Everything ached.

My head, my neck, my shoulders, my back. They all ached.

I sat a bit longer on my bed that morning.

I wanted to check in with my body, ask it directly what the heck was going on. Was it trying to tell me something? I didn’t want to automatically take an Advil(R) or distract myself with social media or food. I knew those wouldn’t help long term.

As I quieted my mind and focused my attention on the pain in my body, the first thing that showed up was a typical sarcastic response –

Hey, you forgot your heart, your heart hurts most.

You’re right, Bod, my heart hurts, let’s go there first. Tell me. I’m here and I’m listening.

You’re not going to get up and look at your list of 89 items to do today?

Touché.

Hush… listen.

The pain looked like a grey cloud covering different areas in my body. It moved around and changed shape but wouldn’t let go and lift.

After greeting it and making sure it felt welcome, I asked if it had a message for me. Then I listened silently.

“It’s too much.”

“What’s too much?”

“All of it. It’s too much.”

Such a simple answer yet so true.

There was so much happening around the world, specially right here at home. Frightening decisions and actions, divisiveness among the leaders and the people. It was a time for resistance, insistence on our values, and thoughtful action. I had to be aware and vigilant. I had to make a difference.

Something in me loosened up and the tears came freely.

Yes, it’s too much for me. It’s too much for any one person.

I’d been carrying it all on my broad shoulders.

The state of the world.

The state of all people.

The state of minorities.

The state of women.

Add to that the state of my business, my relationships, my plans, my health.

And the state of my cluttered office, the broken door handles, the semi move to NYC, the furniture, tonight’s dinner…

Too much.

Thank you, dear body for getting my attention, although we need to talk about less painful communication skills …

The pain subsided.

I finally got out of bed with two big messages:

1. You don’t have to carry the world on your shoulders.

This is a group project. A world project.

Do what little you can do in your corner of the woods.

Just be the way you wish to be in life – kind, loving, giving, yet fierce, determined, steadfast at the same time.

Add your energy to the newly vitalized force of evolution you see around you.

There’s a lot to do, but you’re not alone in this.

Let’s build community. Let’s stand together. Let’s use our light and creativity together to bring about change.

2. You don’t have to do it all in one day.

Choose.

Choose your top priorities.

Heck, choose just one thing in any given day!

Leave time to rest and play. More gets done with rest and play.

The world is not going to fall apart. Not with so many of us rising to hold it together.

Slow down. You’ll accomplish more in the long run this way.

How about you? Have you been carrying a heavy load too?

What messages have you gotten from your body lately?

Please share below.

One might think Abigail’s Mind-Body Coach Training is incredibly helpful in understanding chronic pain and learning different tools to help deal with it for ourselves and our clients. This is absolutely true but it’s much more than that. I took this training and became an endorsed coach a few years ago, and what I got out of it is a deep knowledge, intimacy and friendship with myself! Understanding our bodies, minds, emotions and getting to know our wise Selves are priceless in navigating life more peacefully and joyfully. This training was one of the first stepping stones in my spiritual journey to live an authentic, coherent life with integrity and compassion. I highly recommend it.

Leda Asmar is an endorsed Mind Body coach and a Certified Martha Beck coach. She helps people though transitions in life. She specializes in helping hardworking midlife women get unstuck, make authentic choices, and take charge of their lives by tuning into their inner voice and reconnecting with their true Selves.

website: www.ledaasmar.com

email: leda@ledaasmar.com

Several years ago, I gave a gift to someone in honor of a milestone we had reached in a fundraiser. That’s a nice thing to do, right? But I didn’t feel my usual joy of giving. Instead, I felt resentment.

This was a person who made me feel unwelcome and unappreciated. Yet here I was giving her a gift!

To add insult to injury, I kicked myself quite a bit about it afterwards.  Why would I give her a gift?  Was I out of my bleeping mind?

Simple. I wanted to be accepted, appreciated, and liked.

In my heart, I knew that giving her a gift wasn’t going to change that situation.

But it ended up doing something much better. It hurt so badly that I had to sit down with the pain and dig deep. In the process, I figured out a how to deal with a prominent pattern in my life.

That new understanding was a surprise gift – to myself!

Let me introduce you to a wonderful woman. She’s nicer than anyone else you know and she’s always extremely helpful.  She’s a peacemaker and avoids confrontation.

You need a favor? You can call her. You need a volunteer? She’s the one, because she never says no.

This is not a fictional character. She is everywhere and she seeks your approval. I used to be this woman.

I’m a recovering people pleaser and approval seeker.

I see this pattern in many of my clients as well.

Maria: When she came to me for help, Maria suffered from back pain, was stressed and depressed and found it hard to enjoy time with her relatives and friends. She was the one staying late at work to finish projects. At home, she was the go-to parent, the volunteer, the organizer.

Stephanie: Stephanie looked for approval in other ways. She went along with her friends even if she didn’t agree with their choices. She said nice things to people even if she didn’t mean them. When a supervisor crossed the boundary of sexual harassment, she didn’t report it not wanting to make waves. She suffered from chronic stress.

In time, both Maria and Stephanie figured out that they were attempting to earn everyone’s approval and love. Worse, they actively feared being disliked. That was their underlying problem.

Where does the fear of being disliked and/or the need for approval come from?

They’re reactions and stories from childhood experiences stored in our nervous system’s library. This is mainly a survival strategy because safety, love and connection are essential to children in early development.

Survival strategies aren’t limited to childhood, of course. They can happen later in life too, and there’s a good reason for them. At least at first. Our minds create them to protect us, to avoid painful situations, or to help us steer clear of things seen as mistakes.

Over time, repeating these patterns turns them into automatic default settings.

An adult doesn’t need the past protective strategies but by the time we’ve grown, they’re ingrained in our nervous system.

Here’s the good news.

If you decide to explore this pattern, look inward to the reasons, start understanding yourself and develop strategies to help yourself, you’ll find a treasure: your true self, your strengths, and tremendous love for all the parts of you.

Some helpful tips:

1. Put yourself first and understand who you are.

Make time for self-care.

This is like the oxygen mask on an airplane. Without your own oxygen supply, you won’t be in any condition to help others. Self-care is more than a massage or a pedicure. Take time to be alone, rest, reflect, journal, read. Learn new things about yourself.

Understand your emotions, where they come from and how to befriend and calm them.

“When you shut down emotion, you’re also affecting your immune system, your nervous system.  So, the repression of emotion, which is a survival strategy, then becomes a source of physiological illness later. “~ Dr. Gabor Mate

Question your thoughts.

Don’t accept every thought you have as fact. Question their validity. Will all your friends leave if you don’t agree with them? Does everyone you meet need to like you?

Make a list of your personal values.

I don’t mean religious or societal values, but your own.

What’s important to you?

What do you cherish?

How do you want to be in life?

What feels aligned with your core beliefs and what doesn’t.

Knowing the answers to these questions will help you know who you are and what is true for you. It will help you stay in integrity.

Dream. What do you like? What do you want? What do you need? Decide to ask for what you want from family and friends instead of hiding your wishes. Go after your dreams of a better job, a different city, a wonderful partner. How will you get what you want if you don’t dream?

2. Understand who you are in relation to others

Now that you understand yourself, your thoughts, emotions, and values well, don’t lie to yourself. Don’t pretend you like someone when you don’t; don’t pretend you’re OK carrying the load of a project when you’re not; Are you really happy with your job or is it killing your soul?

Practice pausing and questioning before accepting requests, demands, or opinions from others.

Pause and check in with your body. Does it feel expanded, free, and peaceful? Or does it feel contracted, shackled with anger and resentment rising?

 This differentiation of sensations, not your thoughts, will help you decide what action to take.

“If it’s causing suffering, if it’s causing stress, if it’s getting between me and love, getting between me and peace or stillness, I’m going to question it. There’s a lie involved here somewhere. My sense of integrity is calling me to examine it.”

~ Martha Beck

Practice saying No to small things at first and extend it to everything you don’t want to do. Remember that saying no is actually saying yes to something else: your highest priorities.

Set boundaries.

Once you know what’s acceptable and not acceptable for you, it will be easy to set your boundaries.

You’ll know automatically that you won’t stay overtime to help someone who didn’t do her work; or you won’t go somewhere against your will and you will act according to this knowledge.

And you’ll definitely not go out of your way buying rude people gifts!

Make friends with like-minded people, those who get you and appreciate you for yourself. You might surprise yourself with the wonderful people that you had not even noticed before when you were so busy pleasing everyone else.

3. Know yourself in relation to Spirit /Higher power/Universe/Nature

Finally, know that you’re part of Spirit, God, The Universe, however you see a greater power.

Know that you have an inner wisdom, a higher self who is always with you, helping you, guiding you. You’re never alone and all you have to do is reach for her.

After the gift incident, I did all these steps and more. I decided to learn my truth and stand in it. I wanted to be free more than I wanted to be nice. I wanted to live in my integrity.

You can do this too.

Saying no, giving your opinion, telling a relative that your feelings get hurt when she speaks to you a certain way, breaking ties with people who don’t appreciate you – all of these will become easy and comfortable for you once you practice.

And what’s more they can be done kindly. With no anger, setting boundaries makes kindness easier because the resentments are gone.

This is not abusing others or stepping into their boundaries. This is respecting yourself and others at the same time. Allowing yourself your truth and others theirs.

Too often we spend our lives looking for love, acceptance, recognition, approval.  We think it’s out there somewhere and it’s going to make us happy once we find it.

But what we’re looking for is inside us; all of it: the love, the acceptance, the compassion and the peace. If we find that love for ourselves, we won’t seek it from others. And loving others will come naturally, without resentment.

Are you a people-pleaser or have you ‘recovered’ from this widespread affliction? Share your thoughts and ideas in a comment below.

If you need help with this, reach out to me on my website. Ledaasmar.com

Leda Asmar is an endorsed Mind Body coach and a Certified Martha Beck coach. She helps people though transitions in life. She specializes in helping hardworking midlife women get unstuck, make authentic choices, and take charge of their lives by tuning into their inner voice and reconnecting with their true Selves.

website: www.ledaasmar.com

email: leda@ledaasmar.com

For years I was in denial.

I refused to see any behavior in my family that might be interpreted as bad or abusive even in the slightest degree. 

This was my family!

My parents worked hard to keep all five of us children fed, clothed and educated. They were good people.

The other reason for the denial might have been that, as a child, I had no idea how things should be ideally. Weren’t all kids in the same situation? Many of my friends sure were. Wasn’t every child afraid of her father’s anger if she did something wrong?

If someone asked me if I had a happy childhood, my answer was “I’m sure I did. I was good in school.”

Later, that kind of reasoning moved past my family to apply to conditions of living in the community, in the country. I became desensitized to abuse, violence and even war.

I saw difficult situations as just part of normal life, why talk about them? Why make a big deal?

I can definitely see how these experiences helped me grow resilience in the face of future traumas, but they left unconscious scars also. Only after acknowledging the source of my scars could my wounds start to heal.

As an adult, I used to wonder why I kept repeating patterns of behavior that weren’t helpful to me at all.

I used to go out of my way to please people – people I didn’t even like that much. (Still do sometimes.)

I used to be afraid to speak my mind when I didn’t like the way I was being treated, afraid to rock the boat.

Or the other extreme — I used to lose my temper and yell because the only way I knew how to get someone to listen to me was to scream at them.

I used to find comfort in food, overworking, over-giving, and over-reading, as ways of numbing myself. (Still do sometimes.)

Things changed when I remembered and acknowledged some of those difficult situations in my life.

It started with a simple trigger. I was looking through some old family photos my sister had collected lovingly and saved to a disc. There were pictures I’d never seen, especially from the early period of my parents’ marriage. It was obvious that as they had more children, their time to photograph them had decreased.

But there were a few family pictures with me in them and these released pain I’d long since buried. Memories came rushing in and I was shocked to find myself sobbing uncontrollably on and off for days.

I was finally feeling the emotional pain of some of my past experiences in my body instead of suppressing them as normal difficulties of life.

One of the earliest memories was from the time when I was a month shy of three years old. My twin sisters had just been born. Mom had complications and had to care for two newborns. My older siblings were in school or self sufficient, but I was still in need of total supervision. So mom’s aunt Rosa took me to her house for a while.

My memories are of following Rosa nana around, or just being by myself in her living room. I remember walking around that room touching sofa, chair, sofa, and chair. I might have been talking to imaginary people to entertain myself.

Rosa nana was kind and I know I loved her.

But how could this three year old understand why she wasn’t with her mama anymore? Could this have been traumatic to her? Did she feel lost?

Much later, mom told me that as a child I used to sit at the edge of a chair and rock back and forth, a habit I had kept into adulthood whenever I felt stressed. Did it start when I was three? Had I developed a way to soothe myself?

We tend to understand trauma only in terms of war, major accidents, rape or physical abuse. But it is much broader than that.

Trauma is actually any experience that overwhelms you.

It’s anything that’s too much, too soon, too fast for our nervous system to handle, especially when a successful resolution can’t be reached.

As Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, a leading researcher in the field of trauma puts it, “trauma is fundamentally a disruption in our ability to be in the here and now.”

Have you ever wondered, like I did, why you repeat behaviors that you know aren’t helpful to you or others? Why you suffer from chronic pain or anxiety or why certain situations make you extra sensitive?

Maybe you also have unacknowledged painful experiences in your life.

You don’t have to go back and dig around to find the old trauma. But just acknowledging the ones that you remember instead of denying their existence makes a huge difference in healing and moving forward.

Continuing to suppress emotions around those events is not the way to heal the wounds. There’s a difference between knowing something happened to you (remembering it intellectually) and somatically feeling your emotions about those same experiences.   If you stay stuck in your head, you’ll tend to try to rationalize or make excuses about what happened. This is your mind trying to protect you from feeling the pain.

Instead, allow yourself to feel the emotions in your body, feel the pain as sensations. Sit silently with them, what do you sense? Is there tightness in your chest, choking feeling in your throat, butterflies in your stomach, or a heavy weight on your shoulders?

Talk to your emotions and pain. Yes, talk to them. What are they trying to tell you? What is the message they want you to hear?

Allowing the pain to be there and tending to it like a friend will help it flow out and complete the circle to heal the trauma.

In my case, I spent some time looking back. I sat at the edge of a chair and rocked back and forth feeling the pressure of the pain of that sudden loss of mom, in my chest.  The sadness felt like a heavy rock on my heart.

I held the 3-year old me close until she relaxed into the belief that she’s not going to be taken away, that I will always be here with her. The rock on my heart grew softer and softer until it melted and poured out of my eyes and the three year old completely relaxed.

I still don’t remember as much as I wish I did, but I’m filled with love, understanding, forgiveness and compassion for my parents, my siblings and me. This isn’t the mental thought of “I love my family.” It’s the gut level love felt in my entire body.

I finally understood that my big fear in life has been not being important enough, not being loved, being abandoned or left behind.

That fear has been the reason for the unhelpful behaviors, my drive to look for ways to soothe the pain or make sure I was loved at any cost.

I remember as a preteen asking my mom if I was the neighbor’s daughter. And later in life saying things like “I must be invisible,” “I must be nobody.”

My newly released feelings were telling me where this came from and why I didn’t need to be afraid anymore. They taught me I could be the one to love myself, to put me first, and to communicate my needs much better.

Look back into your life to see if there were times of trauma or extreme overwhelm. Allow yourself to feel those emotions around the event. Where are they in your body? Offer love, kindness, and support to the parts of you wounded by these events.

Don’t resist them, befriend them and ask for the messages they bring to you. They have the power to heal old wounds and bring more balance to your life.

When you understand yourself, it becomes easier to see when your old fears are surfacing and reassure yourself that that was then and this is now.

You can be on your own side. You have agency to act on your behalf.

If you need help with this, reach out to me on my website. Ledaasmar.com

Leda Asmar is an endorsed Mind Body coach and a Certified Martha Beck coach. She helps people though transitions in life. She specializes in helping hardworking midlife women get unstuck, make authentic choices, and take charge of their lives by tuning into their inner voice and reconnecting with their true Selves.

website: www.ledaasmar.com

email: leda@ledaasmar.com

What do you do with your emotions?

I asked a friend this the other day and she told me that was the strangest question she had ever been asked.

But is it really that strange?

My friend joked that she gathers them and makes a necklace out of them, but I loved that answer. Yes, a bead for every time I allow myself to feel an emotion, to experience it and let it flow, forming a precious bead on its way out.

A necklace made of Emotion Beads!

I’d wear it with pride!

Today I observed several emotions rise up in my body. There was sadness, confusion, anger, contentment and joy. I noticed them all and smiled at the idea that a bead was being created for me.

Sadness, when we talked to my husband’s aunt and realized that she has dementia. She remembers the old days but forgets what she said a minute ago.

Confusion, when seven beautiful eggplants disappeared from my garden with no trace, no damage to the plants, no half gnawed pieces scattered around. Gone! Darn eggplant thieves!

Contentment, when we went out and worked in the yard quietly for an hour.

Joy, when I sat on the deck in the sun, reading a book and watching the birds, squirrels and butterflies.

Anger, I’ll elaborate on the anger.

This morning, I made a quick trip to Whole Foods to buy halibut for a special dinner my husband and I would enjoy. It was expensive. $26 a pound, but I still wanted to splurge on it. It looked slightly darker than usual, so I asked Mike, one of the regular fish guys there, if it was fresh. Whole Foods has a three-day policy; whatever you buy is supposed to be good for three days after the purchase date. Mike went into a speech about how fish vary in color, depending on what they eat and how we can’t control what they eat when they’re in the wild, and of course it was fresh, he had just put it out today, and on and on, until he was finished double wrapping it.

Later, when I opened the package to start preparing it, I almost fainted from the smell. That fish was not fresh. It was far-gone. Rotten. Decaying. That fish was hopeless. Almost decomposed.

I told my husband I wouldn’t cook it because we would get sick eating it. He said, we probably wouldn’t get sick but it wouldn’t taste good. So the fish went into the trash.

Oh well, I thought, the eggplants I was going to roast to accompany the halibut had disappeared anyway, so I might as well figure out something else for dinner. As I got busy making a spaghetti sauce and washing spinach for a salad, something stopped me in my tracks.

Wait a minute! It screamed.

Now that I’m learning to be aware of my emotions, I sat down and paid attention to it. Where in my body was this feeling coming from? There was pressure in my chest and my jaw was clenched.

Aha! I investigated further and sure enough I was angry but instead of processing it, I was making jokes about the fish being deader than dead and disappearing eggplants!  This has been a known pattern for me, get busy, joke and ignore emotions.

Do you find yourself doing that? Glossing over your emotions by using any old decoy. Joke around, eat, fold the laundry…

This was not the first time I had brought home rotten food from Whole Foods!  Last month, the baby cucumbers looked firm and fresh from outside, but underneath the plastic cover, their bottoms had disintegrated. The packaged organic chicken a few months ago smelled even worse than today’s fish. The expensive, organic cashews were moldy. And now this!

So what did I do with my anger? I felt it. I let it fill my entire body and breathed space around it. I imagined it changing shape and color. I took it out to the garden and walked around with it, talking with it until it felt heard, gave me clear messages and gradually flowed out.

Karla McLaren writes in her book, The Language of Emotions:

The questions for anger are: “what must be protected?” and “what must be restored?”

My time and money must be protected. My trust in the store where I buy my food must be restored. My boundaries of fairness and not being lied to must be restored.

Once I worked through this, I was calm, determined and knew what I wanted to do. I picked up the phone, not in anger anymore, but in kind action.

Kindness towards the store and kindness towards myself.

Store manager Scott was very apologetic for our dinner being spoiled. He took my name and left a refund and a gift certificate at the service desk for me to pick up on my next visit. He promised me he would talk to the meat department management about the issue. I was able to respect him, trust him and be kind. (He also pronounced my name correctly. I notice these things.)

All was well again. Substitute dinner was delicious, prepared with love and creativity, not angry energy, and my boundaries were restored.

This of course is a very simple example for anger. There are much heavier reasons for this emotion. But they all can be treated the same way, with respect, not by suppressing them or expressing violently, but finding out what their benevolent message is.

What do you do with your emotions?

• Do you suppress them?  Shove them under a rug? Grind your teeth and ignore them?
• Do you express them inappropriately? Creating more conflict and stress?
• Or do you feel them and process them? Do you listen to your inner wisdom’s input? Maybe make an emotion bead necklace?

Leda Asmar is an endorsed Mind Body coach and a Certified Martha Beck coach. She helps people though transitions in life. She specializes in helping hardworking midlife women get unstuck, make authentic choices, and take charge of their lives by tuning into their inner voice and reconnecting with their true Selves.

website: www.ledaasmar.com

email: leda@ledaasmar.com

Have you ever been stuck in emotional pain?

Something happens during your day that hurts you, but it doesn’t stop with just the initial pain. It avalanches into a huge ball of agony, with sharp edges and horns, maybe even a devil’s tail. It could be as small a thing as an inconsiderate remark from a colleague, or intense pressure from a job situation or even incredible pain of watching a loved one hurt.

I’ve been thinking quite a bit about emotional pain lately. Partly because I’ve had a long history with it and partly because after a relatively pain free period, I found myself smack in the middle of this kind of pain a few weeks ago.

I drowned in it. The waves of pain spiraled around me and with each turn pulled me deeper and deeper into the vortex. Every so often, I’d see some light, some levity, as if a lifeline was being lowered to me to grab onto and climb up; but I would lose my grip on it by the force of my own thoughts, my determination to stay in pain!

To make matters worse, I started treating myself with anger and contempt. Ha! Some coach you are! Look at you not being able to coach yourself out of this one!

This soon became a huge black blob; it grew arms and legs and walked around with me. What had happened here? Old pain and habits were triggered, old storytelling habits. I was hooked as the Buddhist teacher Pema Chodron would say, hooked in a chain reaction by sheer force of habit.

The thoughts and stories I added to this initial pain were hilarious in retrospect. She’s all about herself! Doesn’t even realize what she has done; didn’t even apologize; She used me and discarded me just like you know who! Last year, I let so and so do the same thing! And that no good boyfriend I had when I was nineteen! They all stabbed me in the back, betrayed me! When will I ever learn to consider myself first?

Every time I remembered the incident, another story was added to it.

First, I closed myself off, in a protective old habit of trying to repress the actual pain; then I noticed I’m being snarky in my comments about her to others and that’s when I PAUSED. I focused on my breathing and paused.  Just like that, I was out of it, able to laugh at myself with great love and understanding.

Here is what worked for me: Nine suggestions how to get yourself out of this spiral if you ever experience it too.

1. Breathe, several deep breaths with your attention completely on the breath going in, coming out. Did you notice how there’s a tiny little pause between inhales and exhales? Aah, tiny gaps where you can practice complete stillness.

2. Stop the stories, stop the words and thoughts, and stop talking to yourself and others about it! Just pause for now and keep focusing on your breath.

3. Sit with the initial pain. Feel it. Where is it in your body? In your chest, throat, stomach? What is the felt sensation? Burning, cold, squeezing, or just pressure perhaps? Allow it to be what it is with no stories attached. What I felt was a rock sitting on my heart. One of my clients complains that if she lets herself do this, it feels like she’s sitting in a huge fire. Sit in the fire, it will burn away the old habits and let the pain flow out.

4. If it gets too uncomfortable, step out of the fire to a more comfortable place for a bit, maybe watch the birds, walk out in nature, or look at photos of loved ones. When you feel ready, come back to the pain.

5. It might be helpful to tell a trusted friend or a coach about it, someone who will not let you build it up with your imagination, but will listen and witness your pain.

6. If the thoughts become uncontrollable, jot them down somewhere to question later when you’re out of the spiral. You can approach them with curiosity then and analyze their truth and usefulness in your life now.

7. Use kindness and humor with your stories- Well hello there darling! I see you, I hear you, and I know you. For now, I’m going to let you sit over there on the sofa.

8. With each story, bring yourself back to the present moment, to NOW. What’s happening now? Is anyone taking advantage of you now? Is anyone betraying you now? Are you betraying yourself now? This minute.

9. Lastly, every time you notice you’re being harsh, for whatever reason, bring loving kindness and compassion to yourself. If you’re berating yourself for not being a good person for having these thoughts; or not being a good coach for having fallen in the hole you help others not to fall in; or not taking better care of yourself, give yourself a big hug. You’re human and perfect in your imperfection.

Pause and give yourself the chance to choose a different reaction. Once you’re thinking clearly again, you can decide what to do about your trigger situation. As I’ve found out, it often dissipates by itself and there’s nothing left to resolve.

Leda Asmar is an endorsed Mind Body coach and a Certified Martha Beck coach. She helps people though transitions in life. She specializes in helping hardworking midlife women get unstuck, make authentic choices, and take charge of their lives by tuning into their inner voice and reconnecting with their true Selves.

website: www.ledaasmar.com

email: leda@ledaasmar.com