On letting yourself go up in flames

Recently, I was talking to a client who is exploring a significant shift in how she relates to other people.

She’s craving deeper, more authentic connection. She’s realized she has often shown up, in the past, as a more surface-level, cocktail-party-charming version of herself.

But to show up differently — deeper, more authentically…it feels very, very weird.

Like she might take longer pauses after someone spoke, to figure out what she actually wanted to say next, and the other person might think she was strange for taking so long.

Like she doesn’t even know what to share, and how to listen, as this deeper, more authentic, non-charming-cocktail-party version of herself.  

(Can I also say how much I adore my clients? The fact that they undertake this kind of important, scary transformation brings me so much joy + pride.)

…

I always want to respond to my clients’ specific concerns. So, over several sessions, we talked about what she might do: techniques for listening, talking, and staying connected with herself when she is in conversation with others.

But I also try my best to get to the root of the matter. And I told her two things, that I thought might also resonate with you.

Here’s the first one:

Sometimes, ­we need to let ourselves go up in flames, so we can be born again.

This, of course, is an allusion to the Phoenix, from Greek mythology (and, more recently, Harry Potter fame) — which literally sets itself on fire, and is born again, as a baby bird, wobbly and new.

I’m a big believer in the power of slow, iterative change. But I also believe that at least sometimes, the change that is needed will feel like burning the whole thing down and then letting yourself be strange and new and awkward. And that doesn’t have to be a bad thing.

I speak from personal experience.

I have had my own periods of letting myself go up in flames. My most dramatic was in my mid-twenties, when I quit my management consulting job, shaved my head, broke up with my boyfriend, and questioned everything about how I related to my life (how did I want to spend my day? Who did I want to spend time with?). I often felt like I was blowing up my own life — I jokingly-not-jokingly referred to it to my roommates as “ka-boom-ing,” at the time.

And yet, I look back on my courage and choices during that time, as one of the things I am most proud of, in my whole life.

It took an enormous amount of courage to “ka-boom” the whole thing. And two of the things that are most precious to me — my work as a coach, and my relationship with my now-husband — started soon after that time.

I don’t think I could do the work that I do, or have connected with my husband — if I hadn’t let myself become someone new — someone with more depth, complexity, darkness, sadness, self-knowledge, and strength.

So that’s the first thing I wanted to share: Sometimes, ­there is a time to let ourselves go up in flames, so we can be born again.

…

Here’s the second thing:

Letting yourself burn down + be born again often feels more dramatic on the inside, than it looks on the outside.

During my mid-twenties conflagration, a big theme for me — like my client, actually — was trying to figure out how I could actually be authentic in interacting with others.

I was questioning my facial expressions — were they authentic? Or just performances?

I was questioning whether I was truly listening when other people spoke. This often resulted in me taking a pause after the other person spoke to process what they said; an odd move, since most conversations involve slightly overlapping talking between the participants.

I was questioning what I said — how could I say what was true, and not what was people-pleasing, or conflict-avoiding.

It was an intense time.  

And yes, sometimes, some people did not enjoy talking with me as much. They found me a little…shall we say…annoying.  

And also: during this time, I remember meeting up with an old friend who was in town for the weekend from Denver. We sat in a park by the Hudson River, soaking up the New York City springtime.

I felt nervous seeing him, because I didn’t seem to be able to “turn off” this strange internal transformation I was undergoing. I told him that I must be seeming kinda… weird.

He looked at me, and shrugged. “You seem a little tired, maybe a little quieter,” he told me. “But otherwise…fine.” 

And… whew.

Whew, what a relief it was to be able to be with this old friend, to be feeling so much, and to have him not actually experience that much of my internal, dramatic, burning-down-and-being-reborn.

It turned out that this was mostly true.

While there were some people who questioned or criticized my choices at the time, most people noticed nothing at all. Some people noticed something — but often, didn’t really care.  

And the people who even now matter the most to me — across the board, they mostly didn’t mind, or notice.

So I’ll say again: letting yourself burn down + be born again often feels more dramatic on the inside than it looks on the outside.

…

Is there a radical transformation brewing within you? I hope this helps.

And I’ll also say: it was my work with my first life coach that gave me the courage + insight to take on my own initial transformation. Many of my clients find that working with me gives them the confidence + clarity to undertake their own burning-the-whole-thing-down — if burning-the-whole-thing-down is necessary.

If you’d like to work with me 1:1, learn more here.

As always, I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this.

Katie

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What to do instead of (only) worrying

I have a brain that tends to think about what can go wrong. Maybe you do, too.  

Today, I wanted to share a strategy (which I first learned about here) that has made a huge difference for me.

Here it is:

When you notice yourself focused on what could go wrong, practice giving equal brain space to what could go right.

Here are some examples from my own life:

When I think: What if my mom dies soon and I miss her so much and can’t call her and chat about the most banal things and also important things?

I try to also think: Or, what if she lives for many years and we have so many lovely moments of connection together — and even after she’s gone, I have so many wonderful memories of her.

…

When I think: What if my husband dies and I am so lonely without him?

I try to also think: Or, what if he lives as long as I do, and we have such a meaningful, satisfying relationship. We cuddle lots, we talk about deep things, and I get to watch him grow and he watches me be the person I yearn to be.

…

Or, here’s another one for me, lately — we’re just about to do some renovations on our home.

When I think: What if our renovation goes terribly? It’s way more expensive than it seems, and it’s totally not worth it, and I just wasted all of this money, and I’ll really miss that money when it’s gone.

I try to also think: What if it’s one of the best things I’ve ever spent money on? What if it lets us enjoy our beautiful lives, the amazing California weather, and our experience as a family in our home, so much more deeply? What if I absolutely *love* it?

…

What I love about this strategy is that it doesn’t require us to only focus on the positive, or pretend that the world is only rainbows-and-rainbow-unicorns.

It simply says: the narrative you’re telling is overly — even unrealistically — negative. The negative thing isn’t the only thing that could happen; it’s just one, negative point on a whole spectrum of possibilities.

For me, training my brain to remember that things could also go right — truly, training my brain to tell a balanced narrative — has made an enormous difference.

As always, I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this.

Katie

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A tip if you'd like to reduce anxiety

I read some remarkably useful advice recently. It’s simple, but I was astonished by how effective it was for me. I thought it might help you, too.

Here it is: “Don’t think too much about your life after dinnertime”.

That advice is from artist and author Austin Kleon. Here’s what else he says about it:

Thinking too much at the end of the day is a recipe for despair. Everything looks better in the light of the morning. Cliché, maybe, but it works.

Kleon is right: it sounds cliché, but it works.

Personally, I’ve noticed that at least 60% of my personal and professional anxiety happens at night.

Implementing this rule doesn’t mean that I’ll never feel worry or self-doubt, but it does mean that I’m less likely to engage with those feelings. Instead of spending an hour mulling it over, wondering if I should make big changes and how I would implement them, I just think, Well, I know that I tend to feel anxious and doubt myself at night. How about we table this question until the morning?

And then in the morning? You guessed it: It’s not that big of a deal. Either the “problem” isn’t truly a problem, or it can be addressed in doable, non-stressful ways.

I’m in your corner rooting for you.

Katie

A "generally useful prescription": 6 ways to improve your mental health

Oh, you’re feeling anxious?

Stuck?

Frustrated?

Like something isn’t quite right in your life?

Oh, you’re convinced you need to leave your job?

Or break up with your partner?

Or completely change some other aspect of your life?

Immediately? 

Before you give your two weeks’ notice or throw out all the sugar in your house, may I suggest the following generally useful prescription?

This prescription is like Advil for a variety of life’s emotional and existential pains. It solves some issues completely, and for others, it reduces the pain temporarily — which is nonetheless extremely useful: if you’re in that panicky, anxious place, it’s likely that you’ll make decisions and take actions that are not the best possible choices for you. So instead, take this prescription, and consult with yourself (or me!) two days later. 

A generally useful prescription:

Once a day, for two consecutive days (Did you catch that? One day is not enough! TWO CONSECUTIVE DAYS.) :
 

1. Thirty minutes of gentle, pleasurable exercise.

A walk outside counts. So does yoga. Boot camp class doesn’t. The goal is to gently burn off some stress while helping you be more aware of your body. Sometimes if an exercise is too hard, you’ll somewhat “leave” your body in order to “push through” to the end.  

2. Thirty minutes of journaling.

You can journal about the things you’re worried about, the things you want to change or achieve, or anything at all. The act of writing helps you stop ruminating and actually process how you’re feeling and what you actually want to do about it. More instructions here.

3. Shower and attend to your appearance.

“Attending to your appearance” means different things to different folks, but the idea is that you should do whatever makes you feel juicier about your physical body. Wear some clothes you like, style your hair in a way that is appealing to you, or wear some makeup or jewelry if those are things you enjoy. It sounds trivial, but it makes a difference.

4. Get 8 hours of sleep — minimum.

This is not a joke.


5. Feed yourself food that is nourishing and pleasurable.

Even if you don’t have time to cook, now is the time to splurge a little bit on some lovely, tasty food that also makes you feel good. And yes, some amount of purely delicious food — like a perfect cookie — is nourishing, too.

6. Cut out all non-essential internet activities.

You have to send emails at work? That’s fine. But no internet for pleasure. This might be the hardest thing to do of all of the things on this list, frankly — most of us in the modern world have a lot of compulsions around our internet usage. But you can use that time to do your journaling and walking and showering and sleeping, and probably still have some time left over to read that book that has been sitting on your nightstand for months.

…

It’s easy to skim over this list. It’s easy to think, oh, I do some of that already.

But are you feeling anxious or frustrated or stuck or not right?

I dare you.

I dare you to try these, 100%, and see how you feel. 

I will not discuss “Do I need to make a major life change?” or “Am I a failure?” until these actions have been completed, in full, for two consecutive days. (Reminder: One day is not enough. TWO CONSECUTIVE DAYS).

As I said above, it may not fix everything, but it will significantly reduce stress and anxiety, and give you more clarity of mind — hopefully, enough clarity of mind to come up with a wise sense of the right next steps for you.

As always, I’m rooting for you. You’ve got this.

Katie

How to feel less overwhelmed during the holidays

We’re in the thick of the holiday season, so I wanted to share with you the one piece of holiday advice that I live by:

Stay sensitive.

For most of us, the holidays can trigger a lot of thoughts and feelings. We might show up to a party and think:

Oh my god, I am so overwhelmed by seeing all of these cookies! I want to eat them all!

or

Oh my god, what if my aunt/dad/second cousin asks me about my job/romantic prospects/recent weight gain? 

or

Oh my god, what if my aunt/dad/second cousin looks at me askance and I can tell that they are THINKING judgmentally about my job/romantic prospects/recent weight gain?

All those thoughts and feelings can feel like too much. We can’t be expected to have big feelings and also make nice conversation over the eggnog table or the latke buffet, right? We may be tempted to push these feelings down.

But don’t. Please.

When we push down these sensitivities, we also push down our connection to our inner selves. You know, the kind of connection that would let you know if you were hungry or full. The kind of connection that would tell you if you actually wanted a sugar cookie or if you wanted to be home in your pajamas watching Girls instead.

And when we combine:

(a) a bunch of feelings and thoughts that we don’t usually feel/think,

(b) a loss of connection to our inner guidance about hunger, fullness, and what kind of nourishment our body is actually needing, and

(c) a tendency to eat when we feel stuff (hey, it happens to the best of us)

…the end result is that we might not take the best care of ourselves.

The only solution that I know is to stay sensitive. Yes, you may have to feel a little more than is comfortable, but you’ll also take far better care of yourself. And you may even find yourself connecting more deeply with others because you are showing up more authentically.

…

Of course, staying sensitive isn’t always easy. Here are some things that help me:

• Journaling before, after, or heck, during social events (I have been known to journal in the bathroom, on the Notes app on my phone).

• Having an inner dialogue with yourself about how you are actually feeling, even when you are out at social events. My belly feels tight and I have zinging in my chest and I feel impatient. Interesting. I’ll check back in again later.

• Setting boundaries, like, I know it might hurt ___’s feelings, but I’m only going to stay at the holiday party for an hour because if I stay longer, I will explode with feelings or have to shut them down by eating/numbing out. Setting boundaries means that it feels safe to be sensitive because you know that life won’t completely overwhelm you.

And above all, please know that I’m rooting for you, with all of this.

Katie

Something that helped me when I felt sad

Today I wanted to write to you about sadness, about feeling down or depressed or lost.

I’ll be totally honest with you: I don’t remember feeling sad much until I was in my twenties. I had moments of sadness — someone I loved died, or a relationship ended, or I felt homesick. But somehow this sadness was always relatively confined. I would feel sad, I would cry (for 10 minutes or two hours), and then it would pass.

I never feared my sadness.

I will also say that I am very lucky — I had a childhood with a nice family and good health and few “real” problems. I am absolutely aware that not everyone gets to be so lucky.

But starting in my twenties, I started to feel a totally new kind of sadness.

A sadness that would stick with me, when I might just feel “down,” for no particular reason. Of course, there were always things in life to worry or feel nervous about, but my sadness wasn’t always directly “related” to something. Sometimes I just felt sad, for no particular, immediately identifiable reason.  

And also, it wasn’t just sadness. I seemed to feel everything more deeply. I felt more scared, more anxious, more hurt. I also, for the record, felt happier and more joyful, and more curious, but that’s not what this post is about :)

But this sadness? It was freaking me out. It wasn’t there every day or even every week, but it was present in a deeper and longer way than I had ever experienced.

I didn’t quite know what to do about it.

One day, when I was moping on the couch, my boyfriend pointed something out to me that totally changed my perspective.

He said:

“What if you didn’t need for it to go away? What if you were okay being sad forever?”

At first, I felt my brow furrow and anger coming on: I can’t possibly be like this forever! I will explode! 

But he kept going: “So often, our feelings linger on because we are resisting them. But when we really let them stay, it just stops being a problem.”

“What if you knew that you were going to be sad and depressed and down every day for the rest of your life? How would feel?”

When he first said it, it was a very scary thought. Feeling like this? Feeling scared and sad and down, forever?

I think that’s really normal — we don’t want to look at our sadness too deeply because we’re afraid we’ll make it worse.

But then I thought about it. I really thought about going to sleep and waking up and brushing my teeth and making dinner every single day, feeling like this.

And suddenly, confusingly, I felt like a weight was lifted.

When I thought about spending my entire day, and tomorrow, and the next day, feeling sad, it felt…okay. It didn’t feel great. Far from it. But it did feel like I could do it. It felt like I would be tender and a little delicate and like I’d need to be very, very gentle with myself.

It felt like I wouldn’t force myself to do a million things or lift weights or change the world. But it was also very clear to me, in that moment, that i would still love the things I loved: Tea. New soft socks. Reading novels. Eating baked goods and getting brunch with people I cared about. Taking walks and calling my mom. Writing + coaching.

I think that that was almost the most interesting realization: 

I would still love what I loved.

I would still want to help people who are struggling and frustrated with their eating.

I would still be me.

I would just do it a little more gently.

And then, once it was totally okay for me to feel sad forever, I oddly stopped feeling so intensely sad.

There was a little bit of feelings there, like when you have a cold. But it didn’t really bother me anymore, and I got up and continued with my day.

Look, I can see you reading and thinking oh, whatever, I don’t need this feelings stuff. 

If so, great. You might not struggle with your feelings too much. You might be like I was for the first part of my life. If so, file this away in case you ever do find yourself face-to-face with overwhelming emotions. 

But also, if you have ever struggled with feeling “down” in a way that you couldn’t quite resolve, my challenge for you this week is to try this:

• The next time you feel down, be really gentle with yourself. Sit on your couch, make a cup of tea, wrap yourself in a soft blanket. And then ask yourself, “What would it be like if I felt this way forever?”

• At first, that feeling might bring up panic. That’s okay. But really sit with it. Ask what it would be like to make dinner, to take a bath, to do your work and cuddle with a loved one, all while feeling this way. It might not feel great, but could it feel okay? Bearable? Like you had a cold, but could still manage?

• Notice how your feelings change and evolve. They might not immediately go away — they might spike and go up and down before ebbing away. What does it feel like to notice their progression? Stay with it as much as you can.

And, of course, please let me know in the comments how this goes for you, or if you are freakin’ terrified to even contemplate it. I’d love to support you, and it would be a great support to others who feel the same way.

…

You’ve got this.

Katie

p.s. — one more thing, from my heart to yours:

Everyone experiences feeling “down” or depressed in different ways, and if you are afraid that you might be struggling with clinical depression, get set up with a therapist. And if you find yourself contemplating suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 1-800-273-TALK