I've recently shifted my coaching practice to focus on youth and family coaching. With my background in education, I have always had a heart for kids. I've taught middle school and community college, and I love witnessing the growth and development as kids grow into adults, step by step.
     In addition to my own passion for working with youth, life coaching is well-suited to this age group. Imagine if you learned to set goals and make authentic decisions in middle school or high school. I don't know about you, but I was often simply going along with the crowd or the expectations of my parents or community. I didn't really understand my true self until well into adulthood. I'm still working to counteract patterns of self talk and behavior that don't serve me. It's powerful to coach my young clients into greater self-awareness and confidence. The benefits of coaching for youth are numerous and far-reaching and I'd like to outline a few of them here.

1. Personal Development: This is a catch-all term for anything that equals self improvement, but I want to highlight a couple important points for tweens and teens. First of all, coaching helps build awareness around internal processes. At this phase in life, a misplaced remark by an influential adult or peer can have lifelong consequences. Learning to ​pay attention to their own thinking and self-talk can minimize the influence of outside voices and build self confidence. Hand in hand with this is a focus on and strengthening of their individual values, strengths, interests, passions and areas for growth. All of this leads to a stronger sense of identity, which in turn leads to greater confidence and healthier decision making which then circles back to affirming their values and sense of self. It's a beautiful, powerful upward cycle of goodness.
2. Social Development and Healthy Relationships: Starting in middle school, kids experience a rapid shift from a focus on family and home as the strongest influence to a focus on their peers and greater social circle. Parents no longer have control of the messaging. This is part of growing up, of course, but the bombardment of sometimes contradictory ideas can be confusing. As a coach, I offer a lot of perspective-taking exercises and conversations. These enhance the awareness of others and encourage empathy and acceptance, while also helping individuals stand strong in their own values and communicate opinions honestly. All of this sets the foundation for establishing, communicating and upholding healthy boundaries in relationships. The earlier kids can become aware of the importance of boundaries the better. I know very few adults who don't struggle in this area, so building the skills to set clear boundaries can have exponential benefits.
   
3. Goal Setting and Support Seeking: This is the most concrete and practical aspect of coaching, and to learn how to set and achieve goals as a young person can set the stage for a lifetime of successes. Goal setting can be done on a large scale (get into a certain college, achieve an athletic goal, secure the dream job), but it can also be done on the day to day tasks that become habits that make or break us (organize a closet, get homework done on time, exercise and eat well). Furthermore, my clients often work toward goals that are more emotional and abstract in nature. These include goals such as speaking out more in class, making more friends or expressing anger in a healthier way. Regardless of the goal, coaching helps identify the desired outcome, define the steps to get there, and follow a plan to stay on track. With goal setting comes an equally important but rarely talked about skill of seeking support. The best laid plans can be derailed by distractions and/or obstacles. Learning to seek the support of helpful people, plan ahead for possible challenges, and manipulate the environment to achieve results will lead to a higher success rate and therefore, more confidence to keep achieving.
   
4. Resource Optimization: Similar to seeking support is the skill of optimizing resources. In the digital age, information, connection and resources abound. Proactively finding and using appropriate resources takes skill and practice, however, and we all know that everybody doesn't start on equal footing. Learning to act with purpose, ask for help when necessary and find/use resources give youth some control over their own destiny. In coaching circles, we call this living by design versus by default. These skills don't only help kids from high-needs populations. Kids from supportive and well-off families might flounder when they gain independence in early adulthood if they don't learn to advocate for themselves. Across the spectrum, learning to optimize resources can lead to greater independence and self-esteem. 
5. Appropriate Technology Use: Technology isn't going anywhere, but studies show that for all the convenience and good it offers, it also has led to an increase in anxiety and decrease in focus for younger generations. Setting limits and consuming technology with awareness can lead to better time management, improved life satisfaction and a greater overall sense of wellness.

If you are interested in learning more about coaching for your child or your family, please contact me. I offer a free informational call and would love to answer any questions or set up a time for a trial session.

     I’m quitting facebook at the end of the month. 
    This has been a long time coming. I’ve thought about it often. I started taking Sundays off a few months ago. A week or so ago I had a bit of an existential crisis. For about 48 hours, I was a wet mess of frustration, restlessness, ennui and mild depression. However, since my default emotion is anger, I was also explosive and unfair to my family. It was ugly. I'm not proud of those moments, but I know that something good always comes out of them. 
     After I had lost my temper and vented all over my sweet family, I settled into my guilty, but rational self, repetent and proactive. My husband was forgiving and kind, wanting to solve a problem I couldn’t define. “We live in anxious times,” he said. “Everyone is anxious and uncertain.” I don’t know if he used the word toxic, but it was implied. Our world is toxic. We can’t trust anything we read. We can’t compromise. Technology is moving at a faster pace than our psyches can keep up with. We have not evolved fast enough to absorb the bombardment of information (much of it false) in a healthy way. Most of us don’t have the satisfaction of completing survival activities: hunting, growing food, building shelter, gathering water and chopping firewood. Instead, we live in a world that makes it easy to survive but hard to feel satisfied. We are disconnected from the land, from nature, from logic, from each other. We can text somebody on another continent but we have lost the ability to talk to the person sitting right next to us. We can be constantly entertained but have lost our ability to entertain ourselves. We can choose from 50 types of cereal, but have forgotten to be grateful for the bowl that nourishes us.
     I’m not blaming this on Facebook, at least not exclusively. And I’m not a technology or social media teetotaler. I think technology enhances as much as it hinders. But I am running out of excuses to keep Facebook, while the reasons to quit are piling up. I want to lay out my main reasons for quitting, not to convince you to quit, but to be transparent. 

Reason 1: Wasted Time
     If I could limit my time on Facebook to five minutes a day, perhaps I wouldn’t need to quit. First of all, five minutes would be plenty, but it’s never enough and it’s so easy to check it over and over. I go down rabbit holes of reading comments to controversial posts, watching funny animal videos and following links to mediocre blogs. And after I post a picture or status update, my desire to check it goes up even more, to see how high the little red number goes. I read somewhere that our brain on Facebook is similar to our brain on drugs. The likes and comments feed our addiction but ultimately leave us unsatisfied. I can relate to that. 

Reason 2: The Stuff People Post
    I have convinced myself over and over that the pictures of friend’s kids and the ability to see what good things people are up to and the chance to keep in touch with aunts and uncles I would never see otherwise outweigh the oversharing and political nonsense and passive aggressive memes and actively aggressive comments, but I’m starting to realize that isn’t true. What stays with me isn’t the cute kids; it’s the nonsense. That’s what I stew on. That’s what takes my mental energy for the rest of the day. And while nice comments and shallow connections via social media offer a short-lived kind of validation, the rush is fleeting and false, not offering any real solace for the human condition, but instead feeding crumb by crumb all the worst parts of us: the need for attention, for fist bumps when we make funny but uninformed statements, for comparison to others however limited and false that comparison might be. Facebook is not an innocent place. 


Reason 3: The Worst of Me
     Facebook brings out the worst in me. It encourages the part of me that wants to be judgmental, that is easily influenced and that tends toward insecurity, jealousy, and ungratefulness. What we see and what we show are but fractions of any real life. They are curated specimens, the artwork that serves as a facade to cover the troubled life of the artist. I’m not saying that what people post isn’t genuine; I’m just saying it isn’t a true representation of the whole. Consequently, what we see makes us ripe for judgment and jealousy. Somebody oversharing? Judgment. Somebody looking amazing? Jealousy. Different political views? Judgment. Promotion? Jealousy. 
     I’m really glad we didn’t have Facebook when I was growing up. Kids don’t just hear about the party they weren’t invited to, they see pictures and read comments talking about how awesome it was. Cowards can be bullies and I see this as an adult and can’t imagine what goes on for impressionable adolescents. 
    I was talking to a friend over coffee, and we were discussing facebook and she said something like, “I don’t like how it changes the way I look at people.” Ultimately, we want our opinions to be based on real connection and experience, but with Facebook, a lot of other factors are at play.


Reason 4: The Power to Corrupt
    I try not to get political in my blog, so I’m just going to leave this one with little explanation. Suffice it to say that there is evidence that Facebook has been a player in the corruption of individuals and whole systems in our country. Facebook continues to influence elections and feed the fires of hatred and division. Even with the current Covid-19 outbreak, which shouldn't be political, I have found it difficult to get a hold on what is really happening with all the uninformed commentary.

     I’ll stop here at the risk of this post getting too long and preachy. This has been on my mind for years, but I’ve convinced myself to stay for several reasons. First of all, I don’t live close to my extended family. They are mostly out on the east coast, and it’s hard to feel so separate. As many of you know, my mother died 17 years ago, and I’ve convinced myself that Facebook is my only link to her side of the family. Secondly, I have made connections, found old friends and gotten to know people in a way I simply wouldn’t without Facebook. Finally, I’ve convinced myself I need it for my business marketing. The Facebook audience is large and plugged in, after all.
     The list of reasons to stay is meager compared to my list of reasons to leave. And I have solutions. First of all, I will find ways to market locally. I don't desire to have a million followers, just a small circle of people who trust me and benefit from my services.  Secondly, I will remember that the shallow connections on Facebook don’t make friendships. My friendships happen in person. If I want to catch up with an old friend, I will make time for real interaction, not just a handful of likes and comments on the pictures they post. The desire to keep up with family is the biggest draw, but I have an idea for that as well. I will gather email addresses and send out monthly updates, requesting updates from them in return. 
     I’ve been a member of Facebook since 2008. If I assume I’ve spent 30 minutes a day for the last 12 years (and believe me, that’s a lowball estimate), I’ve given almost 2,200 hours to Facebook. Imagine what I could have done with that time. I could’ve written a book or two. I could’ve contacted every person I’ve ever considered a friend and spent hours catching up. That time is gone now, and while it wasn’t all wasted, most of it was not well spent. As of September 1, I won’t be giving Facebook any more hours of my time. And I’m pretty darn excited about it.  
     If you like my blog posts and would like to stay updated, please send me the best email address to contact you. I also have an instagram account @goldenlifecoach. I'm not super active on it, but plan to be more so in the future. Finally, send me your e-mail address and or phone number if I don't already have it and we can keep in touch. This is by no means goodbye...it's simply goodbye to Facebook.

     Yesterday I had to opt out of Facebook for the day. I was on it in the morning and my feed was full of conspiracy theories, arguments over the relevance of masks, stories about a black man who was shot while jogging and just a whole bunch of BS and sadness that made me feel depressed and aggravated. So I noped out. I even posted it on my wall because I wanted to stay accountable. 
     You would think and you would hope that a worldwide pandemic would bring humanity together, but I see the opposite happening. The world and particularly our country are as split as ever. A pandemic is apparently powerful fodder for conspiracy theories and I’ve seen and heard everything from it being planted purposefully by the Chinese government to Bill Gates having a patent for it as far back as 2015. 
     I could go on and on about the lengths people go to sew mistruths and avoid inconveniences, and a pandemic is certainly full of “inconveniences” but that would be sapping my energy to argue with futility. And that’s why I got off Facebook for the day. I need my energy to support my children and work on meaningful projects, not try to debunk the youtuber with no credentials except for a good handle on photoshop. 
     It’s hard--but so important--to recenter with yourself when you are bombarded with the cacophony of discordant voices, especially if you have empathy for people and the desperation they might be feeling at a time like this. 
    When the world is full of uncertainty and mistruths, knowing who you are and what you value becomes crucial. I sat with myself and my core values because I needed a reminder to stop going down rabbit holes and engaging with anything that doesn’t feed my sense of wellbeing. I needed a reminder that I am a value-driven person and no amount of nonsensical babbling can take that away from me.
    Do you know what your 5 strongest core values are? If not, I have an activity you can complete to figure it out. It is harder than you might imagine, but also fun and insightful. Most people want to identify with 8 or 10 values, but whittling down to 5 helps you really hone in on priorities. If you want to try it, here are the instructions. You will need to print out and cut out these Values Cards. I do recommend using the actual cards although you could also write out a chart. There’s something about the tangibility of each card that makes it more powerful, at least for me. 
    The point of this activity is self awareness. What is important to you? What filter are you using to sort through all the information and opinions out there? When push comes to shove (and we are in a push and shove situation for sure), what will you stand for?
    I will leave you with one more thing. My mother-in-law gave me a book called The Daily Stoic. It has short daily readings around monthly themes. I love it. The stoic philosophy resonates with me. At its core, stoicism believes that knowledge and reason lead to virtue and that humanity must live in harmony with the natural world. Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. 
   Anyway, after the disheartening from Facebook and the consequent grounding in my values of yesterday, this morning my reading started with the following quote: “Where is Good? In our reasoned choices. Where is Evil? In our reasoned choices. Where is that which is neither Good nor Evil? In the things outside of our own reasoned choice.” -Epictetus
    Meditate on that for a while and see what comes up for you.
    Here’s to a day of good reasoned choices and staying grounded in your core values. 

​

     Yesterday, I listened to an episode of This American Life called “The Show of Delights.”  Prefaced as being counterprogramming for all the crappiness in the world right now, the show was a mosaic of short stories about delightful things or people who focus on finding delight. From the poet who spent a year documenting what delighted him to the night zookeeper who took great delight in caring for the wild animals, it was a refreshing hour that left me focused on all things delightful.
    I inherited a sense of delight from my mother, who died almost 18 years ago but whose penchant for being delighted lives on in myself and my daughters. My sister and I have many stories from childhood of being on family vacations and going on outings that might not have seemed delightful to us, but of hearing our mom’s catch phrase, spoken with breathless enthusiasm, “Isn’t this fun girls?!” You see, one of the best things about delight is that it begs to be shared. “Isn’t this fun girls?” was an invitation for us to see the fun, to be delighted by the wind in our hair and the simple fact of being alive. I am grateful to my mother for passing on this ability to notice the delightful and bask in it...to first open myself to the feeling and then reach out to others to share in it. 
    My mom used to tell the story of me during the first snow storm we experienced upon moving to Colorado when I was 8. I was sitting on a couch with my head bent close to the window. I was watching the snowflakes land and swirl. At one point, I burst out with delight, “They really are all different shapes! Come see!"  Being delighted means noticing the uniqueness of each snowflake. It means seeing the little kids splashing in puddles and jumping in piles of leaves. It means taking a moment to pet dogs and notice how grateful they are for the attention. It means appreciating the first bite of your favorite food and the changing colors of a beautiful sunset. While delight can come from something grand, the beauty of delight is that you can find it in the smallest, most common things. I’ve been delighted by an ant carrying a large crumb. I’ve been delighted (many times) by watching my cats wrestle. I’ve been delighted by my daughters’ maturing sense of humor. I’ve been delighted by seeing an old couple holding hands. I’ve been delighted by the scent of a candle. Focusing on what is delightful is akin to keeping a gratitude journal. It’s putting on rose-colored glasses and seeing the world through a generous and enthusiastic gaze. And gratitude journals have many benefits to your well-being, so I assume that focusing on feeling delighted does too.
    If you are not prone to delight, it doesn’t mean you can’t learn to be. You can train yourself. As always, it starts with awareness...being observant of the world around you and mindful of your thoughts about what you see.
    Do you want to join me for a month of delight? Starting in March (you can start earlier if you need the practice), I will post a daily delight and encourage anyone else to do the same. At the very least, it’s a fun experiment. At best, it will change your outlook for the better and increase the joy in your days.

​
     As many of you know, we do martial arts as a family. Last weekend, we participated in a black belt test that started at 8 am on Saturday morning and ended at 1 pm. These tests are hard. We are going almost non-stop, with only short breaks to change, grab gear, hydrate and eat a quick bite. For a couple days after, we are tired and sore. It’s hard, but it’s also really fun. 
    The night before the test as we were eating spaghetti and preparing ourselves, the girls were talking about how nervous they were. We’ve done a good handful of these tests by now, so we know what’s coming, which is both good and bad, I guess. 
    As the girls were getting worked up thinking about how hard the next day was going to be, I said, “What’s the worst that can happen?”
    This led down a rabbit hole of scenarios where people were passing out and breaking arms and losing their lunch during the test. The extent of their imaginations made us both giggle and grimace.
    “Okay,” I said after a particularly morbid anecdote, “What’s the worst thing that might actually happen?”
    My oldest daughter, Aleida, got serious. “Master Stites could ask us to do Twilight Zone.” Twilight Zone is an extremely difficult form that Aleida learned about a year ago. Set to the music of Twilight Zone, it is fast and furious with a double tornado kick and other challenging combos. It isn’t a form in the normal rotation, so Aleida hasn’t kept up on it.
    “Okay, so what if he does?”
    “I won’t be able to complete it. I won’t remember all of it. It’ll be so embarassing.”
    “Yes,” I reply, “it would be embarrassing for you, but we’ve seen this happen to other people, and honestly, you wouldn’t be the only one in this situation if he does call it. I think many people have forgotten it. And if you forget that one form and do well on the rest--which you will--you won’t fail. You’ll probably just get told to practice Twilight Zone before the next text, right?”
    She nodded, took a bite of dinner, and seemed a bit more at ease. 
    The day after the test (which went great--no Twilight Zone), she was worried once again, this time about a speech she had to give in class in front of her peers. Obviously, if public speaking is the number one fear of Americans, she is not alone in her anxiety. She practiced for the family and we all agreed she had an interesting topic and was prepared and well-informed. Still, she sighed and furrowed her brow, clearly scared and picturing disaster.
    Again, I said, “Okay, what’s the worst that can happen?”
    And once again, the family had fun with this one, imagining everything from passing out to farting loudly. When the hilarity settled, I again asked, “Okay, but what’s the worst that might actually happen?”
    “I’ll forget what I’m saying or I’ll miss a big part of my speech. Or I’ll have to start over.”
    “Okay, so what will you do then?”
    “Look at my note cards…? Keep going…?”
    “Yes! Exactly! The notecards are there if you get stuck. If you forget what’s next, just take a breath, look at your notecards, and keep going.”
    She still looked worried, of course, but the furrow in her brow relaxed just a bit. 
    She rocked her speech, by the way. After school she even said, “I was really nervous right before, but once I started, it wasn’t so bad.”
    We all know from experience that anticipation and not knowing is far worse than actually being in the middle of something difficult. Our minds almost always imagine a much worse scenario than what happens in reality. And even if the very worst happens, we just live it. Anxiety is never happening during...it happens before, when our minds mess with us.
    This is my new favorite strategy for anxiety. Something about the question, “What’s the worst that can happen?” followed by “Okay, but what’s the worst that might actually happen?” puts things in perspective. First of all, once you imagine pooping yourself in front of your peers, forgetting a few lines doesn’t seem so bad. Often, our worst case scenarios simply aren’t likely. Secondly, when you verbalize the worst thing that might actually happen, you demystify it. It’s similar to naming your emotions. When you call anger “anger,” it takes a bit of the edge off and lets you move forward with presence and intention. Likewise, when you get to the heart of what you are afraid might actually happen, you can name it and understand why it is causing anxiety. My daughter wasn’t really afraid of forgetting her form at the karate test; she was afraid of the embarrassment she would feel if she froze up in front of her fellow martial artists and her instructors. 
    The other benefit of naming the worst thing that might actually happen is the ability to strategize and focus on preparation. Anxiety is the enemy of proactivity unless you allow your awareness to move you into action.  If you are anxious about freezing up during a speech, think about what you can do to avoid that happening. Practice more? Write better notecards? Have a friend cue you if necessary? Role play what you will do if you do forget what you were saying? Role playing or talking through what you will do should minor disaster strike gets you one step ahead of the fear.
     Anxiety has the habit of building like a snowball rolling down a hill, taking a little issue and growing and growing until it is unrecognizably huge. You lose perspective once the real issue is hidden in a ball of anxiety. As always, awareness is the first step. If you can catch it early, if you can recognize when your mind starts to skip like a broken record, returning again and again to an anxious thought, you can begin to break the pattern. Ask yourself, “What’s the worst that can happen?” Have some fun imagining bodily functions and natural disasters. But don’t forget the important step of bringing your mind back to reality. “What’s the worst that might actually happen?” 
     Anxiety is a normal part of the human condition. We just have to make it work for us, not against us.

     On Monday evening, I held my word of the year workshop. I went in thinking my word would be GROWTH. I want to grow my business and continue to grow as a person and coach and parent. I mentioned this idea to a friend and his reply was, “Wow. That sounds heavy.” He was right, of course. But I think that choosing any word to guide your year comes with some weight and commitment. I didn’t end up with growth as my word, however. As I went through the process, I changed my mind.
   The process entails answering some important questions, meditating on your best day, brainstorming a long list of words and then narrowing down to three and contemplating each one before choosing your final. My three finalists were EXPLORE, CONNECT and CONTRIBUTE.
        As I spent some time focused on each word, I realized that I already explore a lot and to be honest, my proclivity to explore has gotten me spread a little thin. If anything, I need to explore less (I won’t) and focus more (I’ll try). When I focused on connect, I felt a little spark and immediately came up with a half dozen ways to apply this word to my life. When I wrapped up with contribute, I realized that to do so, I had to first connect, so I chose CONNECT with confidence. Unlike last year when I settled on DECLUTTER, I feel excited and ready to make this my mantra.
      Here are just a handful of ways that I will work on connecting this year:

• I will connect with my younger daughter when she is dealing with big emotions and needs an anchor.
• I will connect with my older daughter who heads off to middle school in the fall and has some anxiety about this big change.
• I will connect with my husband. We have been married for over 17 years and I don’t want complacency to seep into our relationship.
• I will connect with friends and family. I am fortunate to have an amazing community and support system, and I want to continue to nurture those relationships.
• I will connect my passions to create a career of which I am proud. 
• I will connect with clients during coaching sessions. The power of coaching depends in large part on the relationship and my ability to listen and connect. I want to get better.
• I will connect with new clients. I want to serve more people and help them live more intentional lives. This will take some work, but I am determined to reach a wider audience.
• I will connect to Earth. I need time in nature to feed my soul and feel human. I will continue to prioritize this for myself and my family.
• I will connect to animals. ​I have a lot of pets, I ride horses for fun, and I work with horses through my equine-facilitated coaching practice.  I have always loved animals and they bring me joy and comfort. I want to return that by connecting with and caring for them.
• I will connect in real time which means I will disconnect more. I notice the positive difference in myself when I loosen the tether my phone has on me. I want to focus on real life connection and interaction and model this for my children.
• I will connect to the moment. Being present is a gift to myself and all those around me. 
• I will connect to those who think differently than I do. I have realized that I can be judgmental and dismissive when people fundamentally disagree with me (or when I assume they do). I need to remind myself that everyone comes to their beliefs honestly and they are equally attached to their ideas. Only authentic curiosity will allows us to find common ground.
• Finally, I will connect to myself. I have talked with several friends and clients lately about the word selfish. It gets a bad wrap. But think about it: During the airplane safety pitch, you are told to put on your own oxygen mask before helping anyone else because you can’t help anyone if you can’t breath. Likewise, you can’t help anyone unless you are whole and content. I am pretty good at making time for myself and I will continue to prioritize this.​

     I am excited about the year ahead and all the connections I will make. I would love to hear about your word of the year.