MRP Q & A with Anna- Lisa [Nov 8, 2024]

Hi everyone. Welcome to this week's Q and A. I'm going to be talking to you today about self compassion and embracing the imperfections that we have in each other. Think about and celebrate your wits for the week. What are you most proud of accomplishing this week? Week? We'll settle into the discussion and then we'll get into some Q and A at the end today. That was oh, I love you by SC Jane A beautiful share. Satchin had shared that with us previously and so I thought I'd use it for today's session. Embracing perfection is really what we want to focus on. Our whole goal as you're going through the program is really about progress over perfection. When we're going through the program, there's lots of things that are going to come up, lots of things we're going to deal with and you know, sometimes we might slip up, but it's really about continuing to move forward. If we go off the rails, get back on as quickly as you can. And so that will allow you to achieve the goals that you've set that and accomplish things that you hope to like. For all the celebrations that we've heard of of getting back into those treasured clothes, those clothes that are in the back of the closet or that might have been in a box that you stored away that you didn't fit into, we've had lots of celebrations of that. So I'm going to be focusing on a book called the High Road Leadership. It is written by John Maxwell and he talks about this quote, there's an eagle in me that wants to soar, and there is a hippopotamus in me that wants to wallow in the mud. And he talks about recognizing both of these exist within us and by recognizing that we have both an eagle within us that wants to soar and a hippo that occasionally just wants to wallow in the mud. That helps us to embrace our humanness. It helps us to really understand ourselves and better and. And it helps us to better understand our thinking and dealing with others. So for example, if we're an eagle soaring high, we might think when others don't complete a task, I might think they're lazy. But of course, when I don't, I consider myself busy. I might think if someone breaks a rule, I might see them as rude, while if I bend a rule, I might see myself as being creative. And when others succeed, I might call it luck. But when I do, I see it as hard work. And that's where these judgments can come. When we are the Eagle soaring high. But we must contrast them when we're a hippo who sometimes just needs to rest. And so understanding both these sides in ourselves can help us compassionately relate to others so that we don't see others in a different light. By seeing that we all have muddy days too, you know, I'm reminded of others struggles and failures are really not that different from my own. My bad days aren't better or worse than anybody else's. And with this perspective, I can be less judgmental, more willing to lend a hand, and quicker to give grace to someone over criticism. Embracing both the eagle and the hippo in me and within us really helps us connect more deeply to ourselves and others, which is really all about our humanness. How you think of yourself is often how we think of others. And so by changing our perspective from where we're at sometimes we can become a cynic. This is when I judge both myself and others harshly. I find fault in everyone, including myself. Sometimes I can be seen as a doormat. Here I judge myself harshly, but extend grace to others. This can lead me to neglect my own needs, making it easier for others to take advantage of me. Sometimes I might be the narcissist in this pattern. I give grace to myself, but I judge others harshly. This mindset can cause us to put ourselves above others, slipping into really that self centeredness. Each of these patterns reflects an imbalance in how we judge or give grace both to ourselves and to others. So if I give grace to myself and I give grace to others, that helps me recognize our own humanness in all of us. I am a flawed human, no worse than any others. So that really helps me connect with people on a common ground. As we all have eagle days and we all have hippo days, understanding and embracing these imperfections can help us move forward with compassion for ourselves and then lead to compassion with others. This is how we find balance as we spend most of our time between these two areas, soaring high as an eagle or wallowing in the mud. So self compassion can be really focused on five areas. And this comes from again adapted from John Maxwell's book High World Leadership. He talks about seeing yourself cultivating your self awareness. He said in the book from research, maybe one or two people out of ten really know themselves. So I urge you to spend some time looking at understanding your strengths, your weaknesses, your values, and how you react to certain situations, recognizing also how your actions affect those around you. And over time you need to overcome obstacles, avoid the power and pride, but really embracing the humility which Fosters both confidence and better relationships. The second area is care for yourself. Practice self compassion. Be kind to yourself. Treat yourself with the same kindness you offer others. Support yourself. Be your own best friend even especially on those tough days when you're wallowing in the mud. Focus on solutions. This is one of the key things that when I was reading really helped me in understanding how to ask good questions. It's not about why did I do this? It's not about why did I do it, it's about what did I do and thinking about the objective and being future focused so that you could be action oriented towards changing the result. Forgive yourself. Let go of the perfectionism. Accept your flaws and mistakes without harsh judgments and reduce stress means really when you forgive yourself, it lowers both your anxiety and it promotes your mental well being. Embrace growth. View failures as opportunities to really learn and improve. Laugh at yourself. Embrace humor. Use humor to acknowledge your imperfections and that will allow you to build stronger relationships with those around you because they see you just like they are, especially when you're in your hippo days. Laughter helps us release dopamine. It enhances our heart health and it really helps us to increase our resilience which is all part of our stress that we carry throughout the day when we can laugh it off will give up some of that stress and really stay positive. Don't take yourself so seriously. You know when you're thriving in adversity. And lastly number five, Believe in yourself. Have confidence through self care. When you care for, forgive and laugh with yourself, you can build genuine confidence in yourself. Maintain humility means balancing your self belief with humility to really stay grounded and understanding yourself better really allows you to extend that grace and support to others. So what can you do to strengthen your mindset? Well, one of the key things you can do is adopt a learning culture. Embrace mistakes as learning opportunities with a beginner's mindset. Often when we were in school it was pass or or fail. What we want to do is change that and know that we are failing, failing, failing towards success. That's the whole concept of progress over perfection. We are going to mess up. Just keep moving forward. Identify and correct. Acknowledge where you might be wrong and then seek to improve those situations or yourself in different areas. Give yourself other. Give yourself and others grace, accepting that everyone has bad days just like you do and enhance self awareness by continuously assess your strengths, your weaknesses, your values and how you handle various situations to build those meaningful connections. By following these tips, you can enhance your self awareness. Practice compassion. Forgive yourself Embrace humor and then believe in your abilities, all of which contribute to your personal growth and healthier relationships. So it is the quality of our relationships. So let's talk a little bit about disc. In your modules, there is a module on communication and building great relationships. And we use DISC or the DISC Personality Test. If you haven't done it in a while, I highly recommend that you do. There's a great book written by Dr. Rome, R O H M. It's called Personality Profiles and he talks about the difference between each personality. So if you look at the chart, the top half of the chart is outgoing, the bottom half is reserved. The left side is task and the right side is people. 80% of the conflict happens between the left and the right. 20% happens between top and bottom. So it would be really important for you to understand which of these are your personality, what's your primary and then your secondary. That way you know where you feel most comfortable. But Dr. Rome says so first figure out who you are, figure out your relationship with each of the different personalities. And then in order to build rapport, rapport with the people you're working with or your family, your partner, your children, it allows you to then move to the middle to be any one of these when you need to. And you don't have to stay there. You just have to be more like them to build that rapport with them. It's always fun. I love learning the personalities. We include those in our root cause assessments that you would have done when we did your discovery call. And it really helps us understand how to relate with you. And that also helps me when, as a health coach, when we're, we're encouraging you and going through the process and knowing your personality so we know how to best support you. And the other key piece is five Love Languages. It's written by Jerry Chapman. Great book. Like totally help both my husband and our relationship in understanding that most men, words of affirmation is key for them. And then they often have a secondary. In my case my husband's is quality touch. Touch. And so those are two key things that I need to give him every day so that he feels loved. And often he'll come down in the morning and he'll give me a kiss. And that's his way of getting that quality touch with me. My son, one of his key love languages, not only physical touch, but quality time. And I know when my son was growing up, if my husband didn't spend time with my son, it was harder to manage him because he wasn't feeling love. And often what happens is we love in our love language, which then affects how the person receiving it. If it's not their love language, they don't feel loved. And so understanding yours, understanding your partners, similarly understanding yours and how you interact with your children and at work, getting to know what each person, once you know what each of these are, if someone always brings you gifts, then like gifts is their love language. And so by returning that, if that's not your love language, you can give them a gift and they will feel loved by you. So it's just knowing these things, going through the tests that are in the modules that you have access to, highly recommend you do that. And life brings a lot of noise. So don't wait for absence. Be really focused on valuing the presence of those around you and celebrating you and celebrating your humanness. The difference whether you're an eagle soaring high or you're a hippo wallowing in the mud, it's or even most of the time that we spend in the balance, it's really embracing all of the things that you are and learning your strengths, your abilities and really focusing on how, whether you're in either space, how you can be the best you can be and and have self compassion not only for yourself but also for others that you share with. Thanks so much. One of the questions we had at this session on Friday was about traveling. One of the clients are traveling and wanted to know some suggestions on how to handle traveling. If you are driving, of course, if you can prep the meals the day before and take them with you in a cooler. If you're not and you're staying at hotels or flying, try and book a hotel room with a fridge or a small stove and a microwave so you can make your meals. You can also carry a mini hot plate that you can get off Amazon and you can plug it into your lighter and allows you to heat up your food while you're traveling. If you are planning to eat out, highly recommend that you attend, you know, maybe an Italian restaurant or a steakhouse. If you can call ahead and ask for them if they will prepare your food the way you need it prepared. Focusing on grilling your protein would be probably the best. And ask if they can cook your vegetables without oil or butter and steam them rather than that. So there's lots of different things. Some of the suggestions that came up were to go to natural health food stores and you can pick up salads there. Often there'll be a salad bar and you can pick up different ingredients, ingredients and then select a protein that you can have. Picking up fruit as you're traveling can also be something that you can carry with you. If you're at a restaurant, you can ask for berries. Fruit, you can maybe carry an orange, an apple, or a pear. Those are all individual pieces that you can take with you. So have a great week, everyone. Take care.