Getting IN THE FLOW!

This has been a BIG message for me lately and one that’s been coming up a lot with my coaches and clients.

I've learned over the past few years that there is a clear distinction for me between times when I feel "in the flow" and times when I don't. I've also learned that life *in the flow* is WAY better and fun and free. When I'm in the flow, I feel connected to my purpose and my higher self, I feel grateful that I get to serve, I feel energized and excited, and I feel like majority of my energy and intention is connected to a greater purpose.

The good news is that I've been able to identify the little shifts that can get me back in the flow at times when I'm not feeling it so much. When it comes to my health and energy, adding some extra greens and doing SOMETHING everyday to move my body is all it takes to start to get me back in the flow. When there is stress I'm dealing with, even 5 minutes a day of journaling my thoughts can help me shift. I detailed more of these tips during a huge phase of overwhelm during the holidays last year: http://katelynlesk.blogspot.com/2014/12/holiday-stress-and-overwhelm.html. When it comes to my Beachbody business, I know if I'm running challenge groups and helping people regularly in terms of dealing with any stress or struggles they may be facing and helping them make baby steps to get them back on the right track, I feel REALLY good no matter what else is going on in my business. In terms of my general life purpose, if I'm writing and creating content that feels like it may be helping even just one person out there, then that makes me happy. In terms of relationships, if I'm surrounding myself with people that lift me up and challenge me in expansive ways and raise my energy, we're good there. I make sure I have business and accountability partners for support to help keep me on track! For example, this summer I partnered up with my friend, Meredith, who is also in the wellness industry. We meet once a week for *inspire sessions* to help each other brainstorm for future goals. I am super grateful for her partnership and ideas and working relationship!

I also recently wrote about making peace with ourselves and the things we deal with regularly, including our exercise and work. It’s hard to be in the flow if we’re letting things like this overwhelm or frustrate us! Turning “should dos” into “get to dos” makes a big difference in getting back into the flow! I describe some easy shifts to do this here: http://katelynlesk.blogspot.com/2015/09/world-peace-day-make-peace-with.html.

It's been a BUSY couple of weeks but I have never felt better! It's one of those days where I'm truly feeling like the sky is the limit! And the ceiling at the Beehive is matching my attitude ;)

So I'm curious- how much attention do you pay to those times where you feel in the flow? Is it something you consciously have to pay attention to and work towards? What things set your soul on fire and make you feel most in the flow??

Stress, worry, dreams, and sleep

I get a lot of incredibly sweet comments and messages about how positive I am and my outlook on life, and while I absolutely appreciate those messages and do my best to see the brighter side of life and the best in other people, I also intend to be fully real with you guys when life gets tough in the hopes that if you can relate to this, that you don't feel alone and that you perhaps you may also be able to find comfort in what helps me.

Let me start by saying that I can be very laid back and light about most things, but I can also be very high-strung/high anxiety about other things. I can immediately tell when I'm stressed/anxious/down about anything that that starts coming out in 2 ways: 1. I worry more about things that don't normally bother me (finances, for example) and have a more lack-focused mentality than I normally do; and 2. my sleep is either very restless or I start having crazy, stressful nightmares or incredibly emotionally-draining dreams. The past week or so, my dreams have been absolutely insane to the point that I wonder how my brain even conjured up such horrible dreams/thoughts. Or like last night, I spent the whole night dreaming about horrible emotional situations to the point where I've had to spend a good chunk of my morning so far processing and dealing with the residual stress of it.

So for the first issue (lack mentality, other surface fears), my strategy is to go into what's bothering me (it also helps to remember that these fears and worries aren't REAL, it's just stress making itself heard in whatever way it can). If I just push it away, it keeps nagging me with either lack-based thoughts or just a chronic low-level anxiety and icky feeling. I need to sit down and journal to get to the root of what's bothering me. I KNOW we are busy people, but TRUST ME, it is worth the 5 minute time investment to deal with the problem so that you can move on with your day in a much more effective way (not to mention that YOU and your emotional health are WORTH IT)!! I created this method I call a "fear-crusher list" a long time ago for my beachbody customers and coaches. It's a technique that I use for everything and helps me a TON:

As for dreams and emotional stress, this excerpt from Teal Swan's, "The Sculptor in the Sky" ALWAYS makes me feel better. I've re-read it a couple times this morning already :)

So no matter what you are going through, whether that be big emotional tough stuff or just the day-to-day stress of life, remember that YOU ARE NOT ALONE! Sending you all HUGE HUGS today!!

Love, Katelyn

Holiday Stress and Overwhelm

I’ve been WAY stressed out this month. It’s all been good stuff so I feel a little guilty even complaining (add guilt to the series of emotions making me feel overwhelmed). I’ve been away a lot (great trips and amazing times spent with friends), have some family in town for the holidays (loving that), Beachbody coaching is great and keeping me busy (can’t complain about good business), so like I said- all good stuff, but the sheer amount of busyness this month caught me way off guard and I’ve been feeling really overwhelmed! For me, when I get overwhelmed, I tend to not want to tackle ANYTHING and eventually the overwhelm gets so bad that I have no choice but to crawl my way out of the ditch and get back in action. Fortunately, it’s happened to me enough times that I know the ways that work best for me to dig myself out. I’ve been having to employ all of them, BUT, they’ve been working!

This list may seem like a lot but actually, even doing JUST ONE of these things instantly reduces the overwhelm for me! All of these things are just a matter of getting BACK TO BASICS!

A HEALTHY MEAL. I swear, getting some greens in me makes me feel better immediately. The healthier I eat in general, the more I notice how much my mood and energy are affected by eating the not-so-healthy stuff. So needless to say, holiday treats, large portions at restaurants, and just being away from my normal set of food has taken its toll on how I feel. But the good news is that one little healthy snack already helps me turn it around!

GETTING OUT IN NATURE. It’s cold here in Pittsburgh at this time of year but the fresh air does wonders for my mental clarity and my soul.

A GOOD WORKOUT. Anything that gets my heart rate up!! Insanity Max:30 has DEFINITELY been doing the trick for me. And at 30 minutes/workout I can definitely squeeze that in. But often times when I’m super overwhelmed, it’s hard to give up precious “work catch-up time” to get a workout in so sometimes I have to start with just doing SOMETHING each day (even if that just means some jumping jacks, a quick walk, running the stairs a few times, or turning on some good tunes and dancing around my apartment). Getting back into the routine helps me feel motivated to do more.

“CHUNKING” MY WORK. My to-do list lately has been so overwhelming to look at lately that it makes me just want to stay in bed! The kicker is, 70% of the things on it are not really even all that important to my success and happiness. But they are things that would make me feel better to get done (mostly work tracking/organizational stuff). They’ve been nagging me for a while and I want to get them off of my to-do list once and for all. SOME of these things, I’ve just got to recognize that they won’t make much difference in my life and I’ve got to wave the white flag and surrender. Sure, they’d be nice to get done, but tasks like organizing my old pictures won’t really affect my life and for my own sanity, I need to just call it quits on trying to get these things done. For the rest of the stuff that I decide DOES need to get done, my go-to strategy is to CHUNK. This means I need to break it down into the smallest possible actionable steps to reduce the overwhelm. For example, I’ve been meaning to set up my website for months but “set up website” will forever get glazed over on my to-do list if I don’t make it more manageable. So simpler steps like “log into website account to see what makes sense and what doesn’t,” “ask Nikki for suggestions on setting up website email,” “make list of most basic social media accounts to link to,” “write 1 paragraph website intro,” etc make it way more manageable. I can do those little things! And checking them off gives me pride and momentum!

It also helps to just DECIDE. Trying to mentally balance all the things I need to get done is way too much. So I just need to pick SOMETHING to start with. It may not be the most productive or effective thing or the “eat that frog” task if you’ve read Brian Tracy’s great book. But I can’t waste any more precious energy trying to decide what is. So I’m just going to pick something and in that moment forget about everything else that I need to do and just do it. If nothing else, at least I accomplished 1 thing off of my to-do list!

STRESS-RELIEVING PRACTICES. In addition to the ones above, I love making GRATITUDE LISTS to remind me of what’s really important (even if it’s just a quick mental list). Saying a quick prayer or asking God, the universe, and my angels for help makes me feel like I don’t have to do this on my own! Thinking about who in my life I can ask for help makes me feel a whole lot better too. Why muddle through something on my own when I know a bunch of people who are much more proficient at things like setting up a website? And let’s not forget that youtube and google are my friends in terms of teaching me how to do things that seem overwhelming too. I also have printed sheets of quotes that inspire me. Taking 30 seconds to read over some INSTANTLY makes me feel more inspired. Saying mantras, meditation, a quick 2-minute yoga session, visualizing my big goals, thanking God for my struggles (which automatically seems to remind me that my struggles aren’t that bad and that there’s a bigger purpose at work here), reading a book, listening to Joel Osteen or my favorite Hay House authors online (youtube, Hay House Radio, their websites, etc) make me feel more grounded because I know I have my own personal “spiritual team” rooting me on, all of these things have so much power! Even a cup of hot tea can remind me of what’s really important and bring me back to the present moment.

MOST IMPORTANTLY- REMEMBERING I AM NOT ALONE! Like I said above, I have lots of help (from the people in my life and from God and the spirit world), I am supported. But it also helps to remember that we ALL feel overwhelmed at times- especially during the holidays. We need to give ourselves a break! There’s a lot more on our plate than usual (in terms of our to-do list and our actual plate haha!) plus we’re out of our normal routine, our sleeping patterns are off, that’s a lot for anyone to handle!! I heard a talk from one of my favorite authors recently who reminded me of this. If someone who I consider a teacher when it comes to all things spiritual, who embodies zen, is feeling stressed, then that definitely gives me permission to feel OK about feeling stressed myself. It was a great reminder that I can hang onto it, or I can just let it pass through me. It is up to me whether I want to feel stressed or not. It is all energy, I can allow it to flow :)

Any of these things above makes doing the other things so much easier. And the more of them I do, the more momentum it creates. More importantly, I’ve learned to enjoy this process and have fun in these “rebuilding” phases. OVERWHELM HAPPENS. IT’S OK. It gives us a chance to take inventory of our lives, re-evaluate, and course-correct. Then we can get back on track in a more meaningful and intentional way and continue to live our lives better than ever!!

I hope these tips/tools that help me are able to help you in some way! If you have other techniques that help you, please feel free to share below!

Much love!

Katelyn

Disclaimer Copy: Katelyn Lesk is an Independent Beachbody Coach.