Getting In My Own Damn Way (Twice) and How to Choose the Empowered Response by Stephanie Ghoston

Guest Post by Stephanie Ghoston

I almost messed up my opportunity to work with my first coach TWICE.

First time: After cyberstalking binge-consuming all of his content for about 3 weeks, I convinced myself that I just had to work with him; he was speaking straight to my soul! But do you know how many times I started filling out his coaching form online, but then closed down that tab because “I wasn’t ready?” On my second to last attempt, I wanted to double check my grammar and spelling before submitting it but got distracted with something else. My laptop ran out of battery aaaaaand….you guessed it; I lost all of the answers to the questionnaire.

Second time: Ok, now I get my life together, turn in the questionnaire and wait…and he wrote back! (yesssss) Set up a time to talk! (hell yesssss) Wait for him to call at said date and time…no call… oh no (iknewishouldnthavedonethistoldyastephthisisabadideawtfwereyouthinkingyoushouldjustquitrightnowthisdudeisntevenseriousgiveitupgirl)

If I would’ve listened to those voices, I would’ve missed out on the most important three months of my life. His coaching program took me on a roller coaster I was totally not prepared to ride. I thought I had my issues under control. I thought I just needed a little snip snip here and there and voila, perfect Steph. I thought he’d just give me the answers so I could just “get there”…wherever “there” was.

Instead, he asked powerful questions. He lead with curiosity, love, and intuition. He was always focused, fully present, and totally open to whatever questions/concerns I had. He truly walked his talk. And life is completely different now because of it.

At the end of our time together, he asked me to come up with the biggest lesson I learned from the program, which was to choose the empowered response.

Here’s the way it works: the only thing you can control in life is how you respond to the circumstances you were dealt. Your freedom depends on it. See, when situations play out or someone does something to you, that’s all on them. They’re acting based on how they feel, without considering where you are in life and how you feel. Maybe they’re lashing out or had a bad day, but their actions have nothing to do with you; you cannot take that personally.

Let’s say you’re walking down the street, bump into a guy who just won the lottery, fell in love, and got a raise, all in the same day. He bumps into you but immediately smiles and apologizes profusely and wishes you well. You’re feeling good right?

Ok, same street, same bump, same you, different guy. He just lost his job, filed for bankruptcy, AND his dog died. Now, instead of smiling, he cusses you out and almost knocks your head off. Did you change? Does he know a little secret about you that the first guy didn’t? Of course not, but I’m sure you’re feeling a little differently. Bottom line is that the mad guy treated you differently because of the state of mind he was in. Instead of taking that personally, look at the situation with compassion. “Wow, maybe he had a really bad day. Either way, I won’t take it personal.”

Hypothetical-guys and hypothetical-you are cute and all but let’s get real life here. Is there someone in your life who did you wrong? Maybe you didn’t feel like “he” loved you enough, “she” was mean, or “they” did something unforgivable to you. The narrative that you keep repeating is that this person did something TO you. That’s a victim centered mentality. In this narrative, you have no power, no agency, and you’re still mad about it to this day, without even realizing it. How do I know that? Because in order to rectify the perceived wrong, you want revenge. You want that person to feel hurt and small like you did. Most importantly, you are waiting for an apology and THEN and only then, you can get over it. In this way, that person still holds power over your emotions and the key to your freedom.

Now imagine a different scenario, where you are no longer a victim or a slave to that mentality. A scenario where instead of anger, you’re filled with compassion and love. In this scenario, you have all of the power. Your release depends on you to forgive; it’s a unilateral action, no apology required. But don’t think you’re out of the clear; forgiveness may be a one way street but not a one time act. Continue to forgive and be empowered with that response.

Here are some action steps for choosing the empowered response:

1. Resist and dismiss: resist the victim centered response. Dismiss it like you would an errant thought when you’re trying hard to pay attention to something. Don’t even entertain it.

2. Watch your words. Go from passive to active: I’m no grammar whiz (see last 4 words) but make yourself the subject, ie “I ___” rather than the object, ie someone acted upon you “She ____ to me.”

3. Have compassion. Don’t take it personal. How people treat you is a reflection of themselves and what’s going on in their life, not yours. Therefore, have compassion. Chances are, they treat themselves the same way with no recourse, escape, or filter. You have all of those avenues.

4. Release and forgive. Stick to your sphere of control. Release the anger and hurt. Respect and love yourself enough to not require that from others. Forgive….and keep on forgiving until the act/person has less and less power and influence over your thinking.

Tell me, have you been in a scenario lately where you chose the empowered response? How did you react, I want to know!

ABOUT THIS GUEST: Stephanie Ghoston is the founder and life coach of Cultivated Sense, a movement that promotes ordinary ways to live extraordinarily and encourages people to stop settling in life and love. She’s also a coach and matchmaker with the Paul C. Brunson Agency, an award-winning boutique matchmaking and lifestyle coaching firm. Stephanie has been featured on blogs such as the HuffPost. For Harriet, The Black Life Coaches Network, and The Art of Perspective. She’s also a Best-selling author featured in 20 Beautiful Women Volume 3. Stephanie is also the forthcoming author of I Am Beautiful and The 42%. www.cultivatedsense.com

Listen to Stephanie’s Get Out of Your Own Damn Way podcast interview HERE.

 

 

 

 

Step 1 of 4 to Get Out of Your Own Damn Way and Embrace Your Friggin’ Greatness Already

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

On June 4, 2015, the first weekly episode of the Get Out of Your Own Damn Way Podcast aired with me sharing a bit of my story and how I got in AND out of my own damn way. Since then, I’ve interviewed guests from 8 countries across 4 continents around the world to find out how they have learned to get out of their own damn way too.

For those of you who don’t know me yet, my name is Krylyn Peters. I’m known as “The Fear Whisperer,” and my mission is to help female entrepreneurs and want-repreneurs tame their fear, embrace their greatness, and get out of their own damn way so they can create their mission-filled, heart-centered, soul-inspired business.

Welcome to my one-year anniversary special podcast series, where I’m going to be sharing what I’ve learned from my podcast guests this first year. I spent countless hours pouring over 25+ hours of audio interviews and 100+ pages of notes to find the best nuggets of wisdom from these worldwide experts. I came up with a 4 step model for getting out of your own damn way based on these interviews and my work with clients and students over the years.

Tips, tools, and advice that has not only worked for them, but also the many lives they touch through their own work. You see, the experts I interviewed are just like you – they have big-ass missions themselves.

And when we have a big-ass mission, it’s not a matter of IF we’ll get in our own damn way, but WHEN.

As I’ve often said on my show, I believe we’re all on this journey…some ahead of us along the path who we extend a hand out to for support in leading us forward…some behind us along the path who we extend a hand out to help lead them forward.

If you are looking for the support and inspiration along your journey, this is it.

Curl up, buttercup, cause we’re about to uncover the Step 1 of 4 to Get Out of Your Own Damn Way and Embrace Your Friggin’ Greatness Already.

You might want to download the special worksheet I created to go along with this episode, “Know Yourself to Greatness.” You can use it to dive in a little deeper into Step 1.

[et_bloom_inline optin_id=optin_7]

Before I dive into the Step 1, I want to just take a minute to talk about some other themes I noticed from my guests about what happened just before they got out of their own damn way. Now I’m going to go over what getting in your own damn way looks like with each of the steps, but there’s something really interesting about what I uncovered here.

I can safely say that each one of my guests fell into one of three scenarios just before their breakthrough to the other side. I guess you could call it the breakdown. As one of my guests called it, the Eat Pray Love moment she encountered – that scene where the main character in the movie is laying on the floor in complete surrender praying for guidance for the first time ever.

So here they are, the three categories my guests fell into just before their breakthrough:

• Trauma or Loss
• Illness
• Transition

Let me break each one of these down.

Those who fell into the Trauma or Loss scenario typically found themselves needing to get out of their own damn way after dealing with the effects of things such as a loved one’s death, divorce or the ending of a relationship, or the loss of a job, home, or money. Dealing with change is tough enough, but when you add a sudden or abrupt event on top of it, it can leave people devastated, stuck, and not knowing exactly what to do. Some amount of being in a holding pattern is expected, but when that turns into months or years of getting in your own damn way, it can be a problem.

Those who fell into the Illness scenario were thrust into some medical crisis that inevitably shifted their perspective. Some also suffered loss as a result, having to quit jobs or file bankruptcy due to the illness. But all of them had to come to terms with what was happening to them and how they could shift the things they could control in order to get out of their own damn way.

Then there are those going through Transition. Certainly the other two scenarios deal with transition, but what I mean here is a welcomed transition. Some people chose to quit jobs to pursue their dreams, or move across the world, or have children, or go back to school, etc. These we would typically see as positive changes, but even positive changes can leave us questioning, unsure, and seeking answers. Change is change. This scenario also addresses those who seemed to have wonderful lives but were still not satisfied, a new phenomenon I see cropping up all over the place with the people I serve.

Keep these three scenarios in mind as you think about any areas where you are getting in your own damn way now.

Now, let’s dive into the Step 1 of 4 to Get Out of Your Own Damn Way and Embrace Your Friggin’ Greatness Already.

[et_bloom_inline optin_id=optin_7]

Step 1: Know Yourself

The first step is to Know Yourself. I know this sounds pretty DUH, but think about it for a minute.

How many of you out there are starting a heart-centered, soul-inspired business that is born out of your true calling and you’re still trying to figure out who you are?

I know that knowing who we are is a life-long process. But I also know that in order to do the work we are called to do, that is often born out of our own pain, trauma, or tragedy, we have GOT to be really in touch with who we are. At least who we are right now, up to this point in our lives.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve seen people trying to figure out what kind of business to start, or come up with marketing copy, branding, coaching programs, and so much more without truly knowing who they are. I’ve fallen into that trap too, and it’s not pretty. Let me give you an idea of what it’s looked like for me and some of my podcast guests and see if you can relate:

Not knowing yourself can look like:

• Lack of confidence – even in things you’re pretty damn good at
• Not really knowing what you’re good at, what you’re a true expert in
• Throwing some words together on your website that talk about everything you CAN do, but not really giving people an idea of what you LOVE to do or more importantly what you can do for them
• Taking clients out of desperation who are not really a good fit
• Not learning from things that didn’t work and looking at failures as a flaw in YOU rather than a flaw in your process or systems
• Looking outside yourself for the answers

So in order to get to know yourself better, you need to do some things. First, let me remind you what happens when you are trying to get to know someone else, such as a dating partner or a new colleague. You might ask questions, spend time together, share experiences or projects. You don’t just walk in already knowing who they are…even if you read a profile or did some google searches. Getting to know people takes time and effort. So why do we think that knowing ourselves is any different?

Sure we spend time with ourselves every minute of every day, but are we just going through the motions? Or are we really trying to figure out what makes us tick. If we would spend as much time trying to figure out what makes us tick rather than someone else who ticked us off, imagine where we would be.

[et_bloom_inline optin_id=optin_7]

So here are a couple things for you to do to get to know yourself better:

Start to notice what’s going on inside you.

Yes, I know that may sound strange. We’re constantly in motion and life is happening at warp speed. But I suspect that most of the time we are just on auto-pilot, not really taking it all in, tasting that food, smelling those smells, feeling those feelings. And if we’re not taking it all in, we are missing out on a lot of information, not the least of which is who we are in relation to the world around us.

So notice how you FEEL when someone looks at you a certain way. Notice how your body RESPONDS when it is thirsty or hungry or tired or stressed to the max. Notice what you THINK when a project doesn’t turn out the way you expect or want it to.

Guests on my podcast time and time again talk about the importance of self awareness and tuning in.

Guests like Kathryn Eggins who talked about the body being a barometer to the soul.

And Morella Devost saying that our body is always talking to us.

And guests who talked about an inner knowing and following that knowing or intuition – like Kelly Galea, Ramona Remesat, Felicia Reed, Debbie Peterson, Therese Skelly, Lisa Wechtenhiser, and Ruschelle Khana.

I love how Sherry VanAntwerp put it. She said “the voice of our soul whispers to us.” We need to learn to listen. And that starts with noticing what is going on and bringing awareness to our body, our thoughts, and our feelings.

I think Karen Trepte summed it up brilliantly by saying “when I listen, things work out.”

Another really great tip I heard several of my guests talk about with relation to knowing yourself better is:

Look at where you’ve been.

We have all been through something or many somethings in our lifetime, and will likely go through many more somethings. But so many people seem to want to push aside the uncomfortableness of things not working out the way we expected, or the pain we experience with loss or tragedy, or a past filled with things we’d rather forget. I’m here to tell you that AVOIDING the truth is one of the best ways to get IN your own damn way and stay there. Theirs is no way to avoid, go around, or circumvent reality. There is only finding a way through it, so we can finally release its hold on us.

Guests on my podcast have shared how crucial it was for them to review where they were in order to move past it and get to the other side.

Guests like Haley Gray, Diane Young Sussman, Jarret Ransom, Mary Wolfburg-Hlavacek, Elyse Hughes, and Dr. Glenn Livingston.

And Carla Necole Williams who so eloquently said “healing your inner child is the key to your freedom.”

And Elizabeth Tobin who dissolved resentment and anger toward her husband by shifting old family patterns.

And Tracey Osborne who shamelessly admitted “I was my biggest obstacle.”

When we stop and reflect on where we’ve been and become more aware of what’s going on inside of us, we can learn to know ourselves so much more fully.

In the next episode of this special one-year anniversary series, I’ll be sharing Step 2 to Get Out of Your Own Damn Way and Embrace Your Friggin’ Greatness Already.

Finding Jomo: The Joy of Missing Out by Philip Dhingra

Guest Post by Philip Dhingra

I got out of my own damn way lately after two meditation-related coincidences during a stressful time for me. The first one is this quote from Thich Nhat Hanh’s book How to Sit:

Non-action is already something. There are people who don’t seem to do very much, but their presence is crucial for the well-being of the world. You may know people like this, who are steady, not always busy doing things, not making a lot of money, or being engaged in a lot of projects, but who are very important to you; the quality of their presence makes them truly available. They are contributing non-action, the high quality of their presence. To be in the here and the now—solid and fully alive—is a very positive contribution to our collective situation.

This quote came at the perfect time, which is nearly every March in Austin, TX, during the SXSW Festival. The city turns into a zoo, not just because of all the festival-goers, but because Spring is one of the most beautiful times to be here. Everybody wants to throw events in March.

I frequently get so much “FOMO” (fear of missing out), that I exhaust myself stacking social activity after social activity, thinking by doing more, I’m doing better. This year was not much different than the last. And then after one of my meditation sessions, and after reading that quote from Thich Nhat Hanh, the thought occurred to me, “Why do I have to keep doing stuff?”

And then by coincidence, my friend Lydia Sadoudi introduced me to her own concept, “JOMO” (JOY of missing out), and I just stopped going out. I started reading more classic novels like Anna Karenina, and I spent more time lying on the floor with big headphones listening to new albums. And lo and behold, after easing up for a couple weeks, I felt more present in the fewer social activities I had. Who would of thought, that by taking care of yourself, you become better taking care of others?

What I love about the “Get Out of Your Own Damn Way” philosophy is that it’s self-improvement by subtraction, not addition. This is the best kind of self-improvement, and I should know, because my latest book Dear Hannah is a cautionary tale about self-improvement. The book has a happy ending though, as I discover books on meditation, which is the ultimate in non-self-improvement self-improvement.

Methods, hacks, tips, tricks, programs, and systems. These are all forms of activity, often peddled by self-improvement to try to get you from A to B. But oftentimes, the fastest way to get there is by doing nothing, and then realizing you’re already there.

ABOUT THIS GUEST: Philip Dhingra is an app developer from Austin, Texas. He created The Creative Whack Pack for iOS, which he collaborated on with creativity legend Roger von Oech. He also writes books, and his latest one, Dear Hannah, is a cautionary tale about self-improvement. In it he recounts 70 self-help books and methods he used over 16 years to change who he is. The results may surprise you. dearhannahbook.com

Listen to Philip’s Get Out of Your Own Damn Way podcast interview HERE.

 

Philip Dhingra – Get Out of Your Own Damn Way Podcast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

Listen is as Philip Dhingra shares his journey of learning self help tools over 16 years, and ultimately what has really helped make all the difference in him getting out of his own damn way.

“Whenever I find myself having the JOMO (joy of missing out), that usually tells me I’m living my life correctly.” – Philip Dhingra

ABOUT THIS GUEST: Philip Dhingra is an app developer from Austin, Texas. He created The Creative Whack Pack for iOS, which he collaborated on with creativity legend Roger von Oech. He also writes books, and his latest one, Dear Hannah, is a cautionary tale about self-improvement. In it he recounts 70 self-help books and methods he used over 16 years to change who he is. The results may surprise you. dearhannahbook.com

 

 

 

Leah Cox – Get Out of Your Own Damn Way Podcast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

Listen in as Leah Cox talks about the importance of being who you truly are as a means to having the life and business of your dreams.

“I will never be able to be successful in a way that feels good if I keep following what everybody else says is the right way to do it.” – Leah Cox

ABOUT THIS GUEST: Leah is a Writer, Coach and Workshop Leader on a mission to help free-spirited, courageous entrepreneurs create the businesses and lives they really want by getting the hell out of their own way and screwing the rules. She passionately believes that the only way to create the income and impact you’re here to create is to forget the way everyone else is doing it and do life and business YOUR way. www.leahmarjoriecox.com

 

 

 

 

Stephanie Ghoston – Get Out of Your Own Damn Way Podcast

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | RSS | More

Listen in as Stephanie Ghoston dishes on how to get over the “comparison-itis” that plagues many fem-preneurs and the importance of putting ourselves as a higher priority in our lives and businesses.

“When I stopped living my life according to my moods, things really changed for me.”   – Stephanie Ghoston

ABOUT THIS GUEST: Stephanie Ghoston is the founder and life coach of Cultivated Sense, a movement that promotes ordinary ways to live extraordinarily and encourages people to stop settling in life and love. She’s also a coach and matchmaker with the Paul C. Brunson Agency, an award-winning boutique matchmaking and lifestyle coaching firm. Stephanie has been featured on blogs such as the HuffPost. For Harriet, The Black Life Coaches Network, and The Art of Perspective. She’s also a Best-selling author featured in 20 Beautiful Women Volume 3. Stephanie is also the forthcoming author of I Am Beautiful and The 42%. www.cultivatedsense.com