Suzanne Wylde's Blog, page 3

Reclaiming Parts of Life Others Have Ruined for Us

I wanted to write about this topic because it’s another area of life that isn’t usually talked about directly.  Before we begin, I need to say that if you need to reach out to a therapist for help with any issues that come up, please do so. Trigger warning: If the subject of bullying or… Continue Reading Reclaiming Parts of Life Others Have Ruined for Us

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The Body Eclectic: Coaching in a Messy and Multifaceted World

By now you may be wondering why a leadership and holistic coach is writing about so many random subjects. If so, I completely understand. Focusing on the specifics of leadership coaching, or holistic coaching would seem to make more sense.  But being a leader, being a person, is complicated nowadays. It’s not just about understanding… Continue Reading The Body Eclectic: Coaching in a Messy and Multifaceted World

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Dealing with Narcissists (Part 2)

OK, we’re back, and I have four more aspects for you to look at to help you in dealing with the narcissist in your life. 6. They Make You So Very Confused This also relates to my previous point about them telling you an issue is X, but it’s actually something very different, usually behind… Continue Reading Dealing with Narcissists (Part 2)

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Dealing with Narcissists (Part 1)

It’s not great when you have to deal with someone suffering from narcissism. A large part of the difficulty is the level of psychological manipulation that goes with it, as well as the self-doubt and the damage to your self-esteem that can result.  If narcissists looked and sounded like the wounded animals lashing out that… Continue Reading Dealing with Narcissists (Part 1)

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The Sadness of Losing Someone You Never Knew

Yesterday I found out that someone I’d never met had passed away, a whole year ago. It happened in quite a roundabout way. I’d been taking his courses online and I was looking for any events he might have coming up to use as an incentive (I’m a big fan of using rewards to motivate… Continue Reading The Sadness of Losing Someone You Never Knew

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We Can Do Difficult Things

One of my favourite podcasts is We Can Do Hard Things – that’s immediately what came to mind when I realised what I wanted to write about in this post. But I didn’t want to rip their name off, especially as it’s such a great show. Seriously if you haven’t already, check it out (link… Continue Reading We Can Do Difficult Things

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Fiction for Reality (and finally an update)

Hello! It has been absolutely ages since I posted on my blog, or did anything really and I can finally tell you why.. 

…. I moved to the States! I have only just got my authorisation to work so I can now actually get back to posting and working and writing! Phew.

After 2 years of staying within a few square miles (most of the time) courtesy of the pandemic, I moved all the way to LA, got a puppy and got married. We did a fun and small elopement in Griffith Park (we could just see Hollywood sign in the background) with a few friends and family and had a lovely time.

Although I miss London (especially at Christmas), LA has turned out to be a wonderful place for hiking and discovering all kinds of creatures and plants I’ve never seen before. It’s not exactly what I thought – I was mostly expecting convertibles and palm trees. Look at this little guy I found on the pavement (sidewalk) the other day:

And it’s definitely hiking, not just going for a walk (as I used to scoff in a very British way) because the hills here are massive and most of the flat land has been built on. So it’s hills and more hills unless you go to the beach. It’s great for views and the glutes too.

In case you’re interested, this is what I’ve been up to while I couldn’t work: learning archery and Taiko (Japanese drumming), practicing the piano, learning a tiny bit more Chinese and volunteering as an adult literacy tutor (I was inspired after watching Sandi Toksvig’s program The Write Offs). I’d already been volunteering with helping young kids learn to read in the UK, but I was excited to start with adults who’d fallen through the cracks somehow. Did you know poor literacy can hurt your income, health and even your lifespan? It has been a really rewarding experience and ties in with helping me learn about holistic wellbeing in the fullest sense of the word. 

I’ve also been learning how to write fiction and have just started a children’s magical realism story about a boy with a cleft lip and palate who encounters a magical tree and has to save the world. It has been fun picking up new skills, as always beginner’s mind brings rewards beyond just learning something new. It’s great for our brains and also humility. There’s nothing quite as humbling as starting right at the beginning of something and knowing you’re bad at it! And keeping plodding along hoping to get better.

I called this post fiction for reality because I’ve been so interested in how the process of writing fictitious characters and situations calls for me to find an even deeper truth than writing non-fiction does in some ways. Learning to call upon those universal feelings we all have, those moments that shape our lives and the little day-to-day feelings we can all relate to, has taught me more about our reality and the way we live in it than writing anything else. 

During the first year of the pandemic I began a training course in Leadership Coaching. In addition to that when November rolled around I decided to participate in NaNoWrimo (a competition with yourself to try to write 50,000 words of a novel in one month). The coaching, which was based on Psychosynthesis, covered many aspects of the self, one of which was subpersonalities – essentially getting in touch with different distinct aspects of ourselves. This was so helpful when I was writing my story, I would connect to a character and walk around “as them”, not so much figuring out what they would do and why, as realising it. I managed NaNoWrimo that year, by the way, not like this year when I only managed “Na” (I got about a fifth of the way there). Hey ho, knowing when to rest is also good!

Fiction, sci-fi and fantasy have this incredible ability to help us experience our humanity in a way that is much more intimate than reading or listening to a factual story. Perhaps because we can allow ourselves to be more open, setting down the armour we wear for day-to-day life and letting ourselves feel without qualification. This is even true when the stories aren’t about humans, as I found when reading Ursula LeGuin, one of my favourite authors. Half-anthropologist half-fantasy writer, all amazing.

I still love coaching and writing about self-development, of course, but I will also keep working away at my children’s book until it’s finished. And the more I learn about writing fiction, the better grasp I have on what shape I want the second edition of my self-help book The Art of Coming Home to take. I always wanted it to come from the heart, but writing well in that way is a lot harder than it looks. I’m inspired by books like Untamed and Eat, Pray, Love, that help us not only to know something factually, but to be able to experience a truth within us and feel it powerfully. 

Academic books are great, of course, but sometimes I think they could just start with a sentence “the author is really clever” and then be written in plain English, especially with the volume of information we all have to sort through and process nowadays. 

So this has been a life update and a little thought on the reality within great fiction. My goals for this week are to try to write a little bit more of that truth through my children’s book, finish off my final (hard-won British food in LA) mince pies, read my first NK Jemisin book and start on The Politics of Trauma. And go to archery if this UK-level torrential rain stops in time (which is actually great in that everything has been watered and suddenly we’re surrounded by vibrant green instead of our usual less saturated desert palette). 

What are your goals? Have you been doing well over the past year? Feel free to email me and let me know your news.

I hope you’ve been doing great!

Suzanne

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Polarity and Balance

I’ve been thinking about balance and polarity recently – a topic that has stayed with me since I first started tai chi at the age of 16 (just a few years ago *cough*). I realised the other day that a need in us to view certain things as excessively positive might be a strong sign that we are dealing with an excessive negative in another area – we are attempting to find balance. 

Projection is a psychological term for a process where we see outside, what we cannot bear to see or feel inside. Perhaps another aspect of this is needing certain things to be positive enough to balance out a negative we can’t deal with. 

For example, this might look like needing a certain group of people to be above reproach because we have been associated with a different group that was worse than we could handle. And if we have this expectation it will often set us up for disappointment, because people are only human and good and bad are everywhere. 

I touch on this slightly in my chapter on acceptance (in The Art of Coming Home) because in order to be at peace we need to be able to accept positive, negative, joy, pain – the whole experience of life. Not condoning everything – just not fighting against the fact that it does exist. 

This is hard because we are primed to seek out the positive, generally-speaking (although we’re also drawn to the dark in different ways – again – seeking balance). So it can be really difficult to accept certain types of negativity depending on our experience and our personality. 

For example, let’s say we grew up with very angry parents and now we can’t stand that quality at all. We might see signs of it in others and not be able to stomach it, we might feel triggered or want everyone to be above reproach in that respect. We might also need ourselves to be “opposite-of-angry-people” and that might make us act in a way that is slightly false at times, have terrible boundaries or feel resentful. We may need excessive positivity to balance out the negative we experienced, which we have not accepted or processed. 

And processing is tough because even if we’re able to acknowledge everything that happened in our heads, our hearts might still be dragging a sore and painful wound that is not capable of assimilating it at all, or our nervous system may be on a hair trigger that we have not been able to diffuse yet. 

So there are some things I’d like to suggest if you recognise this in yourself:

This is something that has helped you in your life, probably a lot Self-protective mechanisms come from a good place even if their effect is not always desirable nowWhere there is dark, there is light Where there is light, there is darkFinding the positive in a negative situation does not mean condoning bad behaviour or glossing over your feelings and needsJust because we carry a wound that is not ready to be completely healed it does not mean we have to let it dictate how we live and relate to othersEveryone has some version of thisWe all have positive and negative within usPolarity is part of life, aiming for 100% positivity is not realistic, limiting ourselves to only expecting the negative is also not realisticWhatever we experience, we can be kind to ourselves.

Can you see the places you put the most emphasis on necessary-positivity? Does it at all feel like an expectation carrying the weight of a wound? How can we work through the negative that is pushing us to grasp so hard for the positive, keeping us off-centre?

Perhaps by simply acknowledging that it is. 

Seeing and understanding the roots of it.

And the fact that sometimes being with our pain is enough to transform it. 

I don’t think it’s possible for us to get away from framing things in terms of positive/ negative – just as the sun rises and sets every day, light and dark are key to orienting us and balancing us in our world. And they are always there. 

I can’t even end this without saying what I think would be a positive way to deal with polarity and our wounding. But what we can do is accept that this polarity will continue to play a part in our lives, that we’re both flawed and inherently perfect, there are people in the world that act in “good” and “bad” ways and that positives and negatives are going to keep coming at us – the only thing that matters it that we strive for what we want while accepting the opposite will happen sometimes and try not to take it personally – because this is simply a natural aspect of life. 

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Powerful Goals

It’s that time of year again!

Moving into the new year is a great time to start with a fresh perspective and maybe set some goals to get us closer to the life we want. 

I wrote a comprehensive guide to creating and setting goals and then I used it for myself and today is day #1! I have three different goals set out, 1 personal development, 1 admin and 1 lifestyle change. That even distribution wasn’t on purpose, it’s just what I naturally ended up with after working through the process of seeing what was lacking and where I wanted to go. If you’re interested, there’s a link to a large preview of the goal guide below. 

I realised as I was writing the guide how important it is for our goals to be in line with who we are and our overall goals for our lives. It helps keep us motivated and find our willpower on those difficult/ grey/ blah days when we’d rather stay in bed/ on the phone/ in a food coma perhaps. 

Because I coach people I see some stumbling blocks come up all the time and you can read all about them in the preview, so I won’t repeat myself here. But I do want to let you know about a couple of other ones people often come up against early on in their journey towards their goals. 

Setting a goal that you’ve often set before and often abandoned

This may be a great goal, but if you don’t figure out the sticking point or other reason you gave up the other times, it may be hard to see it through this time. This is not true 100% of the time, sometimes a person has grown more determined, resilient or engaged with their goal and this time they break through. But to make that more likely, take some time to reflect on what you tripped you up last time and see if you can put something in place (i.e. rewards, support, a process) to get you through that tricky stage and on to the delights of new territory – which is intrinsically very rewarding

2. Setting a goal you don’t have much confidence in

Maybe it’s a sensible goal, maybe you don’t think you can do it, or maybe you don’t really want it. Whatever the reason, you are not feeling a lot of conviction in it and maybe you’re even trying to compensate by appearing enthusiastic when you’re not, or spending loads on equipment or other, to try and compensate for your lack of conviction. Maybe take some time to go back to basics and figure out what you want deep down. If you do deeply desire this outcome, find ways to bolster your confidence and feel like you can really achieve it and that you really deserve it too.

3. Working towards a goal you know is right, but that you feel resistant to

We all deserve great things and we also know that they take consistent effort and dedication. However, many of us can: feel undeserving deep down, want to avoid change, want to avoid taking responsibility, fear failure, fear success, fear vulnerability ( perhaps from intimacy or increased visibility) or worry about the things we’ll lose when we gain something new. 

There’s no way around it – when we gain something we usually lose something else. For example – if we gain confidence we lose excuses not to take action and stay in our comfort zone. On the plus side we’re often only losing things that aren’t right for us any more – think how heavy we’d be if we didn’t shed things as we gained new ones. But it’s human nature to get attached to things, so don’t give yourself a hard time. Just know that you’re not losing anything that makes you you, when you gain something that’s right for you. 

Feeling worthy of good things can also be hard. If we weren’t brought up feeling worthwhile then taking action can move us forward, but then our inner state can snap us right back again. Taking small steps, getting the support you need, practicing self-care and celebrating your small wins (which may actually be huge to you) along the way will help you to progress without feeling you’re pretending. At a sustainable level of progress your inner state will be fairly evenly matched with your outer state and achievements. And don’t worry if this isn’t the case yet, it can be a journey for many of us. Just try not to jump out of your inner issues by leaping forward with drastic action that doesn’t align with who you are, as you may feel lost or untethered. Just keep making those small, genuine steps forward towards goals that are as big or small as you can work with.

4. Starting a goal expecting to fail

You’d be surprised how common this is. It can be hard for many of us to leave our comfort zones and for some of us that comfort zone may be a specific idea of where our limits lie. In some people that shows up as never taking action, while for others it looks like appearing to take action but knowing deep down you don’t really want to achieve your goal. Why would we do this? For a while it appeases the part of us that wants to progress, as well as the part that doesn’t. It also gives us something to talk about with others and a temporary diversion. I’ve noticed an underlying feeling of not having the resources to actually change (whether this is courage, intelligence, strength, worth or other). But we all have the resources to achieve the things we are genuinely drawn to – perhaps not always our version of them (i.e. fastest runner in the whole world or most famous actor), but a version of them (i.e. fast runner or talented actor).

I’ve known people to get quite angry when directly challenged about this, as if this cycle has become a part of their personality. Difficult habits are never who we are deep down, so if you relate to this just know that with the right support you can actually make lasting progress towards something that is meaningful to you. I’d recommend it is meaningful first because people with this issue may feel insecure and try to cure that with a win that isn’t necessarily right for them (see the point below).

5. Going after a goal you think will get you something you want (but actually won’t)

Sometimes we have a feeling and rightly let this spur us into action. But sometimes it’s worth taking a moment to make sure we’re taking the right kind of action. Real change is hard and patch fixes can be alluringly simple – they offer the promise of feeling better without having to actually change our thoughts or behavior very much. But in the long-term they are not satisfying and they can contribute to a widening gap between who we really are and how we experience ourselves.

For example, someone who feels bad about themselves may feel very drawn to dating a supermodel. It will help them feel more successful and attractive themselves, according to their reasoning. However, it’s very unlikely that having a transactional kind of relationship or a partner that many other people are drawn is going to be a good long-term solution for low self-esteem, and would probably make it worse. If instead they spend some time figuring out why they feel bad and what kind of support they need, they’ll be able to craft a meaningful goal that leads to feeling good long-term, not just for a few fleeting moments. So do put some time into figuring out what you want deep down and where you want to go.  

I hope you enjoyed these tips, they come from a lot of experience with goal-setting so I hope you’ll find one or two helpful. 

In my guide I walk you through a process of figuring out: what you want deep down, the most meaningful way to get there and a practical plan of action you can use to reach your goals. It has helped people really turbo-charge their new years resolutions and goals all year round. And don’t worry if you’ve already started with your goals, you can still use this guide for fine-tuning or to create some powerful motivations to help you achieve them. 

If you’d like to read a large preview of it, you’ll find a free one on this page of books and guides, click on “Powerful Goals and How to Achieve Them” to get your copy. 

I wish you a lot of success in achieving your goals and a really enjoyable time getting there!

Your Goal-Setting Guide: Powerful Goals and How to Achieve Them£4.99Add to basket

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Personal Annual Review time

It’s that time of year again! One of my most cherished rituals for bringing the year to a meaningful end, a Personal Annual Review is a general term for looking back at the year gone by. Different people do this in different ways and in past years I have set out various tips for doing your own review on my blog, focusing mainly on personal experience rather than career goals.

This year I decided to do something different, however, and I wrote a complete guide to doing your own annual review. I wanted to set all the information out in one place because I know it can be confusing, especially when self-development is not your 9-5 job as it is for me.

I loved creating this guide because I know that so many people have struggled this year, and if there is one thing that can really help us to face difficulty and pain it is to find the meaning and growth in it. Through conducting our own personal review we can look at the challenges we’ve faced, our successes, how we’ve grown and the blessings we’ve received, all at the same time, allowing us to put the year in perspective.

Perspective is very helpful because it is so easy to either focus on the negative, or try to ignore it completely as a way of coping. But in order to thrive, we really need to process what we’ve been through and also respect the fact that we’ve been strong and have grown as people.

There is something very powerful about ending things intentionally and in a meaningful way. In terms of coming to the end of the year, I think this requires us to be open enough with ourselves to admit just how hard the tough bits have been as well as feeling grateful for the kindness of others and the positives we have received along the way. Allowing a pause between an ending and a beginning, in which we can take stock and understand what we need and what we want, can make a new start that much more aligned and fulfilling when we do begin.

Whatever kind of year you’ve had, whatever joys and challenges you’ve encountered, I hope you find time for your own personal annual review and that it brings you meaning and clarity.

More About the Guide

You can pick up your copy here and there is also additional support for the Guide available as a series of emails (which you can sign up to here), to help you get the most out of it.

This 39-page guide has all the info and exercises you need to do your own review and it has printable exercises at the back, so you can return to it year after year. I can vouch for the fact that it is really interesting to look back over past years’ reviews, knowing yourself better and with greater insight. It is an amazing way of seeing your progress through life.

And if you’re not ready to buy the guide but you’d like to do your own review, why not check out my blog articles from previous years for hints about creating your own personal review?

Personal Annual Review Guide£1.99Add to basket

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