Life is returning to a more familiar pace. The Beauty of Conflict for Couples book is now launched. our schedule of 30 to 35 podcast interviews is complete. We even had a book launch party here in Whitefish. Some interviews have yet to be released but most are recorded. Whew!
The digital process of distributing our book and message has been challenging for me, Susan. I love the conversations and the people we’re discovering through our podcast interviews who are doing great work out in the world. However, it is difficult for me to feel connected to any impact our message is having.
I miss the face-to-face dialogue. Yes, those of you that shared your review or sent us a message about how the book is impacting your life, thank you. It means so much. I’m just missing being in a room with you and sharing stories face-to-face.
We’re now getting back to focusing on our corporate clients, working on our own podcast episodes, and kicking off our Relationship Mojo at the end of this month and announcing Find Your Mojo which is happening in May. Now we want to find the best path to share the book but in a more realistic and sustainable way.
Just last week we headed into a very full series of corporate client events. We also got the news that our brother-in-law, Monte had passed away after an intense journey with pancreatic cancer. We knew this might be coming, but I’ll admit it was difficult going through so much positive in my world while my sister and her family were dealing with such intense grief.
So how did I deal with the emotional roller coaster?
Well I got food poisoning and then an eye sty – in other words physical symptoms became an outlet for the emotional underbelly of feelings that included joy, success, deep grieve and loss.
On the surface, I was engaged and present for each of our client engagements. Frankly, I was grateful for a place to focus and use my mastery in supporting people having difficult conversations and dealing with unspoken emotions. Following that, I also loved being at the ranch for two days of working with our corporate leadership team using the horses.
I know now that the physical symptoms were a sign that I was not handling the flow of my own emotional response to all that was happening. What stood out to me, and seemed worth sharing because I imagine you might relate and find the lessons being learned valuable, is I noticed my discomfort with two sides of the emotional spectrum:
my joy from our success
my grief and sadness from the loss of our brother-in-law
I recognized that the joy and success of having The Beauty of Conflict for Couples book launched in the world created what Gay Hendrick’s, author of The Big Leap, calls an upper limit problem. This means when good things happen you can get caught in reactive patterns because you’re not used to feeling so good.
In reaction to my upper limit of joy, I was fighting with CrisMarie, experiencing irritability, anxiousness, and over-eating. So we pulled out The Big Leap, and identified old beliefs that were getting in the way of allowing joy and abundance to flow.
Then came the loss of my brother-in-law and the grief. I realized what I was so sad about is that I did not make the time to go visit him in the few months before his death. I kept making something else more important. Really, I made other people more important, thinking I didn’t want to impose. I regretted my choice, and I had to feel that pain.
I also realized what I was missing now was contact with my sister, his wife. I have a plan to reach out and visit her rather than letting that opportunity for quality contact go by as well.
Bottom line: If you don’t work with your feelings, they’ll work with you in unproductive ways. For me working with my feelings involves slowing down, pausing, breathing, and letting the energy move through in tears and celebrations. Once I do that, the right next step appears.
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