Melissa Maher Coaching

Most of us received no shortage of messages early on in our lives that certain parts of us that were inconvenient or challenging to our caregivers or society – our anger or exuberance or messiness or joy or self-expression or sensitivity – weren’t acceptable.

So we learned to tamp those parts of ourselves down, so much that they became dim enough that we no longer even consciously associated ourselves with them.

I often hear my female coaching clients say things like, “I used to truly believe that I just never experienced anger” or “I just can’t seem to connect to what I genuinely need or want. I don’t even know where to start to answer the question ‘What do you want?’”

We – usually unconsciously – exiled those young parts of ourselves as a protective mechanism to help ensure that we could stay in (reasonable) connection with the caregivers we relied on to keep us safe in the world.

And this is where the stop-you-in-your-tracks quality of shame enters the picture. Shame’s function is to try to help us stay in social connection; to stay a part of “the tribe”. So when any trait or behavior that might risk our social acceptability pops to the surface, shame arises to try to squelch it.

And shame sends such strong unpleasant internal signals through our body that we’ll send the “inappropriate” or “unacceptable” parts of us underground in order to ensure we stay as belong-able and lovable as possible.

Which is why “It’s OK” is a potent shame antidote.

For more on the profound potential of "It's OK" check out this week's full blog post here: https://www.melissamahercoaching.com/blog/my-go-to-mantra-for-just-about-any-situation

Xo

The mind may fear that being kinder to yourself would lead you down an apathetic, self-indulgent path.
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The reality is, the exact opposite is true.
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The more self-compassion you cultivate, the more kind but honest and clear you'll become with yourself. You'll feel motivated to take MORE aligned action, not less. You'll trust yourself to take more values-aligned risks because you'll know you have an inner safety net of self-compassion in place if you "fail."

Xo

More universal Truth via logic-defying paradox ✨

The gardener at my daughter’s school recently gave us a tiny caterpillar to bring home.

For a week, every time we peeked into its habitat it looked plumper. Vibrant green, yellow, white and black stripes emerged. We giggled watching its tiny mouth chomp feverishly away on fennel and oohed and ahhed as it slinked elegantly around its container.

We'd fallen in love with our little pet.

Then one morning we woke up and Resi was gone.

Well, the caterpillar form of Resi was gone anyway, a bright green chrysalis having formed around him overnight.

And now it looks like nothing’s happening inside that chrysalis. It appears exactly the same on the outside from day to day. It seems to be static; stable; unchanging.

But inside, a whole literal mess of transformation is underway despite the fact that we can't see it from the outside.

So if you’re in a chrysalis phase of your life right now and parts of you are stirring with agitation, trying to bust out of that seemingly – and to the ego often maddeningly – dormant phase as quickly as possible, I wanted to offer this reminder:

Just because you can’t see the change yet doesn’t mean it’s not happening.

For more thoughts on the messy but necessary in-between phases of growth, check out this week's full blog post here: https://www.melissamahercoaching.com/blog/change-is-happening-whether-you-can-see-it-right-now-or-not

Xo

I truly believe this. How about you?

I truly view my coaching sessions with clients as sacred ground.
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It never fails to blow my mind the magic that gets sparked when two humans come together in an intentional, nonjudgemental, loving space to simply bear witness to whatever's ready to emerge and follow the breadcrumbs wherever they may lead.
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We sometimes hit sticky spots in our life when we just need someone to reflect back to us our inherent goodness and potential and help shine light on our blind spots.
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If this type of "meaningful and sustainable growth on a cellular level" is tugging at you, I would love to chat about possibilities for exploring together.
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Send me a note here or at [email protected] to start the conversation 💛

No need to overcomplicate things. Any moment of intentional self-connection is an act of nourishing self-care 💛

When in doubt, notice what's happening inside your body. Then take action from there.

Xo

Counterintuitive and counterproductive though this may feel, our brains are constantly trying to do us a favor by consolidating information into efficiently repeatable bundles.
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So anything that brain of yours has you implementing on repeat is something it believes benefits you in some way.
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What habits of yours could your brain use an update around the usefulness of in your current adult life?

Xo

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Have you noticed this? 😘

My daughter started kindergarten this week and found out her teacher assignment a few days beforehand. After having previously met the two warm and inviting female kindergarten teachers, she'd been fervently hoping for months with fingers crossed that she would get to be in one of their classes.

When she heard the news that she would not only be assigned to the one male teacher's class but that none of her neighborhood buddies were in her class either, her disappointment poured out in waves of tears. I could literally feel the sadness coursing through her little body as she sobbed in my arms.

And sometimes in the midst of a big, intense wave of emotion crashing through like this, our mind will immediately clamp down in contraction and fear and assume the worst case scenario ahead.

But in reality (not in the imagined possible reality the scared, protective mind will conjure up in moments of uncertainty), after I quietly physically held her and held space for those big feelings to rise up and wash through her for maybe twenty minutes or so, their intensity waned and her body calmed.

You can find the full blog post here
https://www.melissamahercoaching.com/blog/youre-allowed-to-feel-that
for more on how even big, intense emotions *will* run their course...

Much more efficiently and with much less suffering when we don't jump in and interrupt their natural flow with a ton of mental gymnastics.

xo

Do you know this one to be true for you?

We're estimated to have 60-80,000 thoughts a day scroll through our brains. The truth is, you just don't need to listen to/trust likely *nearly* as many of them as you've been believing you do.

Xo

I don't know about you, but I've found a lot of my time and attention going down the “hope-scrolling” (the opposite of doom-scrolling) rabbit hole these past few weeks.

Eagerly seeking out and enjoying newly engaged, hopeful conversations all around and feeling uplifted by a palpable positive shift in collective energy here in the U.S.

And while on the one hand that's truly felt good, there's a tipping point line I've been toeing with my attention: Between fueling up with information that feels useful and energizing, and toppling down a slippery slope into unskillfully scattered attention and hard-to-wrangle focus.

And our attention is our most precious commodity.

Where and how we place our attention really creates our life experience.

Check out this week's full blog post here https://www.melissamahercoaching.com/blog/energy-flows-where-attention-goes for the simple way I'm re-harnessing the power of my attention this week by going back to basics.

Maybe you'll feel called to practice with me?

xo

Trying to force ourselves to "stay open" 100% of the time is setting ourselves up for disappointment, at best — or an Inner Critic tirade about being a failure and inducing shame, at worst.
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The energy and emotions coursing through these bodies of ours crest and trough like waves, again and again and again.
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What we *can* do is plant seeds and nurture the conditions that give our hearts the best chance of opening as often as possible. And to swap out self-judgment for self-compassion in the moments when they close up.
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All just a normal part of being human.

Xo

How does this one land with you?

Have you noticed this yourself?
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Kindness feels deep; grounded; authentic; True.
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Whereas "being nice" has a good chance of stemming unconsciously from decades of "good girl" conditioning: People pleasing, discomfort with holding clear boundaries, fear about rocking the boat or being perceived as pushy or rude...
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Being truly kind is more challenging — more of a practice — for a lot of us than simply "being nice". But it's worth the stretch 💛

I just got back from an annual week of family camp in the Northern California mountains that my family has gone to for over 40 summers now.

This year my wonderful 15-year-old nephew asked my five-year-old daughter if she’d like to sing a song with him accompanying her on the guitar onstage at the talent show campfire. Lit up with glee by the prospect, she chose the song “The Circle Game” by Joni Mitchell.

When the time came to step onstage, Audrey was absolutely petrified.

She confessed through panicked tears that she’d forgotten all the words. We took a few deep breaths together and she quietly practiced one last time before stepping onstage, quiet tears streaming and clinging to my body, but also still clearly committed to moving through the fear and following through with this rare opportunity with her beloved cousin.

After a few more “bravery hugs", glancing at me for one last dose of reassurance and wiping a final batch of nervous tears from her cheeks, her cousin strummed the first chords and looked lovingly down at her, she plopped herself in a crouch on the stage, held the mic up to her little mouth…

And the lyrics just rolled clearly out:

“And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game."

Read this week's blog post on holding space for the full range and complexity of the human experience here: https://www.melissamahercoaching.com/blog/the-seasons-they-go-round-and-round-allowing-lifes-bittersweetness

Xo

A coaching client recently brought up a question along the lines of: What’s the distinction between living a life full of ease and flow and just only ever doing things that feel good.

The way I think of this distinction is that living an ease-y life is very different than living an easy life.

The more we get in the habit of slowing down, pausing, dropping out of our heads and into the felt sense of life as it pulses through our bodies from moment to moment, the more we effortlessly start to connect to a greater sense of ease and flow in our days.

But allowing our lives to be guided more by ease versus by force, willpower, shoulds or inner criticism doesn’t mean that life always feels good.

It just means that we become a little less rigid. A little better able to more fluidly let life move through us rather than constantly damming up the flow with our efforts to resist or control it.

Painful moments are still going to feel painful to us…because we’re human!

It’s just that the less we resist unpleasant moments or cling to pleasant ones, the more easefully we’re able to be carried downstream by the flow.

For more thoughts on letting your life be guided more by ease and less by over-efforting, exhaustion, self-criticism and burnout, check out this week's full blog post here: https://www.melissamahercoaching.com/blog/let-it-be-ease-y

Xo

What do you notice when you soften your focus on trying to be happy and just let yourself BE instead?

Xo

Do you have a sense of anywhere in your current life where your brain is due for a little update on how (vastly) more resourced you are now than you were decades ago?
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You can let those young protective parts — that were created so brilliantly and necessarily back when you were a little one — know how old you are now. Let them know how much inner work you've done since those days when you (understandably) felt too terrified or confused or overwhelmed to take a more nuanced response to a tough situation.
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Sometimes these brains of ours just need a conscious update/upgrade 💛

I’ve had a handful of lovely coaching clients recently circling around the theme of problem-solving.

They’re aware of and heartily own – often with a sense of (understandable) pride – their “good problem-solver” identities.

But, on the flip side of that coin, they’ve been starting to tease out some new awareness around how their minds have also become expert at *looking for* problems so their identity as a good problem-solver can stay front and center.

if you’ve noticed that your mind is really good at finding problems to solve and you sometimes find yourself exhausted by feeling like you’re constantly seeing problems everywhere that you feel almost compulsively compelled to fix, there could be a shift in perspective available to open up a bit of inner freedom for you.

That perspective shift would be:
What if there actually are no problems?

What happens if we stop viewing sticky spots that come up along our path as problems that need solving and start viewing them simply as sticky spots to be navigated thoughtfully through?

In other words:
To what extent do you actually need the word “problem”?
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For more thoughts and prompts to explore around striking a sweet spot with problem-solving, check out this week’s full blog post here:
https://www.melissamahercoaching.com/blog/what-if-theres-actually-no-problem

Xo

More paradox...
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Anywhere in your life where you have a sense you might be pushing a little harder than actually necessary (or useful) these days?