My new website is live. WOOOHOOOO

Hello friends

I am beyond delighted to announce that I have moved to a new online space….

Come & visit my gorgeous new website

 www.caitlyndebeer.com

Can’t wait to touch base & inspire you to create a life & career you love!!

J

Time is free...yet priceless!!

I have just got home from a three week trip in Europe {and yes it was amazing thank you}!! One of these weeks was spent following the Tour de France in a camper van {motorhome} with 6 of my family members. 

Did I fear whether we’d all still speak to each other after this rather cozy adventure? Well of course I did. But that was when I thought we were in for 7 days in the sun. Which was not the case. No instead we had rain. A lot of it. Everyday. But thank God {quite literally  that I have the family that I do – with minds set on adventure, we took the rain in our stride, bought raincoats, umbrellas and poncho’s and waddled our way through an epic week.

Now bare with me, as while this isn’t the focus on my Blog post, it is the source from where’s I gained my inspiration for this post. You see, life is fairly simple when it’s just YOU, doing what YOU love doing, spinning on your little hamster wheel. When life gets interesting is when you put a number of hamster wheels into a confined space {did I hear you say hello family} – you got it!!

This was our first family holiday in a few of years…and definitely our first long family holiday as grown adults.

Now as kids, you pretty much do what your parenst tell you to do. But as adult children, we tend to have developed our own ways of doing things – basically, our ‘go to’s’.

One of the beautiful things I learnt on this trip – was the gift of time. And how perfectly ok it is, that each of us see time so differently. Personally, I tend to wake with the birds – to embrace the day and to never let a minute pass by without having done something constructive with it. Now while this has served me in many ways, it is also quite exhausting. I always blamed my “I can’t sit still lifestyle” on my upbringing, but then there I found myself this past week, sitting working on my mac or reading my kindle that was glued to the table under my throbbing thumbs {a camper is quite a vehicle to maneuver and lets just say things didn’t stay where you put them}, while the remainder of my family did things that they considered ‘maximizing their time”.  

There is little that’s more exhausting, than trying to live your life pleasing others. And let’s face it – they’re not usually pleased anyway.

Knowing how best to structure your day {your time} is awfully freeing – as it not only gives you permission to be YOU…but it always gives me {or others} permission to be me {them}!!! Win win!!!

Time is indeed free, but priceless too and that means it deserves your best!!!

If this all sounds great but unfortunately you’re in a rut right now that screams anything but “I’m making the most of my day”, then let’s connect & see what we can do to shift things up a bit. 

THIS IS YOUR LIFE. ONE LIFE TO LIVE. MAKE IT COUNT!

Your needs matter...so stop weed-cutting!

We all have them, we sometimes deny them, but ultimately they are there. In a world where self-help books are the new go-to’s and immediate gratification takes priority over most things; one would think that my needs would matter. You know, that I’d be aware of them. But the truth is that needs are the deeply hidden parts of the ice-berg, and what you actually see aren’t my needs – what you see is my behaviour.

I’m sure you’ve heard it before, ‘the ice-berg theory’, but if not, let me give you a quick overview. The Ice-berg is YOU J and what we, as humans, see in others is only the tip of the iceberg (the 10% above the water) and that happens to be our behavior or actions. Based on this minuscular view of YOU, that I am given, I make assumptions, as do you about me. Now because the world get to see and judge this 10%, it makes perfect sense as to why we all feel the need to ensure it’s giving the right impression. The problem is, that your behavior is dependent on the 90% of YOU that lies under the water, the part that no-one sees. As long we focus on changing and addressing the external part of ourselves and not the root of this behavior, we set ourselves up for failure.

If all you’re seeing is 10% of whom I am, then where is the rest of me?? And wouldn’t it make sense to invest more time on that part??

{Huge sigh of relief} - I am SO glad that you asked!! 

Of course it would!!! All behavior is merely an expression of what’s going on under the surface. So what is down there??

The psychological model states that it’s a combination of values, needs, thoughts, emotions and beliefs. Most of us address only our behavior (bad habit) and try to change it, which put simply is like ‘cutting a weed on ground level’. And we all know what happens then…it remains hidden just long enough for us to believe it’s been dealt with, until one day it reappears in full bloom. The only way to get rid of weeds is to pull them out from the root up. And it’s the same with addressing our behavior and bad habits - go down to the roots and do the work there, as THAT is where it all begins.

Recently I have found that I am constantly self-coaching myself in this regard. I see a behaviour, pattern or bad habit I don’t like, and instead of merely stopping it, and feeding myself with negative self talk (knowing it will just reappear in a few days time); I, instead, dig a little deeper. It’s never an easy thing to go through but if I can find the root, then I know that I am saving myself years of ineffective weed-cutting. I recently attended a training day where I was given access to a new coaching tool, which has taught me how to dig that much deeper. How to get access to my ‘why’ (the reason behind my behaviour) and to then address the need for what is it, rather than the behavior I am seeing.

Weed-cutting or trying to break a bad habit, behavior or thought pattern without knowing from where’s it comes, may feel like you doing something about it, but ultimately you are just setting yourself up for more work later on.

Get to those roots my friends…digging deep pays off J 

Here’s to LOVING the life you live & the YOU that lives that life!!

Why I am over taking things personally....and YOU should be too!!

You know that feeling, when you literally sigh with relief after finding out that others also do/think/feel that ‘strange’ thing you do/think/feel.  Kinda like, when I quite-literally sighed with relief after getting my hands on “The five love languages” book – at last it all made sense. Him. Me. Our language. I got it!!

Well along these lines, this past month of May, has been one long sigh of relief for me…and it all centered around ‘my needs’. Yes, my needs. I said it aloud – is that even allowed??

You see for years I, along with most of the world (I feel), have had feelings that simply don’t go away. Certain actions done by others, or situations or a bunch of ugly circumstances often cause me to go into what I call, “My safe space – that’s really not safe at all”. To deal with ‘uncomfortable’, we rely on emotions (which turn into actions) that come naturally to us, and those then dictate how our day, week, or even month will turn out. So someone upsets you, you get sad – and you often take it one step further, and make it personal. Or something you organized doesn’t go as planned and you turn it back on yourself and reinforce all the negative things you believe about yourself already. Or worse still, a problem presents itself that doesn’t appear to have a solution, and so you get frustrated. And it doesn’t go away. And then, you turn that frustration inwards.

This month, for me, was all about networking. I can officially say that I haven’t passed-by one opportunity to meet with mentors in my industry, brainstorm with other creatives & business owners, attend training days and even small conferences. This month, I got out there. And if there is one thing (that for some or other reason) kept creeping into every meeting I had, it was this idea of “needs”.

We all have them. Different but similar. The problem is that, for the most part, we don’t acknowledge our needs and instead we turn to emotions that come naturally to us, and we turn every situation inwards. {I.e: I want to feel valued, but someone did something that made me feel under-valued, I thus turn to angry. I am now angry. Value has nothing to do with this. I AM ANGRY}

But truth be told, it’s not all about you….well, not in the way you think. 

We are all born with a certain set of basic needs. Then, through a mixture of upbringing, personality and choices, we start to form agreements with certain thoughts or ideas, and those become the truths we live by. The thing is, those are your truths, and may not be mine. As soon as we start to see a person’s behavior, speech and ideas in isolation (i.e: according to their belief system they think this is right/wrong), we free ourselves from taking things personally. To take something personally is to admit that we all have the same belief system, agreements/thoughts – which is impossible. I say and do things that protect my needs, you say and do things that protect yours. OURS are different. To take something personally is to submit to someone else’s agreements (what they feel is right/wrong), and yet for the most part – you don’t.

It is an art to start to see people’s behaviour and words from where’s they came, and to not take them on as our own. By reflecting on why a certain person may have felt the need to behavior or act in such a way, you are able to free yourself up from self-judgment and make it ‘their issue and not yours’. I am not saying that everything everyone says should be said, but that’s their journey (their set of truths they live by) and it’s their responsibility to deal or challenge those beliefs; it’s not for you to take on.

My little month of ‘needs’ didn’t stop at “not taking things personally”, it went further, deeper. I was given access to a coaching tool that digs into the reason behind your frustration, anger, disappointment, PROBLEM and I have seen incredible results through using this tool with clients and on myself…but that is for next week 

J

May you be empowered today, to see each set of actions or words spoken by both yourself and others, as mere expressions of their/your personal agreements (thoughts) and thus not for anyone else to take personally. It is freeing, and I am working on it, alongside you.