People pleasing was a way of life for me. Pleasing others convinced me that I was a kind and giving person. Then one evening, I was brainstorming with my daughter topics for a school paper. I loved helping and enjoyed brainstorming, but as quickly as my ideas popped out of my mouth, she shot them down for one reason or another. After a few minutes of feeling rejected, I said to her, “If every idea I suggest meets with rejection, what’s the point of me giving ideas?” Her reply: “Do you only give ideas to get approval?”

Ouch! This little interchange impacted me deeply. My daughter’s poignant [...]

“You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all—in which case, you fail by default.” ~ J.K. Rowling

At one stage or another, we have all experienced failure. It often invokes a negative emotion which connotes feelings and ideas of defeat, frustration, and disappointment. Failure is subjective and it really depends on what you classify as failing. Most likely, your idea of failure may vary greatly from your parents, your [...]

My first experience with visualization was in high school as a springboard diver. My coach requested me to switch from a jackknife (or pike) dive to a layout dive, which had more difficulty and higher points in competition. As you probably know, a layout dive requires the diver’s body to be an unbending plank. My coach was extremely frustrated with me for weeks because no matter how hard I tried to stay straight, I’d bend at the top of the dive. (A diver gets docked in their score for this error.) Every day after diving practice, I’d go home exasperated with myself.

Then the summer [...]

How's your work-life balance? Do you ever feel like your life is too busy for living—like there's just not enough time for authentic connection with those you love? And are you fooled to believe it's a time management problem?

Last week, after tending to the messages on my business and cell phones, answering texts and emails, there were still important tasks tugging on me: invoicing, proposals to write and trainings to plan. On a personal side, there was a phone message from my brother (I was waiting for the ideal time to be able to chat); a pile of family pictures gathering dust to send [...]

“Gotta pick up the kids from school.” “Gotta get this report done by tomorrow.” “Gotta shop for dinner.” “Gotta pay the bills!” “Gotta get to the gym and lose this extra weight.” “Gotta get to the dry cleaners before they close.” Gotta, gotta, gotta.

The hustle and bustle of life and the need to get somewhere are themes I hear frequently. We are seekers. We are travelers. And we are often unaware that we are reaching for something while ignoring what is happening right now—within ourselves and around us. The present moment.

There is a lot of talk about creating a life you love. The internet is a smorgasbord of information about how to change our lives from topics such as “How to Attract Your Soul Mate” to scientific articles on “Change Your Brain and Transform Your Life.” And just like overeating at a giant buffet, if you consume too much, the result is indigestion.

Often clients come to me for coaching with the indigestion of overload and confusion. Why? Because too much information often causes paralysis. Mental indigestion is a problem of too much. It’s impossible to act on everything, so an overwhelmed [...]

In my younger years, I did a lot of journaling to process my emotions and sort through my thoughts. However, it’s no longer my favorite way to process, organize, or share information. I haven’t journaled in years, but I have done a lot of mind mapping. It’s fun, effective, and it works with the natural processes of the brain.

Tony Buzan, coined the term and technique, Mind Mapping, in the 1960s. Buzan is a specialist in innovation, memory, thinking process, and creativity. The basic premise is to use pictures, words, colors, and nonlinear forms to create, remember, organize, or present [...]

With all the daily ups and downs and the moment-by-moment challenges that arise in our lives, it's easy to forget that we have a say in how we feel. We have the ability to choose our response no matter what happens (and things do happen). We can create our experience in each moment, even when it doesn’t feel like we have any choice at all. This is why mindfulness is so powerful.

How do we do this? By being mindful of our reactions and self-talk. At any moment, we can press our reset button, shifting tension to a conscious intention. Perhaps our intention is to remain calm even when things [...]

One beautiful autumn evening, after a full day with clients, I was carrying the groceries through the living room when I noticed my dog's peculiar paw prints on the carpet. In shock, I quickly dumped the bags on a table and walked into our kitchen, which now resembled a toddlers' wading pool.

The floor was covered with an inch of water, and it was rapidly seeping into the dining room carpet. Where the heck was the water coming from? Quickly I ran down to the basement to grab old towels to soak up the water—and was greeted with the horror of another flood, water still gushing from above and [...]