Happy Thursday friends!! What a beautiful day to be alive.

I’ve been doing some real estate work, but took a quick lunch break here at home because I wanted to share my progress that I’ve been making with my Life Coach Lindsay Preston.

In week 3 we really went deep diving into our past experiences and ruffled up all sorts of things.  I told you how I had to write out my life’s “Timeline” and it had some not so pleasant things from my past. We all do though right? We had to pull our bullet holes as Lindsay calls them.  My parents’ divorce was a super hard one for me, as was my youngest sister getting into drugs.  I also realized that while I loved teaching and valued my education, when I got my Master’s Degree, I swept it under the rug like NBD.  Whaaaaa???  I remember Joe taking me to dinner at one of our favorite restaurants to celebrate and taking my photo while I held up my certificate.  But I remember NOT wanting to go to the ceremony to walk across the stage or inviting anyone to celebrate me.  Which is weird, because if you know me I love to celebrate and looking back this makes me sad.  I know that my family was in a pretty bad spot and I recall my middle sister graduating a few years prior and it was a disaster with the step-mom/dad and mom situation.  Either way, I realized that I have a VERY hard time enjoying myself if I am well aware that others won’t enjoy themselves either. I spend way too much time worrying about other people’s happiness than just focusing on my own.  Phew. That was a lot.  I also know how far I’ve come with my familial relationships.  No one is perfect, I get that, neither am I, hello, I am only human.  But the fact is we have experiences that may hurt us or leave us wounded and if we don’t spend time healing these wounds, they tend to continue showing up.  Examples? My dad and step-mom got married without my sisters and I knowing and/or being there.  My step-brother was there, but man did that one sting! I had to forgive and move forward on that one and it wasn’t easy.  Another biggie?  My mom didn’t come to my wedding.  Yup.  Pretty much the biggest day of my life and she wasn’t there.  Since that was almost 9 years ago, I’ve spent a lot of time working on healing that one as well.  Present day, I speak to all members of my family and we are all just doing our best.  I work on coming from a place of love, and try so very hard to use compassion when dealing with everyone. Why am I sharing this? Because we ALL HAVE OUR OWN ISH TO DEAL WITH!!  You can spend time crying and playing victim, or you can dig into that wound a little bit, feel the pain and eventually heal and move on.  I will say there are some people, family or not, that don’t play a role in my life and I’ve learned to accept that and be at peace with that too.

We spent time learning about our Inner Mean Girl (IMG) and who she is.  You may have heard this voice a time or two; it’s the one being negative, also known as the ego, limited beliefs, doubting yourself, correcting weaknesses, being fake or inauthentic.  She’s the one who will hold you back from being your true self, otherwise known as your Authentic Self (AS).

When you’re living in your AS, you are confident, original, aware, positive, loving unconditionally, and focused on your strengths.  I called this “being aligned” prior to my work with Lindsay, as I am a huge Gabrielle Bernstein fan.  What I didn’t realize was how normal it was to find yourself shifting between your IMG and your AS.  More importantly, I struggled with how to get out of my IMG and back into my AS. I didn’t know why this was happening, and that’s where this Unstoppable Course has really done me so much good.

One of my top strengths is Input, so I need to know all the things. I enjoy reading/researching and understanding how things work, but I have NEVER taken so much time to figure out how I work.  How is it that I have floated around for 37 years, fairly well, without truly getting to the core of ME?  I’m not sure, but I am ready to take myself to the next level.

Knowing the difference between My IMG and AS is so important for me to reach that next level. I have never labeled my “negative feelings” or understood why I would feel awesome for a bit and then slip back into a weird funk– NO MORE!!! The funks will be less and less and I can truly envision myself always being authentically me.

My two top IMGs: perfectionist and people pleaser. While I really thought I had my perfectionistic issues handled when I had my children — hello nothing goes as planned! But the reality is, I still beat myself up when things aren’t going ‘right’ or rather, the way I see that they should. I always have super high expectations of myself and others.  As demonstrated from my memories above, you can see that my people pleasing can go so far as to shrink myself and my successes, but this is coming to an end. I realize that there is enough out there for anyone to be happy, financially free and have whatever dream come true that she may be chasing; you just have to want it badly enough to do the time and work.  I believe that I am a nurturer by nature, which makes me an excellent mom and wife (especially to a man with Crohn’s Disease) but I also know it can hinder me from taking care of me.

One of the major takeaways after discovering my inner mean girls is that I’m always in control, my IMG is not. She may try to sabotage me, tell me not to post something, not follow through with a plan or idea, but the fact is she’s trying to protect me. I’ve been hurt (haven’t we all) through the years and I’ve built in some tactics to “keep me safe” but as we all know, safe means stunted. It means I can’t grow, change, take risks and see how amazing I can be.

Now that I understand my IMG, I know I can simply tell her that I’m fine and she doesn’t need to worry. When I’m living in my authentic self, I feel free to be me. That’s one of my mantras! I feel calm and intentional. I connect with people better, my relationships thrive, I come from a place of love and understanding vs a “the world is out to get me.” I recognize what no longer serves me and am at peace with the people and things I have let go.

If you’re starting to get an itch to see if you and Lindsay would be a fabulous match, head on over and take her FREE assessment and hop on her FREE call! Ladies I am telling you, no one wants to do the work, but everyone wants to rewards.  If you want to live into your best self with no regrets at the end of your days, wait no more.  I believe that if you’re reading this, it’s a sign that you should just do it.  Spend the $77 and put you first and become a Life Luver.  (Using code JENN20 to save that $20!!)

PS this was me, being my authentic self, opening up and sharing some pretty vulnerable moments from my past.  The work I have been doing on myself is truly showing me how amazing it is, to feel free to be me.