Tag: dbt

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Take control of your self worth; 7 day challenge to redefine and boost your self worth

We spend so much of our time and lives seeking validation from outside sources. When validation is the most powerful coming from within. It allows us to step into our own power and build our feelings of self worth, self love, and confidence. Self worth and how we feel about ourselves will affect every area of our lives from how we show up for others, how we manifest, and the power of our magic. The importance of looking inward for approval and validation can’t be overstated when it comes to building an intentional life that is meaningful and fulfilling to you. So stop outsourcing your happiness and give this responsibility to the only person who is truly equipped for the job. YOU! Take control of your feelings of worthiness, love and confidence back into your own hands by using this 7 day challenge.

Before we get into the different ways to work on your self-worth, I want to share that I am not a therapist, but I am sharing the work I have personally done when going through cognitive behavioral therapy and Dialectical behavior therapy. These are the tools I’ve used that have helped me work on my own self-worth. Something I have struggled with quite a lot over the years and still sometimes do. Because, I am intimately aware, that many of us are broken people with broken parents from broken homes in a broken world. Trying to make something beautiful and move from a place of just surviving to thriving and being whole. We’re thrust into life without many of the tools for living, and it’s not that those tools don’t exist, but we just don’t have the time, energy, or means always to get access to them. Allow this 7 day challenge to help you bridge the gap and do just that.

What is self worth?

Self-worth is the belief that you are loveable and valuable regardless of how you evaluate your traits. Self-worth is often confused with self-esteem, which relies on external factors such as successes and achievements to define worth and can often be inconsistent leading to someone struggling with feeling worthy. When you think about it, your self-esteem could hit rock bottom, yet you still hold onto the notion that you have innate worth. Self-worth is at the core of our very selves—our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors are intimately tied into how we view our worthiness and value as human beings. Self- worth really is a gauge of how much you value, love, and respect yourself.

People with healthy self-worth tend to have greater self-confidence, self-esteem, and self-love. People with high self-worth carry with them a sense of confidence that they will be all right and manage whatever comes their way. They have the ability to live with purpose, intention, and it is much easier to manage their logic and emotions to stay in wise mind. While they are aware of areas in which they can improve, they don’t let their shortcomings or weaknesses define their identity. They are not afraid to pursue opportunities and have reasonable faith in their ability to deliver while pursing their wildest dreams.

What is Self-Validation?

Self-validation involves acknowledging and accepting your strengths, achievements, positive attributes, and emotions. It also involves knowing that having imperfections and making mistakes does not take away from your worth or value. We cant rely on others to make us feel good. When we do, we allow others to dictate our worth. And we don’t trust our own thoughts, feelings, and judgments; we assume others know more than we do and their opinions matter more. Instead, we need to learn how to validate ourselves. Self-validation is a distinctive DBT skill that focuses on accepting the emotions you are experiencing. If you have trouble regulating your emotions, then you probably have a hard time accepting them in the first place as well. Learning to self-validate your emotions will help you cope with the overwhelming emotions we may have, while also allowing you to build up self worth.

Steps for validating yourself

  • Notice how you feel and what you need.
  • Accept your feelings and needs without judgment.
  • Don’t over-identify with your feelings. We want to accept our feelings and also remember that they don’t define us. Notice the subtle, but important, difference when you say I feel angry vs. I am angry or I feel jealous vs. I am jealous. Our feelings are temporary they come and go.
  • Remember, practice is an important part of learning self-validation!

Make sure your self validation looks like:

  • Encouraging yourself
  • Acknowledging your strengths, successes, progress, and effort
  • Noticing and accepting your feelings
  • Prioritizing your needs
  • Treating yourself with kindness
  • Saying nice things to yourself
  • Accepting your limitations, flaws, and mistakes

7 day challenge to redefine and boost your self worth

There are things you can do to boost your sense of self-worth and ensure that you value yourself like you ought to be valued; as a full, complete, and wonderful human being that is deserving of love and respect, no matter what. Take control of your feelings of worthiness, love and confidence back into your own hands by using this 7 day challenge to help assess, redefine, and boost your self worth.

1.Become aware
The very best thing you can do for yourself is to learn how to become more aware of your thoughts and how they affect your feelings. Our thoughts are incredibly powerful and how we decide to see an event or situation becomes our reality. This is the first step in learning how to validate yourself. You want to start the process of recognizing your thoughts, so you can stop the negativity and reframe how you see a situation, person, or event. Reframing or looking at something differently is what you are doing when you validate yourself. You are asking yourself to stop mentally beating yourself up and start appreciating the things you do well. You are recognizing the ways you are growing as a person and giving yourself the kindness you deserve.

How you can do this today, is by taking a sheet of paper and at the very top writing ” Times I invalidated myself today”. Now, throughout the day keep this paper always by your side and make a tally for each time you invalidate yourself whether out loud or in your mind. If you notice a certain thought pattern, emotion, or phrase coming up repeatedly take note of what it is on the page. Than at the end of the day sit with this page and look at how many times you tore yourself down when you could have built yourself up instead. Give yourself the warmest and most compassionate hug apologizing for forcing your mind to be fixated in place of judgement, pain, and despair. Let yourself know you understand why they may have lashed out or reacted in pain during the day. Than make yourself a promise that you will be more aware of what you think, believe and say to yourself each and every day. Starting by showing up for day two of this challenge tomorrow.

2. Accept that you need acceptance
The next step to building up our self worth through validation, is radically accepting that no matter how much we think we don’t care, we all need to feel accepted and loved. I don’t care who you are, where you are from, or how resilient you think you are. Being accepted and feeling like you belong is incredibly powerful and something we all long for. Essentially, it’s part of our DNA being something we are searching for from the moment of our births. We have to be accepted in order to survive. we need to be accepted and cared for by the people around us. At the same time, we must recognize we won’t always get that acceptance in the way we need it or the way we want it. Which means it’s on each of us to love and accept ourselves. To be the ones that can truly fulfill that need no matter where we end up or how alone we are. In order to start the process of validating yourself, you have to start the process of loving and accepting yourself wholly without judgement. That means all parts of yourself, including your thoughts, emotions, actions, opinions, and values.

How you can do this today, is by spending some time doing some brain dumping and journaling focusing on your strengths and weaknesses. This allows you to spend some time with really getting to look at each part of yourself. When you do this you are able to than validate each part of yourself by reframing your thinking and looking at it from another perspective. Seeing how those things you view as weaknesses have actually been hidden gems of resilience and pieces that make us who we are. So, those things that you have listed in the weaknesses column will be moved to the strength column with acceptance, validation, and love.

3. Do the inner work to assess how you currently view your worth

One of the most crucial steps to working on your self worth, is doing the hard and intentional work of assessing how you actually value yourself right now and what you view is your self worth. Depending on where you are at on your journey of healing, self discovery, and inner work this may be a really uncomfortable day for you. This is when you sit down alone, in a quiet, calm and sacred container where you can go deep within your heart. To really ask yourself how much do you value yourself, what is your worth, and why is it at the place it is at?

How you can do this today, is by doing some shadow work. Self discovery is the ultimate goal of shadow work and shadow work prompts are an ideal way to get to the root of your shadow. You can choose different parts of yourself and your shadow to work with each time you delve into the darkness of your soul with shadow work. So, take some time today to use the prompts below to really assess how you truly value yourself. Doing so will allow you to know how much reframing around your self worth may need to happen and provide you with a path to take to boost it to be as high as it can be.

If you would like guided 1:1 help with this you can book me for private shadow sessions in the shop!

4. Don’t Listen to all of your thoughts
The next step to building up our self worth through validation, is understanding that you don’t need to listen to every single one of your thoughts. A common expression I heard throughout DBT that stuck with me was, “Just because you have a thought, it doesn’t make it true.” We have 30,000 to 50,000 thoughts a day and research has shown that about 80% of our thoughts are either regrets from the past or fears about the future. Making a huge chunk of our thoughts based not in facts but simply assumptions and emotions. Which means our thoughts aren’t always completely reliable or truthful.

When you validate yourself, you’re asking yourself, “What else can be true?” The act of validation is about looking at a situation and thinking, “OK, this didn’t go as planned. I made a mistake and now I have to decide how I’m going to think about this situation to radically accept and move on.” In that moment, you can beat yourself up and break yourself down or you can challenge your thoughts and decide to ask yourself, “What else can be true?” “What else can I see or learn?” ” What am I responding to emotions, assumptions, or facts?”

How you can do this today is, by taking the time to mindfully sit with a situation you’ve recently reacted to in a way of anger, pain, or hurt. Look back on the situation and think about it from a perspective you may have missed in those moments by checking the facts. Doing this allows you to identify what was emotion and what was fact you were reacting you to. Giving you the ability to validate your reactions while also looking for the places where you can change how you reacted.

5. Speak words of validation to yourself out loud

When was the last time you validated yourself? I am referring to positively recognizing your thoughts, emotions or actions. When was the last time you took a moment to stop the negative chatter in your mind? Stop waiting to hear the positive words, praise or encouragement you’re craving. Tell it to yourself because you’re the only person you have complete control over.

How you can do this today, is by literally revamping your self talk and speaking words of validation out loud to yourself. You can do this anywhere you would like and whenever you would like. I find it the most helpful for myself to speak words of validation out loud to myself in the morning when I wake, when I go to bed, and than anytime throughout the day when I catch myself speaking to myself in an unkind way. I’ll even do it before a big conversation, event, or social outing.

6. Stop people pleasing and set boundaries

We are so conditioned to believe that our value is tied up in what we give instead of who we are. Many of us like myself are taught, self-worth is all about whether or not you are making someone else happy, by doing them a service or giving them things they want. This is what determines whether you’re good enough, you matter, and deserve to be loved. But, after living most of my life as a chronic people pleaser, turning that need into anxiety so extreme it became OCD. I have learned that finding your value in other people will always leave you feeling less than what your true worth is really meant to be.

How you can do this today, is by setting boundaries for yourself or saying no to something today. It’s okay to say no, to set boundaries, it doesn’t make you a selfish or bad person. You’re allowed to give what you receive. You’re allowed to form relationships where it’s give-give instead of give-take. You are allowed to say no. You are allowed to say “I can’t right now.” and most shocking of all; you are allowed to form the opinion that some people do not deserve your help

You do not have to give and give until there’s nothing left. Seek the people who fill you up, who reciprocate what you give, and who respect the boundaries that you make. Take all of that endless love and compassion and time and money that you are always giving other people, and turn a little bit toward yourself. See how good that feels. Don’t chase that feeling of worthiness from other people when you are so capable of filling yourself up and finding others who will appreciate you and respect your boundaries.

7.Determine your definition of self worth

Self-worth is a subjective concept that can fluctuate based on many variables, says Sabrina Romanoff, PsyD, a clinical psychologist and professor at Yeshiva University. Which means it’s important for us to determine how we ourselves define our own self worth. According to Dr. Romanoff, these are some of the factors that may influence self-worth:

Core beliefs and values
Thoughts and feelings
Emotions and mental well-being
Experiences and interactions with others
Relationships, both past and present
Health and physical fitness
Career and profession
Activities and hobbies
Community and social status
Financial position
Physical appearance
Childhood experiences

How you can do this today, is by taking the time to sit and mindfully reflect and honestly answer what factors are you using to determine your self worth? Then take the next step to release and let go of things that you are misplacing your value in like what others think of you, the amount of money you have, or your physical appearance.

Wrap Up

It’s important to have self-worth because it impacts everything you do from your relationships, to how you work, how you feel about yourself, and how others view you. Remember, self-worth, is based on your strengths, flaws, and who you truly are at your core when accomplishments, possessions, and acquisitions are stripped away. While it’s fantastic to be proud of your accomplishments and good to be aware of how others perceive you, a sense of self-worth is a vital part of a healthy and thriving existence. Your inherent value as a person does not stem from your accomplishments or what others think of you Ultimately remember You are the only one who determines your self-worth. If you believe you are worthy and valuable, you are worthy and valuable. Even if you don’t believe you are worthy and valuable, guess what—you still are worthy and valuable!

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I am not my mental illnesses, they don’t define who I am AND because, I live with them they do shape my reality

May is mental health awareness month. For many this points a spotlight on mental health and mental illnesses when they may not always think about it and they seek to learn more. While for others it may be a month to focus on improving mental health, healing, and using skills to create a life worth living while living with mental illnesses. Even yet, this month could be the push someone needed to seek help, treatment, or to go and get a diagnosis for the first time.

For myself it becomes a month focused on reflecting on how balanced I currently am, to check in with how well I am using mental health skills and techniques to maintain a healthy mental state, and to really look at my own personal relationship with my mental health and mental illnesses. While reflecting and really looking at my mental health and my relationship currently with mental illnesses this month was a little different for me than in past years because, I wanted to write about it. I have written and rewritten this post so many times this month because during my reflection process my answer would change. I would write an open letter about the illnesses I live with ( OCD, PTSD, Bipolar, BPD, and a few more) and it just wouldn’t feel whole. I would pick my favorite DBT skills to talk about this month and it wouldn’t feel like enough for bringing awareness.

So, I kept waiting, reflecting and rewriting and after a interpersonal conflict which put me in a really unbalanced and depressed state of mind. Where some things were said that were hurtful had pushed me to think about myself, my reactions, and if my view on reality were causing imbalance and unhappiness in my life. Which lead me to really think about the topic I landed on for this blogpost. The fact that I am not my mental illnesses, they don’t define who I am AND because I live with them they do shape my reality and how I experience the world.

I often forget that my mental illnesses don’t define me. I work so hard to try to raise awareness of these illnesses and how they affect your brain chemistry and makeup. I focus so much on wanting people to understand that these illnesses are not just in your head, they are real and they affect your brain chemistry and makeup. That at times I feel I almost let them become my whole identity unintentionally.

I also forget this when I start to struggle. I start to sink into the unwanted parts of my mental illnesses and I begin to believe that’s who I am and all the negative stigmas that are attached to them. When I feel overwhelmed by my symptoms, I try to remind myself that my illnesses are not me. I have to remind myself that my mental illnesses don’t disqualify me from being a mother, and that they can’t stop me from doing anything. I than remind others of the same thing once I am back to believing it, because sadly not everyone in my life agrees with this. Some believe that just having a mental illness means I shouldn’t even be mother.

While all the above is true and I work really hard to do my best to remember that and to remind others. The other half of this is recognizing that although they do not define me and who I am, my mental illnesses do shape my reality, how I experience the world, and how I interact with others. Some of the mental illnesses I have can never be “cured” and some I can’t be medicated for either. Though I can develop a healthy lifestyle based on therapeutic skills to help live a much more happy, balanced and stable life with them. They will always be apart of my life and my reality.

So, what does that mean and why does it matter? For myself I live with bipolar disorder and BPD which can cause some ping ponging on my feelings, thoughts, reactions, and even at times my beliefs. On top of that you through the extreme anxiety that comes with OCD and triggers from PTSD. This undoubtedly means my perception of reality will be affected by these things in ways others may not have to experience. On top of that it will affect how I interact with others and even with myself. This means I can’t allow myself to believe so deeply that I am not defined by my mental illnesses that I completely forget how they affect my perception and my place in this world. That I unintentionally put myself into denial of their existence and allow myself to not maintain healthy mental health and let my mental illnesses affect myself and my life in unwanted ways. This also means that when I interact with others I have to remember they may not be experiencing reality from my perception. And I ask others to do the same with me.

Whether you chose to read this because you live your life with mental illnesses or you have those in your life you love who do or simply to gain some insight and awareness. The main things I really want you to take from are the following. Living with a mental illness doesn’t define you. It doesn’t dictate who you are, who you can become or what you can accomplish. It may look a little different or you have to go a different path to get there but, they don’t dictate that at all. They don’t disqualify you from any part of a happy, thriving life you dream of. All you have to do is find the skills THAT HELP YOU achieve that. AND; still remember that you do live with them. They will affect your day to day life, how you view reality through perception and how you interact with and perceive others. Don’t allow yourself to forget that and neglect your mental health hygiene and skills and lead to unwanted effects resonating throughout the areas of your life.

Mental Health Awareness Resources
Please note that all of these resources are available at any time of day or night and are all free of charge. If you are struggling or know someone who is, please do not hesitate to reach out. These hotlines are there for the very specific purpose of helping you.

If you are having thoughts of suicide, please call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline, at 1-800-273-TALK (8255). You will be connected to a trained crisis counselor who will treat you with respect and listen to you. They can help you identify options in your area.
If texting seems more your speed, you can text NAMI to741-741. This will connect you to a trained crisis counselor. They are available 24/7.
The National Domestic Violence Hotline is also available 24/7. You can reach them at 800-799-SAFE (7233). Victims of domestic violence often suffer from depression and anxiety.
Victims of sexual assault often struggle with fear, depression, anger, and anxiety. You can reach the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 800-656-HOPE (4673).

Favorite Sites For Mental Health Awareness
There are many great websites that focus on mental health awareness. The following are highly recommended.

National Alliance on Mental Health (NAMI)
Harvard Medical School – Has great pages focused on mental health issues
Mental Health America
National Institute of Mental Health
Active Minds – specializes in teens and young adults
Project Semicolon – dedicated to suicide prevention

If you or a loved one are struggling with any type of mental health concern, please reach out to a professional who can offer support, advice, and direction. You are not alone. Millions of other people are facing similar struggles. And millions have faced them and come through the other side wiser, stronger, and healthier. Take the time and effort this May to educated yourself and become more aware of the mental health issues in your range of influence and experience. You never know how or where you can make a difference.

The last thing I will leave you with are some mental health statistics to remind how relevant this is to each one of us!

The following statistics were found at the National Alliance on Mental Health website.

  • 1 in five American adults will experience a mental illness
  • Nearly 1 in 25 Americans live with a serious mental illness
  • 18% of American adults live with an anxiety disorder
  • Almost 7% of American adults live with major depression
  • Depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide.
  • Depression costs the U.S. $193 billion in lost earnings every year.
  • Suicide rates in the U.S. have risen 25% in the last 20 years
  • 20% of American youth (ages 13-18) have a mental health condition
  • Suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death in American youth ages 10-24. It is the 10th leading cause of death for Americans overall.
  • The average delay between onset of mental health symptoms and treatment is 10 years
  • Almost 60% of American adults with a mental illness did not receive treatment in the last year.
  • Minorities are much less likely to receive treatment for mental illness
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My Son’s Birthday Isn’t Just Joy; It’s A Trauma Trigger

“The day I gave birth to my child was the happiest day of my life, I’ll never forget it.” This is a common thing I hear and read from other parents when it comes to their child’s birthday. Everytime I read or hear it, a few things happen; I get overwhelmed with guilt, my PTSD gets triggered, I get sad and many other things happen. May seem odd right? Of course, I feel happiness, joy, pride and all things that come with my child getting older but, I also get hit with a lot of unwanted things as well. Even as I write this now, I’m triggered and writing this post as a way to cope, since my son’s birthday is less than 48 hours away. So, why would I be feeling anything but, happiness, joy, excitement etc when it comes to my son’s birthday? For me, my birthing experience clouds my son’s entrance into this world with pain, trauma, and almost death, and that energy carries forward to affect what’s supposed to be a joyous day.

Let’s talk about how that can be, and ways I cope with it to allow as much joy, happiness and excitement in so I can be as mindful and present as I can be for such a special day.

Not, everyone’s birthing experience is the same

If you had a fairly easy and/or average birthing experience I am overjoyed for you and I can understand how this would make very little sense to you. But, we do not all experience pregnancy the same nor do we have the same birthing experiences. For some of us our birthing experiences become a very dark cloud full of unwanted energy, memories, and triggers.

My birthing experience was beyond painful, traumatic, involved over 42 hours of labor, metal rods placed in my cervix, my epidural being given late, and I almost died. As you can imagine, having all of that happen doesn’t make giving birth a memory my brain likes to go to often. Being reminded of my birthing story makes me relive it, causes PTSD, and a spiral of unwanted emotions that follow. I don’t think of my birthing story often but, what is going to trigger the memories of my birthing story the most? The day it happened; which also happens to be the day I am celebrating my child entering the world.

The day becomes a tug of war

I end up in this tug of war between emotions, triggers, and flashbacks. I deeply want to be mindful and present to soak up the joy, laughter and excitement of my son growing and celebrating. And yet, I get tugged and pulled to the other side. Where I am reminded of what almost dying feels like, of losing my entire family, the pain I experienced, the mental health crisis it caused my husband to go through having to watch, and the guilt I feel for the joy not outshining all of the trauma, and pain. I have moments where I simply break down and cry, where looking at my son can cause me to shake, and the shame/guilt spiral can get out of control.

So, how do I cope, center, and enjoy the day

In other PTSD-related situations, it’s advised to avoid triggers, but your own child’s birthday isn’t really avoidable and you don’t really want it to be. I dig into my tool kit of coping skills and pull out and use any and/or all of them that I need to be mindful and present.

Distraction– Sometimes your best option is to simply distract yourself and try to redirect your energy, thought, and emotions. This isn’t always my favorite option though because, it’s more of a bandaid and it does not allow you to be completely present in the joy and excitement of the day.

Use distress tolerance skills– A few distress tolerance skills are really helpful to recenter and get yourself back to wisemind especially if flashbacks are an issue. So,use the STOP skill to literally stop and take a moment. Or chose the TIPS skill to redirect your body and rewire your current thought pattern.

Acknowledge- Take the time to name it. Name what it is you are exactly feeling and/or experiencing and why. Giving a name to it give it power, and you need to know what you are feeling or dealing with in order to cope effectively.

Create a cope ahead plan– I have a cope ahead plan for this day every year. I have it written out so, I know exactly what I am going to do if I get triggered or no longer am present in the joy of the day. To learn how to create a cope ahead plan you read about it in a previous blog post here; https://modgepodgemystic.com/how-to-regain-control-of-your-life-in-one-day-after-being-overwhelmed/

Let go of judgement– Stop judging yourself and your emotions for feeling anything other than joy. All emotions are valid and serve a purpose you just have to keep them at a justifiable level. So, let go of judgement if you get triggered, need to step away for a moment, or for simply feeling what you feel.

Set aside time for mindfulness practices– Take the time to set aside your own alone time to practice mindfulness. This allows you to set yourself up for success, experience the emotions you need to fully and safely, and may lessen the amount of triggers and/or unwanted emotions you may feel.

Practice Self- care for yourself– Even though this day is suppose to be all about your child it’s okay to take some time to love yourself through self care activities as well. To help you with any triggers or unwanted emotions coming up. Giving yourself some self love allows you to have enough to give to your child on as well.

Practice Radical Acceptance– When we are triggered by trauma and events some of the most freeing work you can do is to work on radically accepting the situation and event for what it is was, and how it affects you. Doing this allows the intensity of emotions to lessen, our understanding of the situation to change, and opens up a door for healing to begin.

Wrap Up

The reality of trauma is that the body and mind can hold memories of the traumatic experience, long after the situation itself has passed. These memories can be triggered by certain sights, sounds and places, as well as dates throughout the year that are significant to the trauma in some way like our child’s birthday. So, if you notice that each year, around the time of your child’s birthday you start to feel increasingly anxious, withdrawn or emotional, or unable to sleep. Or in the lead up; you start to experience flashbacks or bad dreams. You may be experiencing a memory of trauma. Remember, don’t judge yourself, practice mindfulness, use your skills, practice self care and radical acceptance. So, you can hopefully be present and mindful for what you want to be a joyous celebration.

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Use SMART Goals To Up-level Your Life Today!

I have been feeling this strong pull to talk about goals all week now. Maybe it’s because we entered March this month and by now at least 43% of us who set goals around the New Year have already given up on them or hit huge obstacles to deter us. Maybe it’s because, I have had to do so much adjusting to my own goals already this year because, of life changing, my family needing different levels of my time and support now, and honestly I really was unprepared for what my new goals were actually going to entail and how much my life was going change with it all. I have had to rewrite, and re-evaluate my goals and personal development plan many times already this year to make sure they are still SMART goals for me.

Goals have many benefits to having them intentionally in your life. I know some people reading this blogpost will know what goals are and already use them intentionally pretty often in their lives by using things like bullet journals, vision boards, and creating 5 year plans. While others reading this post will know what goals are but, loosely use them by having goals; as in some day dreams, like some day I want to own my own business or own a home etc. And others even yet may not use goals at all. That can happen for many reasons, not knowing what you even want, mental health issues, etc.

No matter what your current relationship is with goals this will benefit you. I was a person who did all the things like bullet journaling, setting goals for the day, week, month, year, etc, having a goal board. I loved having goals in my life but, even than I would have a lower success rate than I would like and lower follow through than I was proud of. Than I was taught this skill in DBT and all of that changed! My life completely up leveled. ( I Still have some major set backs I am navigating through) but, I set over 150+ goals last year and I met all, but about 20 of them by the end of last year. Continue reading to learn all about this skill and how to have it do the same for and your life!

First, What Are The Benefits of Goals

I touched on it earlier that there are many benefits to setting goals so what are they? First, the benefits really can be endless. Because, each goal you choose to set is going to have it’s unique set of benefits it will bring you personally when you achieve it. There, are some overarching benefits you can experience every time you set and achieve a goal we can take a look at next.

One of the many benefits goals can bring to you and your life is providing you with a sense of direction, and something to actually strive and work for. In a way our goals guide our sense of purpose and being and fuel our motivation for life in general. For myself, personally when I don’t intentionally have goals I am working on, and I have a plan on how I will achieve them my depression, my bpd. and my overall mood stability is honestly, just shit. When I don’t have a goal/s I am working on actively, is one of the times when I will completely disappear and sink into the depths my emotions can at times drown me in. If you have nothing you are striving for it can make it hard to want to be an active participant in your life.

Another benefit you can experience by intentionally having and using goals in your life is the mental health benefits you get from achieving a goal like the sense of building mastery. Building Mastery is when you do something that causes you to feel a rush of pride and a sense of accomplishment. You are doing something completely, fully and that you are literally able to master as you are doing this. I get this sense of feeling every time I achieve a goal I have set and honestly it can get quite addictive at times and it really does help keep my emotions stable.

The last benefit I will talk about is how setting goals and having them be an intentional part of your life is how you create a life worth living, how you get anything you want, and how you find happiness. If you want to get anything in life you have to actually do something to obtain it or achieve it. This is just simply how the universe we exist in works. It is how energy works and its one of the keys to manifestation I feel many miss. We can’t just put the energy out into the universe with our thoughts, You can dream, and tell yourself some day you will have the life that makes you feel fulfilled and is your soul purpose. But, how you actually make that happen is by deciding what you want to achieve, making a plan how to use them using SMART goals and than you follow thru with your plan.

What are SMART Goals?

We have spent some time talking about the benefits of using goals in general and what they can possibly bring to your life. Now, let’s talk about what are SMART goals specifically. First, SMART is an acronym that stands for S-specific, M-measurable, A-Attainable, R-Relevant, and T-Timely, but, we are going to break down what each of those means in a just a little bit.

SMART goals are a very detailed, layered, and specific way to set your goals so that you can attain them with ease and have a much higher chance of success. I really look at SMART goals as goals on steroids with purpose and intention. When you set your goals using this method you are creating a very clear image of what your goals are, how you are going to achieve them, when you will achieve them and how you will keep yourself accountable and motivated. Now, let’s look at what each step in SMART goals stands for and how to do it to achieve your goals.

S Stands For Specific- Be As Specific As You Can Be

The S stands for specific. When it says be specific it means be as specific as you possibly can be. You need to be very clear about what it is that you want to accomplish and achieve. Every part of the goal you need to be able to visualize, know in and out, and know what it is you want out of it. The clearer you are about what it is you truly want to achieve the more you will be able to plan, the more you be able to manifest and the more motivated you be to follow through with your plan to achieve your goals to build a life worth living. It really just is easier to achieve and accomplish your goals when you are specific when you set them.

M Stands for Measurable- Make Your Goal Trackable

The second letter in SMART for SMART goals stands for Measurable. What this means is making your goal when you are setting it measurable in some way. Giving yourself a way to know when you have actually accomplished. This also is a way to add urgency behind your goals and takes them out of a place of being a some day goal, a dream, or wish and makes them actually become reality. It keeps you accountable to yourself as well knowing you will be coming back to your goal at that time to take stock and see what you have been able to accomplish.

A Stands for Attainable-Make Your Goal Realistic

The third letter in SMART for SMART goals stands for Attainable. I personally really need this letter in the acronym and I feel most of us overlook this letter too often when we are setting goals both intentionally and unintentionally. There are times I use to set goals I knew there was most likely no way I was going to achieve them and set way too many at once for many reasons; perfectionism, my OCD, and I simply always have a million and one things I want to get done. When you get to this letter though it is to make sure you are being intentional with setting your goals to set yourself up for success to achieve them. Remember one of the main reasons to set goals is to achieve them and create a life worth living for. Why wouldn’t we want to make sure we are setting ourselves up for the highest level of success by making sure it is something we can actually realistically do.

R Stands For Relevant- Make Sure This Goal Is Something You Should Be Working On

The fourth letter in SMART for SMART goals stands for Relevant. This step in goal setting is when you take a moment and you reflect on the goal you are setting and working towards. You reflect to determine if this goal is currently relevant to your life right now. For example, if one of your goals for the year is to start a garden in your backyard but, you live in Minnesota like I do and the ground is frozen still. This may not be the relevant and right time to be setting and working towards this goal. Some other things to reflect on with your goals to make sure they are relevant are.

T Stands For Timely- Set A Time You Will Achieve It By

The fifth and final letter in SMART for SMART goals stands for Timely. This letter is all about putting urgency into achieving your goals. This is when you set a very clear and specific time you will meet your goal by. Whether you set a specific date or you state you will achieve this goal within 30 days, 90 days or whatever it is you choose. But, it needs to be a very clear and specific timeframe you pick. When you set a specific and clear timeframe you will achieve your goals by, you are putting energy into your manifestation and making it a priority for you brain to focus on accomplishing it. This also creates a sense of accountability for your goals as well you will either be coming back to it in celebration or to reevaluate your plan, make adjustments and keep working towards your goal if needed.

What Does A SMART Goal Look like put all together?

Now that you know what SMART stands for and you have a detailed break down of what each letter means and how it can really impact your goal setting. Let’s take a look at what this looks like when you actually set a goal using the SMART goals method. Below I will list some of my own personal smart goals I had set this last year in my personal development plan and you can see how specific and detailed it is when you write your goals out this way.

  • I will complete my Diary card for DBT treatment every day at 10 pm as part of my night time routine for 30 days in a row. After 30 days I will do so until I graduate DBT
  • I will take my prescribed medications every morning as part of my morning routine for the next 30 days. After 30 days I will continue to do so until they are no longer prescribed.
  • I will create a detailed smart goal board by January 1st in my office based on my completed personal development plan.
  • Every Sunday I will either find or create affirmations for me to use every day of the week. After creating my affirmations I will recite and/or write my affirmations every day as part of both my morning and night routine.
  • I will meditate daily during Olyver’s nap as part of my daily routine.
  • I will cleanse, and purify our entire home every single Sunday as part of my weekly cleaning reset routine
  • I will eat three meals a day for 7 days in a row when my body tells me I am hungry. I will track this in my bullet journal. After 7 days in a row I will eat three meals a day for 3 weeks in a row, than 30 days.
  • I will track my family’s spending daily in our budget planner workbook as part of my nightly routine before bed.
  • I will particpate and observe in every new moon and full moon of the year as part of my biweekly routine and my spiritual practice. I will do this by following all the steps in my book of shadows.
  • I will read from a book for at least 30 minutes every single day after I put Olyver to bed.
  • I will update and create this year’s family binder by the end of January.
  • I will write in my gratitude log twice daily as part of my morning and nightly routine.
  • I will participate in all required sessions for my DBT program weekly until I graduate the treatment program.
  • I will go back and re-evaluate, and update or modify my goal board and personal development plan to make sure my goals still are current SMART goals for me.

Ways To Implement SMART Skills

We have talked about the benefits of SMART goals, what they actually are, how to set them, and what they look like so, now let’s talk about how we can take SMART goals and implement them in different way and different skills in our life to be able to really specifically assist us with our mental health and our lives as a whole.

Accumulating Positive Emotions; Long Term

There is a core DBT skill we can use to help us make sure we are working towards creating a life worth living and maintaining our values and goals while doing so, and it is called Accumulating positive emotions for the long term. This skill is really about making changes in your life so that positive events will occur in the future. This skill implements your SMART goals and the values and morals you used to create your smart goals. I personally use this skill whenever I am feeling like life is becoming to much and I can’t catch a break. Or when I am just having a hard time with a sense of direction due to overwhelm. Let’s walk thru how to implement your SMART goals while using this skill.

  • Avoid avoiding- Start now to do what is needed to build the life you want. If you are not sure what to do than you follow all the steps below
  • Identify Values that are currently important to you- Ask yourself what Values currently mean the most to you in your life right now?
  • Identify ONE value to work on NOW- What is really important to me, right now to work. This one is important for me and a huge reason why I use this skill. It really allows my focus and get myself into a positive and productive state.
  • Identify a few goals related to this value- This is where you will come back to your smart goals you created earlier and identify what goals you have created that are related to this value.
  • Choose one goal to work on now- Do a pros and cons list or a priority ranking if necessary to select which goal it is you want to work on.
  • Identify small actions steps towards your goal- Ask yourself what small steps can you take to get to your goal?
  • Take one action step now- It is exactly what it says. Pick one of those small action steps you brainstormed and go and do that action step.

Below I have a blank example of the DBT worksheet to use when using this skill and an example of me using this skill as well

DBT Accumulate Positive Emotions in the long term11-Getting-from-Values-to-Specific-Action-Steps

Create A Personal Development Plan

The second way that you can take your SMART goals and implement them in your life to help you up-level your life is by creating a personal development plan. A personal development plan is something I came up with while in DBT treatment and learning how to set SMART goals and the accumulating positive emotions for the long term skill. As I have touched on many times before I have OCD so I get obsessive, I plan all the time, and I over do it with the amount of tasks I take on which leads to massive burn out and often. It had become common for me to have so many goals and so many projects I was working on I never could fully finish or get things to my vision because I wasn’t setting clear enough goals. I also loved how much joy, building mastery, and productivity in peace it brought me.

So, I sat down for a month straight every single night and every moment I had to create this personal development plan which combines those two skills SMART goals and getting from values to specific actions steps ( the breakdown of Accumulating positive emotions for the long term) and I took it and amplified it and wrote out a breakdown of every single goal I wanted to meet last year. Every single one. I created every step it would take to meet the goal, ranked its priority and made sure they fit the values and pillars of my life I wanted to focus on and that were important to me. My overall goal while creating this one was to completely overturn my life and create a life I wanted to stay alive for.

When creating your personal development plan there are some questions you want to focus on as you create it with your SMART goals. These questions help you create the plan as a whole and they help you make sure it truly is created based on your SMART goals. Below is the list of questions to use when creating your personal development plan with SMART goals.

Once you have those questions in the forefront of your mind and you feel ready to really plan with SMART goals its time to create your personal development plan. Let’s talk about how we do that, the steps to do that and what each step looks like. I will even show you some pages of each step of my own personal development plan as we go.

Step 1- Decide on your Values/Pillars of you plan. The first step to creating a personal development plan is to help create focus and guidance with your plan and to make sure your SMART goals are in alignment with your core values. What you do here is decide on the core values/pillars/categories you want to focus on and your goals to be based on. The amount of this can be whatever it is you would like it to be from 3- 19, mine had the later. Do whatever is going to work for you that doesn’t lead to any unwanted feelings like overwhelm, shame, or judgement. Below is the list of the values/pillars/categories I focused on last year.

Step 2- Brain dump. This step for me is honestly the hardest because, I want to control the amount of the things on it, or to make it even and sometimes it can be difficult for me to release the judgement as I am brain dumping and letting things come to as they come. What you do here is you let your mind run wild, you let go, and you intuitively write any and all goals you could think of you would want to accomplish that fit into those values you had picked out just before this.

Step 3- Evaluate your brain dump. The third step to creating your personal development plan is taking a look at your brain dump and simply eliminating anything that may not be realistic or just doesn’t fit your priorities or values. There is no need to judge yourself for having written it down just simply acknowledge it and decide to save it for a different time or that it doesn’t fit your values and that’s okay.

Step 4- SMART goals. The next step in creating your personal development plan is either adding in SMART goals you had previously written out and created or you create them now. Don’t forget to follow all of the steps to create SMART goals we talked about above.

Step 5- Priority Rankings. This step helps you create some order to your SMART goals. In this step you will literally go through and rank the order of priority each goal has to me of importance to complete. When it comes to importance that can mean different things; so think about whether it is more urgent because of time and season, the level of happiness it could bring you, or if there would be negative consequences if you do not achieve that goal. You can even use pros and cons lists if you need here to help you rank them.

Step 6- SMART GOAL action steps. The sixth step in creating a personal development plan is writing out and planning all of the action steps you will need to take to achieve and meet your SMART goals. It really is that simple, you will write out every single action step you will have to take to meet your goal. This helps you in so many ways. It helps eliminate overwhelm, creates structure, and sets you up for success by having a clear vision of what to do.

Step 7- Plan when you achieve your goals. The final and last step of creating your personal development plan is planning when you will achieve them. This step gives you a sense of urgency, a deadline, and a schedule for your plans. I also personally love this step because, it helps me remember that my personal development plan is all about getting the life I want by the end of the year. It is about progress and not perfection and building things one day at a time. When it comes to planning it will be up to you what that schedule looks like. If you are only planning for 1 month, 3 months, or 6 months that is totally fine. I just did a year because that was the purpose of my personal development plan.

Those are all the steps to creating your personal development! Now you can use this help you up-level your life and create a life that is worth living for you. Here are a few other extra tips to help make creating your personal development plan a little easier. Use a bullet journal or something that is durable and that you can come back to over and over again. When you are creating your plan color coordinate your plan through each step by categories. Having things color coordinated just makes it easier and quicker when you are sorting through all the information and creating each step of your plan.

Create A Goal Board

If you don’t want to get as detailed as a personal development or if you want a visual representation of your personal development plan for you to see in your physical space often; you can create a goal board. Some people like to also refer to these as vision boards and other names as well. For me, I just do not vibe with calling it a vision board. A vision board doesn’t have the energy of action behind it. It feels like a lofty someday dream. And when I goal set and plan I want to do so in conviction, determination and with active movement of energy behind it. Creating a goal board can look quite literally whatever you can come up with that motivates you, draws your eye to it and that works with the space you have. Do whatever is going to work best for you to serve as visually reminder of your SMART goals. I personally love being able to visually see when they checked off or are moved to they accomplished section it definitely gives you a special kind of rush!

Things To Be Cautious About With SMART Goals

We have spent a lot of time talking about the many benefits and positive aspects to SMART goals. Well because, they really truly are an amazing thing to do and a great way to really up-level your life and create one that is worth living for. With that being said there are some things to keep in mind when you are using SMART goals intentionally in your life and when you are creating them.

Be aware of Tunnel vision. What I mean by this is when you are working very intentionally with SMART goals in your life sometimes they become all you can see. They become your focus, and the main thing you care about. You can become obsessed. Which can lead to some damaged interpersonal relationships, missed opportunities, failed responsibilities, and neglecting some of your other values.

Be aware of Inflexibility. When working with SMART goals sometimes you can get rigid, and very set with sticking to the plan you created to meet it. I mean why wouldn’t we want to? We took the time to actively plan ahead and create a way we are pretty confident will help us achieve our goals. One of the main points of creating SMART goals is this very thing. Even with that being the case sometimes things just don’t work as well as we thought they would, or our lifestyle changes, or there are things going on in the world that change how we have to function in it. Whatever it is don’t allow yourself to be unwilling to change and adapt your SMART goals and how you will achieve them instead of being so loyal to them you choose to not meet or achieve them at all.

Be aware of Perfectionism. This one is really one I personally have to make sure I check in on often. I really struggle with this one and the cycle it can cause, especially with goals. When working with SMART goals intentionally in your life, it may be very hard to work on goals at all if you aren’t perfect and if you make mistakes. For example, if you do really well working towards a goal every single day for two weeks and than for some reason like mental health, or your schedule you miss one day and the shame spiral begins. For me if it gets bad enough I will walk away from a SMART goal completely. Be aware of this need and desire for perfectionism and remember it is all about progress not perfection. It’s about creating a life worth living by the end of your SMART goal not the entire time you are working on it.

Using SMART Goals Can Shift Your Alignment And Manifestation

We have talked a lot about SMART goals the many mental health benefits and how they can help you create a life worth living by creating very specific and detailed goals. Let’s talk about one last and final reason you really should start using SMART goals in your life today and that’s the benefits it can bring to your manifestation and alignment. Using smart goals will automatically shift you into a more aligned mindset to connect to the energies and frequencies you are seeking to connect to. When you are aligned with those frequencies your ability to manifest a life worth living and your dreams becomes much easier to do.

When you use smart goals you also put the movement and energy needed to make your manifestations come to fruition. SMART goals help you ensure that you are not missing the crucial part of your manifestation which is active movement of energy behind your manifestation. You can not only align your thoughts and words for manifestation through shadow work, and/or affirmations but, you still have to do the actions, put in the work and move the energy. SMART goals really just forces you to do that. You can’t achieve your SMART goal if you don’t follow through with your steps and plan.

Start Using SMART Goals Today

I have walked you through many reasons why you should use SMART goals in your life, What a SMART goal is, how to use them in your life, and the benefits using them can bring to you. SMART goals have literally changed my life in more ways than I can even begin to list. They have helped me bottom line shift my perspective and my life to one that I find worth living each and every day and that is the best reason of all to add SMART goals to your life today. Now that you know how to from this article you can go and do the same! Intentionally live with smart goals to create a life worth living!

Come join me the first Saturday of January to revolutionize how you set your goals for 2025. Let me show you hand in hand how to create my personal development plan. You will leave with your entire years worth of SMART goals planned, a way to keep yourself accountable, and have a clear path on how you meet every goal you set. https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/4ZKQ6FXMUGGEJ

Have you been feeling stuck, emotionally unstable, missing joy in your life, or having a hard time connecting to yourself and your magic? Do you want to start the new year from a different headspace? I have the answer for you to start out this new year from a place feeling grounded, present, and ready to manifest your dream life. Come join me for this special one time only two day event teaching you how to integrate the practice of Mindfulness to your magic and life!

What is mindfulness? Mindfulness is the practice of purposely bringing one’s attention to the present moment without judgment. It allows you to move from just existing in life to thriving, get back to wise mind, create a place to heal and grow in, and most important of all, align you with joy while creating a life where you truly thrive! This skill is a core skill in DBT, the therapy that changed my life! To register for this special two day event visit the link below! https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/JY5UBMB2TA27L

Come join me for community, knowledge, and to restore the enchantment of magic in yourself and life today!

Don’t forget to head over to the shop today for eBooks, workshops, resources, and 1:1 services with me!

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About Me : I have been a solitary grey magic practitioner for 15 + years. First and foremost, I consider myself a mystic and seeker of all knowledge. I am dedicated to the restoration, and re-enchantment of Magic in society, across this realm, and in each and every soul I come across in life! I am here to create a container that promotes healing, duality, and raw authenticity. I do this by guiding you on your personal journey to understanding your unique magic and sacred contracts. I facilitate this for you through embracing your shadow, duality and learning to live in energetic balance while not wearing a mask. When you work and learn from me you do so from your “darkness” as much as your “light” and in a way to truly harness and accept it not to just go thru it on the way to your light. But, I teach you how to truly embrace it, work with it, and use it alongside your light as a partner. I hold up a mirror for you to be able to see your authentic reflection looking back. Then have the courage to take the next step and do the uncomfortable but vital inner work to completely remove your mask. By facing all of your past wounds, traumas, and hurts. Allowing you to see both the dark and light within your story and take each chapter and alchemize it into something that is so powerful. your unique internal flame will shine so bright you will always be able to go within and find it on a dark cold night. You will learn how to truly live in duality and energetic balance to allow growth, and alignment with your sacred contracts and purposes. to finally move on and truly let the things that hold you back in this life from healing and manifesting go. To see everything I offer; like personalized shadow work sessions, womb healing, eBooks for you to work through on your own, Tarot sessions for guidance and more! Go to my shop!

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How to reset your life completely with this monthly guide!

There are so many reasons your life, your home, or you could need a complete reset. It could be simply because it’s the end of or beginning of the month. I personally do one of these at the beginning of every month and am even writing this blog post for all of you as I work through mine. I just feel so much more organized ( my OCD needs this), refreshed, grounded, motivated and prepared to head into whatever the new month may be bringing me.

But, like I said there are so many reasons to do one and sometimes this happens once a week in my home even. It could be you have visitors coming soon and would just feel more comfortable doing one prior. For me, it’s not about worrying about how they will view me or my home it’s about making sure I have nothing but, positive and lively energy in my home/ safe space BEFORE I allow others into it.

It could also be for mental health reasons; maybe you just got behind on your daily or weekly tasks and now the only way to begin is to simple reset it all.

Or, maybe you have a really busy schedule coming up for the next few weeks and you just want to feel prepared and ready and get as much done beforehand to make it a little less stressful.

No, matter the reason why you, your home, or your life may need an entire top to bottom reset it doesn’t matter but, this guide is for you! Keep in mind this is tailored to myself, my needs, my brain, my family, and my lifestyle so, ALWAYS tailor it to fit YOU. Take what you need and leave what you don’t. I know not all of this will be for everyone. I have OCD and DID so, I am both obsessive and have memory issues so , I do some things a couple different ways to ensure it is all done correctly. My entire family of 3 are also all Neurodivergent so some things not every family will need.

The purpose of doing a reset

I touched on earlier that there are many reasons why you may be wanting to do one but, what’s the purpose and what benefits do you get from doing one?

First, organization no matter how organized of a person you are you, your system will need a revamp, a declutter, and a reboot from time to time to remain efficient because, you, your life, and your family are constantly changing. Also a HUGE part of being organized is using systems and schedules and resets have to be apart of that sense we reset in so many ways in our lives from weekly, monthly, seasonally, yearly and so on.

Second, doing this brings you so many different mental health benefits. From building mastery, using smart goals, boosting self esteem, confidence, lessoning anxiety, gaining motivation and helping you build a life worth living.

Third, it’s honestly the best cope ahead plan you could ever create for yourself and consistently use. It helps you make sure you are prepared, have a plan in place and are set up in the best way possible for success including having ways to cope with obstacles affectively. If you want to learn more about how to create a cope ahead plan you can read more here in my previous blog post.

The Checklist

We have talked about what it is, how it can benefit us so how do we do one? I have a master checklist for this in a few places, my family binder, my bullet journal (BUJO), and in my personal development plan (PDP). You can choose to do it however works best for you!

I love bullet journals though mainly because they are so customizable. You get to make them exactly what you want, you can buy them in different sizes and you can use so many different kinds of writing utensils as well.

Once you decide where you want to create your master check list next is adding your items on it. Below I will walk you through what is on mine and later we will go into detail of what I do specifically for each one.

  • Brain dump
  • Budget
  • Personal Organization
  • Reflection of the past month
  • Family Organization
  • Clean Home
  • Set this Month’s Goals and Intentions
  • Schedule (s)
  • Take some time to Rest
  • Self-Care
  • Choose your pillar(s) for the month

If this looks like a lot or overwhelming for you, you can always take out things you don’t feel you need. Also remember this isn’t something that you have to do in one day either. Some times I get it all done in a Day, sometimes in 2 or 3, and sometimes I plan it out and spend and entire week doing this, usually it is during the last week of the month or the first.

Let’s break down the Checklist

Let’s get down to the nitty gritty details of each thing on my master checklist, what that category or thing means, how I do and what benefits I get from doing it!

Brain dump

If you have never done one of these before or heard of what they are it really is exactly what it sounds like. It’s sitting down and literally dumping everything out of your brain for a given topic or purpose. This time you will be using it to brain dump your master Ta Da list or as others call it a To list. I personally just don’t like the To Do List it makes it seem so much more of a dreaded forced obligation so I call them Ta da lists. As a way to go ” Ta Da” I did it and congratulate myself for getting it done. Whichever you choose to call it or even something else that is how you are going to approach this brain dump.

Here is how you are going to do it. I try my best to do these when my son is napping or asleep and my husband is preoccupied so, I can have the ability to be in my own space and not be interrupted. I like to make sure my brain dumps get all of my attention when I am doing them for a few reasons. One, so I don’t forget anything and another reason sometimes things come up for me that I need to do that I either didn’t know at all or I didn’t realize how important they were to me.

Once, I am in my own quiet space or sometimes I listen to music as well to help my brain focus so if you need that it’s okay too. I grab my bullet journal, you can use whatever it is you want to; a notebook, a pad, a piece of paper, a post it note, whatever it is you want to use. But, once I have my bullet journal I set up my pages the way I like to with my 4 categories. You don’t have to do this, a lot of people suggest not having any categories at all and just writing whatever it is that comes to you with no structure at all. For me, due to my OCD in order for my brain to even be able to express itself enough to know what it wants at all it needs some type of structure. Without it, leads to chaos, massive anxiety and dissociation. My 4 categories sometimes change but, typically it’s some version of this Admin, projects, cleaning, and goals setting. You can pick whatever you need for your categories and how many as well. For me, four honestly is picked because that is how many I can fit evenly on my page layout.

When, I have my categories written in and my page set up drawn in. I take a few deep breaths and I go through and write whatever comes to me in each category. I pick one category at a time and focus on that but, if you just want to write whatever comes to you and jump around you can too. Follow your brains direction. Do this until you are done. Once you feel you got it all out, take a look at all you have written this brain dump, just became your new Ta Da list. The next step is to plan out how, and when you will get things done and in what order. If you need help on how to do that I highly suggest using the Post It method I take about in this article it just is going to be on a grander scale.

Otherwise, you can just simply rank them in priority one a piece of paper based on level of importance, how they make you feel when you will complete them, how much time they will take, if it is something you can complete now or need to prep for, do you have all the items needed to complete it if it needs some and anything else you may need to consider. Than use your plan your created to complete your Ta da list and enjoy the overflowing of emotions your will be flooded with when you build this level of mastery.

Budget

Even though this item would also be on my ta da list from my brain dump under the admin section it’s so important I feel it needs it’s own stand out section. Now as a preface, by no means am i well off, nor am I the best at money and some fininacial guru. I actually am not the best with it. I have a lot of intellectual knowledge I have learned since becoming and adult but, for many reasons I’ve spent majority of my adult life in poverty. My family as I am writing this is struggling quite badly financially for many reasons. We have dealt with eviction, homelessness, and also having more money than we need and renting a fairly nice new home and leasing brand new cars.

With, all that being said I still no matter how little money my family is going to have or how much; write out and create a budget for the month at least and sometimes for the week. At times I even go as far as tracking and writing one out daily. If you have no idea of what your finances even look like there is no way to even begin to plan what the rest of your life is going to look like. I know I hate it too. But, there are things about the world and society that in order to thrive in it we do have to accept and come into some kind of alignment with and at least creating a budget and having a view of what it will look like gives you a bridge and opportunity to do that. Below is one of the planner pages I like to use and this is a budget book I have been using for a few years now https://www.amazon.com/Sort-Your-hit-Out-Paycheck/dp/1079491058

https://www.printabulls.com/finance/monthly-budget-planners/

Personal Organization

This will look different for everyone so, make sure you do whatever it is that speaks to you and makes your soul happy and feel organized and ready to take on life. When it comes to what personal organization is and should be. It’s whatever you need to do for yourself to keep you personally on track and living the life you want to live. If you have a family and/or kids it’s not their schedules or home school lesson plans. It’s YOUR personal schedule, your personal goals, your personal development tools, your self care needs, and so much more.

My personal organization is really centered around my bullet journal. I create Daily, weekly, and monthly spreads. I create habit trackers, self care trackers, any checklists I need for any of my own projects I do for me that don’t involve the family like my teaching schedule, RFAN agendas, content scheduling for her and so on. I even take the time here to pick out or create affirmations and put them in my bullet journal for me to come to when I may need them later and as reminders to. If you needs ideas for inspiration Pinterest is my favorite place to get inspiration for bujo spreads from. Let me know in the comments to if that’s something you want to see a future blog post about as well.

Reflection of the Past Month

This step is one of the most important ones for me and I hope it becomes that way for you as well. It is so important to me because doing this helps give me direction for my next month, helps me realize what worked and what didn’t in my planning from the previous month or reset, and it grounds me in my reality.

When you do this you are essentially taking stock, and holding yourself accountable. You are evaluating your plan from before and finding what worked that you can use this time and what didn’t that may need to be changed. You are forcing yourself to really look at truly where are in at in both your life and your goals. Which makes sure you are grounded fully in what your reality is. Sometimes this affect is not what we want especially if we are stuck in a cycle of avoidance and it can be overwhelming but, it’s also what we really need as well if we are seeking a reset to begin with.

How I choose to reflect usually looks like me leafing through my bullet journal and looking to see what is I had accomplished and what I had not. What I had decided to no longer pursue and why. Did I make and leave any notes for myself to come back to? Than I end up in Meditation, and doing other things like going thru my personal development plan for that month and year, my goal board and other things. Once I have done all that I typically have a pretty clear vision of what it is I want my life to look like by the end of this reset and how I can make that happen.

Family Organization

No matter what family looks like for you, you and a pet, your partner and yourself, a single parent, or a family with multiple generations in one home when it comes to a monthly reset you have to consider them in your reset. They affect your schedule, how you can organize, how much time you have and what goals you can have the ability and freedom to set for yourself. However it looks to you make sure you don’t forget this. For me, this is updating my family binder, my family command center, double checking my son’s and husbands schedules like medical appointments, creating our home school lesson plan, and planning any family outings we may be doing that month. If you want to learn more about creating a family binder or command center don’t worry I have blog post coming soon to break those down into much more detail.

Deep clean your entire home

When I say deep clean I mean you are going to go thru each and every room top to bottom and clean all of it, reorganize anything that needs it, you can even redecorate it if you need to, and declutter. If you don’t need any planning tools to accomplish just go ahead and get it all done and this list should be coming from you brain dump as well. So, don’t forget to include any cleaning tasks that had come up for you when you had been making that earlier. If you want a little more structure you can always create a master checklist that you keep in your bullet journal and/or your family binder. My check list breaks it down to the cleaning deep cleaning tasks, decluttering, and reorganization.

Doing this as part of your reset may seem like not that big of deal but, if your environment isn’t set up for you to grow, and flourish in no matter how hard you try to, you won’t get as tall and beautiful as you were meant to be. Deep cleaning your home sets your environment up to be in energetic alignment with the life you are trying to create with this reset. It builds mastery, it cleanses out old, stagnant and unwanted energy, and it sets you up for success in the rest of your plans and goals going forward.

Set this month’s goals

So far a lot of what we have talked about has been about getting ready for your next steps, your next, the next month etc. But, what is it you are actually doing this all for? Well your goals of course! The things that are going to make your soul sing with joy, and make your life worth living for. So, now is the time to set those goals and I bet if you go back and look at that brain dump you did it will help spark some ideas for you on what you want you goals to be if you are struggling to think of some.

One thing I want to talk about briefly is how to actually set active goals that you will accomplish is making sure to use the DBT skill SMART goals. It’s an acronym for an effective, and detailed way to set goals and actually achieve them. I Talk about it in a few of my previous blog posts in the personal development section of the site and I do plan on talking about it in much more detail in another blog post coming up.

So, what does smart stand for; S-specific, M-measurable, A-attainable, R-relevant, T-timely. If you follow this template for creating your goals it makes it very difficult to fail actually. You can also create a PDP using this skill and than make to use things like reminders, and affirmations to help you meet your goals if that is something that works for you. It does for me so no shame in it at all.

Schedule(s)

When it comes to doing a reset on your life a crucial part to doing that is knowing where your time is going to be spent and how much of it you have to spend on each one of your goals or that you can dedicate to achieving them. So, make sure to take the time to get your schedule in order. Whether that means you need to break down your daily schedule by the hour and write it out in your bullet journal like I do, or simply syncing up your google or apple calendar on your phone, or filling in a physical calendar for your home, or redoing your calendar for your command center.

Do whatever it is you need to do to get your schedule organized and in some place for you to easily access it when you need it. Like I said I am obsessive so, I use a bullet journal daily schedule spread, my google calendar, a family command center and a weekly schedule board. I also make sure to include my son’s schedule and my husband since I am the keeper of that in our home.

Take Some Time to Rest

The whole point of a reset is to make sure you are completely refreshed, reenergized, motivated, prepared, and just ready to take on anything this next phase and time frame will be throwing at you. And to set you up to meet all of your goals you have set. How can we do that if we are tired, and have a depleted battery. So, make sure to take time while you are doing this to rest, relax, recharge, take care of yourself, and do things that replenish your desire. If you need some ideas on how to do this thru the act of self love you can check you my previous blog post on the topic here for loads of ideas. https://modgepodgemystic.com/the-magic-of-self-love-and-how-to-maintain-it-thru-self-care/

Self Care Prep

For some this may not be a thing that is need for you. For me, I need to plan and prep for many reasons, it also is an act of self care for me as well. I have to plan out my self care. I have to pick what I am going to be doing and when. One thing I do for self care is play video games and every single day I have blocks of time in my schedule to make that happen. As in literally written into my schedule. I also have to create affirmations, quotations, and reminders for myself to be in my bullet journal and around my house, including a self care habit tracker for my bullet journal. So, for my prep for my reset I take the time to create those reminders, get any items I may need restocked, and make sure I have it planned into my schedule.

Choose your Pillar(s) for the month

What do I mean by this? I took a seminar a few years ago I believe with Sisters Enchanted. If you have never checked them out you can do so here; https://thesistersenchanted.com/ and their was a huge golden nugget I took away from it that I now use in so many different ways in my life. She talked about how in life we get really overwhelmed and dissatisfied and try to do so many things at once, and have our focus in so many different places all the time. If you know me at all this is like the state of being I naturally live in. If you are just now finding me and starting to get to know me. Take a look at my site and you will see I have my hands in a lot of things and I often hear that people are inspired by my and admire me for how much I get done. I often hear how they don’t know how I get done what I get done and how I am involved in so many different things.

And than she talked about having pillars in life, our goals, and the things we focus our minds and energy on. And how in life she had learned that no matter how hard she tried to have more she could only ever realistically focus on three at a time. That only three areas or things of your life will you be able to focus your attention on and actually bring to fruition to it’s fullest and how you truly intend to. This really spoke to me. I still want to fight it all the time and do more than 3. So, that is why I can’t set pillars for an entire year but, I do them for each reset, and month typically. So, each month I focus on 3 specific areas of my life.

I also have teachers that have taught about focusing on 1 area at a time and having one pillar or word you focus on. So, pick which one is going to fit best for you or modify it to something different if you want to. I recommend though don’t try to go past 3, every time I do I end up with either a chaotic time period or half manifested intentions.

Reap the benefits

We have talked about why you should do a complete reset, the many benefits of doing one, what should be on your checklist, how to do each thing on that checklist and now it is time for you to go and do one! Take everything that you learned from this post, tailor what you need to and go and create your very own master check list and completely reset your life. You could have it done by this weekend even! The benefits you would get our numerous and honestly I can’t speak to what it does for me personally each and every time I do one. Enjoy alignment, manifestation of your desires and intentions, meeting your goals, having a clean and organized home, and truly living a life worth living you are excited to wake up to and participate in each and every day.

Come join me the first Saturday of January to revolutionize how you set your goals for 2025. Let me show you hand in hand how to create my personal development plan. You will leave with your entire years worth of SMART goals planned, a way to keep yourself accountable, and have a clear path on how you meet every goal you set. https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/4ZKQ6FXMUGGEJ

Have you been feeling stuck, emotionally unstable, missing joy in your life, or having a hard time connecting to yourself and your magic? Do you want to start the new year from a different headspace? I have the answer for you to start out this new year from a place feeling grounded, present, and ready to manifest your dream life. Come join me for this special one time only two day event teaching you how to integrate the practice of Mindfulness to your magic and life!

What is mindfulness? Mindfulness is the practice of purposely bringing one’s attention to the present moment without judgment. It allows you to move from just existing in life to thriving, get back to wise mind, create a place to heal and grow in, and most important of all, align you with joy while creating a life where you truly thrive! This skill is a core skill in DBT, the therapy that changed my life! To register for this special two day event visit the link below! https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/JY5UBMB2TA27L

Come join me for community, knowledge, and to restore the enchantment of magic in yourself and life today!

Don’t forget to head over to the shop today for eBooks, workshops, resources, and 1:1 services with me!

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About Me : I have been a solitary grey magic practitioner for 15 + years. First and foremost, I consider myself a mystic and seeker of all knowledge. I am dedicated to the restoration, and re-enchantment of Magic in society, across this realm, and in each and every soul I come across in life! I am here to create a container that promotes healing, duality, and raw authenticity. I do this by guiding you on your personal journey to understanding your unique magic and sacred contracts. I facilitate this for you through embracing your shadow, duality and learning to live in energetic balance while not wearing a mask. When you work and learn from me you do so from your “darkness” as much as your “light” and in a way to truly harness and accept it not to just go thru it on the way to your light. But, I teach you how to truly embrace it, work with it, and use it alongside your light as a partner. I hold up a mirror for you to be able to see your authentic reflection looking back. Then have the courage to take the next step and do the uncomfortable but vital inner work to completely remove your mask. By facing all of your past wounds, traumas, and hurts. Allowing you to see both the dark and light within your story and take each chapter and alchemize it into something that is so powerful. your unique internal flame will shine so bright you will always be able to go within and find it on a dark cold night. You will learn how to truly live in duality and energetic balance to allow growth, and alignment with your sacred contracts and purposes. to finally move on and truly let the things that hold you back in this life from healing and manifesting go. To see everything I offer; like personalized shadow work sessions, womb healing, eBooks for you to work through on your own, Tarot sessions for guidance and more! Go to my shop!

© 2025, Modgepodgemystic LLC

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How to Regain Control Of your Life in One Day After Being Overwhelmed

Being overwhelmed is something we all experience at times in our lives. Some much more than others. ( My hand is definitely raised) With the current state of the world and the collective I feel myself and others are hitting their thresholds much quicker than usual or than we would like to be. Feeling overwhelmed has unwanted side effects and consequences for everyone us even though it may look different. I know for myself it may even look different from day to day.

Usually though when I am overwhelmed I get very snippy with my husband, and even passive aggressive. I have much lower patience with my son and end up not following my parenting philosophy when he is struggling and I make it worse. I will cancel things I had planned and avoid contact with others.

And if it gets bad enough I will start to avoid everything. I won’t do anything and will cancel everything. I will dissociate from myself and reality and in some of the worst cases another personality takes complete control of me for awhile and depending on which one, it can have even worse consequences than just being overwhelmed.

So, what can we do about?

I said we all experience it at times so we can’t avoid it. It will happen no matter what your best intentions are, how organized you are, or how well you maintain boundaries. This will happen no matter what simply because we are humans and living life and life is overwhelming at times and so are other humans. So, it’s unavoidable. But, even with that being true there are things we can do both before it happens to prepare and things we can do when it’s happening.

Before it happens

Before we ever even get overwhelmed and start to spiral we can have one of my favorite DBT skills created and on hand for us to use when this happens, called the cope ahead plan.

What is a cope ahead plan?

It is exactly like it sounds. It is a plan you create before a situation happens for how you will cope effectively if/when it does happen. In other words this is your cheat sheet/ to do list you pull out that tells you what to do when your emotions may be making it difficult to problem solve, cope, or be in wise mind.

Another benefit to creating one of these plans is the sense of ease and confidence it gives you that allows you to stop ruminating about things that haven’t happened yet. As someone with OCD I use these plans to even help me break free from routines that get triggered unintentionally. I even use these to make me able to be around other people especially family.

So, how do you create one?

First thing you do is DESCRIBE. You describe the situation that is likely to happen get very detailed about the situation. You check the facts with what you are describing and make sure you are being justified with your description and not letting emotions influences the description but, do note what emotions you are feeling

Second, DECDE what problem solving or coping skills you want to use for this specific situation. What skills will assist you the best with the specific feelings this situation is making you feel. Be detailed!

Third, IMAGINE THE SITUATION in your mind as vividly as possible. Imagine and immerse yourself in the situation as if it is happening now in the present.

Fourth, REHEARSE IN YOUR MIND COPING EFFECTIVELY. This one is the most important part of the skill and the part I feel most forget, myself included at times. When it says rehearse it means rehearse. You fully act out your actions, you say the words you want to say, you respond emotional the way you want to respond, you rehearse every part of what you coping effectively will look and feel like to you. You do this as many times as you need to. Until you feel prepared and any anxiety or unwanted feelings dissipate.

Fifth, PRACTICE RELAXATION AFTER REHEARSING. It is exactly what is says. Go and do something relaxing to bring your emotions back to wise mind after rehearsing.

After doing all those steps you now have a cope ahead plan. I recommend writing out this plan on a sheet of paper especially what you want to say. It makes rehearsing it easier to do and you can come back to it over and over again if its a situation you have to cope ahead for often in your life.

So, what skills for coping should you put in your cope ahead plan?

Every single cope ahead plan will look different for each person and situation but, let me give you some ideas of what can go in your cope ahead plan for when you are just feeling overwhelmed with life, you have been down, off track, and avoiding things/events/others. The list I will go over below is not all inclusive and some things may not work for you change it up to fit your needs.

1. Get ready for the day

When I am overwhelmed in life whether it be due to metal health, a busy schedule or just life being life one of the first things to go for me is personal hygiene. I don’t shower for days, brush my teeth, my hair ends up in a ponytail nonstop, and I only change my clothes if they get wet from doing the dishes or something. So, for me to get back any sense of control and joy I force myself into the shower, I put clothes on that make me feel joy not just simply comfortable, I brush my teeth, do my hair and anything else I haven’t done in awhile. Every time I always surprise myself by how much more rejuvenated I feel after doing this and how much of the fog lifts.

2. Declutter

Another thing for me that will start to go is cleanliness of my physical space. Even though I am aware for me something not being clean is extreme and most would think it is still perfectly clean. It still affects me, my mental health and my emotions if it isn’t as clean as my brain would like it to be. So, I start to declutter. I tell myself to just focus on decluttering so I don’t swing to far one way and go from avoiding things by doing nothing to avoiding things by distraction and doing way to much. That just creates a different type of overwhelm to now be coping with. So, be careful and mindful of that.

3. Get outside

Even if it is just for 1 minute step outside in some way. I know that it isn’t always ideal or safe to do. I live in Minnesota and sometimes it’s just too damn cold to go outside and it hurts. Not only because I am a witch and pagan so, for me it’s spiritual and religious self care but, there is actual science behind it! When we go outside and make contact with the earth we get an influx in energies we need that cause us to reset and cleanse. Plus the fresh air in our lungs is invigorating and gives you more energy as well.

4. Build mastery

What this means is doing something completely that makes you feel like an absolute master at that skill when you are done. Whether it be something like sweeping your kitchen floor, making your bed, washing your hands, writing your grocery list or creating something. Doing this helps you feel self esteem and confidence and reminds your brain what it feels like to accomplish something while reminding you that you can still accomplish things even when feeling unwanted emotions.

5. Organize some part of your life

Whether it be your schedule for the week, your to do list, a meal plan or anything else you need to organize, plan, and schedule some part of your life. Doing this again helps you feel a sense of accomplishment, self esteem, and makes you feel like there is a little less for you to have to worry about and feel overwhelmed over. Doing this can also help you with checking the facts of why you became overwhelmed in the first place.

6. Do some type of self care activity

It does not matter what type of self care you do, physical, mental, emotional, intellectual, etc. you simply just need to do whatever your intuition is calling you to do that is all about taking care of you. It is about recharging your battery. Connecting you to joy. And reigniting your flame of desire.

7. Do a brain dump

This one might not work for everyone it is really going to depend on your brain and your own needs for order and organization. For some doing a brain dump will only overwhelm them more and for others like me it helps keep me realistic and it stops my brain from thinking it is never ending. Seeing it all written down on one page makes my see that there is an end in sight and that it is tangible for me to reach and the sense of overwhelm will subside and a sense of motivation starts to take over.

8. Use the Post it Method

This is a skill one of the DBT therapist taught us in group one day as bonus skill. I modified it for my own use so I will tell you both ways to use this one.

The first one is using to get you to do things. What you do is you grab some sticky notes and a pen and you get yourself in wise mind and you ask yourself what are the top ( however many you choose) things you have been avoiding and procrastinating doing? You write them on a post note and place them somewhere you will have no choice but, to see them to use as motivation to get you to complete the task. Once you do you get to remove the post it note and feel another boost of accomplishment, self esteem, and confidence to further enhance your motivation.

The second one, is using it to restrict how many things you do. This for me was way more important for my OCD. My issue isn’t really not doings things. It’s taking on and doing to many things. So, how I modified this was when it came to getting my posts it I limited the number I was allowed to write. I picked a number and I could only choose that many task to get done and do that day. And when I had completed them all I wasn’t allowed to go and create new ones and add more. If they were gone it meant I had to relax and no longer work on my to do list.

Again, this helps give you that sense of accomplishment and it gives a structure on how you will do it. You also get that visual reinforcement as well that you have a skill to use to cope effectively.

9. Spend some extended time in Wise mind

Everyone has different skills and ways they get themselves into wise mind. If you don’t know what wise mind is; it’s using both your emotional mind and reasonable mind to access the wisdom within you. It’s seeing value and in both your reason and your emotions. It’s bringing your left brain and your right brain together. It’s walking the middle path and existing and thinking in duality.

It’s our goal to be in this state of mind as often as we can be and to try and make most if not all of our decisions from this place so we can live a life worth living. Spending some extended time in this state of mind can help us to check the facts, realign, and be able to move forward in an effective way. So do this however you need to. Again it will look different for all of us whether it’s meditating, using the stone flake on the lake technique, the spiral staircase, or breathing techniques.

Create your Cope ahead plan to fit you and your needs

The list and ideas in this blog post are just the very beginning of the options you have to put in them and it doesn’t even include all of them I use for this specific situation either because, it can change time to time. So, use this as a starting place, experiment and create a cope ahead plan that will best benefit you when you feel overwhelmed. No matter how that looks, by avoiding things, doing to much or something else entirely. Keep that plan in a safe spot and pull out any time you need it remembering you created it just for that moment and feeling to help you.

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What is personal Development?

For me it’s anything that encompasses growth for yourself and your life.

It’s the intentional acts and/or reflection you are doing to grow as a person to better yourself, your soul, your community, your family, and your life.

This is what we do to be happy, feel whole, and to help us both uncover our sacred contracts and divine purposes, to live our life in accordance with them to fulfill them!

Which means this can encompass and cover ALOT of things!

From shadow work and reflection to taking care of your physical health, developing your own belief system, seeking mental health help and using the skills they teach you, to goal setting and more!

This topic is a deep seeded passion of mine!

Let me tell you why and why I feel I have so much to share on this topic!

In 2015 I got married to my amazing husband after being together for 4.5 years already, I turned 25 shortly after that and I completely broke.

Quarter life crisis

If anyone doesn’t think this is a thing. I promise you it is.

My depression and anxiety got so bad, I would curl up into a ball while shaking and crying on the floor in front of the door to our house because I had to leave it to go to work or the store for groceries.

It got to the point where, I called into work so many times, had used all my PTO, FMLA, Sick pay all of it that I was fired. All while I was lying to my husband about it.

Telling him I had been going to work and getting sent home early or if he went in after me that I had taken a half day of PTO that morning.

Because, I had no idea what was going on and how do you explain to others I literally can not get my body or mind to leave my house without a severe breakdown.

And being fired from my job only made things worse for me.

I shame spiraled hard and fast!

I had never failed like that before.

I am not going to lie it took much longer than I would have liked to get to the point where I could even begin to think about personal development and how to get there.

It took me an entire year of literally just being depressed and anxious and sitting in front of a tv to numb myself and a lot of weed.

But, than I hit this moment when I was shaking, crying, and about to throw up again from the anxiety of how much longer can I keep feeling like this? How much longer am I going to be able to do this mentally, emotionally and physically?

And if I won’t be able to do this much longer than what am I going to do? How am I going to get out of this space?

This moment sparked my personal development obsession and journey!

Where I spent the next 5 plus years gobbling up everything I could get my hands on, blogs, books, therapies, self help books, podcasts, youtube videos, learning how to bullet journal, taking workshops, retreats and classes, and so much more.

In that 5 plus years I succeeded and failed many times. Went thru CBT, DBT, and a handful of trauma therapies. Dealt with isolation, depression, anxiety and more. Was diagnosed with OCD, Bipolar 2 disorder, PTSD, a binge eating disorder, BPD, DID, Severe anxiety and depression.

I have done the work to no longer meet criteria for some of those and a few I have gotten to a very healthy and manageable level. That doesn’t mean I am cured and I still have days and moments and situations where I struggle.

So, let me help you do that too!

Let me be a support to you!

Let me be a guide to you!

Let me teach you what worked for me and help you sift thru the many ways you can work on your personal development in all areas of your life, like self care, physical health, mental health, and your own personal belief systems and values!

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How to make 2024 an actual year of change by turning knowledge to wisdom thru action

How to make 2024 an actual year of change by turning knowledge to wisdom thru action

The year 2023 was a huge one for me that was full of transformation, and so much death and rebirth over and over again.

 But, that’s the way of the multiverse and that’s the beauty of duality. You must have the wanted with unwanted, the dark with light, the sun with the rain, the death with the rebirth.

I spent the last year building a life truly worth living for and to do that I had to experience it all, and turn knowledge into wisdom and action.

Prior to this year I spent a lot of time focusing on gathering every tip, tool, trick and tidbit of information I could get my hands on to tell me what to do with my life. how to become more emotionally stable. How to get healthier. Really just how to build my life in general. I devoured every blog, self help book, podcast, youtube video, and created countless pinterest boards. 

And every year nothing changed long term. 

I would have spans of pockets of time where things would click into place and become a new lifestyle but, after a few months at most. Poof! 

Gone  again!

So, what was so different this year?

First I really sat down and looked at everything I had collected and learned throughout the years and began to realize how many tools I really had learned about and how much information I already knew and that I had available to me. 

Second, I got really brutally honest with myself and let myself realize I had all this knowledge and all these tools at my fingertips and I hadn’t been using a single one of them consistently.

 I had never taken the knowledge I had learned, put action behind it and turned it into wisdom. 

I had all these bullet journals full of quotations.

Full of spreads, habit trackers, goals that were completely empty.

I had notebooks full of notes from self help books, podcasts, and more.

But, I never actually had taken all that knowledge and used it!  I had never actually taken what I learned and applied it to my life actively and intentionally.

So, no wonder all those years I had felt stuck, how I felt like I kept going in this cycle of success, failure, shame spiral, depression, spark of motivation and then mania. 

No wonder all those years I had been so exhausted and drained. 

No wonder all those years most of all I was confused and doubting my worth and capabilities. I had all the information I needed but I never put that information to use to improve my life.

Once you realize this, what in the world do you do?

To be honest, it might hit you hard. You might cry like I did, start to blame yourself, and spiral a little bit. And that is 10000000% okay to feel, just don’t let it consume you. 

Give yourself GRACE!

Do you realize how big of a deal it is to first be willing to even look at and try and figure out what’s been causing a pattern or cycle for you? 

Let alone being willing to realize that there is a missing piece you need to work on and then being willing to work on it?!

So many humans wouldn’t even take it this far. 

So, celebrate yourself! 

Give yourself a high five!

 Do whatever you need to do to let your mind and body know this is a huge deal and a pivotal moment of change for you.

YAY!!!!!!

Next, try to pinpoint what’s causing you not add action behind your knowledge

There are a few ways to do this.

First, do a behavior chain analysis. This is a skill I learned in DBT

step 1-describe the problem behavior

step 2-describe the prompting event

step 3-describe the vulnerability factors prior to the event

step 4-Descibe the main events leading to the behavior

step 5-desribe the consequences of that behavior

Once you can identify what the actual problem is, then you determine what skills to use, and what type of plan you need to make to help you succeed going forward and to have the skills ready when you need them.

Another way you can do this is the why method

I like the why method  a lot because it’s simple and you start to understand why toddlers like to do it so much as well.

What you do is simply keep asking yourself the base question of why until you can not anymore. 

Until you can not find any other alternative answer or explanation for a certain event, your emotions, or why you reacted in a certain way. 

Here’s an example;

My son came to ask me for help to push him in his swing. 

I right away felt my jaw tighten and my eyes roll and heard myself saying no to him. Even though he hadn’t asked for it all day and I could tell from my bodily sensations this was going to be a big explosion of anger if I didn’t figure out why I was so upset and wanting to not just say no but, yell no immediately. 

So, I used some tips skills which I will talk about in another blog post and I began to ask myself why?

Why am I so upset?

Why does my son asking for the swing trigger me?

Why is it triggering me specifically right now?

Why is my body shaking? Am I hungry, tired, anxious, overstimulated?

Why am I really saying no?  

And I kept asking until I realized what was the reason behind my behavior this time. Which was simply I had been so busy that day, I had no idea what time it was, had not eaten and was really just overstimulated.

Knowing this, made me able to solve these issues and realign myself to be able to go and help my swing in his swing so he could use his tools to regulate. 

Now that was a specific example to help you understand how it works. And I am sure you are sitting there thinking “ how in the world does that help me turn knowledge to wisdom through action?”

Well, when you take this method or the behavior chain analysis and apply that to your overall life, and previous year you give yourself the space to reflect and break down to the very core Why you haven’t been able to commit to change and create the life you want. 

Why you haven’t taken things you have learned and know you should be doing and actually applying them. 

If you don’t know the why behind avoidance, or the why behind a failure, or the why behind the lack of motivation or inspiration then how will you ever move through it to your destination?

For me, it really came down too, I needed to believe I was worth it. 

I simply did not think I deserved the life I wanted, the goals I had been dreaming about, or even my basic human needs met. 

This was really hard for me to sit with and ride the emotions of. To acknowledge and understand how deeply I felt this. And how it was influencing every decision I made or did not make and every action I took or did not take. 

But, once I was able to fully realize there is no other why after this one.

I was able to start the work needed to move through it by figuring out what had caused this, why for me in the past and what was solidifying it now. 

Moving through that got me to the place where I could finally make a plan to allow me the space, time and tools needed to take  all knowledge I had learned and turn it into action to completely change myself and my life.

If you want to know how I made that plan and what that plan was, keep an eye out for the next blog post in this section about personal development plans! What they are, how to make one, and what was in mine last year that changed my life so dramatically!

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Top 23 lessons of 2023

The year 2023 was a huge one for me that was full of transformation, and so much death and rebirth over and over again.

But, that’s the way of the multiverse and that’s the beauty of duality. You must have the wanted with unwanted, the dark with light, the sun with the rain, the death with the rebirth.

I spent the last year building a life truly worth living for and to do that I had to experience it all, and turn knowledge into wisdom and action.

2023 was a massive year for me full of transformation, and so much death and rebirth. I had some of my highest of highs and some of my lowest of lowest of lows this past year.

I find it so important to honor and acknowledge both aspects of life so here are some of the accomplishments from this year;

? Graduated DBT

?Cut ties with all toxic family

? Became a professor teaching magic and paganism

? Was a crucial part to getting abortion codified

? Served my community in many ways

? Heard olyver say I love you

? celebrated 13 years with Vincent

?Wrote over 3000 pages for my books and students

? Made great new friends

?Started a business

? Founded a pagan temple

And here are some of the many challenges this year

? Going thru pe trauma therapy

? Being diagnosed with OCD and DID which brought me to 6 disorders being diagnosed with

? This was the toughest year our marriage has ever been thru.

?Finding the right communication method for olyver

?Olyvers official diagnosis

? Gaslighting from family Members and my mother

?Working thru body image issues and an eating disorder

? Financial instability

?Dealing with imposter syndrome about teaching

?Deep feelings of isolation and loneliness

Your life and you really can look completely different in one years time.

I am so grateful to the many lessons in duality this year taught me and I can’t wait to see what 2024 has in store. The year of the 3 pillars for me! The year I fully step into my identity as a goddess!

Here are the top 23 lesson I look away from 2023 ( in no particular order)

1.Life is much easier when you assume everyone is both doing the best they can be and they need to be doing better.

This one is still hard for me at times. But, when you start to look at the people around you as doing the best they can, with the knowledge they have, their circumstances, the resources they have access to, and what traumas and triumphs they carry with them. While also recognizing when they hurt you, make a mistake, or cause unwanted feelings they can still grow, change, and do better next time. You connect to others humanity more, you have more empathy for them, and more grace for them. While at the same time holding and keeping respect for yourself in a healthy and symbiotic way.

2. DBT saved my life and everyone should be taught it.

DBT- Dialectical behavior therapy in case you didn’t know what that meant. I had never heard of it until this program was suggested to by my cbt therapist after 5 years of being with her. This therapy quite literally saved my life in every sense of the word. It taught me to think dialectically, skills to actually know what the hell my emotions were, and how to use them in a healthy way. It taught me what wise mind and walking the middle path meant and how to do that.( aka mindfulness) It brought understanding of myself in so many ways. It literally taught me how to REWIRE my brain, my patterns, my behaviors, and my emotions. It taught me how to be present in my life. Most importantly it stopped 30 years of suicidal ideation and taught me how to create a life worth living for and how to maintain it!  If it does all this why shouldn’t we be teaching it to everyone.


3.You won’t heal until you decide you no longer can keep living the way you have been.

There are many stages to readiness I think everyone goes through when it comes to change, healing, growth, trauma, mental instability, and even addiction and to be honest I learned this from dr. phil. He isn’t wrong either. I am living proof of it. ( I’ll do a separate blog post to break down how this actually happened later) I Had for a long time now known intellectually I needed help, and I knew it needed to happen. I read the self help books, made the Pinterest boards, got the supplies, would schedule appts to meet a therapist or to go back, would get back on meds. I would take the steps, gather the knowledge, and the resources but, never follow through with it or act on it. I would get spurts of being emotionally ready for the sake of others and because others told me they needed me to as well. But, until I hit this soul wrenching moment where I was jobless, living in one room with my husband, 3cats, and my newborn son, I had not eaten in 2 days, and I was sitting on the floor with a note in my hand and a plan, and I heard my son make a noise in his sleep while napping and I felt it from the depths of my soul and that I simply could not live like this anymore no matter what. I couldn’t keep feeling that way, and barely existing. Until then, and that moment happened, did I finally have the determination, strength and reason to heal and recover.

4.Family truly is what you create it to be. Blood will not always be there for you or support you.

Family support is not something I am familiar with. Even launching this blog and site, becoming a professor, and all my political work I don’t receive support or even congratulations from my family. It just isn’t something that happens and I’ve come to be okay with it and no longer support those who don’t support me in return and I have done that by creating my family. Truly grasping and understanding that at its core family means those cheering you, supporting you, holding you up, making you feel heard, loved and proud of you. You can get all this and build this with anyone they don’t need to be blood.

5.Boundaries will cause you to lose people.

Plain and simple some people can not handle boundaries and you will lose some if not many when you put them in place AND enforce them. They see them as control or rules and they fight it. Some people can’t handle change and aren’t able to grow and evolve with who you are and can’t give you things they simply do not have like respect for your growth thru boundaries.

6. Letting go doesn’t mean you bury the past. It means you radically accept it and understand that it simply was.

I have heard on a loop in my life from family to just let the past go. First it’s toxic to say to every situation to just let it go. Just letting it goes comes with the huge implication that you don’t need to work thru the emotions and/or events that need to be let go. Not working through things like can cause lasting long term affects. It also implies no accountability for someone to need to take or changed behavior by them which continues an unhealthy relationship and/or abuse. Lastly, it takes away from the impact an emotion/person/ or event had on that person and in some cases you are continuing the abuse in a form of gaslighting.

7.To truly transform your life and you, you must burn it down to the ground in order to grow back in the most fertile soil beneath  the ashes. 

There honestly is a shit ton to unpack with this one and it is one of the biggest lessons I have learned and that I do my best to remind others of when they are struggling or on a healing journey. If they are really truly wanting radical life altering change they will have to burn their whole way of life to the ground, their thought patterns, fear and more to achieve it. We see this in nature time and time again. after a forest fire or a volcanoes eruption happens in that area what happens next? The land is cleansed, it heals, and it comes back more fertile than ever to sustain a whole new ecosystem.

I can speak to this on so many levels in my own personal life and journey. Every single time I have evolved and moved through to my next step in my healing journey my life, me, and my thought patterns have been burnt to the ground. Hell my home has even burnt down twice in my life and each time I was able to rise from the ashes in growth. It is even something they make sure to teach and have you understand in the ORIENTATION for DBT therapy/ treatment. That majority of your time in the program you will be sitting in stage 1 where your world, relationships, and you are burning down, on fire and the flames are almost to much to bear but, you claim through that to a whole new way of being and seeing the world.

“The ashes of your existence will fertilize the soil for the universe to follow.” -Richard Kadrey

8.Every day is about progress not perfection.

This right here is a key factor to me meeting so many of my goals from last year, being able to keep my commitment to DBT and graduate the program, and to so much of my growth and change. I am a chronic people pleaser, a perfectionist, and someone who is very comfortable in routine and control. I live my day to day life with OCD as well which has my brain on high alert, and I have done so much work to get it to a manageable place and the threat level I feel from disorder isn’t so catastrophic anymore. *( Do I still obsessively clean more than others, have rituals and routines I must do and fight to maintain order more than I go with the flow? Yes of course. But, I no longer think quite literally if I a blanket isn’t perfectly straight on my couch I am in severe impending danger if I do not fix it immediately. Will I still fix it? of course but, it isn’t detrimental if I don’t anymore).

Hanging on to this mantra, repeating it to myself daily, writing it over and over in my BUJO, putting it on sticky notes up in my house, and on my goal board helped ground me and give me an IMENSE amount of grace I needed to be giving myself. It allowed me to navigate my emotions without letting them get overwhelming and cause a shame spiral and it brought me back to my own humanity. By reminding myself I am just as flawed as any other human being on this planet that I give grace to each and every day. And I deserve to be given it as well.

It also helped me be realistic with my goal setting, my expectations, and with my true reality and circumstances I was in.

9.Relationships that are one-sided are draining and not worth the energy.

This is pretty self explanatory but, I want to make a distinction with this. I am a very kind soul, I pride myself in that. I am very empathetic and I do many things in my life and with my time to help those from many different communities. I do this because it simply is who I am, I can not do it, and I deeply want to help others. I never help others with any expectation of things in return and I will never be that way. This is not a tit for tat kind of lesson or thing here. This is about simply getting the basics from others in energy exchange within relationship structures. It’s about not always having to be the one making plans to see them, not being the first one to reach out, having them be interested in your life, give you basic support, and simply put treating you with basic human decency. When even those things can not be met, a relationship is so draining it toxic for you and should be removed.

10. Mental health goes hand and hand with your magic and spiritual practices.

These two are so intricately linked you simply can’t work on one without the other. Or have one affect the other. Are there things magic can be the only answer too? yes. And are there things mental health can be the only answer too? yes. But, overall if you are disconnected or unstable in one the other will only be able to flourish as much as the other. I am going to be writing so much on this and break it down for you all on this journey with me.

11. If the soil you are growing in isn’t fertile and healthy you won’t grow.

You can do all the self development in the world. You can do all the therapy programs in the world. You can do all the shadow work in the world. But, if you are living in an unhealthy, unstable, toxic and maybe even abusive environment. Or your environment is populated by one or more unhealthy, unstable, toxic, or maybe even abusive individuals. You will never FULLY heal, evolve, awaken or fulfill your sacred contracts this lifetime around now. You can heal, and use skills to help you through being in those environments and/or individuals because, we may not be able to get out of or away from them. But, until you are able to get out of them or away from them you will can’t FULLY bloom. Just like plants, flowers, and trees around the planet you can’t grow and flourish in poisons and infertile soil.

12. Self care! Self care! Self care! There’s a reason everyone talks about it!

Like it says self care there is a reason everyone and anyone talks about it. There is a reason every therapists and therapy program I have seen and/or been apart of has tried to get my brain to understand this simple yet inhuman concept in our society. It makes such a difference when you recharge your battery and make sure you have enough energy in all ways from emotionally, physically, mentally, to pull from and use. But, just remember it is going to look different for each and every one of us, and it will look different for you at different times. Some days your self care needs will be small and some days they will be great just listen to your energy and do what you need to do.

13. You become a better parent when you are mindful and fully present in each interaction with them.

Understanding what it means to be fully mindfully present in each moment and what you are doing makes a world of a difference in your interactions with your children and their attachment to you. You can do all the “right” things and check them off each and every day in your to do list and schedule but, they won’t have the full impact unless you are fully mindfully there for them to absorb, learn, and attach to you.

14.The universe will keep giving you the same lessons to learn until you respond differently.

If you feel stuck or like your life follows a cycle or pattern and you keep ending up in the same place in life or going through the same hardships over and over again. There is a reason for that. Take stock. Do some shadow work. Notice the pattern and where it isn’t changing and make a plan to change it! Do the work to change it! The lesson will keep coming back and hitting you in the face with that lesson until you finally learn it. That’s the beauty and the way of sacred contracts.

15.Marriage is not 50/50 or equal the goal is for it to be fair

This was really humbling for me to learn this year. And I know so many are going to buttheads with this lesson just by reading that sentence ( which is why I am doing a whole seperate post on this alone). But, let me give you small rundown on why. This lesson was taught to me by my dbt therapist and at first I fought her immediately and did not agree until I let her expand and explain. 50/50 means at all times not matter what the circumstances are things should be split down the middle in responsibility between you and you partner right? That’s how most would view that philosophy, myself included. There are a handful of reasons why there is something wrong with that but, the main few are; if you really think about it if you have a loving, stable, 50/50 equal partnership is it really? every single day? Is every task and responsibility whether its something you are capable of doing shared down the middle with your spouse? For example I know very little about the internet and technology, how it runs and how to problem shoot and fix issues. My brain literally can’t wrap my mind around some of it. Do I help my husband with half the workload of those things? Nope I don’t. And I am so grateful he does that for me since my brain literally can not understand it and than I am his living breathing spell check since its something his brain has a very hard time with.

The other major issue with being 50/50 is what happens when your partner simply can’t carry their half of that weight or even a quarter of that weight? Whether it be due to medical issues, illness, or mental health illnesses. What happens than? When all your partner can do is focus on not ending their own life? When they are in the midst of treatment and therapy? When they are so depressed every ounce of energy and will power they have goes to waking up each and every day so they can’t help with the finances? What happens when all your partner can give you is 5% of their 50%? A lot would say leave , its toxic, you wont ever be happy etc. What should happen is the other partner adjusts, and understands that being fair NOT equal matters so much more when your partner just doesn’t have their equal share to give to your or your relationship. You fill the space and the gaps your partner needs help with, you lift them up, you support them and you carry as much of their weight as they need until they are able to take some or more of it back and you adjust the load distribution again. If my husband wouldn’t have been able to adjust and take a massive portion of my load for over 3 years I would not still be alive today writing this post for you all to read. The gratitude, love, and understanding that he gave me was what a soul partnership truly means and now that I get to carry his share of his load for as long as he needs I am really being shown humility, grace, and a true understanding of this lesson and what a marriage should look and feel like.

16.Being authentically you. Draws other to you wanting to do the same.

17.One person can truly make a huge impact to those around them! And others may never know about it.

18.When you step into your sacred purpose and reveal your sacred contracts to yourself paths open up to you.

I talk about sacred purpose and sacred contracts all the time. If you are reading this and one of my students already I doubt I go one class without bringing it up or talking about it. They are just so crucial to who you are, why you reincarnated this lifetime, who you are meant to interact with, your awakening, and of course true pure happiness this lifetime. And let’s not forget how each of our contracts are meant to benefit the collective as whole. When you do the work, open your energy channels, your heart, your eyes, and your ears to what it or they are and you embrace them with a willingness to move through them and fulfill them paths will simply unfold before you to take or not take. Paths you had never looked to see will suddenly be illuminated for you to no longer ignore. And it’s okay to embrace them and still have some doubt, or fear, or anxiety about them a does of those are healthy to have and they serve a purpose just don’t allow them to reach an unjustifiable level and hinder you.

19.There’s no such thing as a “bad” emotion. Every emotion serves a function.

If you hear this and your whole being rejects it, trust me I get it and you are not alone. Learning this lesson took serious brain rewiring to be able to integrate into my life and I at times still have slips ups of judgmental thoughts towards my emotions. But, this is 1000000000% true. Every single emotion is serving a function and communicating something to you and it is valid. It is your job to determine what the function is, what it is communicating to you, and if it is at a justifiable level of intensity. That is what emotional regulation is. This idea of bad emotions or negative emotions that we should never feel or just do our best to work through as quickly as possible is something we as humans in society did to emotions. Why? I will never know. But, we have to work hard to step away from this and truly understand to be human is to feel and experience the full spectrum of emotions.

20. Learning your worth is liberating.

This one is still a work in progress but, how much freedom it has given me from shame, guilt, and self doubt already is immense!

21.Every birth especially a rebirth requires a death to happen first

Everything in the multiverse is about balance, duality, and this cosmic dance of give and take. It’s the one universal truth I will stand my ground on that is true and it simply can not be fought. It is how the multiverse and everything that is comprised of its energies is able to exist. It is both creating and destroying at all times to keep all this energy moving to exist. and when you create, it is the act of birthing which means something must die first to make space and recycle energy and matter. This is something I will be going really deep on soon!

22.You Can have all the knowledge in the world but, it won’t matter unless you use it to act.

23.It’s possible to create a life worth living for!!

The fact that I even typed this out is such a huge deal! I never in my life thought this would be something I could have. I never even entertained the idea so much so I couldn’t even envision my life, what I wanted, what I could look it, what it could like, none of it. Until this past year, I had ping ponged all over the place with dreams, goals, and who I was going to be because I simply couldn’t see a time or a day where I didn’t want to die and I really truly wanted to be alive and thriving instead of simply existing. how could I have when I had spent my whole life I have access to the memories of wanting to die, trying to die, and wising I simply wouldn’t wake up the next morning? But, guess what?! You can do it! I know that now!