Everything

Declaring Interdependence

Leave a Comment / Everything, Radio, Relationships /

On this fourth of July, I’m thinking a lot about interdependence.

I’ll tell you a little (soon-to-be-former) secret:

I have been dealing with a problematic home situation for some time now.

I won’t go into all the hows and whys of my particular challenges, but suffice it to say it was time to make that sh*t a priority.

My stuff—and my life—just aren’t working optimally in the space I have!!

Instead of feeling warm, cozy, inviting, and open, my home has been feeling cramped, squished, blocked, and totally not aligned with my otherwise thirtyawesome life.

I’ve never been blessed with strong spatial imagination skills.

While I consider myself a very creative person, I am not someone who walks into a physical space and immediately sees the optimal arrangement or the possibilities.

After too long living in this draining environment, it became clear:

I need help. …

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It’s Not You—It’s Everyone

Leave a Comment / Everything, Happiness /
If They Only Knew…

You’ve heard that dirty old dumping line: “It’s not you—it’s me.”

Well, today I’m here to tell you:

It’s not you—it’s everyone.

So many of my clients feel shame about some aspect of how, who, and what they are, or in something they have done.

I call these things the “If They Only Knews,” because many of us fear that if people only knew these things, they would know how mean, bad, selfish, and unlovable we really are. …

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It’s Not You—It’s Everyone Read More »

Talking to Yourself: What Would You Say?

1 Comment / Everything, Happiness /

Imagine you could go back in time (as the adult you are now) and sit down with your 6- to 18-year-old self. What age would you pick, and what would you say?

Write down your response to this question before reading on.

For real!

Done?

Okay.

A few weeks ago, I asked everyone in our thirtyawesome community to share your answers to this question. I was inspired by your responses, and struck by the common threads that ran through answers that were sent in from so many different people.

Across the board, the responses centered around four main themes: …

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Talking to Yourself: What Would You Say? Read More »

How to Survive an Attack of the Never-Dids

4 Comments / Breakups, Career Change and Fulfillment, Everything, Moving, Transitions /

One of the hardest parts of an ending—whether it’s the end of a relationship, a job (or a whole career), or your residence in a home or city—is the knowledge and acceptance that this will have been it.

When you’re going—really going—a particular insidious voice can show up in your head. I call this voice the Never-Dids.

“But I never finished…”

“But I/we never got to…”

“But I haven’t gotten this perfect yet.”

When there’s always a tomorrow in that place, job, or relationship, there’s always a possibility to do better, to complete more, to enjoy or experience more, to perfect and hone.

When tomorrow will find you somewhere new…that’s when the Never-Dids come out to play.
…

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How to Survive an Attack of the Never-Dids Read More »

The Tonsillectomy Technique: How to Get over Getting Over It

1 Comment / Breakups, Career Change and Fulfillment, Everything, Happiness, Transitions /

When I was 27, I had a tonsillectomy. After years of having horrible throat pain and other complications every time I had so much as a flicker of a cold, I finally saw an ENT who suggested I get the nasty things taken out.

He warned me that as procedures go, an adult tonsillectomy is “not pleasant.”

I nearly screamed, “I don’t care! Take them OUT!!!!!”

I was ready to put the years of tonsil torture behind me.

As it happened, in the couple of weeks before my tonsillectomy, I had fallen—hard—for someone I’d started to date.

This was one of those horse-before-the-cart deals; strongly encouraged by the signals I was seeing—and, yeah, okay, probably by some signals I wanted to see—I let myself fall way too fast. …

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The Tonsillectomy Technique: How to Get over Getting Over It Read More »

How Bad Do You Want It?

Leave a Comment / Career Change and Fulfillment, Everything, Happiness, Procrastination & Productivity, Transitions /

I used to think that people who created certain things—who built businesses, or were on the radio, or wrote books—were fundamentally a certain kind of person.

A kind I certainly wasn’t.

As if there was some sort of predestination involved—and I was not one of those people.

Because who the hell am I to think I could do that?

I always felt I had something inside me to share on a bigger scale, but it seemed downright silly or deluded to even share that feeling with myself—let alone anyone else!

Everyone and their mother thinks they have a book in them, I thought.

But one day, I was in the shower, listening to an interview of a researcher/writer on NPR, feeling a slight twinge of envy, and suddenly, I had a Duh Moment (this is my term for an Aha Moment that seems obvious to the point of idiotic in retrospect): …

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How Bad Do You Want It? Read More »

How to Go on Vacation—Right Now

2 Comments / Everything, Happiness /

“I’ve decided that I’m on vacation, indefinitely. And sometimes you have to work on vacation.”

My friend Per made this pronouncement many years ago, during a perfectly normal workweek.

It made me giggle at the time.

Now I think he was onto something.

You know those stretches where your days are so full that the weeks start to run together? Where a minute ago it was March and suddenly it’s May? I’m just coming out of one of those.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. I love what I’m doing and I’m full of gratitude to be doing a lot of it.

That said, last week I hit the point where I felt I could really use a little break. …

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How to Go on Vacation—Right Now Read More »

Instead of a Bucket List, How about a F*ck It List?

4 Comments / Everything, Happiness, Transitions /

By the time you’re in your thirties, you’ve been carrying around a lot of “shoulds” and “somedays” and “by the times” and “when I’ms” for a long time.

There are the promises you made to yourself as a little kid—“When I grow up, I’m going to_______!”

There are the dreams you grew in high school and college.

There are the frameworks you got from your family model of what you should or would emulate someday.

It’s important to hold onto to your dreams, and it’s never too late to go after the ones that are really important to you. When you’ve lost your way, tapping back into your earliest childhood dreams can be profoundly helpful in finding clarity.

But sometimes you outgrow a dream without realizing it, and instead of being fueled by the inspiring energy of the dream, what you carry around with you is the “should have” and the “have to” and the “still haven’t gotten around to” roughage of having this unaccomplished item on your bucket list.

As these bucket list items keep getting added over time, the accumulation can really start to weigh on you. …

Instead of a Bucket List, How about a F*ck It List?Read More »

Instead of a Bucket List, How about a F*ck It List? Read More »