S.O.F.T. and Strong: Midlife Women On A Mission

Midlife. The in-between years when you're no longer young but you're not old yet either. It's that time in your story when you're crying all the way home from leaving your kid at college. Or crumpling up your high school reunion invite because life has not turned out at all in the way you said it would. You're waking up in the middle of the night wracked with financial worry. You're going through a divorce or grieving your spouse or wondering who that man is across the table as you haven't really connected for years. It's exhausted caregiving and a waistline you don't recognize. It's staring out the window blankly and asking "NOW WHAT?" Hey - this is a transition when life doesn't give us the choice about whether we go through it or not. But...there are choices that are in our control. Life doesn't stop here. YOU are meant for so much more. And that's what this podcast is about. Instead of being known as a woman who is "menopausal", WHAT IF you could be seen as a beautiful Woman on a Mission? Someone who is taking all life by storm? Who doesn't back down? Who never gives up? Someone who knows what she wants and isn't settling for less. People know you as confident, intelligent, sensitive and intuitive. You get things done. You can be trusted to follow through. You're a woman with a vision. The antidote for sinking into all the inevitable midlife mindsets our culture trains us to believe is PURPOSE. I'm Bernice McDonald, Midlife Coach, and I'm here to guide you as you get your feet back on solid ground. Life shifts. Like winter to spring. So shift with it! Leave your past missions behind as they're done. Open up your heart and your mind to what's next. Your Next Great Mission. We all have one. And you do, too. Let's answer the Midlife Call. Find our next great mission. Live with purpose. Please come and join us!

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S.O.F.T. and Strong: Midlife Women On A Mission

Brave Enough To Love Who I Am

November 15, 2022 • Bernice McDonald • Season 2 • Episode 11

How Do I Love Myself??

We get to this place a lot of times in our life where we are focusing so much on how to live a good life. How do we do this?

How do we get love?

How do we get the body we want?

How do I become a person who is happy?

How do I be a good mom?

How do I be a good wife?

How? How? How?

"How" is not the question - "Who" is the question.

Who am I? Because that answers everything about how I should be in the world.

I think this is the most amazing thing that I've discovered in many, many years. You don't have to figure out how to do it In order to be it.

You actually have to be who you are in order to figure out how to do anything, how to love, how to build a business, how to become the best person that you can be, how to reach your dreams.

Live in that place where you feel as if you're moving forward toward goals.

All of that is not about how to do it. That's secondary.

The first thing is, who are you and do you love that person?

Are you brave enough to really just embrace and love the person that you are? Warts and all. Flaws and all. Failures and all.

You CAN do this. Hey, I'm a woman who works as a women's Life Coach and I got you! This is the Podcast that will show you how to start loving yourself.

Download here: FREE e-Book: How To Find Your Passionately Personal Midlife Mission

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Are you in the struggle of navigating midlife with grace and power? I hear ya!

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(00:01):

I am over the moon. Excited to be back with you today, my beautiful ladies. Thank you so much for tuning in. This is the first podcast, in case you haven't been following - this is my first podcast back after about five months. There has been a gap in the time, and I wanna tell you why that is. I have been going through a time when I just felt so empty like I had nothing to give.

(00:38):

We get to this place a lot of times in our life where we are focusing so much on how to live a good life. How do we do this? How do we get love? How do we get the body we want? How do I become a person who is happy? How do I be a good mom? How do I be a good wife? How? How? How?

(01:01):

And we get so caught up in that. How do I do a good job of coaching? How do I build a great business? Well, what I've discovered over these five months is that how is not the question. Isn't that amazing? And so freeing. "How" is not the question ..."who" is the question.

(01:34):

I'll say that again. "How" is not the question - "who" is the question. Who am I? "Who am I" because that answers everything about how I should be in the world.

(01:49):

I think this is the most amazing thing that I've discovered in many, many years. You don't have to figure out how to do it In order to be it. You actually have to be who you are in order to figure out how to do anything, how to love, how to build a business, how to become the best person that you can be, how to reach your dreams. Live in that place where you feel as if you're moving forward toward goals.

(02:23):

(02:51):

Now, I was getting to that place, but I really thought that I had to perform, that I had to do all these things in order to feel good about myself. What I've discovered is that I need to feel good about myself before I perform at anything because it's out of my heart that I live my life. It's out of my heart that I affect other people.

(03:21):

So what I've discovered is this whole thing I call the Ripple Effect. That my thoughts are what create my results, what I think will get me where I wanna go, and will actually show me, out of that, how to do anything that I need to do in order to become everything I need to be. Are you with me? So there's this Ripple Effect. It's like our response to anything that happens. It's like a rock being thrown in a pond.

(03:55):

Do you remember those times when you were standing beside a body of water of some kind, whether it was a pond in your neighborhood or the lake that you were visiting with your family and you threw a rock in and the rock made a splash. But then there was this ripple that went out from where the rock went in.

(04:16):

And that's really what every event causes in our life. It's like something happens and then we have a thought about it. That event doesn't even have to affect us until we have the thought and we get to choose what thought we think. Even though we think we don't, we do. So the thought that we think creates a feeling which then creates actions we do. And then the result is the outer rim of that ripple. And that result always relates back to what our thought was.

(05:00):

I'm gonna be talking a lot about this because this really simple diagram, this really simple illustration, has literally cemented all the things that I've learned over the last 15 years of my life. I had started to learn this back that far, but it just seems like it's amazing how life does that. All of a sudden, it all comes together and it's like something clicks and it makes sense. And I just came across this coaching site where I was, I've been learning this, working with Stacy Boeman, Brooke Castille, which I, I've also learned worked with this with Tony Robbins and with a fellow who first introduced it to me about 15 years ago out of Calgary, Jay Fasit. This, it's taken this long to really get this into my head.

(05:59):

So when an event happens, which can be an actual event or it can be a question you have in your life, and my question was, how do I keep giving? How do I keep making a difference? How can I make a difference? And really, the thought I was having about that wasn't positive, but I've come back around to the place where if I grab onto the thought that says the who that I am is what I bring to everything I do, suddenly it feels totally different. I don't have to strive to find out how to do everything. Because as soon as you ask a question, as soon as an event happens, your brain will kick in and give you all kinds of warnings about that thing. It's just the way it works because our brain, the Fiery Fear Dragon, wants to protect us.

(06:57):

So, as soon as I ask the question - how my brain will respond with this whole thing about, "Well, maybe you're just not enough" and come up with how maybe you're really not the person to do this. Maybe you're NOT meant to do this, and maybe you should just back off because it's a much safer place to be. Look at the feelings that, even saying that, produces. It's like, I feel small, I feel unworthy. I feel as if I'm not enough.

(07:33):

And then, what kind of actions would that lead to? I probably would just stop doing anything, which is what I've done for five months. Not stopped doing anything, but certainly stopped. I took a big break in doing my podcasting because I wasn't sure that I really was the person to be able to be doing this. The result was that I produced nothing.

(08:00):

It's so interesting. That's the ripple effect. Now, let's go back and change that because I wanna tell you my journey and where I've gotten to. So the "how", asking that question, "How am I going to do this for me?" "How am I going to work this business?" I had to come back to that thought where I don't need to know "how" I need to be, it's "who I am". And who I am is what I bring to everything I do. Who I am is what I bring to everything I do. What kind of feeling does that produce?

(08:48):

I find myself feeling very accepting of that. And outta that feeling of just accepting that I am who I am. I give what I give. I can become anyone I want to based on who I am and who I want to be, and who I know I am.

(09:15):

I stopped resisting the things I don't know. I stop resisting being who I'm not, trying to copy everybody else. So the thought "who I am is what I bring to everything I do" creates a feeling of acceptance of everything is exactly as it should be, which then leads to actions that tell me where I'm at is fine on this journey. No matter what I'm doing or what I'm producing or what I'm not producing, I am okay to be me.

(10:02):

It's all right to be who I am. So I stop resisting who I'm not, and I accept who I am. That allows me to go into my heart and start to write from my heart, begin to talk from my heart, begin to see from my heart, because that's just who I am.

(10:28):

So let me ask you, who are you? When you think of just saying that exact thing, "Who I am is what I bring to everything I do", what kind of feeling does that produce for you? And then out of that feeling, what kind of action does that lead you to? And this tells you so much about yourself.

(10:53):

What do you bring to your work? What do you bring to love? What do you bring to interacting with other people? What do you bring to a friend? Who are you? And that's what you bring to a friend. It just gives you that kinda peaceful feeling, doesn't it?

(11:17):

And then what result do you get? The peaceful feeling, right? But you tie that back to your thought of "who I am is what I bring to everything I do", the result. When you think that, have that feeling, and you take those actions to just bring your heart, to see who people are, to give what you have to give to be in your strengths. Forget about your weaknesses. When you're with anybody, when you're out there in the world, the result is that you just bring who you are to everything you do. And that becomes enough.

(12:00):

Now, right away your brain is kicking in saying, Oh, but you're not enough. Who I am is not enough. People don't like me. They don't accept me. This is where your work is, my ladies. This is where my work was and is continuing to be. Why am I afraid of those things? Why is my brain trying to keep me safe from the opinions of others, from the criticism of others? What am I afraid of?

(12:31):

And that's where your work is. This is where the courage needs to step in and begin to help you to become more of who you are or to understand who you are. Maybe you don't even know who that person is yet, and that's where you need to start. This is what I do as a Coach. So I want to say, if any of this resonates with you, I want to help you. I want you to give me a call and let's talk about this. Because a whole beautiful world is waiting for you. A whole beautiful life is waiting for you to live it, and you need to find that. So come talk to me. I can help you do that.

(13:24):

All right. I just wanted to tell you about this. I really want you to grasp onto this fact that you can be brave enough to love yourself, and it's being brave enough to love yourself that helps you understand your thoughts, your feelings, your responses to every situation that happens to you, around you, in your vicinity. Anything that happens, you react to it according to how you see yourself and how you feel about yourself. All right. We will talk again in the next podcast. Go out there and have a wonderful week.