It’s been nearly 3 years since moving to Austin from LA and exactly 9 months since launching my mindset coaching practice Moonrise Mindset - a full term baby!

Lately, I’ve been avoiding many of the self care + grounding practices I’d been so proud of consistently cultivating: journaling, meditating, movement, reading, etc.

Earlier today, I let myself brain dump + word vomit into an audio note on my phone, a practice I highly recommend if you haven’t tried it yet… and one I’d also been avoiding despite thinking about it for the last couple weeks. Sometimes when journaling doesn’t come as easily to me, speaking aloud to myself and into my phone does.

I spoke for nearly 13 minutes and connected some dots that needed connecting.

here's where i'm at

🙃

here's where i'm at

🙂

here's where i'm at 🙃 here's where i'm at 🙂

Mistaking Avoidance for Procrastination:

Connecting dot #1: What I thought was procrastination was actually actively avoiding. Avoiding the tools that usually help me through the mental and emotional ups and downs of entrepreneurship, navigating life in a red state and as a human in these times period, and judging myself for a lack of consistency in these habits like journaling, meditation, gentle movement, reading to slow down, and limiting screen time to reduce overwhelm.

The result? Feeling TIRED, groggy, fatigued, unmotivated, distracted, and giving into hours of mindless doom scrolling.

If a client came to me expressing what I was experiencing, my own thought might be to affirm that different seasons of life require different tools and encourage exploration of what’s required to support and care for the self during this season.

Misplacing the Bar for Myself

I’m recognizing that as a mindset coach, I’ve placed the unrealistic and impossible expectation of perfection on my shoulders. The bar for myself became having it all figured out, knowing this isn’t realistic or true.

**The irony of being confused about how to show up, while preaching authenticity and self compassion, is not lost on me.**

My bar for myself is set somewhere that doesn’t translate to where I actually am right now:
new to this career, navigating life in Austin, attempting to find and create community spaces and offerings that resonate, and understanding what contributing a lower income means when I’ve historically been the breadwinner.

Affirming the latter because I haven’t had this unstable feeling since my first and second marketing jobs out of college, over a decade ago. This experience has really shaken my confidence at times and challenged me more than I’d acknowledged.

Separating from Societal Structures

I’ve been challenging the notion of what a lower income means and what it says about me, my character, capabilities, achievement, and success.

In our society, all of that is measured on what you have, your income, status, title, what you look like, what you have, and wear - obviously so unimportant, but the unfortunate reality. Even consciously wanting to distance myself from how our society operates is not achievable overnight.

**I am *diving* through the layers** -

Separating how I ascribe *my own value* from the structures and systems that I used to heavily rely on and operate within and that our society still does, which obviously don’t work!
There are examples every single day of how these systems don’t work and fail us.

The people who benefit from and are super successful by these standards and within these structures, are greedy, violent, oppressive, guided and motivated by things that I don’t want to be motivated and guided by.

Are there middle grounds between insecurity, security, and greed? ofc.

I do think I need to give myself more space and grace as I navigate these experiences where I attempt to take myself away from and out of those structures and the grieving (of my old identity) and processing that follows that.

I Want to do What I’m Doing

I know that I want to do what I am doing. I am fulfilled, excited, energized, and aligned supporting folks in connecting with themselves more compassionately and deeply. I genuinely feel happier and better being more aligned with my values.

And I recognize the ways that I am behaving mirror how I used to in periods of my life when I genuinely felt really miserable.

What is driving this avoidance for me?

Is it a lack of self trust?

And is that lack stemming from how I’m judging myself?

*There’s a part of me that clings to those values and status symbols and judges myself and my decisions based on that criteria still.*

*No one gives you a raise, or bonus, or LinkedIn recommendation for leaving that life behind.*
***That acknowledgement, appreciation, and celebration needs to happen within myself.***

Am I a Safe Space for Myself?

It makes sense that I’d be avoiding confronting these things when I am judging my own self. Like, I am not even a safe space for myself to show up during this time.

How do I become a safe space for myself to exist?

How do I be so compassionate and supportive to myself and to my journey?

It is in those deliberate choices to care for myself.

If I need space, I give myself space.

If it’s sleep, I sleep.

If I need movement, I move.

If I need water, I drink water.

If it’s journaling, I journal.

If it’s play, I play.

If it’s watching netflix, I watch netflix.

If it’s meditation, I meditate.

If it’s connection, I connect.

Communication, I communicate.

Solitude? Introspection? Gratitude? Nourishment?

You get the picture.

Giving myself what I need demonstrates the self care and self trust, while also building the resilience necessary for this journey.

Three Years in Austin, Texas

I don’t believe I would’ve been able to move as fluidly through this shift in career, lifestyle, values, and identity in LA. I know it would have transpired eventually, and would have taken longer because my old life and identity are so rooted in Southern California. Not impossible - people do it all the time - evolving within spaces and around folks who knew them when they ascribed to different values and standards.

I do give our move credit for me being able to step into this chapter how I have and when I have. In divine timing.

Wild that 3 years later, we are where we are. SO WILD. Three years in Austin, Texas.

Unlearning A LOT. Unlearning, releasing, surrendering, uncovering, connecting, processing a lot, a lot, a lottttt.

There was so much reluctance to reflecting on these sticky emotions and thoughts. I talked myself out of it and made excuses for weeks!

I connected more dots talking out loud to myself for 13 minutes than I would have been able to otherwise.

Moving through those layers of separating myself and rewriting the narrative.

Now that I’ve connected some dots, I can affirm myself, revisit, check in, set goals, and give myself some grace to move through it and move forward a bit more open.