Before I had two kids in two years, I thought I had my time pretty well dialed in. Before they arrived, I would have thought, "Sure, take back your time, yup, it's great, been there, done that." After the kids came, I saw how far I had left to go. The truth is that before I became a parent, I was pushing and forcing and overworking a lot. I used to have up to 75 calls a month on my calendar! Now, in a sense, this was a privileged problem to have, being self-employed and making six figures doing work...
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Pretty much every coaching client I've ever worked with brings up the "lazy" judgment. They'll make comments such as, "I was so lazy, I just did nothing all day." Or, "What's wrong with me today, why am I so lazy? Why can't I just get things done?!" Sometimes they'll even ask me to make the judgment for them: "Caroline, am I lazy? What do YOU think?" Personally, I subscribe to the Devon Price theory of laziness, which is simple and counter-cultural: laziness does not exist. At least, not in the sense that we think it does. We talk about laziness...
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The very first challenge in my book, You Don't Owe Anyone, is to do nothing for 15 minutes. To stop all effort and simply be still, regardless of what your busy mind tells you that you "must" do instead. It's hard, yes, but it's also the cure for much of what ails us. Doing nothing is a powerful antidote for the perfectionist poison we've been swallowing since childhood. (Plus, as Dr. Martha Beck has taught me, doing nothing is a profound act of resistance in a culture that expects us to live as machines, not human animals.) So nowadays when...
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Can I get real with you right now? I did something crazy the day I had my first child. After the epic labor and birth of our baby - which I have compared to being in a street fight with my own body - I sustained a major injury and needed immediate surgery. Afterward, the nurse offered me a Motrin. The anesthetic was going to wear off, and it wasn't going to feel good. Without hesitating, I said, "No thanks!" Talk about limiting beliefs examples! On one level I knew that I was doing something foolish, yet on another level, refusing...
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Imagine that you're alone in your big, beautiful house. But before you go to bed, you hear a noise that sends fear up your spine. You check the downstairs side door, and the lock is broken. As you realize this, someone clears their throat behind you. A group of people is already inside your house. It's pure terror; you're braced for a fight. But then, it gets weird. The intruders don't want to beat you. They just need your house for the party. What is covert abuse? This is covert abuse in action. It's not overt hostility; it's much less...
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Can I tell you a story about a brilliant thing my two year old once did, if I promise to keep it short and make it relevant to reparenting yourself? OK great! Here we go. One day when I came upstairs for bedtime, our two year old joyfully called out, "Mommy!" I called out her name, and we smiled at each other from across the room. But instead of racing into my arms as usual, she looked at me and said, emphatically, "You can't do anything to me!" "What? What do you mean?" I said. But rather than trying to...
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When I read your emails, I have full-body responses: I cheer, I shout, I wave my hands. Always, I feel fortunate that you trust me with your truths. This week, a reader email featured big traumas and losses. The writer struggled with feeling that everyone was mad at her. But it was the last line that made me gasp: "I will be free someday, not on this earth but hopefully in heaven." Those words were like a punch to the solar plexus, a hard-hitting example of emotional bypassing. When I caught my breath, I spoke out loud: "Oh, hell no." But...
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On new year's eve I took our two and a half year old to the park. She needed to run off some energy while the baby stayed home with dad. So there we were, me and my toddler, climbing the jungle gym as night fell. The park where we played was across the street from an event space, where people in fancy clothes were arriving for a new year's eve party. As I looked out at the merriment, I felt soul weary. For a moment I wanted a different life. Even after the years I spent yearning for a child...
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Have you ever been enchanted with a story in which the heroine either doesn't know, or doesn't remember, her true identity? (Yes, I get that this is not the typical lead-in to a post on embracing imperfection. It's probably pretty weird. But go with me for a minute here.) When I was younger I was fascinated by the animated movie Anastasia. In the (fictional) narrative, Anastasia is a princess who has had amnesia for years. When the movie starts, she's impoverished and alone, with no idea that she's royalty. If you love Harry Potter or The Lion King or even...
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I started living a double life early on. Starting in elementary school, I needed to be one person at school, and another person at home and at church. The demands of the doomsday cult known as the Worldwide Church of God and the demands of public school were very different, but as a confirmed good girl I did my best in both worlds. But I still remember the day that those worlds collided...the same day I realized that living someone else's life might get me into trouble. Me and my younger brother on the swings, in our church service...
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