Mother’s Day Pondering

by Yulit Price on May 10, 2011

If you are like any of the mothers I talk to, Mother’s day makes you think… about your mother (and her mothering), and your own self as a ‘mom’ (and your own mothering).

Here are a set of questions to guide you in your pondering and processing: 

 

Your Mom (and her mothering)

(Also applies to Step Mom/Foster Mom/Surrogate Mom/Grandmother):

  • What makes her different?

o   Not all moms are the same. Every one mothers in her own ‘signature’ way. What makes your mom unique?

  • What did she sacrifice?

o   Motherhood comes with sacrifices. Some are visible, some are invisible. What do you think your mom had to sacrifice?

  • What traditions did she hand to you?

o   From holidays to favorite meals to celebration rituals…What do you find yourself doing with your own family that was inspired by your mom?

  • What are the qualities you admire in her?

o   Think of her special characteristics: giving, rescuing, managing, leading, nurturing, caring, listening, being. Which of the qualities have been ‘transferred’ to you?

  • What values did she instill?

o   What did she stand for? Forgiveness, compassion, courage, honesty, family, education…

  • What messages/sayings did she repeat?

o   We can all hear our moms through their sayings. What expressions are imprinted on you?

  • What have you learned from her about being a mom?

o   What lessons make the foundation for your own motherhood? What lessons did you leave behind?

Your own self as a Mom:

  • What things did you learn about your mom by being one?

o   Becoming a mother can open your eyes to appreciate a lot of what your mother did and endured. What have you realized about her from your own mothering journey?

  • What are you learning from your children?

o   Every child is here to teach us different life lessons. Have you changed your perspective or beliefs about something as a result of having children? What ‘lessons’ do you keep coming against?

  • What things have you learned about yourself by being a mom?

o   Motherhood is a life-long journey. It is filled with many responsibilities, rewards and challenges. Your growth and development is entwined with growing your children. What self-discoveries have you made? In what ways are you growing?

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What is Your More?

by Yulit Price on April 8, 2011

What is your More?

I hear it all the time when I talk with mothers.

“I am happy to be a mother, I love my children, I feel grateful to be able to be with them…”

And then appears the ‘But’.

 

It sounds something like this:

“But…

 

I want more for myself…

I want more for my life…

I want more for my career…

I want more from my husband…

I want more from my relationships”

 

Does it sound familiar?  Have you reached a point where you may be feeling ‘content’ on the outside, yet aching for that something more on the inside?

Still, when I ask women in my workshops the question: What do you want more of? Often they struggle with the answer. Not because they lack in smarts. Not because they lack articulation. Just because it is hard. Hard to allow the words. Harder to access what they feel. Even harder to be open to what they will need to do, or change, or risk.

Check out this short clip from SoulBiographies to get a glimpse of what the journey of ‘more’ can look like from the inside out.

Now  let me ask you:

How much more is there for you?

Please share your comments below.

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The Mother’s Self-Work

by Yulit Price on March 30, 2011

Ever felt like you have lost yourself?
Ever felt like you are mothering from a depleted place?
Ever felt like everyone else is growing but you?
Ever felt like you are on mute and mostly thinking silently to yourself?
Ever felt like you are supporting 24/7 but lacking the support you need?
Ever felt like your internal chatter is too much, and that you can’t share it with others?
Ever felt like you are ungrounded and that it affects everyone around you?
Ever felt like you are ‘off centre’ and so are your children or husband?
Ever felt that you are ignoring your needs but serving everyone else’s needs?
Then it is time for some self-work.

What does Self-Work mean to a mother?

Self-Work is about working out:

How you can ‘be there’ for yourself while ‘being there’ for your family.
How you can enrich your world so you can mother from a richer place.
How to incorporate self-growth as you watch everyone else around you grow.
How to voice your thoughts and feelings while attuning to everyone else’s thoughts and feelings.
How to ask to be supported in your relationships while being of support.
How to connect to your internal world so you can better connect with your external world.
How to ground yourself so you can be a grounding force for those around you.
How to reconnect back to your centre while allowing your family members to do the same.
How to honor and meet your needs while honoring and meeting everybody else’s needs.

This is the art of mothering.

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What “Happy” Looks Like

by Yulit Price on March 24, 2011

Most of the women I work with have expressed to me: “I just want to be happy”.

It is a universal theme.
We all want to be happy.
Yet… what does “Happy” look like?
Take a minute and think.
What does it look like for you?
Dig in.
Go deeper.
Find the details.
Ask yourself: what do I really want?

After listening to many mothers who grapple with this question, this is what comes up the most:

“Find myself again”
“Know who I really am”
“Be my best self”
“Find my strengths”
“Gain more insight”
“Be decisive”
“Make the right choices”
“Find the right relationships”
“Live from gratitude”
“Connect more with my husband and children”
“Be heard”
“Be appreciated”
“Be valued”
“Take care of myself”
“Find me-time”
“Find my passion in life”
“Live my purpose”

The question is very simple.
The answers are very honest.
And right there… begins the work.

What does “Happy” mean to you?

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Just Give Me This

by Yulit Price on March 15, 2011

In honour of International Women’s Day, I decided to gift you with a poem, for the days and times your soul is inwardly asking and outwardly whispering: “just give me this”.

Prayer
by Belleruth Naparstek

Just give me this:
A rinsing out, a cleansing free
Of all my smaller strivings
So I can be the class act God intended,
True to my purpose,
All my energy aligned behind my deepest intention.
And just this:
A quieting down,
A clearing away of internal ruckus,
So I can hear the huge stillness in my heart,
And feel
How I pulse with all creation,
Part and parcel of Your great singing ocean.
And this too:
A willingness to notice and forgive
The myriad times I fall short,
Forgetting who I really am,
What I really belong to.
So I can start over,
Fresh and clean,
Like sweet sheets billowing in the summer sun,
My heart pierced with gratitude.

Belleruth Naparstek, 1997,Prayers for Healing: 365 Blessings, Poems & Meditations from Around the World. Maggie Oman, Editor. Conari Press, Berkeley, CA, Reissued 2008.

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Tell it forward

by Yulit Price on February 28, 2011

Last month I accompanied my friend, Kimberley Rothenberg, a fitness and personal trainer, on a special mission. She was giving a talk about her career choices as part of a career series for girls at the Calgary Girls School.

This series is designed to empower girls by giving them something very special: real career stories and messages from working moms. I thought this was special, because our stories often remain hidden, and our messages are difficult to pass down. Moreover, most girls and women have limited role models, and mentorship is still hard to come by. At 2011, we still don’t have all the answers for life-work balance and for raising our children vs. raising our careers. After all, the demands of ‘role performance’ are simultaneously increasing both in the working world and in the parenting world. Success is not only hard to achieve, it is harder to define.

And yet, we are being called, now more than ever, to:

  • Pursue our passions
  • Live our dreams
  • Give what we are meant to give
  • Live our best self
  • Find our purpose
  • Serve the world

We are called to envision, to lead, to act, to make a difference.

In order to do that, women nowadays need to define success on their own terms, and to re-invent themselves across the life span.
Doing this in the ever-shifting paradigms of work and family may not be easy. But it doesn’t mean we should stop trying.

This process of path-finding, through re-defining and re-designing is the art of composing our lives.

For a deeper understanding of the complexity involved in women’s decision-making and career-making, listen to Sheryl Sandberg via ted.com. In this video, she explains why we may not have all the answers, and what key messages we need to share with ourselves and our daughters.


What career messages do you tell yourself?

What career messages do you tell your daughter?

Post your comment!

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10 Ways to Get Closer

by Yulit Price on February 18, 2011

“If the only way we can maintain relationships is by not showing what we are feeling or not saying what we are really thinking, then we end up giving up relationship for the sake of having relationships. The absurdity of this, when you think about it, is countered by the fact that we often accept it as inevitable.” ~Carol Gilligan

A marriage is like an accordion; at times, it can feel close, tight, and pulled together, and other times it may be filled with a growing distance.

Here are ten tips to help you shrink the distance and get back to closeness:

1. Gratitude: Increase the level of positive reinforcements/appreciations you offer your partner.  Research shows that it takes five appreciations to compensate for the effects of one negative comment. And yes, it will feel awkward – like a foreign language if you have not been sharing or receiving expressions of gratitude for a while.

2. Vulnerability: Reveal something to your partner that you haven’t revealed before, reveal thoughts (I’ve been thinking…) or feelings (I’ve been feeling sad, angry, scared, ignored…) or life intentions (I intend to…).

3. Reflect: Stay attuned to your partner’s non-verbal and body language.  Validate and reflect back what you see or feel.

4. Rituals: Make your commitment to spend time together on a regular basis. Book those lunch dates. Plan the weekend getaways. Commit to taking a workshop together. Build it into your calendars.

5. Listen: Practice Active Listening with your partner. Take a ‘non-knowing’ stance and express genuine curiosity about what your partner is really saying. Contact me for a one hour Active Communication session to uplevel your communications and deepen your conversations.

6. Awareness: Spend time thinking about what coping mechanism you rely on (hint: visit the post on the Mental Divorce), and begin working with yourself to shift that. Email me for a free self-test you can score yourself.

7. Collaborate: Define what’s NOT working and what you don’t want. Move to focusing on what IS working and what you want more of.

8. Praise: Choose to say positive things about each other while in the presence of others.

9. Change: If you stay home every Saturday night, go out. If you work-out separately, do a common work-out session. If you do all the cooking, team-up to create one weekly meal together using a new recipe. You get the idea. Find ways to break away from old habits and from “the way things are”.

10. Expand: The relationship is a third entity. Carve out time to talk specifically about the relationship. If all week long you talk about your work, “who picks who”, or “who does what”, allow room for relationship talk. In order to sustain the relationship in the long term, it needs a room of its own.

Above all, become an observer and note:

How far-out your relational accordion is, and what steps can you take today to bring it closer together?

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The Mental Divorce Begins

by Yulit Price on February 3, 2011

Many of my conversations during this last month, both personal and professional, surrounded the big and loaded word called “relationship”.

I decided to post here the four predictors of relationship failure called the Four Horsemen (coined by marriage researcher J. Gottman).

If you want to gain more awareness into your relationship dynamics, own your protective mechanism, or evaluate the direction of your marriage, read the following and begin to pay attention to the interplay of the “four horsemen” as they sound and surface in your own relationship.

Here are the Four Horsemen:

1)      Criticism: attacking your partner’s personality or character, usually with the intent to prove him/her wrong, or empower yourself and disempower the partner.

  • Generalizations, such as “you always”, You never”, “All you do is”, “Why are you so…”.

2)      Contempt: Attacking your partner sense of self, psychologically abusing/insulting  the partner.

  • Insults and name calling “lazy”, “useless”, “stupid”, “bitch”.
  • Sarcasm and hostile mockery and humor
  • Body language and tone of voice: sneering, rolling eyes etc.

3)      Defensiveness:  Seeing self as the victim to ward of attack.

  • Lack of ownership, attributing to external circumstances. “It’s not my fault”, “it’s not me who has the problem”.
  • Cross complaining: playing ‘ping-pong’ with complaints, meeting partner’s complaint or criticism with one of your own, not listening to partner or ignoring what has been said.  “That’s not true, you’re the one who…”
  • Yes-Butting: starting with agreeing and ending with disagreeing.

4)      Stonewalling: withdrawing from the relationship in order to avoid conflict. Stonewalling may appear as “being neutral”, but conveys distance, emotional disconnect, disapproval, separation.

  • Silence treatment, or stony silence.
  • Mutterings
  • Changing the subject
  • Physically removing oneself.

Most of this is not taught anywhere and couples don’t necessarily know how the presence of the Four Horsemen hinder the experience and quality of their relationship.

Often, couples seek help when all four have been present for a long time and conflict has escalated to a painful level.

Here are two very short videos on the topic:

The Mental Divorce begins (1.21 minutes)

Where to focus your efforts to keep your marriage (1 minute)

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Work Life Balance: A Thorny Issue

by Yulit Price on January 23, 2011

Recently, I have heard from many of you about this issue called: Work-Life Balance.

This is what I have observed:

1)      Families struggle with this issue for quite some time before addressing it.

2)      Young families with small children are impacted by the lack of balance the most.

3)      It is often painful just to ‘talk about it’.

4)      It affects family members on multiple levels.

5)      Due to painful emotions and fear of change, it often remains unresolved.

Of course, fathers and mothers may hold different perspectives on the issue, depending on their definitions of roles and division of labor.

Here is one father’s perspective on the so-called ‘thorny’ issue. In this Ted Talk, he humorously touches on the modern thorns most of us are facing. Go ahead and watch it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXM7MpoVAD0

What works for one family, doesn’t work for another. There is no formula to ‘follow’.

What I suggest instead is to use this video as a dialogue opener.

Because, if what I learned is true, opening the dialogue can be the biggest thorn to approaching the topic, and reaching a working solution.

When we view work-life balance as a dialogue vs. a battle is when we can begin to make a progress.

And as this video reveals, often these little moments of interaction are making the biggest impact on our lives.

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How to Set a Powerful Intent for the New Year

by Yulit Price on December 31, 2010

1. Decide who you want to BE.

Most resolutions fail because they are focused on the “doing” or the “having”.  This year, instead of thinking about what you want to do or what you want to have, focus on the being.

You might set the intent to be gentle with yourself. To be caring. To be creative. To be inspiring. To be mindful. To be connected. To be healing. To be courageous. Be different.

Decide on whatever BEING state you choose.

Long ago, I chose to be 1] healing (my natural ‘gifts’ have led me to become a psychotherapist to serve and heal others. Healing comes in many dresses, you can ‘wear’ one of them), 2] empowering (since I met many girls and women who needed to be empowered in their lives), and 3] serving (It took me a while to find how I can serve the world from my deepest gifts, yet being of service has been a long-standing value of mine).

2. Write it down.

Write it down and post it somewhere meaningful.

Examples: On an inspiration wall, on your desktop, in your journal.

Somewhere you are likely to look at and remind yourself.

Writing it down gives your intention a place to exist, and brings clarity to your being this year.

3. Include yourself!

Include yourself in the intent. If you chose to be compassionate or loving, be loving and compassionate towards yourself. If you chose forgiving or patient, be willing to forgive and be patient with yourself.

So many mothers forget themselves! Your intent is about being for your children and others AND also for yourself.

Will you lose your ‘being’ sometimes? Yes! We all slip in and out of being states. Yet, when you ‘lose’ yourself, or feel overwhelmed, or anxious, this will anchor you and ground you, and will impact how you start your day or go about your week.

4. Be the observer of your own thoughts.

Most women state their intentions and then ‘beat’ themselves up for not being able to fulfill them.

Practice noticing your thoughts. Watch your thoughts as if you are a curious child. Indicate to yourself when you are moving to self-criticism, anxiety, worry, or negative thinking. No judgment, just noticing!

The more you practice, the more you move into self-awareness and mindfulness.

Kindly let go of the harsh thoughts and allow your intentions a place of their own.

5.  Select your words.

Language is powerful, so carefully select your words!

“I intend to be deeply connected to my daughter” is different than “I will try to connect with my daughter”.

Once you state your intention, mindfully choose the words that resonate with you.

How you word things can impact the power of your intention and your level of commitment.

6.  Retreat to connect with your intentions.

Create your vision board in the company of other women. We will help you select your words and map out your intentions in a creative visual masterpiece.

7.  Ask for help and be open to receive.

Most people are in the mindset of “I need to do it on my own”.

Remember – asking and receiving help is not a sign of weakness, as it is a sign of resourcefulness and self agency. “No man is an island” the saying goes. I meet too many women who are isolated and tired from being their own islands. Reach out to get clarity on your intentions, your gifts, and your aspirations. Find the help you need to re-define, re-align, and move-on with your life intentions. So when you are faced with decisions, obstacles, or old patterns, you are not ‘stuck’ or alone. A professional, collaborative relationship is there to support you, and ‘hold’ you as you navigate the changes you crave in your life.

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