Reminding myself that it's ok to not be perfect.

So I had a really interesting experience this week. It's opened me up to so much growth! It's really interesting because in sharing my truth, I still pissed off some people LOL and really touched and blessed others 😊. So it just continues to prove my point 😊.

I hope you have a moment to listen to my message and remember that you too don't always have to be great or perfect or liked by anyone for that matter, but definitely not by everyone. 😊

Here's to staying as happy as you can !  

Second Episode of My Podcast - I Thrive!

So finally, the timing was right and my second podcast episode happened! I created I Thrive to give inspiration to people (women especially) who are overcoming depression and anxiety. and thriving despite it. I took a tiny break and now I am jumping back in :-). This episode is about the benefits of learning your personality type and how that has affected my life. I would love for you to give it a listen, subscribe and share it with someone! Thank you!

P. S. It's also findable on Spotify, Apple and Google music :-)

How I Nurtured Myself into a Major Uplevel

Written 2/9/2018

Wow, today has been so full. I started the day in a weird middle place. I wasn’t too high and I wasn’t too low. I was optimistic though and by the time I finished my morning meditation, I felt at peace.

And then the day threw me for a loop. I had an experience that was well-meaning but knocked me clear off my rocker. I realized through some pain just how fragile my confidence in myself actually was today. I found myself deep down in some familiar places lamenting what I can’t do, how much I’ve tried, how hopeless it is and how I should just give up.

But my anchor was this beautiful little whisper of “things are different now and you are different person now”. You see, I was getting the most stuck in the fact that the things suggested to me in this particular well-meaning conversation were things I’d tried in various ways many times before. The good-intentioned advice just pricked open a wound and dug a dagger deep into it. But because of that little whisper, I was able to hold on to something that kept me from the spiral. I was able to take care of myself.

And it wasn’t so much that I knew in that moment what I needed to do to take care of me. What I did know though was that I needed care.

This is a major shift worthy of noting. Leah of past years would still be spiraling right now. That hour that I spent in despair today would have been a week or at least a few days of despair. And it would have resulted in a dead stop in my momentum. Flying high Leah would have crashed to the ground with broken wings and broken bones barely able to inch along.

This was my pattern for so many years. I can only now look back on it and see what was happening. Manic highs and depressive lows that could be triggered by anything. And that no one else noticed except to comment on the fact that “Leah is so moody”.

Acknowledging and acting on that whisper is what gave me the greatest gift. Do you know that I’ve ended the day on an amazing high? I’ve seriously upleveled today. Because of that pain and because I’ve grown enough to recognize when I need care, I was able to put myself in the flow of the best, most perfect care.

I went from a situation that stripped me bare and left me feeling naked to one where everyone ran to me, covered me, consoled me and uplifted me. And reminded me who I am.

And because of that, I was able to go out in my next important moments and BE me. I stepped into my knowing and my power in a way that I have not before. Today they came that much closer to being just facts for me.

My way is becoming so much less of a worry and truly a path before me. And that’s what I want for you too. For you to have so much faith and ‘knowing’, that although you may falter and you may need support, you never dead stop again.

My Podcast is Live!

2018 is already a year of momentum! I’ve been spending a lot of time contemplating my word for the year: ease and letting it be my guiding light. Already, it’s helped me make easy choices that have led me to insights and experiences that I’m giddy about. One of them is finally starting my podcast!

Yes, you read that right - after at least a year of thinking about this podcast, it’s finally a reality! You can now tune into I Thrive: For Those Healing from Depression and Anxiety here: http://pca.st/7WVO

I found a great *easy* platform to begin on and my first episode is now LIVE!

I would love for you to check it out, give me feedback, subscribe and share it! You can find it in the ITunes store and on Spotify or listen on your favorite podcast player. Just click the link below and it will take you to a page where you can click ITunes or RSS feed (scroll to the bottom). The RSS feed will take you to your podcast player (so be sure you have one installed if you are listening on your phone).

They also have an option to listen within your browser if you download Pocket Cast. So tons of options my friend!

Again, I would love your feedback so please pop back over here after you listen and let me know your thoughts! Check it out here: http://pca.st/7WVO

Big hugs and big love <3!

Reducing Holiday Stress

How is this season treating you so far? How are you treating yourself? Have you checked in enough to notice what’s making you happy, what’s making you stressed, what’s causing your anxiety and what is lighting you up?

It’s so interesting when we do this tiny bit of work for ourselves. For instance, I’m usually an all-out holiday celebration girl. I like the lights and the festivities. I cherish the chill in the air and the spirit of Christmas all around. I relish the feeling of joy and general merriment in the air.

But this Christmas season has been completely different. Completely. I haven’t even put my Christmas tree up and I don’t think I will. There’s no wreath on my door and there are no decorations on my windows. I haven’t even strung my lights around my porch. It’s strange for Leah indeed.

Honestly, I think a good part of it has to do with it being so unseasonably warm here. I keep forgetting that we are in December and that I should be drinking hot cocoa and eggnog :-). Instead, my focus has been on what changes I want to make in the new year and how best to keep enjoying all of my moments and welcoming in better and better ones. I’ve been journaling. I hosted the Mind Your Happiness Challenge. I’ve been participating in exercises that are all about allowing more goodness in.

So even though I’ve been present focused, I’ve been very future focused as well. There would have been a time where I would have truly beaten myself up over missing the holiday season. I would have thought that I wasn’t in the moment enough and didn’t let myself enjoy the simple things. I would have lamented my focus and felt that I should have placed it elsewhere.

But this season, I’m not doing any of that. This season, I’m forgiving myself for anything I *think* I may be doing wrong (ego talking) and instead embracing exactly where I am. You can create magick in any instance and I’m creating the magick of future intending and allowing and present day reflection and celebration.

I’m looking forward to a different type of feeling on Christmas day for myself. I’m looking forward to filling that day with loving rituals that fill me up and get me excited about what’s coming next in my life. I’m looking forward to putting intentions into action and activating energy on multiple levels. I’ll be sure to share with you some of the ways I am going to do that either here on the blog or in the Facebook Group, so check both spaces.

And in the meantime, if you find yourself grappling with the stress of it all holiday wise, take a quick look at my latest YouTube video. I give 3 keys to reducing holiday stress.  These are definitely sanity savers :)

Why Pill Shaming Sucks...

I’ve tried to write this article so many times. In fact I’m up way later than I need to be in another attempt to write this very important article. I can be candid with you though. I’m afraid. I’m afraid of the second layer of stigma that will come with this admittance. I’ve fought and eased my way through the first layer until we got to here - where it no longer bothers me to tell someone my depression story. I can - without many skips of beats - talk about my suicide attempt and how far I’ve come and how willing I am to help someone else see the light of recovery.

But this next layer is so tricky. This next layer involves so much shame and blame and uncertainty mixed with certainty, doubt - and experience that proves otherwise. I’m talking about the layer where I admit that I take Wellbutrin and my dosage just increased.

Is that incredibly courageous or incredibly weak? Is that something to file away in the mental vault of a scarlet-letter type secret or something to wear as a badge of strength instead?

I want to tell you that I always find myself on the side of courage and strength. But I’d be lying if I told you that. Just recently in fact, I had an experience with a dearly beloved who thinks my choice to take medication is a crutch and that I am willfully taking the easy way out. This dear one is convinced that the hard things are the ones you should be doing. Work harder Leah he says. Work harder. Get off the meds and work harder.

And for a good long minute, I wondered if he was right. Am I just lazy about my self improvement? Am I just not working hard enough? Am I really taking the easy way out, medicating myself? Have I given up on myself in some crucial way?

I felt the shame. I felt the judgement (even though he assured me that he wasn’t judging me). I felt his refusal to understand why my medication could ever be something good for me, even if just for right now. I felt it all. But then I remembered who I am.

This is going to go there, so stay with me through the woo woo. I remembered that I AM is just enough. I AM is. The rest is just details. They are the details of this life that I get to experience. They are the details that I get to choose and evaluate for myself and then make more choices. I don’t ever have to *get it right* or do it the way that works for anyone else simply because I am not anyone else. And that means that there is no standard that I have to ascribe to.

That shame I was feeling, that’s based on duality. The duality that he is right and I am wrong. But that is a *this* level view and now, because of all the work I’ve done on self, I have a *higher* level view. That view shows that he is right and *I* am right.

I am always right for me. And the more that I connect with and get to know, accept and love myself, the closer this rightness gets to linking me up with my bliss expressed. But I’m always on the right path. And I don’t have to go faster than I’m comfortable going and I don’t have to take the steps that someone else would take. They wouldn’t stick for me anyway, *until I’m ready for them*.

So. I may be ready to take the next step of choosing no medication one day soon or one day later. I know for instance that when I’m blessed with pregnancy (keep the good vibes going my friends!), that it’s something I’ve already decided I want to explore.

The baseline point though is that I must take every step forward *when I’m ready*. And only me and the Universe really know when that is.

And that’s what I want to leave you with. The beautiful and sometimes frustrating thing about life is that, you can get advice, input and suggestions, but the final decisions always lie with you.

You do have a beautiful guide though in your own intuition. You just have to get quiet enough and practice enough to hear it <3.

On Dec. 11th, I’m hosting a live 5-day mini-course on Minding Your Happiness. We will be exploring exactly how to get quiet and listen and choose for ourselves. I invite you to join me. You can sign up for it here: http://Mindset.leahpatterson.com

How to Discover the Language of Your Spark

I did it. I finally finally did it. I’ve been hemming and hawing over officially beginning this new video project for about 6 months at least. To be fair, I’m easing into reminding myself that incubation periods are important and real. So even though it felt like procrastination and fear and the forever excuse of “when do I find the time?”, I’m ever amazed at how when the time is right, it really is right.

I have become a firm believer that waiting for inspiration is worth it. My favorite phrase for the past 2 years has been I take “inspired action*.

So finally, through a series of really difficult, heart-breaking events, I happened upon a quest to understand some more things about myself. Through the awe-inspiring serendipity of the universe, I happened to see an article about INFJs which peaked my interest because that’s my Meyers Brigg personality type. And resonating so so so strongly with that article was the first step towards a level of validation that I have not felt before.

And I have to just attribute it to timing - because I’ve known about my personality type for a long while and I’ve done research in understanding myself from this perspective before. But really and truly, this time around, all of my quirks just made sense. My approach to life, my desires, my difficulties, my perspectives - they just all came together under this lense.

And weirdly enough, somewhere deep within me, a click happened. A click of *rightness*, as in Leah is not tragically flawed..everything in Leah is *right* - when all of my life, that place had been stuck on *the way Leah is made up is *wrong* and we just have to push through that.

And this is super subtle. Because believe me, I have worked through so many layers of thinking I was tragically flawed and cursed and I *am* at a place where I no longer believe that. This is way deeper than that. This is on the level of believing for so long subconsciously that I didn’t have a tribe or anyone out there in the world like me - and then realizing that OMG, I DO! I DO belong somewhere! There ARE people who are wired the exact same way as I am and they are living valid, affirmed, supported, triumphant lives. It *is* possible.

And let me try to explain this because I know it may sound weird, especially coming from me. What I’m trying to say is that, I’ve always been very in sync with the urges of my soul. I’ve always known my desires to impact, to teach, to inspire, to empower - to leave a place and a person with more access to love than I found them/it.

But I always felt like I was this oddball chick. Why couldn’t I just be ok with being an engineer. Why not go work for Kraft like everyone else for goodness sake. Why not make a bunch of money now and do things I love and that matter to me later. Why why why why do I care so much? Why am I so hellbent on making a difference. Why did God make me this way? Why can’t I just be content with how everyone else does it?

I never really knew there was a reason for this other than, I was just odd and extra and God made me different.

I can only imagine what my life would have been like if someone had told me that my personality type was INFJ and so I was legitimately wired this way and then nurtured my innate talents and helped me make sense of the rest. I mean, had someone just acknowledged that me feeling like I was dieing a slow death working at Merck for instance, was a valid feeling for me and then helped me to work through it and take sensible (instead of erractic - very INFJ under pressure like) steps towards something more fulfilling - how different my life would have *felt*. And that’s just one example. I can see so many moments in my life now where that level of awareness would have made such a difference - where I was being my natural INFJ self,  but to everyone else I was just being extra.

I know that my stops and starts would have been less. I know that my *inner* confidence (because my outer, *make it happen* confidence was always on point) would have been so much greater. I know that I wouldn’t have spent so much time feeling like I had to *prove* myself and *prove* that my dreams and goals were valid and that my decisions made sense. I wouldn’t have secretly been questioning it all myself.

But the journey is purposeful right? I’ve always said that I believe that the Universe has given me all of these experiences because I am incredibly strong. That is one of my superpowers. God knew that - though it might get crazily, dangerously tough - the will to try again that he infused me with would win every time. And I believe now that I know a bit of what all that is about. Because of my journey, I can help you navigate your journey. The clarity that comes from just being acknowledged where you are and validated is life-changing. Trust me, every time I experience it (like just recently in discovering more about my INFJ self), it’s a miraculous up-leveling event and it propels me into a new version of myself :-).

If you are needing some of this love, upleveling and validation I have two suggestions for you!

1. go over right now and find out your personality type. I’m telling you, it will feel transformational to *know* your quirks are understandable.

And

2. Schedule a call with me to help you decipher and create a plan to use this information to empower yourself and step into a new version of the happy you. More happiness is possible - trust me ;-). Click here to schedule.

The One Thing that Will Turn Your Day Around

A few nights ago, I was in agony. I needed to revise my bio and get it out to the organizer of an event I'm going to be speaking at. But I just couldn't get the feels going to talk about myself in any way that seemed genuine and not rose-colored glass focused. It just all seemed too much.

Have you ever felt like that? Like all the hype about yourself can't possibly be true and that eventually someone's going to figure it out and go "oh, she's not all that".

Or this one gets me often - the "so what". So what that you've done this and that. So what that you care about this and that. What difference does it make. Who cares.

Yeah, so I was in a tizzy of a place to say the least :-).

But today I woke up and though the going was slow, I carefully chose my thoughts. I had a moment in bed where I had the choice of thinking something good or thinking something depressing for instance. And I *chose* the good thought.

I had countless moments throughout the beginning of the day where I could have folded into a "see this is how it is all the time - woe is me" space or chosen the "okedoke, how do I rock with this and move through it" space. At each turn, I chose the work through it option.

And by the middle of the day, don't you know that I was rocking it out on all levels! I mean I gave my dogs a bath, I cleaned my refrigerator, I mopped two rooms, packaged some makeup, had two fun phone calls (one with a totally new guy and the other with my mentor soon to be new coach!), AND confirmed a speaking engagement for this weekend. And I even made myself dinner.

5 days after surgery..."Dusts her shoulders off ;-)".

So I'm saying this all not to brag, lol but to let you know that sometimes it takes conscious effort but the conscious effort is *always* rewarding. Every single time :-D.
 

Where are you going to put your effort today?