Hand me downs...and I'm NOT talking about clothes here!!

I remember what a blessing it was to have two daughters. When they were young, I could pass down the older ones clothes and save a ton of money. Hand me downs were always nice. Being a girl myself, I have had friends give me hand me downs and I have given away a lot myself. Hand me downs were always a good thing in my mind.

I was sitting here this morning thinking about hand me downs. As a life-coach, I listen to stories on a daily basis of some not so helpful hand me downs people have been given. In our lives, we have life altering events that take place and those very events create limiting beliefs in our minds. Those beliefs are "seared" into our brains literally. They form a new neural pathway in our brain.

It can be compared to the pathway around your yard if you have a dog. After going around the same path for so long, you can see the path as it gets worn down. It is the same way with our minds. When we hold onto these limiting beliefs, when we think the same thoughts repetitively, it gets further engrained in our brain.

I'll give you an example. I have suffered a lot of loss in my life. My father left my life when I was a young girl, I lost a 4 month old child when I was 17, lost my mom when I was only 23, lost my breasts to cancer at 40, lost a 20 year marriage at 43, etc, etc. I remember when my dad left, even at such a very young age, I formed a belief that you can just "lose" people. So when I lost my child, it further confirmed that belief. With every subsequent loss, the belief became pure reality in my thinking brain.

Every single trauma or tragedy that we have suffered creates a limiting belief. Dr. Jayne Gardner owns The Gardner Institute where I received all my life coaching credentials. I have worked with her for many years. She has a fascinating tool she created called a re-wire. Neuroscience has proven that we can actually re-wire our brains with NEW beliefs. Going back to the event and figuring out what limiting belief was created is the first step. It takes a lot of work to install a NEW belief and therefore creating a NEW neural pathway. But it indeed works.

Dr. Gardner is having a one day event at the end of January where she will do demonstrations of a rewire LIVE!! It is one of the most phenomenal things I have ever witnessed. If you want to learn more about this event, you can check it out here. Evolve Retreat

Letting Go

Kelley says.............


As I sit here gathering my thoughts about what I am going to blog about this morning, I realize that there are a lot of you who don't know a lot about me personally. Well, I love to make handmade cards. I enjoy doing anything with my family. I work for my church which I really enjoy. And the thing that most people don't know is that I am a Life-Coach. 


When I got into coaching I started just as a client. And really the only reason I did it in the first place was because Deryl wanted to and encouraged me to as well. We were coached by The Gardner Institute in Southlake. They have a program called "Mindset for Success". I went through this program and it drastically changed my life. It changed who I was. Who I was before going through this and who I am now are so amazingly different. It was after this experience that I knew I too wanted to become a life coach and be able to take people through that same program so they could experience this life change. 


Last October, a friend sponsored me to go through what is called "Tres Dias". I had never heard of this before. It is like a "Walk to Emmaus". Anyway, with all the work I had done in my own personal life with the coaching, this was perfect timing. It too had a major impact on my life. I don't have enough space to tell you all that happened to me during my weekend at Tres Dias. The major thing that happened was that God set me completely free from the guilt that I had for many years of not having a relationship with my earthly father. I felt so free, like I could really move on in my life.


So, I had all these life changing events happen and I did so much soul searching and connected with God like never before and then out of the clear blue sky...........CANCER. What?!?! I kept wondering to myself how in the world I could make so many changes in my life, do so much internal work and do all the work it took to go through all of that and become such a different person and turn around and get cancer. I couldn't understand it until yesterday. 


Yesterday was just a down and dark day. I couldn't really pinpoint what exactly was wrong. I talked to Deryl on the phone around 6:00 and I realized that now that the surgery is over and the initial shock is over from my diagnosis, it is just now really starting to sink in what has happened to me. My own life-coach said that this is just like an amputation. Which I guess I really didn't think of it that much before because I knew the only thing I could be concerning myself with was just trying to make it through the surgery. Now that the surgery is over, more is coming to the surface. 


When I was talking to Deryl, we were talking about how much differently I would have handled this whole thing before I went through all of this personal growth. In that moment I saw this vision, which I don't think has ever happened to me before. I saw the "old" me still being an angry and bitter person and this cancer staying in my body for a long time and me never discovering it and then me dying from it. I then realized that because of all the work on myself that I have done, is the reason why it surfaced. I am feeling like all the hurts of my past just worked itself into a tumor and has now been removed from my body. I don't know about you but I think this is a HUGE revelation. 


Cancer or no cancer, I think this is what happens to people. They go through things in their lives and then they hold onto the hurt, anger, bitterness, grief, etc and who they are dies. Who they had the chance of becoming never comes to pass because of holding onto the past. I saw a picture of a man standing looking at himself in the mirror. Only instead of seeing his face he saw himself from behind. I unfortunately couldn't capture the image because I sure would love to show it to you. Anyway, I thought it was the perfect picture to show how so many of us do that every single day. All we see is our past and our past is so big that we can't even get a tiny glimpse of our future. 

I believe that there is something God wants to show you today. What are you holding onto that you need to get rid of in your life? Sometimes it is scary but God can handle it. Even if it is only one thing from your past that you can turn over to him and let go, that will be a wonderful start. If you have no idea what that would be, imagine yourself looking in the mirror and instead of seeing your future, you saw your past. What would be the first thing you would see? I am guessing whatever you see is exactly the thing God is wanting you to let go of.

Noticing

Kelley says.................................................

Well, it has been a good weekend I think. Saturday night we went to a get together with a lot of Life-Coaches. That always brings my energy level way up so that was good. It was nice to do something that made me feel normal. To go somewhere and be myself instead of this person with cancer. 

I only had about 3 hours of sleep the night before and after we were there about 2 hours I started to feel another crying spell coming on. So we quickly said our goodbyes and I didn't even make it to the car before a huge ocean came pouring out of my eyes. Deryl was so wonderful and strong and just let me get it all out. I didn't say much. Besides, if I would have, it wouldn't have made any sense and I would have looked ridiculous trying to talk at that moment. I came home and took some Ambien and went to sleep at around 8:30 and slept until 6:30 the next morning. It is amazing how getting a good nights sleep makes you so much more emotionally stable!

Sunday, we went to church. We were scheduled to greet and don't think we greeted one person. But that is because everyone was talking to us and hugging our necks. I love my church family. People are so genuine and it is obvious that they care for us deeply. And we do them. Again, it was great to just be at my church and feel normal. 

Sunday evening we went and met my mother-in-law for dinner. That was really nice. She is a crier, but she did a great job of keeping it together. I know the girls enjoyed spending time with her too.

I have noticed different things I have done unconsciously since being diagnosed. One thing is that I know the exact time things happen. Even totally random things.  I get nervous when I feel a random pain that this has spread to somewhere else or maybe it was already there. Sometimes I talk and talk and talk and Deryl just listens to me and allows me to do that. Other times I have nothing to say at all. I am thinking of ways I can enjoy life. Last night I played a Wii dancing game with Deryl & Rachel and laughed a lot. I find myself staring at Deryl and the girls when they aren't looking. I want to study their faces, look at the texture of their skin, every facial feature, their hair and the color and how it lays on their faces. I look at their profile and think of how lucky I am. And then I wish I would have started doing this a long, long time ago. I hope after reading this you will "Notice" some things about someone you love. You might discover that you notice something but it has been there all along.