Can someone you DON’T like, tell you something you don’t want to hear?

Can you HEAR the Truth?

You could be thinking, “Tanya, I can hear truth from people I TRUST…” Ha! Actually, that’s usually HARDER! 

Last Week’s Post – Can You SEE The Truth? 

Truth from Enemies & Adversaries

“She said what?!? I’m not surprised, that crazy trollop hates me!”

Ok, maybe not your precise wording but something to that effect. You discount truths you hear from people who you don’t like or you believe do not like you.

They must be up to something. Sabotage is afoot. Malice is in play. You go for a long swim in denial, which isn’t just a river in Egypt! 

Because you have already discredited the source of the information, you discredit what they share too. 

Here’s a famous quote that’s endured for 2,400+ years for a reason:

There are only two people can tell you the truth about yourself – an enemy who has lost his temper and a friend who loves you dearly. -Antisthenes 360 B.C.

Hearing the truth is about the TRUTH and not about the source. You NEED that information so you can course correct what isn’t working in your life. 

Truth from Family & Besties

What am I hiding from hearing?

It is harder to hear difficult truths from those you love because difficult truths HURT. We transfer the pain of the truth to the messenger. (Remember the old phrase? “Don’t shoot the messenger!” It also feels Greco-Roman and at least 2 millenea old).

We do not expect those we love to walk up and GIVE us pain, thus we resist, resent, regret and reject sticky truths from those we love.

Catch 22? You think you reject enemies and allow truth of friends and it tends to be reversed. You will DWELL on what your adversary says and rationalize away what your sister mentions.

What is your pattern?

How are you at hearing the truth? Can you take it straight up or do you need spoon fulls of sugar before and after it arrives? Do those who come to help you have to 1) tell you the truth 2) calm you down and then 3) heal the cuts you gave them by themselves?

If so, you are broadcasting that you “Can’t handle the truth” and don’t want it. Please be sure if you do this, you will attract lies, passive-aggressiveness and other F-ery.

My favorite 2 coaching words. STOP IT.

Source will show you truth and you need to let it IN.

In Joy,

The energy of 2019 is potent. Can you feel it? It has big changes and good things in store for you IF YOU TAKE ACTION.

You know this. You feel it. Bigger things are meant for you!

What’s in your way? Your mindset.

Your mindset will either take you higher or break you down and keep you stuck. So let me ask you:

Are you where you want to be?

Do you feel good in your body?

Do you trust yourself around food?

Do you feel food freedom?

Are you happy in your relationship or are you wanting love or deeper love and connection?

Are you financially prosperous?

Are you HAPPY?

If you’re committed to making it happen this year—then I have an invitation for you…

Join me for a FREE online interview series, “The Power of Chicks: Expert Advice to Boost Your Confidence and Create the Inner AND Outer Change That Leads to True Happiness”, which begins February 18 and is hosted by my friends Erin Attwood and Sarit Ashkenazi.

Their mission is to help people better their lives through nutrition and healthy habits, and to that end, they’ve invited nearly 30 experts, including me, to speak as part of this series.

Tune in for my interview about Excuses vs. Reasons and the REAL Truth 🙂

Join The Power of Chicks Summit Here

You Can Expect to Learn:

• What your environment has to do with your ability to succeed and how to ensure you’re giving yourself the absolute best opportunity to achieve your goals.
• What your environment has to do with your ability to succeed and how to ensure you’re giving yourself the absolute best opportunity to achieve your goals.
• The truth about what some “healthy” foods are really doing to your body, and how to make adjustments to your diet, so you can feel (and move) better.
• Tips and tricks for remaining disciplined as you create new, healthy habits that support you in creating and enjoying long-term success, no matter what your goals are.
• How to overcome adversity as you strive toward your goals, so you can stay focused and committed—finally creating the change you so desire!
• And so much more!

Click on the link below to hop into The Power of Chicks event today! This is needed, so share this with your family and friends too!

In Joy,

We are doing TRUTH!! Come on in. Why Truth? Umm, your ability to change is tied to your ability to SEE The Truth, HEAR the Truth, TELL the Truth and ACT on the Truth. If your life isn’t already perfect, you need things to change.

And, as a bonus, those are 4 of the components of the the Happily Ever After  H.E.A. or Healthy Evolved Alpha H.E.A. Questions to help you find your mate. If enough of you ask me, I’ll share them for the first time.

Last Week’s Post – How to “DO” Valentine’s Day for ANY Relationship Situation

Awareness Really is 80% of Everything

We’ll keep this simple.

What you don’t see you won’t fix.

What you don’t see you won’t take responsibility for.

What you don’t see you won’t believe.

What you don’t see you won’t change.

What you don’t see is NOT REAL.

Look at the government of your country (and no, it doesn’t matter where you live, it’s the same!). The Government tends to not SEE whatever they don’t want to deal with. 

Don’t be like the Government.

Alphas hate uncertainty and LOVE control.

The path to receiving the your next steps start with seeing 3 big truths.

1. See where you are.
2. See where you want to be.
3. See why the hell you aren’t there already. (What you aren’t doing, being or seeing – this is on YOU)

See why the hell you aren’t there already. (What you aren’t doing, being or seeing – this is on YOU)

Simple, Single Question Time

What am I avoiding seeing?

The cobwebs over the door? Your partner turning away from sex? Your child withdrawing? Your savings account shrinking? Check engine light on your car? Your dream getting farther away?

What truth are you looking away on.

Easiest Advice You Won’t Like:

Take Action TONIGHT. Do SOMETHING on SOMETHING.

I’m in Australia now and I spent a whole Saturday cleaning windows and cobwebs. The dirt that you train yourself to “stop seeing”. I let myself see it and took action. The energy of our home is amazing now JUST from that little step toward truth.

The truth was my new home was dirty. The truth is I take full responsibility for making this house a home. I will SEE all the things I don’t want to see to make that happen. Know what? My seeing this truth is catchy. My mate is seeing it now and happily taking action too!

In Joy,

Valentine’s Day actually is a tricky holiday. So I’m going to help you with a little cheat sheet of how to do Valentine’s Day regardless of what’s going on in your love life right now.

We first start with WHO we focus on for Valentine’s Day. There are three options. You, Him or Both of You.

Catch up last month’s coaching on Empathy: WHAT Empathy is, WHY You Want It (deep, bonded love) and 7 Foolproof Steps to Doing itfor Others, and the Key to GETTING More Support.

You Are Going to Make YOU Happy This Valentine’s Day

You can focus on yourself, on yourself AND your mate or on your mate.

Who you focus on depends on where you are in your relationship.

If you’re single or married and unhappy, your focus is going to be on your self. You are going to make YOU happy this Valentine’s Day and you are not going to be looking around for someone else to do it for you.

Please remember that this is spiritual law. We can only receive what we have FIRST given to ourselves. So give it!

The newer the relationship, the more important is that you are focusing on YOU to fill yourself up, so you are not looking for a cornucopia from this other person who just arrived in your life.

In an established dating relationship, it is more of an equal blend. Do for both of you.

If you are married or mated & happy­, your focus is your mate. Let me repeat that. Your focus is your mate.

You don’t have to worry about shoring yourself up because, in a happy relationship, you’re already doing a good enough job loving yourself. That frees you from looking for a Valentine’s Day “windfall” from your mate.

Secret Advantage for Singles/Unhappily Marrieds

For the singles and the unhappily married’s, focus on YOU means find something to do FOR yourself or give to yourself. And I deeply recommend that that thing you give to yourself be an emotional, rather than a physical gift.

Time doing something YOU like is tops of the scale here.

Netflix movie bender of your favorite movies + your favorite meal all ending in a bath (using that bath oil that you never use because it was an expensive gift). Perfect!

The secret to giving yourself an emotional gift for Valentine’s Day is in feeling that your actions are NOT a substitute for someone else’s missing love. You are not the, “darn, this is what I’ll get instead…”

You are in fact, practicing identifying what you most love and receiving what you most love.

These are skills that need to be well honed for you to get into a happily mated relationship anyway. 🙂

If you’re in a dating relationship, most people will caution you not to do too much for your mate. If you have to toe the “not too much so I don’t scare you” line super carefully, you may want to consider truthfully how that relationship is going. (Next month is all about truth!)

Just be sure you are not giving to exert control and “demand” more from them than they have ALREADY been giving to you emotionally. 

Happy? The ONE Thing You MUST Show Your Mate

And now my new favorite (because this is my first Valentine’s Day as a happily mated pair!) – the happily mated & married folks.

Your focus is your mate. Your job is to convey this belief on Valentine’s Day:

I’d pick you again just as you are…

Tell them that and SHOW them that.

Challenge yourself to first figure out how to communicate it without spending money. Whatever you come up with without spending money, is likely to be a better messenger than that new Blu-ray DVD player or dinner.

Do not let the fact that Valentine’s Day is over commercialized bother you. This is a good moment to stop and reflect on where YOU are and set your life up to continue going in the direction you wanted to go OR course correct it.

In Joy,

Now you know WHAT empathy is, WHY you want it (deep, bonded love) and 7 Foolproof Steps to doing it for others.

Well, what about YOU?

All you need to do to get better empathy from other people is to ask.

Your Friends, Family and Mate Will Give You MORE Support if You Make it Easier for Them to Do So

Ok, I over simplified. It is asking + making it IMPOSSIBLE FOR THEM TO FAIL.

“What?! Why am I worrying about them? What About ME? I’m the one in need the freakin’ Support…” you grumble.

Yes, yes. But one reason people are scared to support you is because they’re scared of being made wrong. To get YOUR empathy, show THEM empathy on their fears of rejection, by giving them instructions.

You have to HELP them support you in the way you need to be supported, so you get what you need. Then they get to feel like a hero because they did it “right”.

What we do “right” we do MORE OF.

My solution for this is called Boy Support and Girl Support. YOU need to tell people whether you need Boy Support or Girl Support.

Girl Support: You let me vent, listen to me and reassure me that things will be OK (it’s EMOTIONAL -> heart). It is NOT solution oriented or offering solutions. It is STEPS 1-5 of the 7 Foolproof Steps.

Boy Support: Hey, let’s brainstorm, analyze what happened, see what went wrong and course correct! It involves feedback and solutions (it’s MENTAL -> head). It is STEP 6 & 7 of the 7 Foolproof Steps.

Alphas (you know I love you and AM you) but you almost always want to give Boy Support.

You Get More Empathy By Training Them What to Give You

I literally trained my friends, to listen for whether I ask for Boy Support or Girl Support. If I forget to ask, they are to ask ME, do I need boy or girl support right now?

We will often interrupt the other if we’ve inadvertently started down the “wrong” road. It’s easy and kinder to say, “a bit more Boy Support please”, instead of explaining that you’ll feel better with a solution in hand!

Once you get this understanding in place, you’ll find it FAR easier to prevent empathy fails (hmm, thanks for that plan…I guess I could just use some girl support right now…).

It’s also easier to set things up so people feel empowered by giving you just what you need.

This goes about triple for our men. They REALLY REALLY want to help us. They have had their heads (and hearts!) bashed by women when they made a mistake.

You will get MORE empathy if you just make it easy and clear for those around you to confidently give you exactly what you need.

If you need more of one kind than the other, say so!

Empathy is about coming from the other person’s perspective, so set the stage for the direction you WANT your help to come from!

This is easy to do and easy not to do. And given my gender labeling, no one forgets which is which. Try it!

In Joy,

You now know WHAT is Empathy and WHY you want it. Now let’s show you 7 Foolproof Steps to Showing Healthy Empathy.

1. Observe

Notice someone you care about is upset and that Healthy Empathy (#1) is needed. Get ready to follow the process.

2. Listen & Ask

Listen to what they are saying and see how they are acting. ASK what is wrong to get THEIR view and THEIR details. 

3. Environment

Think about their environment. That means have they been happy? Down? Under pressure? Ill? The energy of their most recent circumstances carries Momentum.

You must not do anything without understanding where THEY ARE vs. where you think they should be.

EMPATHY (and Love) Validates People’s Feelings

4. Summary

Here you list out the feelings you’ve been told and have seen. Make sure you add in their environment. Tell them you can SEE how ALL of that mixed together has triggered them and…you can UNDERSTAND their reaction given all that.

That last bit is crucial. It’s the “you’re ok because I am not judging or condemning you” part. I can see the road you’ve walked and agree that your feelings are VALID.  (Note: Valid does not mean you approve of their choice, just that you can ‘follow’ how they arrived to their pain.)

EMPATHY (and Love) validates people’s feelings even if (and especially if) they are different from your own reactions. Love Requires Empathy (#2).

5. Feedback

Ask them how they feel now (after your did Steps 1-4).

If they don’t feel better or lift up high enough to be grateful for the empathy YOU AREN’T DONE YET (told you this was grown up stuff!). 

Redo the process starting at Step 1 until they are better. 

Unhealthy Empathy is Where You Climb Out of Your Good Boat

Sometimes you need to do the process separately for each of their different triggers(can be 2-3). Sometimes the trigger is just  too big to “clear” all at once. Make sense?

Once their feedback to you is “I’m better”, go to Step 6.

6. Ask If Ready For A Solution

Notice you have NOT even attempted to solve anything yet! And you are STILL not offering solutions and advice. 

Here is the teaching analogy I gave to my mate, who has boats. If my boat breaks down on the river and you motor up alongside me, you may want to immediately hop on board and fix my motor.

I don’t know you! And I don’t know if you’re qualified to fix my motor or if you understand how my motor works.

Do not just board a sinking ship with your hammer in your hand! You will scare me and I’ll feel threatened, not helped.

If you notice my boat is in distress (Step 1), you’d ask me what happened(Step 2). You’d listen and pay attention to our surroundings (Step 3). Am I close to home or are sharks nearby? 

You’d explain what I understand is going on (Step 4) and let me fully respond without jumping in (Step 5).

THEN you explain your credentials with my motor and ask if I want your help(Step 6).

7. Solution

Now you offer your solution. And if they don’t like it or use it, you are careful to not make this about YOU. They are on the broken boat at the moment, not you!

Unhealthy empathy is where you climb out of your good boat and let it drift off while you join them in the broken (state) boat. Do not do this! 

Do this and you will develop your empathy skillset and learn the glue that builds the deepest bonds of love. And do not “get efficient” and skip steps my beautiful Alphas!

In Joy,

Empathy is not a sexy subject. It feels elusive. It is never discussed at dinner or been featured in a Hallmark movie. It IS however critical to the foundation of any strong, healthy relationship.

Let’s see why you want empathy IF you want love…

***You learned What is Empathy last week and next week we’ll see how you can show empathy without beating yourself up. 

Real Love is Acceptance

Think of your deepest loving relationship. If you don’t have one (I did not less than a decade ago) you can use one you’ve seen.

Love is not amazing when it flows to the champion, the beautiful, the confident and the rich. Love is amazing when it flows to the flawed, the overweight, the anxious and the works in progress.

Real love is feeling that YOU think how I AM is OK.

Empathy is you being able to voice that feeling, when I’m afraid and not at my best.

If you show me and I can HEAR and SEE you love me when I am my miserable, terrified failing self…ONLY THEN do I feel SAFE WITH YOUR LOVE.

With empathy your beloved feels you see them as they are, in their crazy & vulnerable moments, and YOU DO NOT CARE. They are accepted.

Empathy Binds Hearts Together

Want to know the moments, ladies, when men fall in love with us? When we are GIVING OR RECEIVING deep empathy with them. It is also when your children and your boss learn to really trust in you. And when you give this open-hearted, understanding to yourself, it is how you grow your OWN Self-Love.

Empathy is that big of a deal.

It says, beloved, I see you in pain and still I behold one whom I love. I understand your struggle, your fear, your lashing out, your worries. I see ALL of that and it’s OK because YOU ARE OK. I will not punish you.

That is LOVE. Now, with this view of love, re-read the popular bible verse known to many – you will see Love sees the truth and shows EMPATHY all through the verse…

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 NIV

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.

When you can give and receive empathy, you become a conduit for love to flow: to you, from you and through you. That’s part of how I’ve attracted my happily ever after…

Can you feel my security in his love in the photo below? Empathy bonded us.

In Joy,

Why should you care about empathy?

Do you want great sex, rock solid support from a business partner or a bullet proof marriage? Ok. You need empathy for all those. 

It’s the unsung hero in all strong relationships (and yes, that includes business, family AND romantic relationships). Empathy creates deep trust.

And if YOU don’t know how to “do” empathy, the odds are very low you’re actually receiving healthy empathy either.

***Did you miss the Top 10 Coaching Posts of 2018? Catch Up HERE

What IS Empathy?

Empathy is a way of giving another person the comforting certainty that their pain is understood while maintaining your own equilibrium.

Translation? Empathy makes a hurting person feel like their fear was justified WITHOUT you getting upset too.

There are 4 parts to giving healthy empathy:

A) You give comfort (I see your feelings)

B) You give certainty (I saw what happened)

C) They feel understood (They’re OK b/c YOU think their response is OK)

D) You feel helpful (You’ve given without harming/defending yourself)

The Empathy Series – The Necessary Thing You Overlook

Empathy is Not a SOLUTION. Men miss this more often than women. They want to hop to the solution because their despair and hurt feels terrible.

They want their mates to stop feeling terrible as soon as possible, so they want to solve it immediately. This skips the empathy phase, whichdeprives the relationship of the security needed to go deeper.

Empathy is also Not COMMISERATING. The empathy that you see on TV in a sitcom is what most of us know. One girl gets her heartbroken, so her best-friend cancels her plans.  They sit and binge eat ice cream andfeel miserable together.

That’s best termed “commiserating“ but it’s not healthy empathy. 

Think of a big sports game or any game where one side wins and the other side loses. The losing team fans commiserate with each other and talk about that “one bad call”. It makes them feel better that the other person saw exactly what they saw and that they ALL feel bad. Not healthy.

Unhealthy Empathy Often Looks Like This:

1) The person helping suffers WITH the sufferer,

2) The person helping prioritizes being forgiven/cleared of blame OVER sufferer’s feelings or

3) The person helping is AFRAID of the sufferer’s pain.

(I’ll show you how & why to avoid these later this month…)

Secret Sauce you don’t want to miss??

The empathizer keeps their emotions UP while they’re helping a person who is in fact, DOWN.

This is about leverage. If someone is on the floor and you come sit next to them, it is not possible for you to lift them up – you have lost your leverage.

A healthy relationship won’t call you disloyal when you won’t “get on the floor with them emotionally”, because they’ll see you lift them up more easily when you don’t.

You want HEALTHY EMPATHY.

In Joy,

Here are the top 10 blog posts of 2018! Oh my gosh it was hard to pick!

1. [Goals] 4 Goals You Were Taught That DON’T WORK – #1 MONEY!

2. [Blocks] Am I REALLY Committed? Resistance Part 3 of 4 

3. [Blocks] How Do I Spot My Bad Patterns? Resistance Part 4 of 4 

4. [Blocks] Explaining: The Final Ex-Energy Makes You Look WEAK

5. [Blocks] Alpha Don’t Switch Gears Well… Do YOU?

6. [Blocks] #2 – The 4G Guide to Getting Going…Get Unstuck Today!

7. [Balance] The Double Edged Sword #3 – Alphas are CRISIS MANAGERS

8. [Balance] Are You Stuck on STUBBORN??

9. [Alphas] Why Do I Control Men? The Alpha Life Cycles – Control #1

10. [Alphas] The Origin Story of YOU – The Alpha Life Cycles – Fight #1

There are two ways to “do” the top 10 blog post list:

#1 Read them all. DO them all. Benders are GOOD for you sometimes!
#2 Pick 3 numbers between 1-10 “randomly” and Read THOSE. You may be surprised at how well this method works!

2018. You are DONE.

How did you do this year?

Did you read all the coaching posts? Did you DO the work? If not, why not?

2019 I’ll be doing some heavy duty “Happily Ever-Aftering” (yes, it’s my new phrase!) from AUSTRALIA!

In Joy,

We learned Why You Want Boundaries and the easiest way to SET BOUNDARIES. But what happens when someone breaches your boundary?? Let’s learn HOW TO RECOVER…

Spoiler Alert! The biggest KEY to recovering after your boundaries have been crossed is to focus on YOU and NOT the Needy Person.

“But Tanya, it’s THEIR FAULT!!”

No, it’s not (and by that I mean NO, it’s really not…) 

5 Steps to Recover From Your Violated Boundary

Step 1: VENT. Seriously. You gotta get the hurt/shocked/exasperated/angry energy off. I recommend an angry walk. Walk and rant it out. You’ll walk harder and faster and actually ground out the negative energy as you go. Do Not take the black cloud black into your home.

Step 2: BLESS & CLEAR. That head of steam you worked up has to go somewhere. If not, it’s in your couch, drapes and bedroom! Energy is neither created nor destroyed, it just changes form. So… ASK it to change form. You can do whatever you like to bless and or clear the icky feelings from your space (do NOT forget work!).

This is more about your intentions to have love and calm restored to your home than the methods. You can just say “I am ready to move forward and only things and energies full of love are welcome here.” Or use incense, candles, wine or chocolate. You can invite in better energy. You can evict crappy energy or you can celebrate to shoo out the sad cobwebs.

Step 3: BLAME. Yep, I said it. You will want to blame someone anyway, so go ahead. It’s just WHO you blame. Answer? You.

If you have a child in your home and let them eat as much cake and ice cream as they want ALL night and they act like little terrors – no one blames THE KIDS. The person who was supposed to set the boundary is responsible.

You get to be 100% responsible for the breaches to your boundaries.

“Get TO?” Yes. What you control, you can change so you can be happy. If you are powerless to stop people running over your rules and guidelines, you are a sad, blame-y puppy. 

Step 4: RESET. Go do something you feel VERY in control of
(you love that) or that makes you happy. Technically, you should detach and let the feelings wash through and not try to DO something, but I know who I am talking to Alpha! I am giving you Plan B. Get away from what triggered you.

Step 5: SET THE DARN BOUNDARIES. 

Boundaries Are About Your Relationship with YOU

Why is this all about YOU? Pick below which ones YOU missed or went “soft” on:

• • Not setting a boundary?

• • Not voicing the boundary?

• • Only voicing your boundaries DURING an issue?
  • Not monitoring your own emotional reserves (red-lining)?

Not setting or voicing a boundary is often self-worth. You feel not worthy of having one or afraid to ask for what you need. Only voicing needs when you are angry means you don’t trust people to help you, unless coerced. Not trusting others comes from not trusting yourself. 

The last one, letting yourself red-line, is the one I was recently guilty of. I have a HUGE capacity to hold other people’s messes. I am moving outside the US, arranging a big trip (see P.S.) AND let myself simultaneously take on 7 different people’s true emergencies. TOO MUCH. 

I was red-lining. My “engine” (heart) started to smoke! (Literally, the Check Engine Light came on in my car! You cannot make this stuff up!)

I have shored up my boundaries at a deeper level and my daily miracles are back. 😊

Do NOT underestimate Boundaries. It’s the holidays now (even if you read this later) and people are hurting and hurting people hurt people. If you have trespassers constantly, ask yourself if you have a fence, a sign and a dog. If not, that’s on YOU. 

Take control and the Universe will reward you and people respect you. 

Complain & blame? You get the same.

(Ok. I may need to trademark that last line! Love RHYMES!)

In Joy,