition issue. Once they hit this midlife disruption, women are faced with unlearning a lifetime of defining their worth by the world’s definitions instead of by their own. This is not an easy task. Because it’s not easy, you see women in this situation scrambling to find new meaning, a purpose, and some source for helping them to create this. This might be self-help materials, courses, and books. Maybe it will be a new health and wellness regimen. Maybe they will start to shift into socializing more and trying to align with people that don’t seem taken in by the “selfless“ construct. Yet, by and large this is a very difficult time to navigate and one that needs some assistance.
And here is where I think the sickest part is in this debacle. Women don’t ask for help, because they are supposed to be the “selfless” helpers. They know that they have hit a wall, yet the construct is such a powerful one it is hard for them to admit to themselves or to others that perfection and being “selfless“ isn’t possible. Sometimes they just keep getting up and running hard and fast against this brick wall. Not stopping until they feel overwhelmed and crippled by their efforts, yet defeated by their inability to make those efforts count.
The other discouraging part, from the outside these are the women that we aspire to be. They are the top of their craft, the supermoms, the ultimate volunteers, and basically demonstrate what we think is perfection. On the inside, however, these very same women feel like they’re dying inside. They know that they are not attaining the perfection others see in them and the burden of their imposter syndrome is crippling.
The truth is that the only way out of this spiral is to let go of societal definitions of who we should be. And because this is not an easy task, having assistance and community support from others doing the same is essential. Find communities where women are starting to face this head-on. Redefining “selfless” as high amounts of self-care and putting one’s needs first, in order for you to have the resources to care for those which you choose. Bringing the best of your self to each and every task in your life, because you have “selflessly“ put your needs above those of others. The metaphor of placing a mask on your own face on an airplane before that of another comes to mind.
If any of this resonates with you and you are feeling ready to take that next step up and find that community, please join Learn To Love Your Story. Our purpose here is to help women in just these circumstances navigate their life transitions and come out the other side restored and renewed instead of defeated and depleted. Dr. Natalie has almost 20 years of wisdom and scientific research/clinical application to support the strategies that she will give you. Sign up so that you are first on the list to keep receiving this information and first to know of any opportunities in the future where Learn to Love Your Story is building such a community for you to grow within.
Come to our monthly Master Class for FREE, in an intimate coffee and conversation setting. This is a great place to get some FREE Group Coaching from Dr. Natalie, helping you be the best version of yourself all the time. Please be sure to sign up. Even if you can’t join every month, you will be part of the mailing list to hear about the topics and get the video highlights sent out afterwards, so it is well worth it.
Is worry really a distraction from bigger problems in your life? Or from the unsolvable problems of your life? The unwinnable games we find ourselves in? Its an interesting line of questioning isn’t it. Dr. Natalie talks in today’s Vlog about just that concept. Is worrying a form of distraction for us? A behavior we use to make ourselves feel productive, when in actuality we are just spinning our tires in the wet sloppy snow and moving nowhere. Watch and see what you think.
Pandemics, social distance ending, returning to work, ending the school year, starting the summer…need I list more of the transitions we are all going through right now? We are exhausted and we have reason to be. Yet, there is a hidden exhaustion that comes from the borrowed trouble of worrying about things that haven even happened yet. Is this something you do? If so, take a listen to Dr. Natalie’s Vlog this week and hear her tips on how to address this.
Is loving your story really the answer? Yes…it totally is!!! If you look back on your life and want to erase parts of it, or do it over, or just are unhappy with what you see; then you are saying you want to erase parts of yourself and are unhappy with who you are. In order to find joy and contentment in life, you must learn to embrace all aspects of yourself. I promise you this isn’t as hard as you think it is. And we now have hundreds of years of science to help support the methods we use to help people with this. Take a listen to Dr. Natalie on the subject. And watch until the end…she tells you about some FREE STUFF coming your way.
Dr. Natalie breaks down in today’s blog why story is such a powerful healing tool. Did you know that story telling was likely the first form of therapy? Really! We sat around a fire and talked to one another, sharing our wisdom, pain, goals, regrets, etc. and felt healed by the experience. We wrote on cave walls to help others see what we had learned illustrated for them. And think about how we teach our kids…story! Take a look at the Vlog to learn more.
You don’t want to miss a thing we are doing here at LearnToLoveYourStory.com. From our weekly podcasts to our library of blogs and videos that can help you step into a more centered life. Allow Dr. Natalie to guide you on this empowering adventure to break free, rediscover your passion, and create the life you’ve always envisioned for yourself. Your journey to empowerment starts here. Join our Mailing List today!
