Get Your Hands off of the trigger and CONNECT!

Is your relationship with your child pushing your buttons? Feel like pushing back? Notice what happens when you do. Does it feel good when you fight back?  Maybe, temporarily. If you are anything like me and you allow yourself to be triggered by your child or someone else, you later feel like crap. I have thoughts that surface, “I didn’t know that I had that in me. How ugly!  I AM a nasty mother, just like I feared.  I need to apologize.” There are times when we thing that this “ugly” is needed, and yet, more often than not, what is needed is the exact opposite.  

Our initial reaction, when being triggered by our children is to either run away from the situation or to stand and fight it. This reaction is coming from our amygdala, the “fight or flight” portion of our brain. This area of the brain is activated when we experience stress, which includes emotional stress.  

When stress is produced in your body, messages are being sent to your brain that you are in danger. The brain is misinterpreting emotional discomfort as a PHYSICAL pain and thus the reaction is FIGHT or FLIGHT. With that misinterpretation, you are likely to REACT with behavior that will elevate the pain of the situation, rather than relieve it.  

The problem with reacting from this space is that there is no improvement for either party. When being emotionally triggered, what is needed is the exact OPPOSITE response of what might feel instinctual; fight or flight. Instead, when you infuse love and connection to the situation, you experience a drastically different dynamic. When you’re first reaction is to throw up your dukes and start fighting it out or to run and hide from the pain, you are only creating more of what you are seeking to avoid. By infusing love, compassion and connection into the scenario, you are diffusing the disconnection, hurt and blame and instead expediting your potential to get closer to where you want to be, connected to your child. 

No one WANTS to be fighting and hurting. BOTH parties want to be experiencing something other than what is happening. Are you willing to respond differently, so that you can move toward your desired outcome? Stop the chatter in your mind for a moment, you know the thoughts, “BUT she was WRONG for yelling at me first. I have a RIGHT to fight back. I don’t want to let HER win this. She needs to know that I am in charge! I want her to know that she is WRONG. I don’t want to back down and appear weak.” and any other form of negative talk that is keeping you from your desired outcome.  WHO CARES if she was wrong first? You cannot solve that by elevating the situation.  She can actually HEAR you if she is feeling safe and connected.  So, GO THERE FIRST!  Connect first.  Are you willing to do what feels uncomfortable, so that you can experience a different outcome?  When you do, not only will you grow, but your relationship will too!  

This post was written for mothers, however the techniques can be applied to ANY and ALL relationships. 

Star Staubach is a Aliveness Coach with Ignite Radiance. She is deeply passionate about supporting mothers, women and teen girls to fully embrace their radiance and release the pain of playing it down.  Star played it down for decades - OUCH! 

Who am I to stand in the way of MY Dream?

I have a confession to make.  I've allowed myself to be held back, because of my own fears.  This week, as I came face-to-face with those fears of taking myself to MY next level, I thought of you.  I thought of the men and women who are out there feeling stuck by their situation, stuck in a job they do not love, circumstances that are leaving them feeling drained and disconnected.  

If we allow ourselves to be in this space too long, we develop a growing list that holds us back from taking the next step.  I had the thought, "Who am I to let my fears stand in the way of being of GREATER service?"  And so it was in that moment that I surrendered.

Gift yourself with a belief in YOU and what you want to see for yourself. The most genius minds and the most successful people around us had to, at one time, believe in themselves enough to take that step.  

Here are a few ways that you can start demonstrating YOUR belief in yourself.
 

Take the next step by:

• Making a PUBLIC statement to friends, family, and Social Media (tag Ignite Radiance), about your GOAL. Making it public helps you to hold YOURSELF accountable.  We all need that.  I repeat - WE ALL NEED THAT! 

• Making the investment.  It may mean purchasing supplies you've been needing, new guitar strings, art supplies, or investing in partnering with someone who can support you to YOUR next level (a coach, business consultant, web designer, etc.).  THIS may be one of the most challenging tasks, since MANY of us are limited by finances.  This can lead into an entirely different list. 

• Setting aside time to TAKE that next step.  Set aside WEEKLY time to dedicate yourself to the goal you say you want.  For YEARS I didn't think I had the time.  I thought I was confined to my situation.  

• Seeing yourself living that goal.  Visualize it.  Journal about it.  What does life look like for you when you've accomplished this goal.  See yourself accomplishing it.  Visualization has been proven to be an successful  strategy for improving a skill and reaching a goal.  

• JUST DOING IT!  You've set aside the time, now make it happen.  Do not let other "tasks" get in the way. Otherwise, we'll always find an excuse to keep avoiding what we KNOW we want.  In the process of avoiding it, we're keeping ourselves stuck. 

• Get clear about the BIGGER picture.  Be clear about how YOUR living this dream and accomplishing your goal is a service to others.  Deep down, we all have a desire to share our gifts with others.  

• Ask for a help.  Ask for miracles.  Ask for Divine guidance.  Ask for support.  Do not EVER think that you have to do this alone.  YOU are not alone.  Once you take the step, doors will open for you.

If you want support in IGNITING your life, joy, career, relationship, or success, contact Aliveness Coach Star Staubach of Ignite Radiance!

What to do about those PESKY Autopilot Behaviors

Where do autopilot behaviors come from and how do we change them? 

Autopilot behaviors are coming from the unconscious mind.  Autopilot can be a HEALTHY thing and in fact, you NEED your body to be on autopilot for certain situations; breathing, pumping blood through the body, etc.  You do not have to think about telling your body to do these things, you simply get it done without a second thought!  However, operating from an unconscious mind can also create great stress, without your even knowing what is going on.  As an example, say you are triggered by your co-worker saying, "Oh, you're so crazy."  Without self-awareness and support in seeing that you have an unconscious "button" around secretly thinking that you are crazy, then you may respond negatively to his innocent comment.  The stress comes from the in congruent message you hear from the unconscious mind vs the innocence of the reality.  When you operate on this level, others call you irrational, illogical, and out of character.  When you hear that kind of description of yourself, you get stressed, "That is not who I REALLY am.  He has no idea who I am.  He doesn't even know me."  Too often when you are unconsciously going through the motions and allowing your hidden buttons to be pushed, you are unaware of the way that they are hindering situations and relationships, because you have not yet identified that they are there!  As a result, you blame the other person and often create unnecessary distance and stress. 

In order to change a behavior that is on autopilot, for example, refraining from reacting when being triggered by someone sharing feedback (negative or positive), you’re actually being required to change the neural pathways in your brain that are driving you to think that you NEED to react in a certain way, defensively, sharply, etc. How do you CHANGE and create NEW neural pathways in your brain? Here are a few tips: 

1. Become self-aware.

The first step in reducing the stress created by this situation is becoming aware of the stress. Sometimes you feel the anxiety, but are unaware of the source.  It is your job to become self-aware enough to recognize the stress and then be curious about what the resource is. BE CURIOUS, resist being a judge or forcing it.  Working with a coach, counselor, or other health professional to identify your triggers can be extremely helpful in releasing them. 

    2. Take BABY steps toward the goal that you want.

In the case of responding in a more constructive way to feedback, you might first practice breathing while you listen to the person talk.  Give yourself a mantra to state, “I’m listening, but I get to decide what to do with this information.  I do not have to react”.  Perhaps you add one sentence per week as you create this new habit.  With each step that you build upon, until the point of feeling "calm" about it, you are creating a new pathway of response in your brain. 

    3. Move!

When wanting to retain new information, increase the chance for creative solutions, and open yourself to new opportunities, give your body the experience of MOVEMENT! Movement of the body for 30+ minutes, producing oxygenated blood to the brain, will not only open up OLD neural pathways, it will create NEW ones! In creating new neural pathways, it becomes easier to retain information, retrieve information and create new habits.  

    4. Ask for support.

Speak up about your goals and intentions.  Friends and family members can be an excellent way to help keep you accountable. Speaking, writing, and publicly claiming your goals not only creates an environment for accountability, it also supports you to RECEIVE the support that is needed to keep going with this opportunity to create a new habit.  Too often, I see people hiding behind their goals, not wanting to share them or allow them to be public, for fear of failure (that is another post).  Do not let the fear get to you, it only keeps you where you are.  Put yourself in the driver’s seat, claim what you want to change and then start taking the steps to do it. 

Star Staubach is an ALIVENESS coach, supporting her clients to RECEIVE the life they say that they want and in most cases even BEYOND what they’ve come for.  Star is passionate about living fully, having a love affair with life and supporting others to do the same! For your free 10 tips to Ignite Your Inner and Outer Radiance, visit Ignite Radiance at http://www.stellarevolutioncoaching.com.
If this article has been helpful, please comment and share!  Star loves hearing your feedback! 

Is Your Job Negatively Impacting Your Life?

I have had several clients come to me with the wish that they had more time with family and less time having to attend to work/business.  Mickey Rooney said, "Heroes aren't born, they're cornered."  It often takes us being miserably cornered before we make a move. Signs that you are feeling stuck in your job/career: 

1. You are not feeling fulfilled, nor do you have the time and/or motivation to do the things that nourish you. You're distracted by the situation of your work environment.  

2. You feel a LOT of "shoulds".  Example: You should stay in this job because you are afraid to take a pay cut by going elsewhere.  You should stay because finding another workplace, with these perks and at this pay scale is DIFFICULT.  When you're telling yourself that you are STUCK and you HAVE to stay, that is a RED flag that something needs to change.  

3.  You're feeling angry and resentful when you wake up in the morning.  It is also difficult for you to drift off to sleep at night.  In the darkness of the night, the stress of your situation keeps you up. You're not going to bed feeling nourished by your day.  

4. You're feeling stressed and anxious on your down time.  You find it difficult to relax, especially on Sundays.  Why?  You're too worried about what you have to go back to during the week.  The energy drain of what you're putting up with is leaving you zapped of motivation and creativity. 

5. At work, you're becoming complacent.  You may still be on top of all of your assignments, but you're only doing the bare minimum and even that takes EVERY ounce of your effort.  While at work, you're looking for any/every opportunity to escape; frequent smoke breaks, bathroom breaks, scrolling through the internet, and an increase of time spent on social media.

6. Once home, you're not likely to feel motivated, and even though you try not to bring the office home with you, it is occupying your mind.  The space it takes up in your head leaves you feeling less than present with your spouse and the household chores.  You feel so zapped of energy from work that you seek ways to escape at home.  Ultimately, you struggle to feel relaxed, unless on an extended vacation. Even then, it may take you 2-3 days on vacation before you fully allow yourself to unwind.  

7. When you're honest with yourself, every aspect of your life is being influenced by your situation at work.  You have less time with friends/family.  

8. You feel a slight disconnect with your spouse, and you may be feeling inadequate that you are unable to "make your job work".  You feel a sense of obligation to your spouse.  You want to please, provide, and be a source of good to your household.  You not feeling nourished at work may leave you feeling like you're failing in this category, which can lead to feelings of shame, guilt, anger, resentment, and displaced blame.  

Life doesn't have to be this way! There are ways to overcome this challenge so that you can experience something new! 

If you are not serving this job and it is not serving you, let it go to someone else who WILL serve it.  As you let it go, you allow yourself to move onto something else that is more nourishing for you, your relationships and your household.  

Want support in waking up to LOVING your life's work? I'd be honored!  Schedule your complimentary info session today!  Schedule now by clicking -- HERE!  

8 Tips to Connect To Your Brilliance

 

Do you ever get thrown off or your brilliance because you start listening to the Negative Nancy Crowd?  Btw, no offense intended toward anyone named Nancy.  See, that is an example, always trying to speak to everyone, make sure that all bases are covered, instead of just getting to the point of what you have to share!  

Here are your 8 tips to remain connected to your brilliance.

1. Make a list of times, places, spaces, environments, groups, etc where you feel safe to SHINE.

2. Identify situations where you feel most safe to be yourself.  

3. Identify times when you feel most inspired.

4. Clarify when you notice your creative juices flowing.

5. What time of the day do ideas come to you?


6. Create your BRILLIANCE Zone and then, GO THERE!  Give yourself permission to allow 
your brilliance to flow independent of outside influences.


7. Make a list of compliments and positive feedback that you've received.  Connect with the truth of this being who you are.  Yes, we ALL have bad days, we are human. The truth of who you are, the brilliance of who you are is always a positive.

8. INCREASE the time spent in your brilliance zone and limit your time spent with people and in situations where your brilliance is drained, hidden or shunned.  This may mean that you limit who you share your wins with - sorry Mom.  It may mean that you are intentional about where you're spending your time.  Most importantly, it means that you are choosing to give your attention, time, and energy to the brilliance that you have to offer the world.

As Marianne Williamson said in A Return to Love, "We ask ourselves, 'Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?' Actually, who are you not to be?"  You are here to be brilliant!  I see your brilliance and I believe in your ability to show up with courage, claiming who you are and what you are here to share with the world! 

Allowing your energy and brilliance to be diminished by those who may not appreciate or value it means that those who NEED your brilliance MISS OUT.  SHINE on.  Shine BRIGHTLY and be sure to surround yourself, as much as possible, with those who will support you to do just that.  If they're exceptionally great friends, they'll also motivate, inspire and encourage you to keep discovering new ways of shining even brighter.  They'll continue to support you to polish your natural ability to SHINE!

May this week be filled with moments of you feeling connected with your zone of brilliance!

5 Steps to Make Decisions From the Heart

How often do you feel yourself being caught up in your head by the swirling thought of making the RIGHT decision?  Recently, I have had a LOT of mind chatter, the kind that won't stop.  The voice that dominates is not a friendly one, it is a strong judging voice, suggesting that there is only ONE answer, and that I must find that one RIGHT solution and act on it.  The flaw in this kind of thinking is that it creates stress and panic, and shuts down creativity.  Thinking that there is only one solution leaves you hyper-focused in search of that ONE answer.  Instead of helping you, this approach leaves you FARTHER from the solution.  Why is it important to get out of your head and into your heart? Studies indicate that the heart may know MORE than our head.  Those same studies indicate that when shown emotionally stimulating objects, the heart is responding BEFORE the brain.  Why is this so important to understand?  If the heart is responding before the brain, it is an indicator that the heart is feeding the brain the messages, not the other way around, as we once thought.  When you stop to think about it, you know this same sensation in yourself. Your heart/gut responds in intuitive ways to situations that evoke emotions in you. Often, we dismiss this intuitive reaction and instead listen to the "common sense" in our head (left brain). Here are steps you can take to move from the swirling chatter in the head to the creative solution that resides in your heart:

1. Give yourself a break from NEEDING to find the solution RIGHT NOW! Unless you are in an emergency situation (e.g., a tiger is chasing you), you can afford to step away from the situation and the "need" to find the answer RIGHT now. Changing your focus allows you the opportunity to entertain creative solutions that you were unable to think of in panic mode.   You've seen this phenomenon active when you're searching for your lost keys, and only after you let go of searching do you look down and see them sitting in front of you, or have a thought of a place you haven't checked, and voilà, there they are!

2. Stop. Breath. Meditate. Pray. Read.  Allowing yourself to stop and release the situation to a higher power, consciousness, or source outside of yourself, creates a space for you to welcome solutions that come from outside of you.  When you recognize that you do not have to be THE ONE who comes up with ALL of the answers, you are able to receive and hear solutions that were not otherwise there.

3. Run. Exercise. Move your body! Movement will not only activate and open OLD neural pathways, it has the ability to GROW NEW ONES!  You read that right, increasing your heart rate and oxygenated blood to your brain supports you to create new neural pathways.  How does this support you?  As you stimulate your brain, you open yourself up to creative solutions and to answers that may be inside of you but are trapped and inhibited by old habits and ways of being. Oxygen circulating through your body increases your capacity to retain and retrieve information.  It also supports you to unleash creative solutions that have previously been locked.

4. Brain Dump - List at least 25 ways to solve the problem.  At the moment you may only have 3-5 ways to answer the issue.  Push yourself to think creatively, even if it is a solution that you'd NEVER use. For example, you could host a mud wrestling contest in your backyard to raise extra funds.  This list will surprise you.  Once you move beyond the solutions that come to mind quickly, you allow yourself to welcome solutions that come from beyond the mind and instead from the heart. The solutions in your mind are ones that often come easily.  The ones from the heart take more practice and this exercise will support you to move from your head to your heart.

5. Create your BLISS List, the things in your life that leave you feeling BLISSFUL and appreciative.  Studies indicate that gratitude is synonymous with feeling JOY.  When you're feeling mired down by the idea that you need to find a solution to a challenging problem, it makes sense that you would feel disconnected from your joy.  Spending time with your BLISS LIST will alter your state of joy.  Focusing on your joy will activate your heart space and unleash creative solutions.

Listening and making decisions from your heart takes practice.  Like any new habit that you adopt, be gentle with yourself.  Notice the gentle nudges, intuitive instincts, and gut reactions.  Give yourself permission to act on them and as you do, you build your intuitive muscle.  The stronger it gets and the more you use it, the more trust you'll develop for it.  Trusting your heart-guided instincts will support you to live with greater ease.

If you'd like other activities that will connect you with your intuition, contact Star Staubach of Stellar Evolution Coaching.  Star supports clients to ignite their inner radiance and wake up to a life they love living!  Visit Stellar Evolution Coaching to sign up to receive your free mp3 download of 10 tips to raise your Inner and Outer Radiance!

5 Tips to Move Through Feeling Heavy-Hearted

If you are anything like me, you've experienced a life challenge (death of a loved one, break up of a long term relationship, diagnosis of a life-altering illness) where, no matter the planning, no matter the attempts at holding a positive attitude, you still feel weighed down by the heaviness of the situation. You move between wanting to crawl into bed and pulling the covers up over your head to wanting to wake up with life returning to "normal", as if your situation didn't exist.  You want to remove yourself from it, making every attempt to distract yourself from feeling the full effect of the pain, hurt, anger, sadness, or other strong emotion that might be leaving you feeling stuck.  The reality is that no matter what you do to remove yourself from it, you still feel mired down by the details of the situation.

The Five Things you need MOST to move through this situation are:

1. Your feelings are there to SERVE YOU.  Let them.

Give yourself permission to feel every emotion that you are experiencing.  Avoiding what you are experiencing will only intensify it later.  Think of your feelings as indicators, such as the indicator on your gas tank, reminding you of when your gas tank needs to be filled up.  When this happens, you take the time to tend to what is needed.  You do not judge it or over-think it (too much), you just do what is needed and move on.  What if you were to do the same with your feelings?  They are here to serve as indicators, gently reminding you of the need to fill up with compassion for and acceptance of yourself, as well as the gift of being present to and for yourself.

2. Freedom to move about your day doing what feels right in the moment.
Take a nap if you need to, cry, exercise, clean, etc. Whatever you need in the moment, you give yourself permission to experience it. This might even mean taking a day off of work so that you can have the freedom to do what feels right for you in the moment.

3. Call-in support.
 It is important to have someone who can listen to you as you express what you are fully feeling.  This person not only listens, but they validate for you the challenge of the situation.  As much as you'd like to see it in a positive light, sometimes, the situation is HEAVY, sometimes it is OK to take a day and be with the weight of it,  and to allow the breakdown.

4. Permission to let go of the ideal image of what it "should" be like.
 In this situation it might be tempting to judge yourself that you should be somewhere other than where you are.  You "should" be experiencing different emotions than you are, you "should" be supporting others, conducting daily chores, etc.  There is NO perfect situation.  No perfect words to share, no perfect emotions to experience, no perfect tasks to move you through.  The perfection is in the imperfection of the moment.  It will feel messy, painful, and chaotic.  If it didn't, you would not be experiencing a true life challenge.

5. Avoid unhealthy ways of numbing the pain.
It can be tempting to turn to alcohol or other substances to numb the pain during this challenging time.  This is not only dangerous, it is counter-productive.  Altering your state with distractions and/or substances means you're pushing away the emotion, not eliminating it.   The only way to eliminate it is to feel it. Numbing your feelings with substances and/or other unhealthy distractions means the emotions will intensify until you cope with them in a real way.

Know that this moment will not last and before you know it, you will emerge with greater strength and a new appreciation of what you have gained from the experience.  Between now and then, hang on to the joy that surrounds you and resides within you, memories of days that are lighter.