Inner Work With MaryAnn Walker: Life Coach for Empaths, Highly Sensitive People & People Pleasers

Showing up consistently for yourself

April 01, 2024 MaryAnn Walker Episode 94
Showing up consistently for yourself
Inner Work With MaryAnn Walker: Life Coach for Empaths, Highly Sensitive People & People Pleasers
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Inner Work With MaryAnn Walker: Life Coach for Empaths, Highly Sensitive People & People Pleasers
Showing up consistently for yourself
Apr 01, 2024 Episode 94
MaryAnn Walker

Send us a Text Message.

As people pleasers, we are very good at showing up consistently for others. But we are less skilled when it comes to showing up consistently for ourselves. 

Take some time today to identify one way you want to consistently show up for yourself and find a fun way to track it!  

As we practice showing up consistently for ourselves, it benefits everyone because we aren't as depleted. 

Show Notes Transcript

Send us a Text Message.

As people pleasers, we are very good at showing up consistently for others. But we are less skilled when it comes to showing up consistently for ourselves. 

Take some time today to identify one way you want to consistently show up for yourself and find a fun way to track it!  

As we practice showing up consistently for ourselves, it benefits everyone because we aren't as depleted. 

Well, hello and welcome back to my Monday mini series. This is where I share just small, simple ideas that can have a huge impact. And today I wanted to share with you a personal experience that I had and like most experiences, the bulk of this experience happened in my own mind. But this experience, it gave me insight, not only into myself and the personal growth that I've experienced, but it also gave me insight into you, my listeners and things that you might be dealing with. So I thought I would share. So I was recently talking with a friend of mine and I was sharing about how excited I was that I'm so close to 100 episodes. In fact, I think that this episode, when it drops, it's going to be episode 94, which is so exciting. I am so proud of all of the work that I have put into this podcast. And I was sharing that excitement with a friend of mine. And they said, wow, you know, I'm really impressed. This is the most consistent I've ever seen you. And it was really interesting that the first thing I noticed was, huh? There was a time in my life before coaching, where that comment would have really got under my skin. I would have probably felt very defensive. I would have felt the need to give them evidence of all of the things that I had been consistent in. But what really surprised me was my reply to this friend. And what I told them was, yeah. You know what? It's really interesting because I am actually somebody that is very consistent. And I do show up very well. I just know that historically, and in the bulk of the time that you have known me, I've shown up well for other people, I've been consistent for other people. And I haven't been that consistent in showing up for myself. So the two things that really stood out to me were first of all, how much growth I have personally experienced through coaching. There is no way that the me of let's say, I don't know. Eight to 10 years ago, even would have just let that run off of her back. I would have been very defensive, as I said, I would have felt hurt by their comments. I would have made it mean that maybe it's true. Maybe I'm not someone who shows up consistently. Maybe I really do drop the ball on a lot of things. Maybe I start a lot of projects and I never finished them. My brain would have instantly jumped to all of the reasons why they might have been right. So first it was a beautiful experience for me to just witness that. Oh, wow. That didn't bother me. Because I didn't allow it to impact my truth. I already know how will I show up? I know how consistent I am. I know that I do show up well, I really love that because of coaching. I didn't become defensive. I wasn't trying to seek validation from this other person because I'm finally at a point in my life where I experienced that internal validation. And it was just so amazing to just witness that for myself to see how far I've come that yeah. I used to really allow other people's perceptions to dictate how I showed up and especially to dictate how insecure I felt in that moment. But it was a beautiful thing to witness that. Yeah. That's not me anymore. And I just loved that. But what else was really interesting and noteworthy to me applies a bit more to you as the listeners. That really a lot of his population, we do show up so consistently, but it's not for ourselves. We're showing up consistently for other people. We're the people that they call the drop of a hat when they need help with something, when they need a childcare ride to go somewhere, we're the ones that they call and we love being the one that they call. And at the same time. Oftentimes, this means letting go of the things that are important to us. For me on my personal journey. It's been interesting to see when I have found myself. In different relationships and things, the things that I value that were kind of put by the side. There have been seasons of my life, where I was sacrificing time with my family. To go and help other people. Or I was sacrificing my own love of music. I kind of quit playing the ukulele for a while, which is something that I love. I really thoroughly enjoy singing. I enjoy listening to music, but for certain seasons of life, my life had become so consumed by being in service to others that I was neglecting to show up consistently for myself. And I love that I was able to show up consistently for other people. It really truly does bring me joy. And it was really interesting to just have that self-awareness about how much I missed making music. About how much I was sacrificing by dropping everything for myself so that I could show up consistently for others. So I want you to think of one thing that you can do to just show up consistently for yourself. And maybe it's something that you're already doing and today's a celebration. And if so, that is awesome. I want to celebrate with you. Or maybe this is something that you are recognizing now that boy, I really have put off that part of myself. I've put off my artistic side. I haven't read a book that I really enjoy for a long time. I'm always reading something for book club, but it's never really, for me. You know, what really identify something that you have missed about yourself? And work to really nurture that part of self and find some way to celebrate it. It's really easy for me to find ways to celebrate it because I can visibly see here on the podcast, which episode I'm on. I can see how close I am to 100. I can see how far I've come. I can compare very easily. The podcast episodes that I dropped now and my confidence level and the amount of time it takes to edit them. The number of AUMs that I say in an episode, I can visibly see my growth and my progress, but when we don't have something that is so public, it can be harder to really track that progress and to really monitor how we have been showing up consistently for ourselves. In fact, I've worked with several clients on finding some way to just create a visual for their progress because the brain does have a negativity bias. Your brain is going to tell you that what you've been doing, it doesn't really matter. You're not being consistent. It doesn't count. Oh, you missed working out one day. So now all the days of working out prior to that don't count. Maybe you end up having like a binge day on a random Wednesday or something as well. I guess I'm not going to do my diet. Doesn't even count everything I've been doing. We have a hard time actually honoring how we are showing up for ourselves. We're a lot better at showing up and celebrating other people. So maybe you want to create a sticker chart, or maybe you want to have little tally marks, or maybe you want to get some little gemstones to drop into a jar, but I encourage you to find some way to track your own progress and your own growth. Because as we track those things, that's what our brain is going to start to look for. Evidence of. We can rewire our brain to have that positivity bias so that we can learn to celebrate ourselves. So then when somebody makes a random observation that, wow, I've never seen you show up this consistently for anything. Then you can just stand in your own power and say, yeah, isn't it great. I'm finally showing up consistently for me. And it is so awesome to see my growth. All right. That's all I have for you today. I'll see on Thursday by now.