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Suffering From Burnout? Love Is The Cure! by Deborah Jane Wells (Part 3 of 3)

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Suffering From Burnout? Love Is The Cure! by Deborah Jane Wells (Part 3 of 3)

deborah wellsPicking up where we left off at the end of part 2 of this article, becoming conscious and claiming your personal power to neutralize the judge will yield immeasurable benefits. You will literally be able to redefine your world, because there is no absolute reality, only the story you tell yourself about what is happening and what it means. Every being, encounter, and experience that comes my way is filtered through a conglomeration of lenses that results in my unique perceptions.

These lenses cause me to see my world in a certain way. They are influenced by my unique and complex mix of myriad factors: the family, cultural, and societal norms I was taught; my physical and mental abilities; my personality and natural talents; my birth order; the patterns I deduced from all my past experiences; and the assumptions I’ve presumed concerning what’s likely and possible in the future. For example, the game of golf can be perceived as any or all of the following, depending on your lenses:

  • a delightful afternoon immersed in nature
  • an exhilarating and rewarding competitive event
  • a fun way to exercise with friends
  • an endless day of humiliation and torture

Let’s look at my own experience with golf to access this insight more deeply. When we lived on the East Coast, my husband and I owned a vacation home in the Blue Ridge Mountains. When my son, Matt, was eleven years old, we enrolled him in kids’ camp to help him enjoy his time there even more by spending it being active outdoors with his peers. One weekend in August, he signed up for a daylong sports camp that provided tennis instruction in the morning and golf in the afternoon. He returned home at the end of the day utterly smitten with golf.

We were so thrilled by Matt’s enthusiasm that we enrolled in a family golf clinic so the three of us could learn and play together. We were all beginners, out there to have fun and enjoy the beauty of the Blue Ridge Mountains. We passed many a delightful afternoon playing nine holes. With a tee time late in the day and no one behind us on the course, we could take our time, observing the privilege of unlimited mulligans (do-overs) and stopping to harvest lost golf balls in the woods. Advancing the little white ball down the fairway to the little white cup was always secondary to having a good time.

Until I switched to a consulting firm where golf was not a hobby but a responsibility. One of the benefits—nay, expectations—of being a partner in this firm was that I would play golf with my colleagues and clients. In fact, I would be expected to woo prospective clients on the golf course. To do that, I was expected to be a moderately good golfer, not an embarrassment to my firm and myself.

Gone were the leisurely afternoons on my beloved Blue Ridge golf course. Now my games with family became practice for the performance my partners expected me to deliver. While swearing was not the norm for me, now when I missed the first two shots off the tee, I swore. Now when I hit a shot into a sand trap, I threw my club down the fairway while swearing. When this happened, I’d explain to my companions that my father had been in the merchant marines. They’d say, “Did he swear a lot?” “No,” I’d reply, “evidently it skipped a generation.”

Because children don’t do what we say but rather do what they see us do, it’s unsurprising that, in short order, my eleven-year-old was also throwing his clubs and swearing like a sailor. That’s when I finally got a grip. Matt and I agreed that when either of us behaved badly on the course, we had to take a time-out together in the golf cart until both of us had returned to civility. As a result, Matt and I went through a period where we spent more time in the golf cart than on the course. This may have been just as well, because we were living proof that anger is not necessarily a performance enhancer.

One day, weary of swearing, throwing clubs, and spending time in the cart, the two of us sat there, arms crossed, scowling. After a few minutes of reflection, I said, “Babe, this has got to stop. Neither of us is having any fun anymore. I think I’ve figured out my problem. I’m imagining the potentially angry, ridiculing voices of my partners in my head, and I can’t relax and have fun when I’ve put them in there to beat me up. What’s going on in your head?” He looked at me with all the disgust of a kid who believes his parent has gone ’round the bend and said, “I have no idea. I don’t even know your new partners!”

However unconscious the process may feel at the time, you are always manifesting the world you choose to see. You create your reality in each moment by choosing what you will think, believe, feel, and do based on what your lenses allow. You can choose to look through the lens of fear and remain weighed down and self-imprisoned, or you can choose the lens of love and embrace a life of freedom and flow. No outside event or situation, no other person can dictate my attitude. Newsflash: in your life, you are the great decider.

The only person controlling your life is you. Turn unexplored possibilities into fulfilling realities by harnessing the transformative power of love to step into your greatness. Choose your energy and change your life!

© Copyright 2013 DJW Life Coach LLC. All rights reserved.

About the Author

What’s love got to do with minimizing stress and getting unstuck? Everything, according to empowerment coach and inspirational speaker Deborah Jane Wells, author of Choose Your Energy: Change Your Life! During her 30 years as an organization transformation consultant, Deborah served as a senior partner in four of the world’s largest, most prestigious global professional services firms. In 2005, she took a five-year sabbatical to find healing and peace because non-stop work had taken its toll. Her recovery from burnout, including a sustained 80-pound weight loss and freedom from 10 years of debilitating depression, led to finding her purpose guiding others on their journeys. Through healing and self-exploration, she discovered that loving yourself unconditionally is the key to transforming your personal life, your work, and the world. Deborah’s books, blog, radio show, and signature coaching programs help individuals and organizations harness that same transformative power of love to turn unexplored possibilities into fulfilling realities and step into their greatness. Learn more at Deborah Jane Wells.

Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places: My Journey To Wholeness with Deborah Jane Wells (Part 2 of 2)

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Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places: My Journey To Wholeness with Deborah Jane Wells (Part 2 of 2)

DeborahJean When you fall in love with yourself, everything else falls into place, personally and professionally. When love transforms your relationship with yourself, it transforms your personal life, your work, and the world.

Picking up where we left off at the end of part 1 of this article, I had my next life-transforming realization forty pounds into my eighty-pound weight loss―high on healthy fuel, cardio-induced beta-endorphins, and the thrill of, once again, being able to do something I set my mind to. While a healthy diet and significant daily exercise were necessary factors, they were only the price of admission to attaining the life of deep peace, lasting joy, and meaningful relationships I desired.

Once I understood that excess physical weight is often just a symbol for excess spiritual weight, I realized finding wholeness is not primarily about losing body fat. It involves caring enough about myself to create an environment in which I nurture and cherish all aspects of myself.

With this realization, the universe tapped me on the shoulder once again: “The key to living a life you love is to feed all of your senses in a balanced way, so no one sense will take over, trying to fill voids it can never hope to fill.” Sensory balance doesn’t just apply to the five outer senses through which we celebrate our external world but also to the four inner senses of creativity, vitality, spirituality, and belonging, through which we imbue our experience with meaning.

As one who suffered anorexia at age 19 and obesity at age 50, I believe both have their roots in an unhealthy relationship with food—trying to use food to fill un-food needs. For me, both were ways of coping with anxiety—misguided attempts to feel safe by creating the illusion of control over a life spinning madly out of control.

The major reason many of us can’t sustain the positive results of diet and exercise is that most programs do not get to the root issue—an imbalance in the care and feeding of our souls. I learned to pay attention to how I am feeding all of my senses—content and frequency—and whether each is being starved, smothered, or healthily sustained. While my weight loss certainly involved more mindful and nutritious eating as well as regular exercise, the degree of success and ability to sustain a healthier, happier, more harmonious lifestyle was much more dependent on balanced feeding of all nine senses.

As I lived my new commitment to loving myself, I discovered that my sense of equanimity and fulfillment were greatest when I fueled my core energy in constructive and loving ways—physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. But as I worked more deeply with the concept of love, I found the term to be nebulous, tricky, and easy to misunderstand. With experience, I was able to increase the clarity of my intention to love myself by adding the attributes of respect, curiosity, compassion, and gratitude. I discovered the following:

  • Approaching myself and my life—every being, encounter, and experience—with love, respect, curiosity, and compassion always reveals and advances the highest good. Moment by moment, I know where, how, and when to invest my energy to move myself forward on my Journey to Wholeness.
  • Maintaining a belief in abundance and an attitude of gratitude anchors each moment in a sense of generous, effortless, gracious flow—a life of freedom centered in being, not doing, filled with faith, hope, prosperity, peace, and joy.
  • Most surprising, important, and delightful of all, when I fall in love with myself again and again, everything else in my life really does just fall into place.

Where did these insights take me? Over a period of two years, I shifted from taking good care of myself to falling in love with myself. When I fell in love with myself, everything else in my life finally fell into place. No longer a hamster trapped on a wheel but a vibrant, joyful, fully engaged woman. I said good-bye to obesity, along with a ten-year bout of debilitating chronic depression, and said hello to a fulfilling life guiding others on their journeys to wholeness.

I discovered my purpose gradually by committing myself to unwavering self-awareness grounded in cherishing myself unconditionally. The journey that began with transforming my own life shifted naturally into meaningful work as a life coach and Reiki master, through which I help others discover that health, peace, and joy are possible for them as well. If it’s possible for me, it’s possible for anyone. If any of us is worthy of such a life, we all are.

I close this chapter of my story where I began: mine is a story of hope; yours can be too. Fall in love with yourself and live the life you dream of. You are worth the effort.

 

When you fall in love with yourself,

everything else finally falls into place,

with beauty, power, and grace.

When you release the illusion of fear

and embrace the truth of love,

you will know in each moment

who you are and Whose you are.

That, my dear friends,

is more than enough.     

It is everything.

―Deborah Jane Wells

 

© Copyright 2013 DJW Life Coach LLC. All rights reserved.

About the Author

What’s love got to do with minimizing stress and getting unstuck? Everything, according to empowerment coach and inspirational speaker Deborah Jane Wells, author of Choose Your Energy: Change Your Life! During her 30 years as an organization transformation consultant, Deborah served as a senior partner in four of the world’s largest, most prestigious global professional services firms. In 2005, she took a five-year sabbatical to find healing and peace because non-stop work had taken its toll. Her recovery from burnout, including a sustained 80-pound weight loss and freedom from 10 years of debilitating depression, led to finding her purpose guiding others on their journeys. Through healing and self-exploration, she discovered that loving yourself unconditionally is the key to transforming your personal life, your work, and the world. Deborah’s books, blog, radio show, and signature coaching programs help individuals and organizations harness the transformative power of love to step into their greatness. Learn more at Deborah Jane Wells website.

Time to Start Playing the Game by Your Own Rules With Deborah Jane Wells

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Time to Start Playing the Game by Your Own Rules With Deborah Jane Wells

powerful woman

While working on the launch of the Geek Squad brand for Best Buy, Tracy Dyer noticed the women in focus groups she led were always asking why there were no effective and stylish laptop bags for women. Tracy took this unmet need to different vendors, but no one listened. So great was her commitment to this opportunity, she ventured out on her own to design fashionable, functional, fun laptop bags just for women. Her father Dr. Wayne W. Dyer and his teachings played a big part in deciding to leave the corporate world and start Urban Junket. While watching him speak to a few thousand people, he looked right at her and said, ‘Tracy, don’t die with your music still inside you!’ She knew in that moment she could no longer play the game by somebody else’s rules–it was time to create her own game. Three months later, Urban Junket was born. Join us for a big dose of inspiration to start pursuing your own long-deferred dreams. Learn more about Tracy’s work in the world at Urban Junket.

Tune in Every Wednesday at 10 AM Pacific Time on VoiceAmerica Empowerment Channel for “Choose Your Energy: Change Your Life!” Listen for her new episode this Week “Time to Start Playing the Game by Your Own Rules”

On Choose Your Energy, Change Your Life, Deborah Jane Wells and her guests help you become more insightful, creative, committed, and productive through clear strategies and practical tools. Deborah helps individuals and organizations learn to harness the transformative power of love to step into their greatness. When we choose fear as our fuel, any of us—individuals and organizations alike—can become stuck in the hamster wheel approach to life. Trapped by the mistaken belief that busyness is the same as purpose, we can’t stand the way we’re living but feel powerless to change. As they work together, Deborah’s clients discover that when you fall in love with yourself, everything else falls into place, personally and professionally. You get unstuck, reclaim your personal power and recapture your zest for living. When love transforms your relationship with yourself, it transforms your personal life, your work and the world. What’s love got to do with it? Everything!

 

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