When COVID hit. I was home with five kids, including a college freshman doing Zoom school from the living room. It was a LOT.
I knew I needed to do something different. I couldn’t change any of those circumstances. The only thing I could change was what I thought about them.
I looked for a therapist, but I felt embarrassed to see one. Many of them I knew, or I referred to. What if someone found out I didn’t really have it all together?
So I found a life coach online. In our second session, she taught me the Model—the idea that your circumstances don’t create your results. What you think about your circumstances does.
When I’m not coaching, you’ll find me somewhere between my car, a Gulf Coast beach, my yoga mat, a fishing pier, my car (again), and the chaos of a house with lots of kids and way too many pets.
I love going to the Gulf Islands National Seashore with my family — there’s nothing better than a sugar sand beach with lifeguards in the summer (yes, I’m still a Type A mom at the beach, so having lifeguards around lets me let my guard down a little.)
We fish, we swim, and I try to be a person who can just go with the flow even when someone spills another drink all over the sandy floor of the car.
I am, at my core, a Type A Overachiever who has learned to make peace with imperfection — most of the time. In an ideal world, I clean as I go when I cook. I put things where they belong, even when others don’t. I have strong opinions about how the dishwasher is loaded (hint - one of us is an architect, the other is a squirrel on meth).
But spoiler alert - there is no ideal world. There are always other people in my home, and because God has a sense of humor, most of them did not inherit my tidy gene. So now when my youngest makes epic messes in the art room while I’m working, and teaches herself how to make crepes in the microwave when I’m not looking – I have learned to decide that it’s a win.
I practice what I preach, mostly.
The rest of the time, I coach myself through it.
If any of this sounds like your life, you’re in the right place.
The course is waiting for you. You can feel better today.
Yes, Please!