I had an argument with my husband, and it set me off. I was so mad that I didn't speak to him for the rest of the day. I felt like I was put in a corner. You do not put me in a corner. This is my business, my thing. And I got all mad. 

I was unable to go through my morning meditation the next day because I was so mad… but I had to remember something that I had learned in my meditation teacher training. 

One of the things that we had learned was the fact that everything is here to help you learn and grow. Every experience, everything that you go through – good or bad. And oftentimes when bad things happen, or things that make us angry, we want to just be in our feelings of anger, hurt, and disappointment. And yet, we miss the opportunity to look for the lesson. 

In this experience, I want to share that in moments of anger, we must ask, “What are you here to teach me?”

What kind of friend are you to yourself? And so we're our own best friend. Think about what that does on a subconscious level. Do you trust you? Do you trust your own word to yourself?

Do you have a friend or maybe a partner, spouse, relative, a co-worker, someone in your life who you just don't trust? They have made you so many promises and they never come through. This is the friend who says, “Absolutely, I am going to be there,” and then they never show up. Or the friend who borrows money from you and says, “You know what, I will pay you back next payday. I promise you I'm going to pay you back,” and they don't. How does that make you feel?

I'm gonna guess you feel let down. You feel frustrated, you might even feel angry. You stop trusting them. You stop believing anything that comes out of their mouth.

Now let me switch that and ask you a question. 

What kind of friend are you to yourself?

Too many of us are fair weather friends to our goals. I'll work on it when it's convenient for me. So some of us are expecting full time results. And we only want to put in part time work.

If you have not yet set your goals, if you haven't decided what it is, that's important to you this year, here's your permission slip not to feel bad about that. Just because the date changed on January 1, it does not mean that anything else changed in the world. We put so much pressure on ourselves, so much emphasis on this one day, that this is the day that we all need to suddenly become a new person. Nothing magic happened on January 1. You woke up and you're still the same person. The problems you had are still the same problems. The things that you love are still the same things that you love. But it does present for us an opportunity, an opportunity for at least symbolically, to start afresh to start anew. There's something about a new year that presents us with this opportunity to wipe the slate clean, and really decide who we want to be.

I wanted to share with you a few words that I'd love for you to consider as you go into this new year. Whether you've set goals or not, it doesn't matter. It's irrelevant. When you set your goals is really up to you. But regardless of what it is that you're working towards, whether you've set goals, I really hope that you are being intentional about creating the life that you want. 

This week, we are joined by author and writer Jenn Laforet. Jenn is the founder of Write Current, publishing life enhancement guided reflection journals and programs for women.

In this episode, Jenn shares her own struggle with self-worth in her life, and her journey of self-healing and self-love that led to her becoming an author and writer. She shares the most important lessons she had learned in this journey, the steps she took towards the change, and how she came up with the tools for reclaiming your self-worth – like her works of Guided Reflection Journals. 

Jenn also shares:

• Her own journey and struggle with self-worth including dealing with physical illness and relationship challenges 
• How she dealt with HPV and its impact on her self-worth, and the importance of having that difficult conversation with compassion
• Asking yourself the important question, "Who's shame are you holding?"
• How she came to realize that health and wellbeing can be a priority
• How she learned to be firm on placing her boundaries
• How she navigated into creating a healthy relationship setup with her children and ex-husband
• How taking the steps towards self-healing and self-love attracted other people that supported her
• How to feel safe to deal with your emotions
• Her first steps toward change that led to her becoming a writer
• How she decided to write her own book
• How to start journaling

We are so good at being kind and compassionate and forgiving to other people. And yet, it's so hard for us to extend that same kindness and compassion to ourselves. Sometimes the way that we speak to ourselves can actually be considered ‘violent communication’ because it's so easy for us to beat ourselves up – to be a bully to ourselves.

Today, I wanted to talk about something that is a tough one. Something that is a very important part of your self-worth journey, and that is self-compassion and self-forgiveness. 

This episode is Part 2 of our conversation with Mary Lou Rodriguez.

“Any time your brain can not predict how a new experience will feel, it will do everything to avoid it. It doesn't matter if the feeling is amazing. It doesn't matter what it is, your brain will do everything to avoid it.”

Mary Lou Rodriquez is a passionate professional Master Hypnotherapist and Subconscious Transformation Expert. She is committed to healing our world and thrives on helping people live Unstoppable Lives! She has spent the last 3.5 years helping high-level online entrepreneurs, and visionaries shift their stories, upgrade their beliefs, and transform their minds with the power of hypnosis. Mary Lou has been called a mindset ninja, brain coach and known as a secret weapon because she’s helped thousands of people across the world overcome their subconscious limitations. Certified and licensed with the National Guild of Hypnotists, her advanced hypnotherapy training incorporates brain based techniques, breathing tools and brain hacks to train the beautiful mind.

In part 2 of our conversation with Mary Lou, she answers some important questions and shares her insights and experiences about the following:

• How she started her path to hypnotherapy
• Her struggle with alcoholism and how she looked for ways to change her life
• The relationship and influence of her mother on her path to being a hypnotherapist
• How she studied hypnosis with the goal to wake her mother out of a coma
• The impact she wants to have on people --  to live their best life 
• About her certification
• How to tell our brain that we're safe

• Website: marylourodriguez.com
• Podcast:  The Unstoppable Mind
• Instagram:  @marylouhypnotizesyou
• TikTok: marylouhypnotizesyou
• Facebook:  Mary Lou Rodriguez

Mary Lou Rodriquez is a passionate professional Master Hypnotherapist and Subconscious Transformation Expert. She is committed to healing our world and thrives on helping people live Unstoppable Lives! She has spent the last 3.5 years helping high-level online entrepreneurs, and visionaries shift their stories, upgrade their beliefs, and transform their minds with the power of hypnosis. Mary Lou has been called a mindset ninja, brain coach and known as a secret weapon because she’s helped thousands of people across the world overcome their subconscious limitations. Certified and licensed with the National Guild of Hypnotists, her advanced hypnotherapy training incorporates brain based techniques, breathing tools and brain hacks to train the beautiful mind.

In part 1 of our conversation with Mary Lou, she answers some important questions and shares her insights and experiences about the following:

- What is hypnosis?

- How hypnotherapy works

- How our self-beliefs are formed

- How self-sabotage manifests itself

- The difference of HYPNOTHERAPY from MEDITATION

- What are some of the fears people have about hypnotherapy?

- How have you worked with people with regards to aspects of  their beliefs of money?

- How is hypnotherapy different from doing affirmations?

Of all of the WORTHY pillars, the one that is most challenging for me is the R – Reflection and Rest. For years, I really didn't see the point of looking back at things that had already happened  because there was nothing I could do to change them. I used to think about the things where I had failed or hadn't achieved what I wanted to achieve, and I would use that as an opportunity to beat myself up. When it came to successes, I really look at it as, “Well, I achieved that, what’s the next thing?” Never did I really give myself the time to reflect. 

It wasn't until I was in a coaching program where it was really emphasized that there was power in reflection, there was power in looking backward, and that actually looking backward was what could propel you forward. I was amazed at what I learned about myself, about the situations that kept repeating themselves in my life. I learned that it is important to celebrate myself. 

Now as we're coming to the end of this year, I'd like to encourage you to spend some time reflecting on the year that is just past, reflecting on the things that went according to plan, the things that brought you joy, the things that were successful, and also on the things that didn't go to plan.

One of the things that we do subconsciously without even realizing it, is our habits of thinking. Most people have never really thought about the fact that your thoughts are habits. When I talk about habits, most of the time people think about going to the gym or eating healthy. Rarely do we ever think about the fact that our thinking is a habit. It all comes from how we think, and also from something even smaller than that – it is the things that we say to ourselves. I read that we think roughly about 60,000 to 80,000 thoughts a day, and of those thoughts, the majority are habitual thoughts. What's even sadder is that the majority of things we think are negative thoughts, and the majority of things that we think in our minds is our self talk the way we speak to ourselves. In this episode, I talk about the 5 levels of Self-talk according to Dr. Marshall Rosenberg’s book ‘Nonviolent Communication’, and share 5 Tips when it comes to talking to yourself, why it is immensely valuable, and how to do it.

It is a really important point for you to remember that your self care is really reflective of how you see yourself. How you treat yourself, is how you see yourself. We need to dispel this notion that self-care is this thing that you do once in a while. Self-care is how you treat yourself every single day. There are so many other things and ways that you probably haven’t even thought of being forms of ‘self-care’ – all which I talk about in this episode.

Let's make self-care something that we do every single day and we don't just save it for Sunday's or occasional spa days. What can you do to take care of you, to show you that you love you, to treat yourself the way that you deserve to be treated?