JenBevan.com

Encouragement, Empowerment & Entrepreneurship

How do you keep your focus firmly fixed on what you really want when fear is clouding your view?

My 15 year old daughter has been dancing since she was five. Last week, Rachel began dancing at a full-time ballet school in the city. To say she was a little apprehensive may be a slight understatement. Over the past couple of months I have endured comments like ”Why did you do this to me?” and “I don’t even like dancing” and even, “What if I get attacked by a hobo on the way there?” Luckily I know my daughter and I know how she works. When Rachel was five she began ballet dancing. Rachel loved doing ballet, she loved twirling in her ballet skirt and she loved her beautiful, barbie-doll teacher, Miss Debbie. But it wasn’t all smooth sailing in that first year. When it got to ballet day each week, I had to argue with Rachel to get ready. She’d be lying on the couch resting after a hard day at school (cue the violins – she was only in Kindy) and the thought of getting dressed in ballet garb and sitting still while I wrenched her hair up into a bun was too overwhelming. “I don’t want to go to dancing today” and “Oh, do I have to go?” and even “I don’t want to do ballet anymore” started to become weekly moans and groans that I had to suffer through to get her into the class. She would often mope all the way there but by the time I got her into class the clouds would lift and I would watch her dancing around happily. I would smile to myself to see her enjoying it so much. It was worth all the aggravation to see her doing something that I knew she loved.

Now one might ask, why in the world did I keep her in dancing if she was so miserable? Well, this is my point. The first thing I did was pay close attention to Rachel and her complaints. I noticed that she hated getting ready, she didn’t like being disturbed from the comfort of our couch. She was even often still a little upset when we got to class and the poor teacher had to give her a bit of extra attention. But then I would watch her dance … she loved the dancing, she loved the beauty and elegance of ballet, there was something there, something special. When I would quiz her in a quiet moment, it was always crystal clear how much she liked the dancing. So I separated the “stuff” from the passion and saw them as two separate things. Rachel loves dancing. Rachel hates being disturbed from her comfort zone. 

Well, Rachel did her concert at the end of that first year and she has never asked to quit again. It is 10 years on and Rachel has left traditional school to train full-time towards a professional ballet career. Once again, I have had to endure her protests as the date for her school commencement drew near. She used me to sound out all her fears about embarking on this next level of her dreams. I must admit that on an occasional off day, I began to wonder if we were doing the right thing. But it was her fear talking. I knew it. I had heard it before. It was a familiar voice. It’s only been about a week since she started, but a couple of days ago we were cleaning up the kitchen together and she said, “Mum, I’m glad I’m doing full-time”. I nearly fell over. It was such a relief for me to hear that. I asked her why and she said, “”It just feels like the right thing to be doing”. What a great answer. Once the fear had begun to lift, she could get in touch with her reasons for doing this in the first place. She is a dancer and she is getting the chance to go for her dream.

Fear is an interesting thing. It overwhelms us, it disables us, it blinds us to the truth. When we are consumed by fear we cannot remember what is important to us, what our true values are. We even forget who we are when we are ruled by fear and we move into survival mode. In survival mode we often just make decisions that will keep our head above water, not decisions based on our goals and the direction we want to be heading.

Don’t allow fear to drive you off course. Don’t allow fear to make you pull the plug on something just because it feels a bit uncomfortable. My life would have been a whole lot easier if I had just pulled Rachel out of dancing during that first year – but look where she is now. Identify a real problem as opposed to a roadblock. My second daughter, Emma, did ballet for 2 years. After that she made it very clear to me that she didn’t want to do ballet. It was different from Rachel. Emma actually didn’t like dancing ballet. I had no problems going with that. Emma is now the basketball player in the family and she is as passionate about that as Rachel is with her dancing.

The rewards we receive for all our hard work as we move forward to fulfil our goals are well worth it. But we will never get there if we lose heart and give up. Examine the truth about the things that stop you from achieving what you’re going for. Make strategies for getting around the roadblocks – whether it is for yourself or a loved one. Don’t make big decisions at a time of stress. When we are afraid we want to categorise everything to make ourselves feel better. “This is too hard”, “This will never work”, “This is a waste of time”. Allow yourself to just begin to move through challenges without making judgments of decisions. Just keep moving. Just keep breathing, and allow time for yourself to grow bigger than your fear.

We often think of someone courageous as a person who is fearless. But do you know what the definition of courage is? Courage is to feel the fear and do it anyway.

So go for your dreams. Help others to go for their dreams. Feel the fear if it there, but be of good courage and keep moving through it. I promise that eventually the fear will dissipate and you will be that much closer to your dreams. God bless you!

It’s been a week since I returned from a stay in Melbourne visiting with my Grandmother. It’s been quite frustrating really. I had planned to blog at least 3 or 4 times per week and now it’s been a week and a half since my last post. Gee, it’s sounds like confession! Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned, it is a week and a half since my last submission! Ha, Ha! …(how easily I am amused!).

In all seriousness, sometimes life just gets in the way of our best intentions. Kids, work, home, family and friends, unexpected emergencies – before you know it, you’re way off from the plan you decided for yourself.

You haven’t been following the workout schedule you were doing so well with just a few weeks back, your healthy eating is sliding while your budget and finances have gone completely south for the winter. Why do we go so horribly off track sometimes when we really believe in what we are working towards?

I think, quite frankly, that this is life. We move along our path in ebbs and flows, ups and downs. We are often being thrown curved-balls but just how good are you at knocking that ball out the park when it comes at you?

When we fall into a trap of perfection at all costs, we have more difficulty in handling what life throws at us.

Give these tips below some consideration:

Step 1     Take A Step Back

Take time out to re-evaluate your life.

I call it a step back because we often feel that taking time out to think or pray is time that could be better spent on continuing through the To-Do List. But if I have moved slightly off track, all my activity will only push me further along that wrong track. I need to call a ‘time out’ and allow myself time and space to look at where all my current activity has taken me.

Step 2     Examine How You Have Gone Off Course

Evaluate. Ask questions. Write answers. Keep a journal that you can write in whenever you need to bring yourself back to your goals. You can write about your goals there too. Make it a place you can go to to encourage yourself.

Step 3     Tell Yourself The Truth (In Love, People!)

What’s the point of beating yourself up about time or effort wasted! Was it truly wasted? You might be suprised.

Perhaps it was very good or necessary things that lead you on a detour. If so, then admit that and stop whipping yourself. All that self-flagellation is not going to motivate you into action. You want to gently ‘herd’ yourself back in the direction you wish to follow – not critisise and abuse yourself.

Just admit, “Ok, I may not have put the effort into my business this week that I planned to but at least I gave young Johnny a great 8th birthday party (actually my son is Jack and his 8th birthday party is tomorrow!)”

If you truly have just laid under the covers and wished the world to away, then is being angry and disgusted with yourself really going to help you? Surely, if you’ve done that, or some version of that, there must a reason.

This is the time for reflection. Write. Meditate. Pray. Whatever works for you that helps you find yourself. Perhaps you go for a walk or a drive. Just allow time and space to think and process. Sometimes life just comes at us so hard and fast that there isn’t time to make sense of it all unless we make the time.

Step 4     Support And Encourage Yourself

When you finally find yourself, for heaven’s sake, be kind!

How wonderful would it be if we could extend to ourselves the same kind of support and comfort we willingly offer to others? When you practice ‘being there’ for yourself, the world starts to become a safer, more enjoyable place.

Ironically, we begin to achieve more when we encourage ourselves than when we try to strong-arm ourselves into action. We don’t flourish in a controlling atmosphere, but in a creative, self-accepting atmosphere we really bloom! Stay away from being over-controlling and self-judgmental.

Give yourself the same respect and consideration you’d expect others to give you and watch yourself start making the changes you want.

Step 5     Re-Focus The Vision

You’ve taken time out, you’ve evaluated your behaviour, you’ve forgiven your iniquities and extended kindness and acceptance to yourself. Now it’s time to re-focus the vision.

What is my vision? If you have it written down, take it out and re-familiarise yourself with your direction. If your vision or plan hasn’t been clear to this point in time, now might be a good opportunity to sit down and spell it out on paper. It’s a good idea to constantly put your goals in front of your eyes. It keeps you focused, motivated and fixed on the road ahead of you.

Step 6     Make A Plan Of The Steps You Are Going To Take

Jot down a few action steps for the days ahead. It doesn’t have to be complicated. You know what it will take to get you back on track.

Maybe it’s just a few points. When you read your list, do you feel as though doing these things will get you back to where you want to be? If so, then this is an good list. If not, what is missing?

Keep in mind this is not supposed to be ’101 list of things to do’.  You are possibly coming out of a time of de-motivation and you need just a few, quick, easy to follow action points to bring you back to full speed.

Step 7     Commit To Following Your Action Steps

Make a deal with yourself that you will follow through on your action steps.

If you’ve made your list simple and do-able, you shouldn’t be overwhelmed but be encouraged into the right kind of activity over the next few days and weeks. Your list should give you support and empower you to move on from where you are now.

My Last Bit Of Advice On The Subject Is This.

If you succeed in progressing through these 7 steps and begin to make changes only to find yourself over the weeks vering back off your chosen track … remember … this is life, complete with it’s ebbs and flows, ups and downs.

You have good days and bad days because you are a living, breathing, eternally valuable human being. You’re inherent value is not in what you do, what you achieve, but in who you are – and I can guarantee that you are of great, great worth to someone, probably several people, and hopefully…at least eventually…. to yourself. Just pick yourself up, dust yourself off, take a deep breath, and begin again at step one. You can so do this!

To your success in pushing forward!

I am spending the week in Melbourne visiting my 94 year old Grandmother who has not been very well lately. It is so lovely to spend some quality time with her, I wish I had more time than I do. I don’t need to do anything entertaining with her, just sit with her, chat and mainly listen to what she wants to say. My Grandma is quite old now and conversations can be hard. She can’t hear a lot of what we say and so all the repeating we have to do makes sharing stories difficult. Communications therefore are usually stilted and perfunctory. I usually just sit there and try not to talk too much. I want to leave room for her to share when she feels so inclined. Every now and then she will jump from telling me her feet are cold directly into an old nostoligic throw-back. I love it when she gets nostolgic, it reminds me of my childhood. It reminds me of a time when my Grandma was younger, happier and very able-bodied.

My Grandma was never one to be idle. Everyday had it’s own tasks appointed it and as far as my eyes could see, every square inch of her house was always immaculate and perfectly ordered. In fact, the timeless peace and order is what I remember most about her home. It was very different the somewhat chaotic and noisy household I grew up in. Her house always smelled fresh, it always seemed warm and welcoming. When I stayed with her over the years there was always fresh-squeezed orange juice from the tree out the back for breakfast, along with a perfectly poached egg – the ones cooked directly in a pot of water with a splash of vinegar. I still have not managed to master this after all these years. She could make the most basic of meals taste exceptional – average was never an option. My Grandma lived most of her life in her house in Essendon – an old and now very sought after suburd 8kms out of Melbourne, Australia. She never drove, but walked everywhere. Many a day I joined her on her trek from home, up and down several streets, through beautiful Queens Park and down Puckle Street to do the weekly shopping. How everything fit in that little trolley she dragged around behind her, I’ll never know. Somehow all these simple day to day activities of life just seemed so nurturing to me. The peace and the order of everything fed my soul and to this day I have a love of older houses, furniture, and basically anything that reminds me of a slower, gentle pace of life.

What nurtures your soul? Do you stop to listen to life as it moves at it’s ever-quickening pace? Do you stop and listen to the people that matter to you? Our children and our elderly do not find it as easy to express how they feel and those of us who are ‘able’ are sometimes too caught up in the busyness of caring for them to stop and just be with them. It’s amazing what you hear when you make it your goal to listen. What you hear may just take you back to a time in your life where you felt loved, nurtured and at peace with the world.

I love you so much, Grandma, and I am blessed beyond words to have known you and loved you all my life. I know your one wish it to be released from this life to go to next and finally be reunited with my Grandfather.  Though when the time comes my heart will be broken, I will always hold the image of you – free from pain, limitations of age and immobility – and back together with the one love of your life. I will smile when I remember your reward in heaven, and as eternity unfolds before you your trials on this earth will fade out of memory.

The focus of this blog is not weight loss but rather personal transformation. That includes every area of life that matters – health, relationships, money, spirituality, etc. So after a week of eating fairly well, I have dropped a kilo. I am pleased about that but not obsessively so.  I want to focus on keeping all the areas of my life healthy and balanced. What I like about how I have approached the past week is that I have tried to eat normal foods in normal quantities with a little exception here and there. For this week, that was good enough. What did I achieve besides losing a kilo? I was calmer around food, I was kinder to myself by not demanding perfection. I didn’t allow myself to become fearful about my choices. I suppose in a nutshell, I trusted myself a little bit. If my goal is to learn to self-manage around food, with money, in my relationships, then this week was a success – the kilo off was the bonus.

I read once many years ago, “no lasting change can come from self-hatred”. We have to accept ourselves right now, not just when we achieve the goal we are working towards. It’s a lie to believe that we can’t be happy until we have more money, until we have better relationships, until we lose 10 kilos. When I become my own biggest supporter, then I start to see the lasting changes I am looking for. When we start hearing us talking to ourselves like a frustrated parent, “What did you do that for? You’ll never get where you want to be,” then we need to become aware and switch modes. Keep remembering that self-acceptance is the atmosphere needed for positive change to exist.

So I challenge you to be a little kinder to yourself this week, give yourself a break, and tell yourself you are going to do ok. If you don’t do it, who are you waiting for to tell you? It’s all there whenever you’re ready. I’m enjoying it so I’m going to keep going. Cheers!

One of my goals with weight loss has always been that when I finally arrive at my destination, I will reward myself with a fabulous soft, black leather jacket. You know, the classic one that you keep forever and it fits you like an old friend. Seeing as how I am only at the beginning of my journey, the chances of purchasing that coat anytime soon is unlikely. Anyway, I was at a dinner party with friends a couple of weeks ago and I was having a chat with Karen. Now Karen lost a substantial amount of weight a couple of years ago. Her whole wardrobe is a good few sizes smaller now. The only thing Karen has been loathe to part with was, yes, you guessed it, her beloved, fabulous, soft black leather jacket – you know, the classic one that you want to keep forever. The only problem was it didn’t fit like an old friend anymore. No matter which way Karen tried to wear it, it was just too big. As she was talking to me about it she said, “Hey?? Do you want my jacket?”. I looked at her, “Are you serious?”. Well the next day she delivered it to me – I couldn’t believe that not only was I getting my longed-for reward upfront instead of at the end of my victory, but this jacket was absolutely exactly what I would have picked out had I specially shopped for it! God is good!

What message did I get from this about my weight loss journey? I already have the prize – enjoy everyday now, don’t wait till I’m lighter, smaller, healthier to start living well, to be happy with myself. Most of the changes I need to make are within that small space between my ears, the outside is just the reflection of what I believe. Find ways to celebrate now – life is too short to wait for tomorrow. And there is always hope. Hope is a promise of things to come … while we get busy living today. Don’t you think?

My heart’s desire is to find some way that the gifts I have been given can be used to improve the lives of others. Through this blog, I want to release my voice, my heart, and in the process, hope to experience my own triumph of the human spirit. What do I want to achieve personally? Some very natural desires – lose weight, make more money, have better relationships. But I get a sense that these improvements have less to do with following external fear-based disciplines and more to do with learning to manage the inner freedom we all have. My personal journey is to learn to stop and pay attention to the truth, to listen to who God says I am and to learn to trust Him and to trust myself. A very significant part of that journey, is to turn myself outwards towards giving to and helping you in your own journey.

Just before making my first blog entry, I walked past my 10 year old daughter’s room. It was 10pm, the eve of returning back to school for Term 2 or Year 5. I could hear her crying – I already knew she was anxious about returning because my husband was trying to settle her earlier. When I walked in I noticed she had a notpad next to her bed. She had written a list of all the things she was afraid of, ‘The Teacher might yell at me’, ‘I might not find my friends straight away’, ‘I might have to sit next to someone I don’t know’. We talked for a little while and then I said to her that I thought the main thing she was afraid of was her second point. It read, ‘I have to work instead of relaxing’. I told her that she’s had two weeks of watching lots of tv, eating food whenever she felt like it, playing and being comfortable at home with me and her brother and sister. In a way she was Queen of her own little kingdom here at home. But, I continued, it’s time to go back to your real life. There is work to do, growth to happen, change to come – and with the right attitude towards it, that work can become enjoyable, natural, normal. The fun of tv, eating treats becomes the exception and is enjoyed guilt-free in the right environment.

Isn’t this true for many of us? It’s it time to make the ‘work’ of life the norm. It’s time to face up to the things we need to do in order to be able to where we want to be. We don’t want to just be counting days, months and years, we want to be living them, experiencing them. We want to bring our best selves to the table. I think that although there may be bit of work ahead of us hopefully we can look back and see real progress – not just external improvements but internal ones, eternal ones. Blessings in your journey!