Overcoming Doubt: Embrace Your Authentic Self with Confidence

Being myself — authentically and unapologetically me — and feeling completely comfortable showing up without pretense, is one of the hardest things I’ve learned to do.

It was not so many years ago that I thought I had to dress and speak the way others expected me to.

I almost always compared myself to other women I admired (and often thought I did not measure up).

I worried that I was not smart enough or capable enough, and had not secured enough degrees.

I frequently felt that I was not good enough.

All of those feelings amounted to a heavy load to bear.

I lived with doubt. I lived with a lot of shame. And I was pretty sure that almost all of the great women around me had it all together — that they were fully confident being their authentic amazing selves.

It also seemed to me that the way I thought about myself was something I would always have to live with. 

What I learned that surprised me

I started to work with my first coach about 15 years ago. I wanted help with my business at a time that the economy was brutal. In short, I wanted strategies, and nothing more.

Much to my surprise, my coach probed deeply and asked me lots of uncomfortable questions about how I showed up in the world (or didn't), and those questions brought me face-to-face with truths I was embarrassed to acknowledge.

And, I could not deny the truth — that I was operating as a smaller version of who I really was, for fear that I was not good enough.

With loving support, I was able to fully face realities I had not dared to look squarely at before. And that support from my coach enabled me to begin to show up more fully, even though it felt terrifying at first.

I eventually decided to sell my business and dove into studying the mysteries and power of creativity. After training to be a coach, I started coaching other great women who yearned to create truly fulfilling lives where they could show up as their brilliant selves, without doubting that they were not enough.

Do you feel good enough?

If you can answer that question with a whole-hearted, “Yes!” I am thrilled for you.

Your next step into creating a future that will light you up will begin with a foundation that is strong.

And if your answer is something like mine was not so long ago, or you know you had that confidence at one point and for whatever reason it has slipped away, I get it.

It can feel sad, scary, shameful or a mix of all of those emotions. It can feel daunting to imagine yourself owning your greatness without the need to fake it or struggle.

And I know that you can get there.

I did it, and I am honored to guide women though their journeys to standing proudly in their unique greatness.

Begin with taking baby steps

It feels daunting to attempt big changes all at once — and pushing yourself to make those efforts can lead to overwhelm and shut-down. Why not take a small first step instead — and why not give one a try today?

If you tend to dress in ways that feel “safe” at work, you might add a dash of color or add an accessory that expresses a facet of yourself you typically don’t show. 

If you don't have a headshot that reflects your warmth, humor, or any other aspect of your personality, consider engaging a photographer and then update your LinkedIn profile. 

If you have something to contribute and have held back for fear that your ideas are not good enough or may get shot down, think of someone you trust and test out ways to offer your suggestions with that friend or colleague. With some feedback, practice and encouragement, it will be easier for you to choose a time and place, and feel comfortable, speaking up.

Getting help makes a world of difference. Having help enabled me to move beyond my limitations — and do it with more ease and more quickly than what was possible on my own. 

It would be my pleasure to speak with you so that you can explore the ways coaching can help you to fully embrace your specialness and share it with the world.

Schedule a chat with me here.

Discovering strength in tough moments

Here we are in December. I am looking ahead to how I will conclude 2023, and where 2024 may take me. You may be thinking about that too.

2023 has been extraordinary in many ways — some wonderfully special, some tragic, personally and in the greater world.

All of the events in our lives offer us the opportunity to think about how to look at them, and to respond.

It is in the hard times that we can learn the most, if we choose to see those events as learning opportunities.

The challenges of dealing with loss and worry

November was a month of many contrasts for me, dominated by loss and stress.

I lost my father on November 13. He was 97, a great man who lived a remarkable and long life. He was dearly loved. I am grateful that I was with him on the 13th, hours before he took his last breath.

The day my father died my youngest sister was on a ventilator in an ICU, 10 miles away. She has been in multiple ICUs these last weeks, and has finally turned a corner. It looks like her will to live is stronger than all of the medical problems that shut down so many of her organ systems for nearly a month.

Grief and deep concern for my sister have been a tough pair of challenges. The space to grieve for my father has been squeezed by the time and attention devoted to my sister’s illness.

My heart has been sore for weeks on end.

And, blessedly, life continues, and it is full of dimension.

Both and… 

I made a point each day to look for ways to bring love and hope into my life, and into the world in any small way I could think of.

I wrote to all of you weekly, even as I chose not share anything about my father’s death until my sister was conscious and we could tell her. Writing to you was a gift I gave myself. It felt good to share what I hope were meaningful ideas.

Amidst the sadness and not-knowing worry, the joy of spending Thanksgiving with my children and sweet grandchildren was a balm for my spirit. I felt deep gratitude for so much love in my life, and savored the the sweetness of being with little precious ones.

I created time to write and to paint. That helped me feel deeply, and move emotion that seemed trapped and fraught.

I learned to be patient and to trust that things would work out as they were meant to. And I learned to accept that I could only do so much.

I could love and support my family members, especially my sister's children. I could take care of practical matters. I could do my best to bring love into the world. I could support my clients. And I needed to take care of myself.

Of course I wish the circumstances in my family and the world around me could have been different. And yet, I learned so much for which I am grateful.

Conclusions and beginnings

As we are all moving into this last month of 2023, I invite you to join me in taking a look back at everything you have experienced this year.

Can you see things you learned, or can learn now by looking through a lens of openness and gratitude? Are there lessons and insights you see with clarity now, that you may have missed as they happened?

Now think about 2024 and all that is possible for you. What do you want your year to look like and feel like?

What strength and insights can you bring into the new year based on your reflections of 2023?

And here is one last question:

How can you live your biggest, best life today and all month long, so that you can create dynamically in 2024?

I’d love to hear your thoughts. Email me with your plans for living your best life.

What I am learning about resilience this time around

There are times when events show up in your life and you are tested. 

When my father suffered a health crisis two weeks ago, we mobilized and dashed to Philadelphia. After five days in the hospital he was discharged, we arranged for additional care for him at home, we returned to Boston, and everything seemed stable.

Until it wasn’t.

My father was back in the ER on Friday, admitted again, and once more we’ve need to be patient as the medical team works to fine-tune the medication plan that we hope will allow my him to return home without fear of new events. 

Naturally, this is stressful for my dad, for my sisters and me, for my husband and children and all who deeply love him.

Life inevitably calls on us to be resilient

Today I turned to the chapter in my book, Live Big: A Manifesto for a Creative Life, titled Carry On. It’s all about resilience, and I realized it was time for me to revisit the content I wrote based on my own past experiences.

The chapter addresses a range of times we need to be resilient. I focused on the exercises and practices that were matched to what I need now.

I started by completing a Discovery Dozen™ exercise to help me slow down and cultivate awareness. I modified the suggestions in the book to best help me now. I used this fill-in-the-blank sentence, completing it with 12 different answers, to start my day:

To slow down and be more present I can....

Then I focused on the best actions I could take to ensure my father’s well-being and for my self-care. I made calls to the nurses and then set aside other tasks to meditate. I know that meditating helps me to stay centered and think clearly.

Next, I was guided to bolster my belief in myself, by recalling the ways I have been able to do things well in the past when I’ve been under stress. I reminded myself that I may not do things perfectly, but when I think clearly and do my best, I have been able to do a lot — and I can do a lot today, too.

Rather than reacting, I consciously chose to create. I considered the resources available to me for help, and resources I can activate, and got things in motion.

I asked myself good questions, too. I knew these Discovery Dozen sentences would help me: 
“What would I do if I were not afraid?”
“How is this experience calling on me to grow, expand, or adapt?” 
“What am I learning now?”

My big take-aways 

When I turn to proven tools to support myself to stay calm, I am able to think clearly, and that makes everything better — especially as I continue to navigate this health challenge. 

I can keep fear at bay when I reach out for support.

I appreciate how much I have learned from dealing with other challenges in the past, that are informing me now. 

And I appreciate myself for my ability to be patient and trust, as well as my willingness to learn and grow.

How are you resilient in your life?

All of us are called on to be resilient, in small and bigger ways, as we move through our lives. This last year has certainly been filled with challenges that run the gamut.

How are you able to respond? What works best for you? 

I would love to hear from you, and would be glad for you to share your strategies. Email me or leave a comment and let me know.

Stay safe and well, and keep creating. 

And thank you for keeping my sweet father in your prayers.

What we can learn now

Week after week, we are all finding our way through this crisis.

Our experiences vary, of course, but this is not an easy time for any of us. Even those most fortunate — to have work, to be safe, to be healthy — struggle with uncertainty, fears, new demands and concerns that weigh on them. Those less fortunate have a far heavier burden.

As we are all challenged, we also have opportunities to learn, to take stock, to pay attention, and to grow.

Where to begin? I advocate for self care and many other important ways to support yourself, but today I want to share this fruitful starting place:

Attend to your emotions 

The difficult emotions we carry have weight. You may feel a heaviness on your shoulders or tightness in your chest. Your belly may be tender. Your jaw may tend to clench and your sleep is likely to be disrupted.

Most of us are accustomed to ignoring these signs, or pushing emotions like these aside as we rush through the demands of everyday life. 

You may be doing that now, or you may be in a slower mode and facing troubling emotion — lots of it — square in the eye. 

I’m happy to tell you that there are ways to loosen the grip of troubling emotions. You can also expand positive emotions. When you learn how, your burden will be eased.

1. Get clear

Start by writing down what you are feeling — all of it. 

What are you afraid of? What’s annoying you? Who are you lonely for? What do you miss the most? What’s making you angry?

And, what is making you happy? What are good things in your life now? What has surprised you? What do you look forward to? What do you want more of?

You won’t feel every emotion on your list every day, but having written all of it, you will be clearer and can move ahead.

2. Use your emotions as fuel 

Choose an emotion on your list that you want to clear. It could be worry, or sadness, or frustration.

Next, choose a way to create, where that emotion can be your focus, or fuel. Try as many of these as appeal to you. 

Draw — Aim to make the ugliest drawing you can to express your fear, or anger, or worry. You might draw a monster who embodies that emotion. You can fill the page with words you long to shout, big and small and overlapping. Cover the paper edge to edge, using crayons or pastels or markers. Put lots of energy into it! And feel the release.

Dance — Turn up the volume on any kind of music (loud and aggressive, opera, Motown, ballads) and move. Let you body respond and release, for as long as you want. Let the emotion move through you and out.

Write — You might compose a poem, write a letter to your emotion, invent a story, or simply free-write in a journal. Let anything show up on your page as you express your emotion. Then tuck the writing away and breathe in the space you created.

Dig in the garden — Getting outside is great, but even indoor gardening is a way you can work through emotion and feel both satisfied and uplifted.

Cook — Use emotion to hack through vegetable prep, and then aim to create something surprising with the ingredients. Delight yourself as you experiment.

You can also choose an emotion on your list that you want to enhance.You can activate more of your good emotions using the same techniques listed above! Draw, dance, write, spend time in your garden or cook to expand the emotions that fill your heart, for more of that goodness!

3. Repeat as often as you need and want

Create any time there's emotion building that needs to be processed and transformed, or that you want to enhance. Experiment and see what works best for you, and explore other ways to create using emotion as fuel. 

Maybe working with your hands is special, and you enjoy needlework or crafts. Maybe you love to putter in a workshop and make or repair things. Maybe you’ll imagine starting a huge painting, that you can keep changing each time you need a place to process emotion. Maybe you will choose your camera as a creative tool to capture images that express your troubling emotion, to document this time of separation, or to lift your spirits.

Adding a small amount of creative expression each day (that you can tuck in even when life gets very busy) will improve your wellbeing. 

This is one big way you can move into what will come after the pandemic stronger, more resilient, and better positioned to create a bright future.

If you want to explore a long list of resources to help you now, I have one for you on my website. Thriving Now includes many ways you can do just that — thrive!  

All of the things on the list are tools that I and others have shared in my weekly Zoom calls. They will help you during this unique time, and long after we have moved through it. 

I am here to support you.

My next Creating Our Way Forward Zoom call will be on Saturday, April 18. Join me for this 7th weekend call, when women from all over the country will again come together to connect, share, learn new ways to navigate in these challenging times, and stay inspired. There’s a link to register for the call on the Thriving Now page, or you can register here for the call.

If you want some one-on-one support, I have opened 2 more spots on my calendar for this week for free 30-minute Creating My Way coaching calls. Access my calendar to schedule a session.

And, for deeper support, to blast through a personal or business matter you are facing, I have created special Create Your Way Forward Sprint Sessions. This kind of deeply focused support can propel you forward now, on an issue that you want to address. I’d be glad to share the details with you. 

Stay safe and well, and keep creating.