Part 1:Superheroes, Being of Service and Self care

I feel like I should start to untangle the story of how I became a self-care coach for Healers.

My being-of-service comes honestly.

Before I was conscious of it, my grandmother was my original superhero.

She could do it all.

When she wasn’t making the world’s best everything as a baker in a federal bank’s cafeteria, she cooked rock-star level meals from scratch at home.

I dare you to make a better tea cake.

If it was Wednesday, she went to bible study.

Sometimes on Friday nights, she played cards with friends.

On Saturdays, she cleaned the house, went to the farmers’ market to prepare Sunday dinner for a small tribe. Depending on the Saturday, in the afternoon she went to choir practice.

Sundays, she talked to friends on the phone before Sunday School. She served in many church leadership roles. She helped in the kitchen during special church occasions.

It was like she never stopped moving.

My mom is the same way.

To see my grandmother sick and eventually pass away from cancer is a feeling without enough adequate words.

How do you describe the guilt of coming home to visit and struggling to recognize someone you’ve known your entire life because a disease took their fiery energy and personality?

For a long time I didn’t recognize what I felt was guilt.

It showed up as grief, anger, resentment, confusion, depression, hopelessness, addictive behaviors, a deep, deep desire to escape….

I Am fortunate I had people around to help me fall apart and not lose myself completely to the grief.

After my grandmother passed away I felt a strong sense to be of service, as she had. I saw it and still see it as a way to honor her memory and answer the Call to be a Healer as she had.

My journey to get to where I am now started out ugly.

I went through feeling exhausted, resentful, needy, and taking things personally, while I healed from addiction.

yay

I felt a strong sense of survivor’s remorse.

I’d lost friends to rejection, violence, chronic illness, social diseases, and severe mental breakdown (2 friends had to be institutionalized and one friend took her own life).

Yet here I was alive and healthy.

For a very long time I had no idea why I was either alive or healthy and that bothered the hell out of me. I’m amazed I survived and remember any of my twenties.

Survivor’s remorse felt like an odd kind of gratitude to where the sadness of the guilt outweighed the good of the gratitude.

Surviving and thriving messed with my head so much that, to make up for being alive, I felt like I had to help everyone I could.

Everyone.

I had advice on everything to make everyone’s lives better.

“Yeah, I’ll help you with that.”

“Sure, I can help with that project.”

“Yes, I’ll be able to come to that meeting.”

“Absolutely, I can do that for you.”

“No, I don’t need help. I can do it myself.”

“I can do this.”

“I can do that.”

“Yes.”

"Yeah."

"Mmhhm."

“Sure.”

“Okay.”

“No problem.”

In the back of my head I’d convinced myself I could help everyone because I remember my grandmother helping everyone.

2 major things happened.

1, I became resentful, and pissy because not a lot of people were listening to all this stellar advice I was giving them. (Pfft. The nerve.)

2, I never got to do a lot of things I wanted because I was busy helping everyone with their stuff and then I blamed them because I wasn’t doing what I wanted to do.

Newsflash: Neither of these are self-empowering.

What I didn’t realize until after I started to take better care of myself, say “no” more often, and start to pay attention to my relationship with addiction did I come to understand that when I made myself last I lost.

It shouldn’t be a surprise, but how often do we make ourselves last and then we do it again and again and again, until it becomes our habit; our addiction?

My rationale for acting this way weakened when I realized, while my grandmother was self reliant and did some things on her own, she had help on the things she didn’t do on her own.

Most importantly she ASKED for help.

A close second to this is she had no problem asking for help.

She took naps when she was tired.

She drank tea in the afternoon.

She watched soap operas when she got home from work (It was not a good idea to call when her “stories” were on.).

She enjoyed watching Tom Baker's Dr. Who. 20 million cool points!

She said and meant “no” when she said “no.”

She had no problem expressing herself and living her life with passion.

She connected strongly with Spirit and it kept her going during some potentially soul-crushing times.

She loved fiercely and adored babies and had some very old-school, rational advice on raising kids.

She is a powerful example of being of service and the balance between giving with receiving.

So I had to let go of the guilt of not being the same level of superhero as my grandmother.

She would have wanted me to be my own superhero.

She would have wanted me to be passionate about what lights me up, but also rest so that I could do the things I’m passionate about.

She would have wanted me to be brave and have faith in myself, and respect and be proud of myself as she was/is proud of me.

I must remember to embrace consistent self care and let go of what isn’t serving me and my Highest Good and to show up powerfully and honestly.

In the following blog posts, I’ll write more on why many of us struggle with consistent self care, habitually make ourselves last and suggests some ways to support our healing and growth.

To find out more about me and who I Am, visit my site mckinleycoaching.com.

I need your help.

I'm creating a series of webinars on self care.

In my coaching work I've noticed a pattern and I need to know specifically how I can help people take better care of themselves.

When your self care is inconsistent or non existent, it's harder to achieve goals or make substantial breakthroughs.

Please take 3 minutes to complete the survey below.

As a thank you, you'll receive a meditation I hope you'll incorporate into your daily self-care practice.

Please complete the survey by Wednesday, June 15, 2016 at 6AM EST. I'm going into a recording studio that morning to record a meditation based on the feedback I receive.

Please share this with friends, family and coworkers. The more feedback the better.

Thank you.
Kristie

https://kristielmckinley.wufoo.com/forms/z159pyrk079yfeu/

Beyond 2 Sides of Every Coin

We stand between the wordless flow and form of nature and the math that breaks it down into exact parts.

You may know this as the Golden Ratio, the Fibonacci Sequence or many other names. The math explains in detail how hurricanes spin, how shell spirals have a universal curve and how our bodies function with its own ratio.

Nature knows all this as "the path of least resistance;" what it has been doing long before humans discovered the pattern, applied the numbers and gave it its many names.

I'm taking a slight detour from Slam Poetry Lane to make a point about the angles and curves in which we look at things. How we learn to look at things. How (by our choosing) we perceive and interpret and speak it back in the form of action and more words.

We are limited by words to express the fullness of who we are and what we do in life and in our business. Our actions allow us to get a little farther in the corners of how we communicate who we are, but it's important to take into account our thought process when we make decisions and how we incorporate our words and actions.

What pine cones, sunflowers and galaxies teach us is that through the path of least resistance how, on a fundamental level, we are all the same. We have internal organs that help our bodies function. On an external level, most of us look different from one another and we all have different personalities.

We know all of this but sometimes some of us feel a severe unease when our business doesn't look like someone else's successful business. They forget hard work goes into making a business and the distractions slow us down.

We get distracted by jealousy, insecurity, anger and resentment and then wonder why our business isn't thriving as well as we'd like.

A sunflower could care less about which direction a galaxy spins.

A galaxy isn't slowed down by distraction.

So why do you suppose some humans feel like they are an exception to the rule?

This is a serious question and I'd like for you to offer an answer at the end of this post.

Seriously. 

Imbalance

"…And you will say that you're making headway and put it in overdrive but you're mistaking speed for getting what you need and never even noticing you never do arrive…."

–Aimee Mann, Driving Sideways, Magnolia Soundtrack

I've been thinking about how to describe the work I do.

It was a struggle because to me it's as natural to talk about what I do as if describing to you how to get from my den to the bathroom (walk through the kitchen take a left and it's the 2^nd door on the right).  

I live in the south and I was surprised that some people didn't know what Reiki was.

Well bless my naïve little heart.

So I had to take a step back and look at what I do.

It comes down to imbalance.

Let's talk about driving.

Think about the last time you drove your car at night.

At highway speed it's harder to see potholes, harder to spot highway police parked in speed traps and, without looking at a clock, it's harder to gauge how long you've been driving because there's no sun to follow.

Deer really dig the night life.

Think about a night where you were driving on the interstate and traffic had come to a halt and you found yourself behind a tractor trailer with its brakes engaged.

Red brake lights lit up like Christmas.

The lights were so bright it was probably hard to see anything else.

Pfft. Forget about being able to see around the tractor trailer.

Your eyes stung from the glare and you had to turn your head away or flipped down the sun visor.

Cars came up behind you and their lights reflected in your rearview mirror.

Into your eyes.

Fun times.

Up until this point you were probably eager to get to where you wanted to go, but now…

Now you're only thinking about how long you're going to be sitting still.

Worried about how late you'll be arriving to your destination.

Worried if you're going to run out of gas.

Worried if you do run out of gas how much will it cost to have your car towed or to hitch a ride to get gas.

Blaming yourself (or someone else) for not leaving on your journey sooner.

So you sit there.

In the car.

Possibly getting irritated.

Probably getting mad.

Probably thinking about the missed opportunity to go the bathroom at the gas station.

Thinking about the guy in front of you at the gas station who took too long to count out his change to buy cigarettes.

Yeah. This is all that guy's fault.

You've been so focused on being angry that you're not focused on solutions. You're not thinking about how this could not be that bad (all things considered).

I'm not going to get into the physiological effects of what being angry for prolonged periods of time does to your body (I'll save those gems for another blog post).

Think of the tractor trailer as an issue you have that you knew you've been aware of for a while, but have been avoiding or thought was "no big deal."

Now you have no other choice but to face the business-end of what's keeping you from your goal.

With people I talk to it's never just 1 big issue. It's usually 2 to 3 in-your-face issues and at least as many "hidden" ones.

That's where the imbalance is the most obviously not obvious. 

Let's use the example of advertising your business.

That's communication. It's speaking your truth about who you are and your business and what you do.

Are you reluctant about sharing what you do? Why? How confident do you feel about your business? How much value would you give yourself in your business? How's your creative desire looking these days?

Are you worried about paying for advertising? Are you always worried about money? Have you always worried about money? Do you trust yourself to make choices you feel good about, that serve you and move your business forward?

Worried you're making the right choices in getting the word out about your business?

Do you have a support system in place to bounce ideas off of and get non-intrusive, constructive criticism?

You're so distracted with worry you don't think to take a step back (turn off the ignition) and figure out other solutions.

If you hadn't done so already, I would suggest turning off the ignition to save gas.

Yeah, that is the obvious thing to do, but sometimes when you're in the middle of being mad, making obvious choices are akin to working a miracle so I'm not going to get judgey if you didn't think to turn off the ignition.

I use "judgey" a lot.

As a coach I'm going to point some things out to you to help you get your thought process going in a positive direction.

I'm going to give you the accountability you need, action-oriented exercises to develop your consistency muscle and southern sass when I sense you're playing small.

The world doesn't need any more playing small and you know it.

Beating your chest with regret is not going to serve you, so work with me to unlearn doing it.

Together, we're going to find ways to help you serve your business best. 

Ways that feel good to you. 

Ways you trust. 

Ways that nurture the part of you that knows the WHY of what you do.

So while you're behind the tractor trailer, you may want to get out of the car and see how far ahead the traffic is. 

While you’re waiting, if the sky is clear, finding familiar constellations (you're just sitting there. Why not?).

Turn cartwheels in the middle of the road.

Start conversations with people in other automobiles.

Finish and send an email to a prospective client.

Jot down ideas for future projects and people you'd love to work with.

Create a spreadsheet to keep track of how many and where you send out pitches for speaking gigs or to guest blog.

Write a list of all the things you're grateful for.

Did you look at your goals today? If not, now would be a perfect time to re-read them.

Do you have written goals? If not, now would be a perfect time to write them.

This is the work I do. 

I help you get out of your own way.

If you'd like to be a part of a community of other small business owners and entrepreneurs where you can connect, brainstorm with and share your road trip stories, please join us here.

Thanks for reading this.

Begin. Again.

This won't take long.

I've heard many of my coaching teachers/mentors say,

"When you talk to everyone you talk to no one."

I heard it, but I didn't HEAR it.

I thought it was clever and one part of my head knew it to be true, but some other part of my head didn't think the rule applied to me.

It was the equivalent of,

"I can make this 3 inch wide star-shaped peg fit into this 2 inch wide octagonal-shaped hole.

Yeah. I can do that."

No, special snowflake.

You can't.

It was then I realized that fear called the shots on who I chose to serve and gave it the appearance of absolute progress with an extra measure of acceptance.

Pfft. No.

Between the YouTube posts, a retreat and a host of other recent experiences, I have discovered a lot about what is possible while sliding into who I am and who I serve.

I am a healer in a world with other healers.

I serve heart-centered small business owners and entrepreneurs.

I serve those who serve others.

I serve those who serve others, but feel off balance.

I serve those who serve others, but tend to put others' cares before their own.

I serve those who serve others, but, who struggle with trusting themselves, do not feel confident or have a difficult time speaking their truth about their business. 

How much is your uncertainty, exhaustion and feeling overwhelmed costing you?

How much is it affecting the relationship with yourself?

How about the people closest to you?

Is it worth it?

So my focus is now, truly, heart-centered work. My core tribe is the healers of the world coming from a place of love, who feel they need to make changes in order to show up powerfully in their work.

Over the next few weeks I'll talk about this more. Since I've come to the revelation of who I specifically serve (4 days ago) it feels like I am learning a new language that is very familiar but different. 

Thank you for reading this.

Life Unscripted: Self-Intervention

DISCLAIMER: Salty-and-to-the-point language

I'm not sure what you may or may not know about Reiki (which is a mental trigger that's telling me I should specifically blog about the topic), but since becoming a Reiki practitioner, there are a lot of things I really cannot ever un-see, un-hear or un-feel. Which is really more good than anything else, but sometimes when I'm not at peace with myself, it can feel like flat out annoyance.

I've talked about this a lot in my posts, but in the work of healing I pay more attention to things. It feels like being a child discovering something new and fascinating. In my posts, I mention being aware or "noticing things." Sometimes if I don't notice it right away, in thinking back on it sometime later, things "click."

When I started my journey with Reiki, and coming from a place of addiction, the struggle with seeing life as it is is an understatement I can't express with words. Probably with interpretive dance, but not words.

If you've ever felt like you were fighting a losing battle, then addiction brings a lot of feelings and memories to the surface.

Oh, before I forget to mention it, at this moment it's 7 in the morning. I say this because I woke up a little before 4:30 after going to bed about 12:30. It's not a usual sleep pattern for me these days, but I mention this because I woke up with strong feelings of regret, shame and guilt.

What did I do?

I did, what I feel, bordered on the self-destructive.

I didn't take good care of myself.

I ate a lot of sugar.

[Cue anti-climactic music and insert numerous studies on what sugar does to the brain.L]

The good news is as I lay in bed with feelings of guilt, shame and regret it triggered memories of college and too much drinking, partying, drugs, feeling sorry for myself, allowing for a lot of risky behavior, guilt, shame, regret, which triggered too much drinking, partying, drugs, feeling sorry for myself, allowing for a lot of risky behavior, guilt, shame, regret, which triggered too much drinking, partying, drugs, feeling sorry for myself, allowing for a lot of risky behavior, guilt, shame, regret, which triggered too much drinking…

This morning I laid in bed thinking about how I acted yesterday. The self-control I felt I didn't have. I felt like a maniac not in control of my body and the feeling (after the fact at 4:30 in the morning) scared the shit out of me. This on top of the embarrassment of how I feel I acted around my colleagues. I woke up thinking, "Maybe I need to email him to let him I know I'm sorry for how I acted at the meeting?"…"Was I really that loud? My voice carries. I was probably really loud. And obnoxious. I should email her and explain. Maybe it was all in my head and I wasn't THAT obnoxious. But what if I was?" The feeling of anxiety was at a ridiculous level.

Flashback to about 10 days ago. I went in for a well-visit with the gynecologist. Long-story short, she sent me, that day, to make what ended up being a next day appointment with a primary care physician for high blood pressure.

Yeah it was that high.

I can make all the excuses I want and write flowery words of stress and struggle and blah, blah, blah, but simply enough, I'm a stubborn ass and I wanted to do things my way and thought I knew enough about my body to get away with it.

Nope. No, me thinks I was a bit checked-out on that front.

High blood pressure is nothing to fuck with. Organ failure is nothing to fuck with. Organs failing is a problem.

I think what triggered yesterday's behavior was that I was feeling despair at having felt like I failed at taking better care of myself and in an effort to a give a speedy finger to the good habits I have had the last few months, on top of drinking coffee on an empty stomach first thing in the morning at the 1^st meeting (yikes), I pretty much split a box of gourmet donuts after lunch with my husband and then tried to balance it out (it's okay. You can laugh.) with another cup of coffee before going to a 2nd meeting.

Oh, and there were cocktails at lunch and dinner. Not a lot, but enough.

Oh and did I mention I have eczema and it flared up so bad I felt like it was saying, "Good job, jackass"?

Oh! Wait. Wait. Wait. Did I mention sugar seriously disrupts your sleep cycle especially within the week before a menstrual cycle begins?

happy fun time. yay.

So I'm at a crossroads and in writing this post I've already made a decision on where I want to go.

I can either choose to roll around in regret, guilt and shame and have it be a trigger for another round of bad behavior, or I can feel gratitude beyond measure for this powerful learning lesson and be mindful of what it has taught me.

Chuck, I choose option #2.

I am an amazing person and sometimes amazing people fuck up.

[Insert inspiring quote about messing up and bouncing back from it.]

I've accomplished more stuff in my life than I can recall at the moment and I need to embrace that instead of embracing that I should operate as a perfect person I cannot be.

How do you learn anything if you're perfect?

This situation is another lesson that continues to strengthen me as I continue on my path. I love that I am clear-headed enough to see that. I love that I am able to use my power for good in helping others. I love that I am not alone.

Thanks for letting me vent about this.

How do you bounce back from feelings of guilt, shame or regret?

Please comment below.

Preliminary Results from Self-Experimentation

Well, wow. Where should I begin?

For starters, no more of this streaky-posting crap. I'm off work from my day job on Wednesdays, and if I don't have the decency to give you my word that I'm going to post something either as a written or video blog at least once a week, I don't deserve to have an audience. So, with that being said….

I have been experimenting with the idea and practice of self-care.

Unfortunately and gratefully it didn't happen because I was feeling well or at peace with myself. It came out of being the sickest I've been in a very long time and happened on a day that will stand out as a MAJOR turning point in my life.

I equate this turning point with, when I received the Level 2 Reiki attunement in 2008, the night I asked for Guidance and help to release myself from addiction, I dreamt of my grandmother. When I woke up I no longer craved marijuana and was able to recognize what I was feeling when the urges showed up and what triggered them.

I didn't and haven't thought about turning back to addiction.  These kind of experiences feel like part of my brain has been seared and turning back to that part of my past isn't a conscious option. I think about pot now and the word, "Meh" comes to mind.

I'm sure there's a more romantic way to describe it.

I don't know what you would call what I was sick with, but I'd like to think of it as the bazoozies from hell. I wasn't able to work my day job for several days and I slept most of the time.

During the time when I was awake, I kept thinking, "I really need to be doing something. There is just so much to do. I really should be doing something."

My body said, "Nope. That dog aint' huntin', Sister."

And an interesting series of things began to happen.

The greatest thing I learned is that I have a substantial money block.

I discovered its origin when, after coaching sessions, workshops, affirmations, prayers, EFT tapping, mantras, Reiki, crying a ridiculous amount, being a bitch to my husband, journaling and a-list-of-other-things-that-aren't-coming-to-mind-at-the-moment. It made everything else I either did or tried to do so much harder. It was a powerful yet quiet realization that I let it flow through my mind to see if it was really IT.

Oh yes.

Absolutely.

The story I imprinted on myself was, "I have to work my ass off to make ends meet," but that came into direct and nasty conflict with the work I have been doing as a Reiki practitioner and business coach and my rational side had had enough when I became sick.

To be completely clear, I regret no part of my life and I love my parents deeply. My Life has given me a beautiful map of rich and vibrant colors stained in spots with too much wine and there is a cigarette burn here and there, but my Life is so priceless, only wordless emotions come close to describe any part of it.

I am the oldest of 2 kids from a single-parent household. I struggle to remember a time when my mom wasn't working 2 jobs. There are so many things I realize NOW vs. the story I "wrote" for and to myself THEN that contrast so much.

So many layers of self-protection. Metaphorical scabs on metaphorical scabs.

I love that I've learned self-reliance, strength and courage to find my way through tough situations on my own, but I felt a part of me has lived as though I raised 2 kids by myself (including the 1st 12 years of the relationship I have now with my husband). I felt like I was responsible for everything.

I have no children.

I have 2 cats and a husband.

I felt as though I needed to work 2 jobs to make ends meet to the point where, through some self-destructive and low self-esteem behaviors (drugs aside), I have had to work 2 jobs while at the same time being terrified to spend money so that I know the bills will be paid.

My rational side has pointed out a lot of inconsistencies and things that haven't logically added up to 2.45 + 2.55 = 5.

There have been huge disconnects where parts of me just simply weren't talking to other parts of me until I got sick. The parts going at 150% for 35 years couldn't keep up and the parts that were quiet got their chance to speak.

And talk they did.  Stories of love and hope, facial tissues, tea (so much tea), forgiveness, What-Can-Be, humor, and the patience of every saint. They pointed out and reminded me of all the good I have and continue to do.

Like being a freaking awesome coach and healer and the only effort I exert is showing up completely and authentically (Southern sass and all) for those who ask for my support.

But I was streaky about it. I didn't think I was really doing anything.

No more of that crap.

So, I figure, if I can do the work with my Stuff and not being aware of my Baggage, and not become some negative statistic, marry and stay married to a really nice, supportive guy, finish graduate school, quit using drugs, self-publish a book, become a Reiki practitioner AND use my Force for good to coach small business owners and entrepreneurs, imagine what I will contribute knowing I can dump the luggage so I'm not weighed down, but am able to make use of the Wisdom I've gained.

This is going to be a fantastic leg of the journey.

Since my last post with the help of the amazing Vicki Lewis I've taken what I've learned from coaching so far and created a coaching program I am completely in love with. I incorporate Reiki and the 20+ years of working in a long list of jobs (the advantage of working 2 jobs at a time) into my coaching as it relates to the seven major chakras and its aspects to business.

I will be talking about parts of my coaching program in the coming weeks.  

If you're a small business owner or entrepreneur and you'd like to connect with others, ask questions and share who you are, please join me in my Facebook group where we support one another on this strange and beautiful trip called Owning Who We Are and What We Do.

Because if we love it, it may be work, but it's not a job.

I'm also on Google+, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest.