The Problem: You want to change your mind—to stop beating yourself up, to stop being afraid, and to stop spiraling into worry or negativity. You want to change your self-talk and emotions to feel better about yourself.

Unfortunately, you can’t just change your thoughts to change your mind. What neuroscientists now know about how the brain operates proves that self talk doesn’t completely work.* It is not possible to just think your way to a new attitude.

No matter how hard we try, we can’t seem to stop the negative mental chatter that leads to needless frustration, worrying, arguing, and eventually a numbing process that restricts access to joy and passion. Then we wonder why life is not much fun anymore, and our attitude sucks.

Instead of changing your self-talk to create success, you have to first feel your way there.

The Solution: Shift how you feel in the moment to a higher level emotion, such as gratitude, laughter (see yourself as a grand source of amusement), pride, compassion, or love.

First, you have to work on being present to the moment. Frequently stop and ask yourself how you are feeling. Then ask yourself if you would like to feel better. You must be willing to change or nothing else will work.

Then if you find yourself feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, fearful, or just plain stuck, take one of the following actions:

1. Clear the air. Do something to shift your energy. Take a shower, change your clothes, or tidy up your office. If you’re at home, vacuum the living room, open a window, or even change the sheets on your bed. As you take these simple actions, imagine yourself clearing energy blocks that might be fueling your bad mood.
2. Use your senses to shift your feeling. Recall a favorite smell and why the smell makes you feel good. Recall a favorite childhood song and start singing it out loud (Trust me, singing “Row, row, row your boat” will make you smile). Pick up an inspirational book, open to any page and start reading. For some people, taking a nap or watching a movie can do the trick. Sometimes it helps to shut your mind down for a while by resting or passively watching the world through someone else’s eyes.
3. Put on some music. There’s nothing that can shift a mood quicker than music. Choose a CD that makes your feet move, one that makes your heart swell, or one you can sing along with. 
4. Get into motion. If you are still stuck mentally, move your body. For example, when you are angry with yourself, take a brisk walk, go on a bike ride, or go to a yoga or exercise class. The part of the brain that controls movement sits next to the emotional center, so there is a direct affect from exercise on your mood.

Change your feelings and you will change your mind. This is how you outsmart your negative brain.

*If you want to read a clear explanation about how the brain works, check out Outsmart Your Brain: How to Make Success Feel Easy by Marcia Reynolds on Amazon or www.Outsmartyourbrain.com.

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In that moment she made the decision to go on the date just to see what it was like to be with someone who didn’t like Her. The guy was hang down miserable the whole time.

“I felt not wanted, invisible, humiliated, hurt,” says Myers. Then she looked at him and saw something surprising. He was really hurting. Myers’
inner strength surfaced and she said do herself, ‘I can handle this.” A few hours later she asked him if he wanted to take her home.

“Yeah.”

This event catalyzed a key world view for Myers and became the early seeds for her work with women and leadership. “I knew I had to love and accept myself and continue connecting to who I am as a person and to connect to purpose.”

When she got home Myers took out some paper and made a line down middle. On one side she listed what was good about herself. On the other side she listed what was bad. On the “good” side she wrote. “I’ve got smarts. I’m not pregnant. I’m not sexually active. I do my chores. I follow rules. I go to school. I’m a nice person.”

On the “bad” side she wrote…well, nothing. “I had a really hard time finding something wrong from the inside out. I don’t like to dust and mom wants me to dust. That was a pivotal moment for me then. Writing became a powerful tool for self reflection.”

Today Myers keeps the essence of what’s on her list in mind. She stays focused on bringing out who she is no matter what she looks like on the outside. Even when she glances down at her sagging stomach, which she calls her “kangaroo pouch”, the aftermath of having quadruplets. She stops herself and says, “No. I make an offer in the world. I make a difference.”

Another practice she began after breaking her back kick boxing was to imagine a tea candle inside herself right below belly button. She took pain killers, as the pain was extreme, so she could continue to work as she was on the speaking circuit. Some days on stage the flame was tall and strong. But on other days it so small a light wind could kick it out.

At those times she would say to herself, “No DeeDee. How can you feed the flame?” She kept visualizing what she wanted with her kids. Myers says that we can locate virtues inside our bodies. For example, she houses courage in her diaphragm. That’s where she goes to find the energy to do a handstand in Yoga. Continuing to find the places where we house strengths can be self generative. By locating those parts we continually connect to what’s good in us.

This is not just an occasional practice. Myers practices being in the mind-set that her body is fulfilling on what it’s made for. “I go home everyday and ask myself, ‘Was this a day well lived?” She also envisions a happy future that helps drive the present. She’ll be 68 when her quadruplets graduate from high school. What’s important to her is to be able to run, laugh and enjoy her children and that she can also live fully in her body and be alive, alert, healthy, happy.

Deedee Myers is an executive leadership coach who supports sustainable changes for individuals, teams and organizations. She is a motivational speaker and author, teacher and coach on leadership practices, effective coordination in teams and living a life of Purpose and balance. As a former triathlete and ultramarathoner Deedee is well schooled in pacing as CEO of the Advancing Leadership Institute, and mother of 9 including twins and quadruplets.

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DeeDee Myers

“That was a big of a grab for me,” says Myers. “My reaction was to get really small and invisible. But part of me was curious. My mother asked me to wear lipstick and light make up. She took me aside and said, ‘This is not fair but people will judge you by what you wear and how you look. Never get fat. Always be healthy looking. Take care of your hair.’”

Her mother was a prestigious banker’s wife who entertained frequently. Although she had twelve children she didn’t look like a “drudge housewife”. The house was always neat and tidy. Her hair was done, her clothes were clean, ironed, and pressed. She had a motto: Always be dressed for company.

This is a script that has played in Myers’ head since the day her mother first schooled her on how she needed to present herself to the world. But today Myers has a different take on it. “It’s the same script,” she says , “I just have a new story. Now I see it as an invitation to always be ready, to extend for what you want, for what’s needed. It’s a lesson to be ready for anything.” That anything can mean stares at the yoga studio and strangers boldly asking, “How are you going to do downward facing dog?”

So Myers shows them and asks if they have suggestions. “At first I didn’t know whether I should try to explain or just demonstrate. I allow people to breathe around their own stories.” When her yoga class recently undertook handstands, Myers had some moments of confrontation with herself. She got jealous and “pissy” that others could do handstands while she couldn’t.

The internal dialog she was running said that this was just too hard. She wanted give up…and cry. Then she said to herself, “You’re 55 years old, how can you say this is the hardest things you’ve ever done when you’ve delivered quads?”

The other thing that happened inside her head is that Myers coached herself. As CEO of DDJ Myers, Ltd. and co-founder of the Advancing Leadership Institute, she’s in the business of giving others advice about how to move through difficulties. So she asked herself what advice she might give herself from a coaching perspective. She said she would try it a few ways and then would ask for help. So that’s what she did.

The next day she told the instructor, “I’m going to do a handstand today.” She spoke it like a declaration.

Startled, he first said “Good,” then asked, “A one handed handstand?”

“No. A two handed handstand one-handed.” Now she calls extreme challenges her “Handstand Moments” and she still has plenty of them.

Like the day she she found a little lump on the tip of her nose. She put off going to the doctor. When she finally had an exam the doctors said it was cancer and scheduled her for surgery. She had a young intern and his team working with her and they initially said they wouldn’t need to cut to the bone, that it was minor. But that assessment turned out to be inaccurate and she had to return to surgery to have her nose cut to the bone.

“At first I didn’t want to look,” she said after the surgery. “I had a hole in my nose.” But every day she told herself to look, and to find the lesson, to love who you are. She started by taking off the bandaid for a moment. Then for a couple minutes. Then twice a day. Each time she looked she said that she “kept locating who I am and loving who I am. We have to locate who we are on the inside, to find what’s good in us.”

Deedee Myers is an executive leadership coach who supports sustainable changes for individuals, teams and organizations. She is a motivational speaker and author, teacher and coach on leadership practices, effective coordination in teams and living a life of Purpose and balance. As a former triathlete and ultramarathoner Deedee is well schooled in pacing as CEO of the Advancing Leadership Institute, and mother of 9 including twins and quadruplets.

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The Tyra Show

Do you have a body part that you absolutely hate and sometimes feel ashamed of? Are you constantly finding ways to cover it up or hide it? Do you always feel anxious whenever out in public, perhaps fearing that others are staring at you because of a self-perceived body flaw? If you have serious issues with one of your body parts, and wish you could change it, contact us.

How many of us fit the bill? Probably 99% of all American women. Are you one of them?

One of my clients is a body image expert and in one of our media coaching sessions  she said that she practices mirror gazing — naked. Every night before bed she stands in front of a full length mirror and looks at her body and loves each part, loves the whole of her.

Impossible? I thought so when I first started. At first I saw only the ill-effects of gravity, fat where there should be muscle and cellulite in all the worst places.

But after a few months things began to shift. I could see that I had great collarbones. Then I moved on down… It took a while, but now I can look at the whole kit and kaboodle and say, “Not bad.” I can’t say I love it all, but that I have a few good features that time has not yet taken full toll.

When I go deeper than that I can appreciate that I’m strong, healthy, athletic, and have a sense of grace and joy. When I spoke to Diana Marie Estey, Yoga Instructor for Yoga Works in Larkspur CA, at a Yoga Retreat, about body beauty through yoga she said, “I’m more interested in helping people connect to their sense of aliveness.”

Rather than worrying about what we hate about ourselves she advised that we see how we can create connection to our environment, the beauty of nature, each other, ourselves. I was thinking about connecting to this sense of aliveness today when I was out walking on my usual route, sniffing flowers, picking blackberries, and fuzzling dogs and cats I’ve come to know. On this hot night I passed a neighbor’s kids running through their sprinkler on the lawn, naked, laughing, wet and cool, screaming in delight.

“They are so lucky!” I yelled to their dad. “Don’t we all wish we could do the same?” What if we remembered the delight in being naked? Water, sun, air on our skin under the big big sky with no other thought than how good we feel?

Susan Harrow is the author of Sell Yourself Without Selling Your Soul. She runs a Media Consultancy where she helps everyone from Fortune 500 CEOs to celebrity chefs, entrepreneurs to authors grow their business through media coaching and the power of PR. For more information please contact her here.

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I have many experiences as a child/young adult when I was to tall or felt out of place. I remember the first time I kissed a boy, on a dare of course, and I was taller then him and felt so uncomfortable. I suppose a good part of it was that I was doing something that maybe I shouldn’t however when you had to look down on the person to kiss them I would say that is really weird.

Or the time when I wanted so badly to be a cheerleader so I tried out for the team and I was taller then all the other girls and didn’t make the team. I again tried the next year and the same thing happened all the girls who were shorter then me made the team. It makes you wonder when you can do all the required items (cartwheel, cheer and creativity) why you didn’t make the team. So the story I made up was that I was too tall.

Now I realize how much being tall is a blessing and how many people (women) really envy what you have.  The only thing that still irritates me is finding pants that are long enough. I guess if that is the only problem I have life is good right!!! I participated in pageants and learned what an asset my height was.

I am a criminal defense attorney now and the presence I exude in the court room is a blessing. I can stand tall next to a prosecutor and I appear to have the same strength and determination that he has. I can be considered someone who is powerful yet feminine when I leave the Court room or my job at the end of the day.

This realization has come with a lot of work on me. It is not easy to replace the many years of stories one makes up along the way. That is why I have pink sticky notes on my mirror to serve as a trigger to remind me daily of the assets that I posses and how truly blessed I am for who I am and what many blessings I have to offer everyday that I am alive and well.

More about Andrea Hall.

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Today the world told me to let up a little, to not push so hard at doing. I ask myself, “What is rest?” And I must say he’s a poor acquaintance, and often unwelcome at my door.

Today the world told me that perhaps what I wish for is something not so big. A little loosening around the waist and eyes could be good, to let in a little more seeing and a little less thinking.

Today the world told me that a runny nose can be a good thing. I’m moist, liquid, made of moving matter.

A woman client said to me, “I love my baby. I have a good husband, two dogs and a wine cellar full of Beaulieu and Chardonnay and that it is enough.”

My Aunt Rosie keeps in her wallet a 70 year-old photo of her standing slim and proud, her hand on an old Chevy, her head cocked slightly to one side. “See,” she says, “See, I was once thin and beautiful.”

She has never learned to cook, or drive. People magazine is her Bible and everyday the thing she looks forward to is her next meal my Nana makes faithfully, every day. And I wonder, how do we judge a life? The past, the present, the future. What matters most as we sit down to yet another meal?

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I was talking to a colleague who I respect. We were chatting away and suddenly his head turned and locked. Silence. He became mesmerized. No, his brain froze or fried on the spot when a tall woman wearing a tight bright top revealing the exact shape of her breasts began to dance. Her pants hung so low you could almost glimpse her betty.

I thought about snapping my fingers, waving my hand in front of his face, or just walking away. I doubt he would have noticed. Then I realized I was mad. And jealous.

I was mad because I wasn’t commanding his attention with my presence. Sure, I could have yanked down my top so the effectiveness of my push-up bra could be revealed. I could have danced seductively too. But that’s not me. I want to be taken seriously — as a woman, I want to be listened to, cherished, not gawked at.

It’s not that I don’t recognize the power of skin. I just choose not to use it. Years ago, a friend told me that while she was talking to a man she liked she hiked her shorts up a bit so he could get a better look at her legs. This idea was so foreign to me at the time I couldn’t even imagine doing such a thing.

All my life my mother insisted I buy loose clothes to hide my ample ass. It didn’t work. The entire African American male population frequently commented on my “booty.” Some said that I must have Hottentot in my Caucasian ancestry.

Since then I’ve experimented a bit more showing a hint of cleavage, some thigh, clingy pants, but I wouldn’t want the general public to know if I had a Brazilian. Perhaps I’m alone on this. I always thought that a good present gave the most pleasure when it was beautifully wrapped.

Follow Susan Harrow on Twitter: www.twitter.com/soundbitesiren

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