00:00 

Hey there, this is Intentional Living with Tanya Hale and this is episode number 146, "Emotional Spring Cleaning." Welcome to your place for finding greater happiness through intentional growth, because we don't just fall into the life of our dreams...we choose to create it. This is Tanya Hale and I'm your host for Intentional Living. 

00:20 

Hello there, my friends, how are you today? Thank you so much for joining me. It's been a great week. We just got off spring break at my school, went back to school today and life is good. It was a tough day back with the kids, I will be honest with you. But I'm always glad to be back with them. But it got me thinking a lot about how in the springtime, one of the things that we seem to want to do is to do some spring cleaning. It seems like things get so dusty and musty over the winter and our houses need a good freshening up. It just feels like it's the best time of year to just start from scratch. 

00:58 

So I noticed that at my own house that there's a lot of things that kind of build up and we don't always notice them. Sometimes there might be some papers on my nightstand or some books that just kind of get piled and piled and piled and I just keep adding to it and then all of a sudden one day I'm like, "whoa, how did that big pile of books get right there?" I don't even notice. They just happen so quietly that we just don't notice a lot of these things going on in our lives. And I started thinking about how this fits in with our lives as people. Of course, I always want to bring everything back to life coaching and how it works. And so I started thinking about the spring cleaning that we do in our homes and how that could apply to the emotional spring cleaning that we need to do to get our lives back up to par, where we want them to be, or even to get them moving beyond the space that we want them to. 

01:55 

Alright. So the big question that comes is how do we even get to the point where we can notice the emotional cleaning that needs to be done? In a house, sometimes it can be a little bit easier. There still are things that we just don't even see because they've been there so long, but emotionally we don't notice them. And so we have to really be paying attention. How do we really become aware of the things that we need to start cleaning up in our lives so that we can get where we want to get? I know that in our homes, I have to intentionally start looking for it. I have to kind of go into a room and say, "okay, start in this side of the room," and just work your way across and look at everything and see what's going on. And that way I catch things that I miss when I'm just doing my regular cleaning or my regular roaming through the house. 

02:46 

But it's the same thing in our lives. We have to very intentionally look for the things in our lives that need to be cleaned up because there's a lot of stuff that builds up over time and we don't even notice that these patterns of behavior that we start engaging in and we start doing, we might start responding with a little bit of annoyance to a spouse or to a child. And so when they say our name, we may, instead of saying yes or instead of saying, "yeah, how can I help you," maybe we start getting to the into this habit of saying, "what? Gosh, what do you want," right? We might start getting into this and not even be aware of it and not even know that it's happening. So we have to start really intentionally looking for these things in our lives because most often, they don't seek us out. Okay? 

03:36 

Most often these patterns of behavior that we get into that are not healthy for us and for our relationships, they don't jump out at us. They tend to slide through and are always like a little bit below the radar. Sometimes we will see them, but even then, we really need to be paying attention to see what's really going on. A lot of times we will just have a nagging feeling that something's not quite right, right? Or we'll start seeing things or we'll notice that people start saying things. And if we're not paying attention, we'll just keep blowing those things off. 

04:15 

So this is the thing about our brains: our natural man brains, our primitive brains, like what is comfortable. And seeing our faults and our weaknesses is not comfortable. In fact, sometimes it can be downright uncomfortable, right? It can be really difficult sometimes to see that. And our primitive brain doesn't want to go there because our primitive brain wants to always keep us safe. It always wants to keep us in a good, comfortable place. So we have to go on the hunt sometimes to start  seeing the things that we need to clean up in our lives. And I know that for me, especially the last few years since I've gotten the second life coach certification through The Life Coach School, I know that it has really trained me to be more aware of what's going on in my life and to really start looking for it. And I'm finding that it's starting to come easier for me to see the things that I really want to clean up, the things that I look at and I say, "listen, that's not serving me the way that I want to. It's not creating in my life what I want to create," but it has taken a lot of effort. I still do thought downloads that help me to identify things that I didn't even know were existing. So there's a lot of stuff that we need to do to move into this space of knowing what we need to do to clean up our lives emotionally, knowing how to move into a better space. So we're going to talk about some ways that we can do that today. 

05:48 

Alright, so I have four things that we can do and it's not all inclusive by any means. Other things, as we're talking about this ,will probably come to your mind of different ways that you can see things of how you can be aware, but I'm just gonna talk about these four today. Alright, so the first one I wanna talk about is in how we can learn to identify the things that we need to start doing our own cleaning on. First of all, let's ask God. Let's turn in prayer to ask our Heavenly Father for help to see what we need to see and to know where to look and to know where to find help. Alright? I loved in this last Conference, President Nelson started off with talking about as they are refurbishing the Salt Lake Temple, how he has a view and he was watching one day as they were clearing out all of these trees and water lines and sewer lines, all this kind of stuff and he suggested to us that we start to look for the debris in our lives. And I know that if we ask God to help us see it, He will, because He has for me. For me, asking God to help me become aware of the things that I need to adjust, the things that I'm not seeing that are harmful for myself or harmful for relationships or painful for other people, things that are holding me back from growing and moving forward, I have started to make that a regular part of my prayers every day, that I ask God to help me see it and be more aware of it. And it has been so miraculous to me, the ways that that has happened and the opportunities, the circumstances that have come about that provide me with opportunities to see. 

07:44 

And sometimes those are really painful and sometimes I see these things and I go, "oh my gosh, what am I doing?" And it's hard to do. But I have to tell you that our natural man brain, our primitive brain, does not want to see the debris. And unless we ask God for help, unless we are very intentional in moving in the direction that we want to move, in cleaning up our lives, cleaning up the things that are holding us back from the greatest contentment, the greatest joy that we're capable of, we have to choose to do it. And I think God is our first and greatest help to move us into this space to help us see the things that our natural brain is resistant to see. So that's the first thing that I would like to offer is let's have a nice little chat with our Heavenly Father and let's ask Him to help us see, because He will. And there's some different ways that I think that He helps us to see it. 

08:44 

And that's going to take us to number two. I found that for me, if something keeps coming to my mind, it's time for me to slow down and pay attention to it. There are things that consistently just seem to keep coming around. And I can ignore and ignore and ignore, but once I stop and go, "okay, wait, I'm seeing a pattern here," I need to pay attention to what my brain keeps going to, my thinking brain, the spirit, I'm going to say, prompting me to see things that are not helping me and moving me forward. And so if something keeps coming to your mind, slow down, pay attention, look at it, figure it out, ask other people about it, ask God about it, figure it out in your head. 

09:33 

So here's an example that I want to share with you for my own life. Going along with this, if something comes to your mind that what you need to do, and if it's uncomfortable to you, I want to suggest that you don't avoid it. Now, if it's immoral, that's a completely different subject, obviously, but if it's just uncomfortable for you to approach this subject, for me that has become a sign that this is something I need to look at more closely. This is something I need to examine. So for example, I have a good friend that I've been doing some work with. And there was a situation that came up and I just knew that I needed to talk with this friend about what was going on. And I was very uncomfortable. I was so nervous. I put it off for several days. And then finally I was like, "listen, I've got to do this." If it's this uncomfortable to me, that is a signal that I'm avoiding it for reasons of maybe shame, embarrassment, fear. And so I sat this friend down and we talked about this issue that for me was a very, very vulnerable place to go. And I will say it's probably the most uncomfortable I have been in years. But I love that Brene Brown talks about "shame hates the light, it loves the dark, it thrives in the dark." So as long as I was keeping what was inside of me in the dark, it was completely enshrouded with shame. And as I decided to bring this  particular issue out and bring it into the sunlight out of the dark, it was a mortifying experience for me to talk about. It was so difficult. 

11:25 

And yet, once that initial getting it out was over and then I went to bed and slept it off, I found that in the time since, my discussions about this topic have opened up and I'm no longer shameful about them. I'm more realistic. I can see a way out. I can see what I need to learn and what I need to do to grow and to move into this better space that I could envision, because what I could envision would come if I would clean up this one area of my life. It really has opened my eyes to new possibilities, moving into this space of now addressing it without the shame and without the pain. It's helped me see more clearly for sure the work that I want and that I need to do in my life to continue cleaning this up. Bringing it out into the light was the first thing and it was uncomfortable. But it kept coming to my mind. So this is number two. If it keeps coming to your mind, pay attention. And if it's uncomfortable, don't avoid it. I mean, the discomfort is a signal that there is shame involved, that there is a place that needs to be discovered and opened up. 

12:45 

Alright. The third thing I want to suggest for how to find the things that we need to clean up in our lives...third: stop blaming. Start taking responsibility by looking for your part. And I will tell you, I know from my own experience as well, it is so easy to blame other people for what's going on in our life. And I will say for me personally, the person who has gotten the most blame in the last several years has been my previous spouse. And it seems like as I'm going through struggles, I seem it's very easy for me to say, "well, because of this and because of this person, this is why I am the way that I am." And I realized even just this last week, this is a fairly recent cleaning piece for me. I realized that in doing that, I was constantly blaming him and I was not taking responsibility for all of my parts. It is so easy to see other people's parts in the difficult circumstances that we go through. It's easy for me to see my previous spouse's contributions. It's easy for me to make him the villain. But when he's the villain, then I put myself in being the victim and I don't want to be the victim. And I'm making a very conscious decision to stop blaming him and to start instead taking responsibility for the choices that I made, and even choosing to put myself in the hero space where I say, "look, this was a tough situation. And look what I did that made me strong. Look what I did that made me resilient." And so taking responsibility for the choices that I made in that marriage and to stop blaming. It's not his fault, the way that I chose to respond, the things that I chose to do. Those were all me. And the more I take responsibility and look for my part instead of just blaming, then the more I'm going to start really seeing my piece and seeing what's going on. 

15:02 

So if you catch yourself blaming, and sometimes you may not catch yourself blaming because it can be hard. It seems like facts. The blaming will very often seem like a fact to you. But we have to start realizing that they are not facts. They are thoughts. And those thoughts need cleaning up if we are to move into a healthier emotional space. So number three: stop blaming. Take responsibility for your part. 

15:31 

And number four: I want to offer seek some help. Work with a coach. Now I will tell you that friends and family can be helpful. They can share things with you. The things that they will bring up may be in complaints, may be in accusations. Those may be things that you are going to want to take a look at because if it's brought up a lot, take a look at it. But helping you get out of it, I will tell you friends and family are too close. I'm a coach and I had one time last year that one of my daughters asked me for some coaching on a situation that she was really, really struggling with. And so I'm like, "okay, let's do it." And I started coaching her. Well, one of the things that we're trained as a coach to do is to stay out of the pool. Meaning, I don't jump into your situation with you and get caught up in all the drama and all the difficulty. I stand up on the side of the pool so that I can say, "oh, look, there's a shark coming. Oh, look. Here's something you can grab onto." That's my job to stay emotionally uninvolved in your situation. And I will tell you that when my daughter asked me for some coaching, I could not stay out of the pool. Ha ha ha. Within 10 minutes, I was across the room, sitting in the chair with her, holding her, and we were both crying. And it was so hard for me to stay out of the pool because emotionally, I'm so engaged with her. I couldn't disengage emotionally enough. And this is why sometimes working with friends and family is not always a really great option. 

17:07 

I have to have some pretty strong discussions with my friends who I have coached beforehand, because I have to say, "listen, friend Tanya and coach Tanya are going to be very different with you. Friend Tanya is gonna listen, she's gonna say,  'oh yeah, that guy's horrible.' But coach Tanya's gonna say, 'no, look at your thoughts there. Your thoughts are creating the drama here.'" And so it's going to be very different, but friends and family are too close. A coach, a good coach, is going to stay out of the pool. She or he is going to be very honest with you about what's going on and they are going to help you really see your own thoughts. They're going to help you see how you're engaging and what you're doing and help you see the consequences of those thoughts and those feelings and those behaviors. They're going to help you see the results and see how you are creating those results. 

17:58 

A good coach is also not going to step into judgment. They're not going to say, "oh my gosh, I can't believe you did..." whatever it was that you bring up. Okay. I don't care how big it is. I've dealt with some pretty big things as a coach and I've also dealt with a lot of small things. I guess if you can, put things in big and small categories, which I'm not sure that we necessarily can, but this is the thing that I have learned as a coach and that I love as a coach. I don't know one person who is not dealing with something. I don't know one person who does not have a lot to work on. Everybody has stuff going on and all the stuff that you might be mortified and filled with shame and embarrassed to talk about, I can tell you what, it's not going to take a good coach out. A good coach is going to stand on the side and go, "okay, so let's talk about it. Let's figure it out." And so anything that you may think I'm just too embarrassed to bring this to a coach, no need for that. We are trained very heavily not to get in the pool, not to step into judgment, to recognize and even embrace the idea that everybody has so much to work on. And so when you bring me your stuff, I'm like, "of course you have stuff. That's just anticipated. Everybody's going to have stuff." So there's a lot of non-judgment. 

19:24 

And one thing that I want to help you understand as well is that we, most often, don't see our own stuff. And if we do, we don't see it very clearly. And that is why I, even with my coaching skills, work with a coach. I have my own life coach because I don't see my own stuff. Even just Saturday, I was having a coaching call with my coach and I was telling her some things that I've learned last week, and she actually even came out and shed some light on something that I wasn't seeing there and something that was huge for me. It was something that really just took me back and it actually brought me to tears when I saw what she saw, and what she could help me, what she coached me through. And this is something that's brilliant about working with a coach, with a life coach. We have the expertise to help you see things that you don't see yourself and to create the space for you to work through them. A non-judgmental space. This coach helped me understand ideas from the experiences that I was having and put them together and it really brought it all together for me. And so this is another way that I would suggest that you do some spring emotional, emotional spring cleaning in your life. Work with a coach. This is the perfect time to do it. 

20:57 

I think springtime we just want to kind of clean up. We want to lose weight. We want to clean all our winter clothes out of the closet. We want to get all the dusty, dirty air out of our house. We just want to do all the things to help clean up our lives so that we don't feel so heavy. We don't feel so bogged down so that we can see things more clearly and this is the benefit of working with a coach. 

21:23 

So the four things that we talked about today: pray and ask God for help. I promise you it has worked miracles in my life. Asking God to help me see, to help me become aware of the things that I need to do. And it works brilliantly. I am never running out of things to work on because I'm always asking and He's always willing. And I do want to say one more thing on that. His grace in only showing us what we are capable of managing at the time is a brilliant, beautiful part of our Heavenly Father. He has never given me everything I need to work on at once. He gives me one little piece at a time. And when I manage that, He gives me another one. And when I manage that, He gives me another one. He will never overwhelm you with too much. I promise you that He will give you just what you need and what you can manage at the time. 

22:23 

Step number two: if something keeps coming to your mind, pay attention and do not be afraid to go there. Well, I guess you can be afraid, but do it anyway. If it's uncomfortable to you, don't avoid it. Go there, examine it, figure it out. Some of your greatest blessings lie on the other side of discomfort. 

22:45 

Number three: stop blaming and take responsibility for your part. This is hard. It can be challenging and it is not fun, but it is a step to knowing what needs to be cleaned up. When you have the courage to look at your part and to stop blaming, you will see things about yourself that will make you take a step back and go, "whoa, I didn't even see that." But when you start cleaning that stuff up, what you become is so amazing. So stop blaming. Start looking for what your stuff is. In my house we call that owning your own. You know, own your own stuff, take responsibility. 

23:33 

And number four: seek help. I promise you a life coach is such an amazing resource to help you see things that you're not seeing, to help you put the pieces together, to help you know how to move forward. Coaching is about moving forward. It's not about staying stuck. It's about moving forward and there's a great option here for you to do that. You can contact me at tanyahale.com. You can sign up for a free consult where we can talk about how coaching can help you. 

24:06 

This is the last thing that I just want to reiterate again. All of our lives need cleaning up.All of ours. There's nothing going on in your life that you need to be embarrassed about, that you need to feel like you're the only one in the world who's going through it, who's thinking it, who's experienced it. I promise you, everyone has stuff going on, and there are millions of people who have the same issues as you going on. So let's take care of stuff, right? I will tell you that in my life, as I have really started to clean up things, my engagement with my life has improved. My aliveness has come out in a way that it was not capable of doing before. And I just want you to know that none of us are going to see everything. So it's just part of a process of working with someone who can help you. 

25:10 

So this is the last piece: when we start to clean up, we start to become the person we really want to be faster. Okay, we may make the same progress, but if you can make the same progress in in two years as opposed to 10 years, getting to a really great amazing space in a shorter amount of time, is a brilliant way to up level your life and to move into the next best version of you. Okay, so let's not be afraid of this. Let's get some emotional spring cleaning done. Let's take a look at our lives and see what is going on, what patterns of behavior am I engaging in that are holding me back? And let's tackle them head on, right? Let's tackle them because this is the way, this is the place, that we are going to find our greatest satisfaction in life. 

26:08 

Okay, that's gonna do it for me my friends. If you love this podcast, please share it with someone you know, please leave me a review. That's one of the best ways to make sure that other people are able to find this podcast, when they just get online and type in something. It's the best way to have it show up, if it's got a lot of reviews. And there's some good stuff here that I really would love to share with the world and I hope that you do too. So that's going to do it for us today. Wish you all the best and I will talk to you next week. Bye. 

26:40 

Thank you so much for joining me today. If you would love to receive some weekend motivation, be sure to sign up for my free "weekend win" Friday email: a short and quick message to help you have a better weekend and position yourself for a more productive week. Go to tanyahale .com to sign up and learn more about life coaching and how it can help you get to your best self ever. See ya.