I have a confession to make!

I have a confession to make! Earlier this year I was still talking the talk - but stopped walking the walk.

And it took a toll to say the least.  With loads of work pressure and new projects on my plate, my health took a backseat to deadlines in my day job and a new slew of goals for my business.

My stress levels and caffeine consumption were at an all time high while the quality of my sleep, recovery and nutrition were at an all time low. (And if the fatigue and brain fog wasn’t enough proof of that - my Oura and Firstbeat scores most certainly were!) 🤦🏽‍♀️

I justified it by telling myself that I had too many people relying on me and believing in me to slow down. But the truth was I was sliding back into old patterns of wanting to prove my worth and be everything to everyone.
And also show some of the haters that I could do everything they had said I couldn’t.

Instead of giving myself the grace I constantly encourage my clients to give themselves when pursuing their goals, I was giving myself daily headaches, pushing myself to mind-numbing levels of pain and exhaustion which was leading to my experiencing one injury after another. (Still haven’t gotten over that last injury!) 😓

I was doing the very things past experience had taught me not to.

I had also started to fall into the trap of comparing myself to others and re-hashing old hurtful memories that highlighted what was going wrong instead of all the things that had been going right.

I even found myself starting to lose my usual positive outlook. 😳

I started to feel lost and confused, and even started to question if I was still on the right path. (Thank you to my coaches, mentors and friends that pulled me out of that part quickly!)

My abilities were questioned. 🚫
My commitment faltered. 🚫
My creativity started to suffer.🚫
My auto-immune issues started to worsen. 🚫
And my fear and uncertainty started to heighten.🚫

Emotions that should have been immediately released were suppressed and were starting to find their way out in unhealthy and unproductive ways.

I knew better than this. I am better than this. And yet I was still backsliding.

And then I realized why. ‼️

I had let myself get so caught up in doing all the things that I thought I should be doing that I had lost my connection with myself and the reason

I was doing all of those things to begin with.

I had lost my inner knowing.

The one that had kept me on track and helped me make decisions that were aligned with the life I wanted to live. The one that made sure I nourished my spirit just as much as I did my mind and my body.

And without a well nourished spirit, it wasn’t long before I stopped nourishing my mind and body the way the deserved to be. Hence the exhaustion, the headaches, and the confusion.
(And none of this was during Mercury Retrograde - so for once I couldn't blame that.) 😝

Looking back on those moments I can easily see how I got there. I stopped taking time to reflect and be with myself. I made sure every moment of my day was “productive” so I could reach my goals more quickly and stopped giving my mind and my body the rest they needed to stay healthy, remain inspired and continue being creative.

All of this was extra ironic considering I teach my clients to do the exact opposite. I was talking the talk but had stopped walking the walk. It’s no surprise that every area of my life suffered as a result. My health. My business. Even my relationships.

And I didn’t reach any of my goals more quickly. All I really did was push them away by becoming so fixated on them that I ended up creating vibrational resistance to the very things I wanted most and ended up staying stuck exactly where I was. 😒

So I made some decisions.

And if you read my 50th birthday post you already know about some of those decisions. That's why I have spent the last couple of weeks really focusing on - and EMBODYING - one of the biggest decisions I made, which was to give myself more time, freedom and permission to do the things that make me feel alive and bring me more joy. 🙌

Without guilt.  And without any "shoulds" or "need to" thoughts popping into my head. 

I spent time pouring just as much into my own cup as I have been pouring into others. ❣️

I celebrated the good, acknowledged the bad and welcomed the best. (And as much as I got the best, as we all know, more of the best is yet to come.) ❣️

I will spend more time empowering my inner advocate and less time worrying about my inner critic. ❣️

I consistently reminded myself to keep holding my vision in my head..and keep holding the love that originally inspired that vision in my heart. ❣️

I let myself reconnect with myself so I could find out what it is that my inner child needs most right now and how I can best give that to her. ❣️

And most of all - I focused on listening to my inner voice so I could be true to myself and do whatever it was that felt best at that moment instead of doing the things that felt "most productive". ❣️

Basically, I started walking the walk again. And the path that I ended up on as a result has helped restore my health, my inner peace and my joy so I can go back to giving you guys the best of me - and not just what's left of me.

And on July 8th I will be using the "best of me" to pour back into you with a 2 hour live workshop on avoiding burnout and setting stronger boundaries so you can bring more joy and fulfillment into your own life.  Not sure if your boundaries are strong enough?  Take this free quiz and find out!
 

In my upcoming workshop we'll be diving deep into boundaries and how your lack of them may be keeping you from living a fulfilled and meaningful life.   You’ll also learn how you can start setting - and enforcing - stronger boundaries without guilt and WITH integrity.  

Click here to sign up now.  You will not want to miss this!


As always,
Afsheen

Ready to live your best life?

Book a coaching session | Join my email list for random insights | Drop by my Instagram @afsheenshah and say Hi!

People pleasing is NOT selfish

I was recently on a call led by someone I respect highly when she told one of the attendees that one of the best ways to let go of people-pleasing tendencies was to remember how “selfish” it is to be a people pleaser.

Some of the other attendees immediately agreed with her and chimed in that not only was it selfish but that it was also an extreme form of manipulation that people used to get the response they want from the person they were pleasing.

WOAH.

I immediately felt myself get triggered as my nervous system went on high alert. The call was supposed to be a safe space to exchange ideas but the way I was feeling inside felt anything but safe.

As a (still) recovering people pleaser, I found myself feeling offended when someone who had not lived my past decided that the traits I took on to survive that past were somehow designed to manipulate others into behaving a certain way so my own needs could be met. Vivid images of the local imam repeatedly slapping me each time my head scarf started to slide slightly off my head or if I dared mispronounce a word while reading the scripture came flooding back in.

And sure - maybe on some level I was meeting a need (primarily the need to not get hit) through the people pleasing behaviors and perfectionism that ultimately flowed from that moment…and many other moments just like it.

But what I was really doing was surviving.

And so are SO many of the women who have spent a big part of their life stuck in people pleasing behavior.

The characterization of people pleasers as selfish and manipulative made me feel as if I was being attacked and that the years I spent in survival mode were somehow being minimized and diminished.

And then it occurred to me that they can’t minimize or diminish something they don’t even know. At least not knowingly. And in order for them to minimize or diminish my experience of people-pleasing, they would have to be aware that different experiences can exist - or are at least possible.

Perhaps their experience of people-pleasing was a reflection of how it had shown up in their own life as a result of their environment and possibly the expectations they were required to live up to. While mine was a reflection of what I had witnessed in my life, based on my environment and the expectations I was expected to meet while growing up..particularly the cultural expectations.

Maybe it never even crossed their minds that not everyone fell into a pattern of people pleasing for the same reason or for that matter, with the same motivation.

While that realization almost immediately calmed my nervous system back down and brought my heart back into an open and compassionate place, I still did not agree with the statements that had been made. And I most definitely did not agree that they should be shared as general “truths”.
Because for many women - people pleasing is anything but selfish or a form of “manipulation”.

It's actually a form of survival.

Which often starts in childhood and becomes a way of life by the time they reach adulthood. Many times it’s borne out of fear or trauma that pervaded their life and created a false narrative that the only way they could stay SAFE- both physically and emotionally- was by pleasing. And doing. And repeatedly sacrificing.

Over time they start believing that behaving in any other way would mean they were no longer worthy, valued, loved…lovable, or god forbid, “good”.

Once these beliefs take root and constantly shape our actions based on who we should be and how we “need” to act, it can be difficult to break free because now it’s just who we are. It becomes our default identity.

And everything we do is a manifestation of that identity.

I don’t see any of that as selfish or manipulative. And I think we walk a slippery slope when we automatically label and characterize any type of behavior, including people pleasing, into a “one size fits all” model.

And as coaches and thought leaders I also think we serve best when we stop looking at behaviors as a label and instead help people break free of both the labels and the behaviors.

So for all the people pleasers out there, including the recovering ones, I see you. You are not a label. You are not selfish. You are not manipulative.

You are someone who was doing the best she could to be the “good girl” everyone expected you to be..and keep yourself feeling safe, loved and whole at a time when all of those things felt incredibly out of reach.

And there’s no shame in that.

I see you, I know you…and once upon a time, I was you. If I can make the changes I needed to, trust me that so can you.

As always,

Afsheen

Ready to live your best life?

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Your mind may have forgotten..but has your body…?

The tears started to well up the minute I finished my mascara. Shit. Now?! This mascara isn’t even waterproof was my first thought. But the more I tried to hold them in, the more they started to spill. Before I knew it..the dam that I had kept closed for so long had burst wide open.

I had just finished a beautiful, thought provoking conversation with a good friend who had lovingly - yet powerfully - reflected back to me that my belief in myself was nowhere near as strong as the belief I held for others.

Others were somehow always smarter, funnier, prettier..and more accomplished than I was. And she could tell by the way I had spoken to her that it wasn’t even a question in my mind - I had been treating this belief in others (and lack of belief in myself) as if it was a fact.

As I struggled to understand why I wasn’t able to see myself in the way others did I felt long forgotten memories starting to creep in. Memories of all the times I was dismissed, laughed at or told I wasn’t good enough.

Memories of all the times people I had trusted had betrayed me, laughed behind my back and even gone so far as to tell others things about me that simply weren’t true.

And it wasn’t just the memories that came flooding back in - all the emotions they evoked came right back with them. Emotions I had ignored, pushed down, avoided or simply pretended didn’t exist.

As I struggled to understand why these memories and emotions were suddenly coming back again out of nowhere, it dawned on me that they weren’t actually coming back. They had been there all along. And up until then, I had just done a great job avoiding them and resisting them.

But what we resist will persist. And the longer it persists, the stronger it becomes.

By resisting my emotions for so long and ignoring them instead of dealing with them, all I had really done was make them stronger. I had rationalized my way to being “just fine” because my mind was strong enough to convince me that if I believed that for long enough, it would become true. What’s that old adage? Fake it til you make it?

I was the queen of faking it. It’s pretty much how I got through all of my teenage years and a large part of my adult years.

And for a long time it actually worked. And in many ways, it even helped me survive and keep moving forward at a time when I couldn’t afford to stop.

What it didn’t do was actually heal the pain that was underneath all that emotion.

Mentally I had made myself strong enough to push all the negative thoughts and comments away and to some extent, had even forgotten all about them.

But my body still remembered. And it was internalizing each negative comment, each insult and each painful word that had been carelessly thrown my way. That’s why I was subconsciously still keeping myself hidden years after the actual incidents.

They couldn’t hurt, poke fun at or laugh at what they couldn’t see.

But in order to heal the pain, I had to let myself feel the pain. I also had to acknowledge the impact it had on me and realize that feeling hurt or upset by the memories didn’t mean the pain of the memories had somehow “won”. Or that I was weak for not being able to shut it out anymore. Quite the opposite actually.

True strength isn’t about ignoring what you’re feeling. It’s about embracing it, acknowledging it and accepting it. With that acceptance comes freedom.

Our mind and body are deeply connected and our healing is intertwined between the two . That’s why true healing occurs when our thoughts are aligned with the manifestations in our body.

In my case, all the thoughts, feelings and hurt that I thought I had “let go of’ was still running the show behind the scenes. Mainly because I hadn’t actually let it go, I had really just spiritually bypassed it all by using logic to explain my feelings away.

Every new and painful experience had prompted me to simply remind myself “hurt people hurt people”. Or - “they’re saying those things from a place of trauma, they don’t know what they’re doing”.

And while I still believe that’s completely true - I no longer allow other people’s own hurts, thoughts or experiences to be an excuse for their treatment of me. I still hold compassion for them - but I no longer hold any space for them. Not in my thoughts, and not in my life.

And I no longer use my mindset as a way to simply “power through things”. To me, mindset is more than just a way of thinking. It’s a way of BEING. Being so connected in mind, body and spirit that every experience - good and bad- is processed on a mental, emotional AND spiritual level.

So when I say I work with people on their mindset - I don’t just mean how they face the day or the thoughts they’re telling themselves.

Yeah that’s part of it. But for me, true mindset work also involves looking at the impact those thoughts are having on my client’s bodies and working together to heal and integrate that impact so they can emerge from any challenging or negative experience with more unwavering strength, confidence and resilience than they could have ever imagined for themselves.

And I truly believe that’s what makes me different from most mindset coaches .

I see every human as a force of nature. Some are like gentle ripples in the water. Others resemble giant crashing waves with the strength of the ocean propelling their every move. Still others have the power of a hurricane or spewing volcano and are capable of destroying almost anything in their path.

But the most powerful ones of all remind me of the sun.

They watch the ripples, waves, the high winds of a hurricane and molten lava spilling out of a volcano…and throughout it all, they never stop shining and their power never burns out.

I want to help you be the sun. I want you to be the biggest and brightest version of yourself. The power to do that is already in you…but you have to be willing to move past the clouds and fly a little higher to get back to the sunshine.

Trust your wings. Let yourself fly. I promise the view from above will be worth it.

Ready to live your best life?

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It's Never too Late to Send Love to Your Younger Self.

Every now and then a picture will show up in my memories of a younger, thinner, more beautiful.. and immensely quieter and lonelier version of me. She wears the same smile as I do now but back then the smile rarely made it down to her heart.  And the laughs most definitely didn’t find their way down to her belly.

But she kept going.  Always telling herself there had to be a reason for it all.  Always telling others that she was perfectly content, and the best was yet to come.  All while secretly wishing on the inside that whatever that best was, it would reveal itself before she gave up on believing.

She came close to giving up a few times.  And then something would re-ignite that spark of hope. Even in the darkest of days, that spark seemed to keep going, sometimes growing bigger and turning into a beautiful glowing flame…and at other times, dying down to a mere ember.   

Throughout it all, she did her best to just “be happy”.  To just fit in.  To just be what everyone expected of her. And the one thing she never really did?  Just be herself.  

I have a lot of compassion for that girl. And it took me until now to fully appreciate just how hard that must have been for her, to always try to fit into a mold that was cast in a shape and form that never really resonated with her.   It also took me until now to understand why she felt the need to hide the truth - and the pain - beneath that smile. I never gave her the freedom to feel safe, loved or enough within herself.  And for that, I owe her an apology. 

She deserved better from me.  Some days she still does.

But luckily it’s never too late to redeem ourselves. It’s also never too late to treat ourselves with the love and kindness we deserve and always have deserved. Love really is a two way street.  But the road ALWAYS starts with ourselves.

So to the girl that shows up in those pictures every now and then…I’m sorry if I ever made you feel less valuable, less worthy, less beautiful or less brilliant than you actually were.  Because you were all of that and then some.  

I’m also sorry I never truly acknowledged that it was okay for you to feel sad, empty, and even lonely at times.  I never meant to force you to ignore those feelings when others told you they weren’t valid..or tell ou that you didn’t have the right to have them.

I’m sorry I criticized you and put you down for your mistakes instead of noticing you were only doing those things because you just wanted to be loved, accepted and fit in. The truth is we all want to be loved, accepted and fit in.  

I wish I had known how to guide you better whenever you felt embarrassed, or as if you weren’t enough in some way.  And I TRULY wish I had always had your back when others failed you.

But I have your back now.  

And WHILE I may not be able to change the past, I can make a promise to you for the future.  Going forward, I will watch the way I speak to you and use words of encouragement and support.  I will practice the same kindness with you that I do with others.  I will remind you of your value as often as I remind others of theirs.  I will focus on your strengths not your flaws.  And, I will truly do my best to accept and welcome all of you, without judgment.  

With love,

Your past, present and future self

Ready to live your best life?

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