Hormones

Perimenopause is knocking at my door. And my 12-year-old daughter is embarking on the hormonal ride that comes for all middle schoolers. There's rarely a dull moment in our house, but especially now, we, two water signs, are riding a wave of emotion.

Managing my own emotions while holding space for hers is like watching a tightrope walker at a circus—will I fall or keep it together as I defy physics balancing myself across the proverbial rope suspended in the air? As I listen to and console her, I am reminded of the big feelings I felt as a middle schooler. And I think about all the work I've done on myself since then.

My public announcement that I am now an airport girlie. This whole process of getting into the airport space has been an exercise in challenging my own beliefs of what’s possible for me. I’ve definitely experienced the feeling of fear as I’ve been working on these deals, but I haven’t let that feeling dictate my actions.

When we're new on this earth, we think that every thought and feeling we have is the absolute truth. If we've gone to therapy, had some coaching, or just read books about the fact that our emotions are not indicators of absolute truths, we know that our emotions are only one indicator of what might be going on. But even if we know all of this to be true, negative self-talk may still be roaming through our thoughts.

I saw the power of how our thoughts impact our reality, when I was learning how to coach others. From multiple coaches I learned that our perspective dictates our thoughts, our thoughts dictate our actions, our actions dictate our results, and those results dictate our outcomes. It was just a few years ago that I learned the power of our thoughts, even though I grew up with my mom often encouraging me to have positive conversations with myself because the most important conversation I had was the one I had with myself. What I think about myself and how I think about myself ultimately shapes my outcomes.

Imagine my reaction when I took a personality assessment that two friends, who I happen to be on a group chat with, sent me at different times last week. It's called the Saboteur Assessment. The website says, "Saboteurs are the voices in your head that generate negative emotions as you handle life's everyday challenges. They represent the automatic patterns in your mind for how to think, feel, and respond. Your Saboteurs cause all of your stress, anxiety, self-doubt, frustration, restlessness, and unhappiness. They sabotage your performance, well-being, and relationships."

I love any kind of personality assessment that allows me to understand myself better, so I took it, and boy, did it capture my saboteurs to a tee. I was high on restlessness, control, and high achieving as my saboteurs. I am acutely aware of how restlessness plays out in my day-to-day life as a business owner and parent, and I am working on managing it because it can create a sense of chaos and discontentment in the lives of those around me, but I was surprised to see how high my control level was. I was not so surprised about the high achiever marks. The kicker for all of these saboteurs is the original survival function…the why behind how these saboteurs made their way into our thought stream. It said, "The Restless is a strategy to find constant new sources of excitement, pleasure, and self-nurturing. This could be associated with early life experiences with inadequate parental nurturing or painful circumstances. Restless indulgence not only provided substitute self-nurturing but also an escape from having to deal with anxiety and pain."

Someone take the wheel!

That short paragraph alone was a lot to process but gave me a lot of food for thought about how this feeling dictates my actions today as a decently evolved adult. Hearing the truth about yourself is never easy, but it’s very useful when you’re working towards being the best version of you.

Make sure to click the “PQ Score Assessment” button on the webpage linked below or click the image above to take you right to the assessment. Take the Saboteur assessment first, though

If you take the assessment, also take the assessment for mental fitness, which measures the percentage of time that your mind serves you as opposed to sabotages you. My score was lower than I thought it would be. I was close to the tipping point, but not quite there. Must be the stress of Q1 (Jan - March); fewer people come outside to eat ice cream when it's cold. Go figure. I bet I'll be at the tipping point if not thriving somewhere between Q2 and Q3. Ha!

Nothing marks the end of Q1 for me than seeing this carrot cake flavor leave our menu. We also serve it at the beginning of the year and people love it so much. It tastes just like carrot cake, only it’s ice cream! You can have it shipped to your door or you can grab a scoop or pint at all the stores.

In any event, last week was all about managing the emotions of a younger person who's experiencing big feelings and trying to make sense of them while I manage my own feelings as an aging person who is still actively learning about herself. All of this has reinforced a truth that applies to both my middle-schooler and myself: understanding and managing our inner world is perhaps life's most important skill, regardless of where we are on the timeline of growth.

Wherever you are on your journey of self-discovery, I hope you know that you have the mental power to be and feel whatever you want. Michael Singer's book The Untethered Soul helped me understand this concept a lot. Check it out if you haven't already.

Here's to a week full of self-talk that lifts you up instead of tearing you down.

Petrushka

Your Local Ice Cream Lady & Life/Business Coach