Note from Carol 

"Just say no" - the hardest 3 words ever.

My 20 year old son is leaving today, driving across the country. He is beginning his new life. It's bold. It's taken a ton of mental work.

His childhood relationship with his father meant he needed to be a people pleaser to be okay. In fact, on Sunday we were cross country skiing and he recounted how much he hated this activity at 4 years old. He did not know how to speak up. If he had, you can bet his father would have told him to suck it up and enjoy it. That there must be something wrong with him, because he does not enjoy a sport both his parents love.

Today, he loves skiing with me. Check out the view!

I will sure miss him, and I am over the moon that he is Doing What He Loves. Adventuring to Arizona!

My son learned to be a "loyal friend." And he lost himself in the process. In fact, he was bullied and manipulated. As a teen he was depressed, and it got ugly.

Fast forward to now. He knows who he is and what he stands for. He claims his space in the world. He is unapologetic for what he wants. He does not "go along to get along." And he risks disappointing others, because this means he knows how to be true to his own needs. 

If we cannot look out for our own needs, we cannot expect others to do this. Be a great friend and allow others to be a best friend to themselves. It's the ultimate in love and compassion.

Take that in. Please reply with your own story. I'll bet you have one. 

PS: Please note that the FEBRUARY Wisdom Warriors is on Valentine's day 12noon to 1pm EST) NOT on FEB 7th. More details to come!

Featured Article

How your mindset has you stuck in other people’s expectations and what to do about it

Learn the number one way to de-stuckify yourself from the chain of expectation

"I don't want to disappoint him/her or let them down."

Do you hear yourself saying this?

I know some people who will put their own mental health at risk to accommodate this. Or give vague "half answers" because internally, they are trying to "guess" what would make the other person happy or pleased. 

Often, this comes from a childhood of people-pleasing. It's Conditional Love. The message given to the child is, "if you make me happy, you are good and deserving of love." Often, people pleasers are jokers, friends who really listen to you, etc. Of course, this is an admirable trait. AND when this Pleasing Others comes at the expense of our own priorities and our own wellbeing (mental or otherwise) then resentment kicks in. Issues spiral from there. Often, we get sick. It happens. Our own digestion of other people's problems can make us physically ill. 

Living up to other people’s expectation begins in the very early stages of our development. From the moment we are born, our parents or carers establish rules on how we should behave, the schooling system implements educational standards and as we grow older and get our first job, expectations are put on us by our employers. And just like that, we can find ourselves always trying to live up to the expectation of others. But when it is time to de-stuckify yourself from those expectations? Do you find yourself in the never-ending spiral of trying to please other people? Is this leading you be to be unhappy? If you can resonate with these feelings - You are NOT alone. So how can you liberate yourself from people’s expectations to live your life how you want to and make everyone around you happier in the long term? What do you need to know and what steps can you take? 

• Expectations are rarely an accurate gauge on what is right for YOU. It’s important to remember that even with the best intentions, other people’s expectations will be based on the standards they set for themselves and therefore it’s very likely that these expectations won’t align with your own goals. Only you know what is right for you. 

• Know your values and what’s important to you – discovering what you want from YOUR life is essential to setting your boundaries and to protecting yourself from other people’s expectations. Do you want to parent your children in a certain way? Perhaps you want to run your business different to how others around you are doing it? Imagine yourself in a scenario where no one was telling you what you should do, what would you decide? What would you choose to do? This exercise is key to finding out what it is that you REALLY want from your life. While this can seem obvious, most people don’t even think to spend time on it. And it can actually be a little scary!

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