Arminda Lindsay

Being On Purpose

Making Peace With Food

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A Registered Dietitian Nutritionist, Eve Lahijani‘s journey to helping women (and some men) heal their relationship with food, trust their bodies and experience ease with food in any situation is only possible because she first did that for herself.

From the time she was a very young girl, Eve felt unseen, unheard and unimportant, that her voice didn’t matter. The only thing she felt she had any power over was what went into her body, when she fed herself, and what amounts were “acceptable.” Her desire to exercise her innate power became a shameful, unhealthy, obsessive, and addictive relationship with food.

I hope you enjoy this conversation. Let me know your thoughts in the comment section below!

Eve Lahijani Bio

Eve Lahijani is a Registered Dietitian Nutritionist.  She works with her clients using a non-diet approach that helps clients separate eating and food from their emotions and other issues.  She specializes in helping those who engage in emotional eating, compulsive eating and other forms of non-hunger eating.  Eve helps her clients from all over the world achieve lasting peace with their eating, having confidence in any food situation and really experience profound freedom!  In her spare time, Eve loves to paint, read and swim.

And here is Eve’s inspiring TEDx Talk

Divorce Was My Doorway

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Episode Seven is where you’ll meet Shawn Richardson: mountain climber (three of the seven summits are complete), mother (three boys, ages 24, 22 & 19), and multidimensional mover and shaker in this world!!

I love this conversation and Shawn’s vulnerable sharing of the raw unknowns she confronted in the wake of her unexpected divorce from her husband of 22 years:

  1. Who am I?
  2. Why am I here?
  3. What do I want to do?

She openly admits that the journey she’s traveled to where she stands right now was catalyzed by her divorce.

My favorite part of our discussion is listening to Shawn talk about her oldest son, Charlie, and how his life with special needs, and how she’s interpreted his life, have been “way showing” and transformational for her.

Through her pioneering work, Shawn helps adults with special needs children achieve transformational shifts in their family dynamics, professional lives, and personal experience. 

I can’t wait to see what Shawn creates next and am certain you’ll be just as excited as I am to watch her shift our global consciousness around authentic workers.

Please share your thoughts in the comments below and thanks for listening to the show!

If you’d like to join our community, click here.

The New Sexy: “I Am Enough”

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While I love and enjoy all of my guests, this conversation, in particular, holds significant personal meaning. Join me and Shelley Dunford-Hardy as we take the subject of power into the bedroom and what it means for a woman to be in her power in arguably the most intimate spaces of her Self: physically, emotionally and psychologically.

Shelley’s Favorite Tools

  • Kristin Neff and her significant work around self-compassion. Please find Dr. Neff’s website here.
  • Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) and a link for that method can be found here.
  • Ocean Breathing: Breathe in the nose for four counts and out the mouth for three counts, repeat.
  • Exploration exercise: Checking in with what you want/enjoy and do not want/enjoy.  Each person takes a turn being a giver and a receiver. The basic words used are, Yes/Please (I like and want to keep doing this) / Maybe (I don’t like this now, but I may be open to it in the future) / No, Thank You (I do not like this and do not want to do it).

Shelley Dunford-Hardy Bio

A licensed Marriage and Family Therapist (LMFT) for over twelve years, Shelley has a bachelor’s degree in Education, and masters’ degrees in both Clinical Psychology and Spiritual Psychology. She has a passion for helping individuals and couples learn, heal, grow and thrive through challenging experiences in their lives. Shelley’s specialty trainings include Emotion Focus Therapy (EFT) and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR). She has worked several years with individuals, and their spouses healing from pornography and sex addiction. Shelley loves traveling, painting, hiking and spending time with her family. She has been married for thirty-two years and has four children. You can find her at her website.

Emma Holmes: I Found Out Accidentally!

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A scratch DJ, coach and surfer splitting her time between England and Hawaii, Emma Holmes is living the life she imagines every single day and shows others how to do the same.

Emma created and runs School of Scratch – one of the world’s leading online training platforms for Scratch DJs to learn the art of scratching and is dedicated to assisting others become excellent at the art of scratching.

In her work as a coach, Emma is an ambassador of stoke, empowering individuals to create the life they truly want to live.

As a gift to listeners of the show, Emma is giving you one month free access! to her online Stay Stoked Community, which is full of resources to help you create whatever you choose in your life! Please use this special link to sign up!! Once you are signed up, click right here on this sentence for access to the community!

Emma is active on both Instagram and Facebook. She would love to connect with you. 

Here is the Want List Emma referenced, as well as access to her Be Deliberate site. Enjoy the “Curiosity Driven Life” speech Elizabeth Gilbert gave on Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday.

Choose Your Own Adventure

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Reading has always been a vital part of my life. It was not uncommon for me to beg my mother to drive me to the library once a week during the long months of summer vacation so I could restock my exhausted book supply. I would decide how many books were enough to take home based solely on how many I could safely carry at one time wedged between my chin and the farthest reach of my hands in the opposite direction, using myself as a walking bookend.

I immersed myself in books, escaping to lands far away and imagined, some with completely otherworldly plots and some whose stories didn’t seem so far-fetched. I loved nothing more than to escape through the pages of books to places and people and creatures I believed to be as real as the pages I turned in real time, becoming so immersed in these alternate realities I legitimately believed I was part of the unfolding saga.

When Choose Your Own Adventure books hit the scene my enthusiasm could not be sated. I devoured these books, always reading them from start to stop as many times as I could choose a different direction to guide the fate of the main character through one seemingly critical decision after another, never tiring of the delightful discovery of how one choice could lead to such different consequences and possible outcomes. When I came to the conclusion of a series of choices, I happily turned back to page one and started over again, always choosing differently than my previous read through the same plot.

I’ve come to understand that my life is no different than the storybooks I’ve always loved to read. And up until a few years ago, I was so invested in believing my own story to be true that I was no more writing my story as much as I was allowing it to be written by everything and everyone around me. I was a character in my own story, but one who existed at the mercy of the plot unfolding around me.

Through a series of conscious choices that included working with a coach, I realized my life, and the story about it in my own mind, wasn’t one I had to believe as fact any longer. I had become so accustomed to living my life as it happened, attributing the good stuff to luck and faithfulness and the bad stuff to lessons I must still need to learn and faithlessness, that I failed to see the adventure option in front of me, to turn to a different page for a different outcome. So I began testing the idea of my life as a Choose Your Own Adventure instead of a travelogue of What Happened To Me.

Testing this idea of choice felt like a game, and playing inside of my life was definitely more fun than watching it happen in front of me without my participation. It took some practice, certainly, but actively choosing how I interacted with and interpreted the myriad life situations happening outside of my control created a surprising result. Losing my attachment to being in control had the opposite effect! Instead of feeling like an unwilling participant in a game of chance, I slowly became the controller and creator of my own game: The Story of Me.

Stephen Covey, in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, attributes Viktor Frankl, well-known neurologist, psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, with the following quote:

“Between stimulus and response lies a space. In that space lie our freedom and power to choose a response. In our response lies our growth and our happiness.”

Frankl’s theory proved accurate for me. I started to see that I was actually interpreting events and other people’s behavior as having caused me pain or joy, as negative or positive, bad or good. Those interpretations were, in fact, my own personal judgments: thoughts inside of me that I chose to believe as truth, and then I reacted accordingly.

When I practice an intentional period of separation between what Frankl refers to as the stimulus and the response I give myself time to consider my reaction. This practice is not dissimilar to my childhood training of counting to ten before saying something I might regret.

Through this practice, which I still maintain, I spend more and more time in Frankl’s space between stimulus and response. The growth and happiness I experience are directly related to the choices I’m making in that space. No longer am I emotionally exhausted by the constant barrage of my own judgments about what other people are doing or saying as having anything to do with me.

When I feel frustrated or stuck, I simply look to see where I’m not choosing my own adventure and then I happily turn back a few pages and start over again, returning to the awareness that emotional freedom and power are always available to me through a different choice.

Create 2017

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While reviewing your year is a great exercise in seeing all you’ve accomplished and recognizing for yourself what an amazing person you are, it’s in the creation of “What’s Next?!” that you really get the chance to shine.

For this exercise to be most effective, I encourage you to schedule some reflective time for yourself without normal distractions. Really get into a different head space before responding. Allow yourself to fully imagine you in the next year; visualize each of these scenarios and from that place, write down your responses.

Don’t self-correct or talk yourself out of what comes forward for you. Write it all down. There is also no rule that you have to limit yourself to just three responses. Go crazy! Keep writing! This is YOUR 2017 and you get to visualize and create it however you like.

If you’d like to share your responses with me (yes, please), then simply send me an email (coach at armindalindsay dot com) with your 2017 projections. I can’t wait to read your future.

1. What are the top 3 things you will achieve?
2. List 3 challenges you anticipate.
3. What are 3 things you need to learn to grow your business?
4. Identify 3 things you want to grow and/or learn about yourself.
5. Which are the 3 relationships you intend to grow and/or develop?
6. Name 3 things you want to create or bring into the world.
7. What are 3 ways you will make a difference in 2017?
8. List 3 ways you will have FUN in your business.

 

The best way to predict your future is to create it.”
— Abraham Lincoln

Frozen Assets

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Earlier today as I was walking Eli we came upon what appeared to be a frozen fountain. Upon closer inspection I realized while the fountain’s main water had, indeed, frozen, there was still quite a bit of water still freely flowing, uninhibited by the sub-zero temperatures to which its fellow drops had succumbed.

Earlier this week I conducted multiple coaching sessions with clients who each arrived to our respective conversation feeling stuck and unable to move past what seemed like insurmountable barriers. Here’s a sampling of four of those barriers:

1. Frustration with a business partner whose actions had offended a key vendor
2. A marketing plan that didn’t seem to be producing the desired results
3. Overwhelm from starting a new business and implementing multiple strategies simultaneously
4. Personal issues that were “leaking” into the professional space

Upon closer inspection, some targeted questioning from me, and a safe space in which to review their assets, my clients were each able to see avenues to continue moving forward, uninhibited by the surrounding events previously blocking their path.

When we had completed our time together every single one of those “stuck” individuals experienced an overflow of joy that accompanied their awareness that sometimes, or perhaps especially, when feeling stuck it might do to remember Winnie the Pooh‘s sage advice:

Sometimes, if you stand on the bottom rail of a bridge and lean over to watch the river slipping slowly away beneath you, you will suddenly know everything there is to be known.”

Remember that being stuck is optional and if you need some assistance just let me know what’s in your way; I’m happy to stand on the bottom rail with you.

Loving you,
arminda

Free Candy

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American Halloween

The American tradition of Halloween has spread to many cultures, so you’re likely familiar with the concept of hordes of children dressing up in costumes, pretending to be something they’re not, and going door to door collecting free candy. I’ve never been, nor met, the child who doesn’t sincerely believe she IS on her inside whatever she’s parading on her outside through makeup and costume and sometimes just the right pair of shoes.

Personal Halloween

Personalities are just like costumes. It’s become a widespread tradition to dress up in a personality, pretending to be something you’re not, and go day-to-day collecting sympathy for “who you are.” I’ve rarely met an individual who doesn’t sincerely believe he IS on his inside exactly the personality he’s parading on his outside through stories from his past he cloaks himself in, as if they were fresh and relevant.

Don’t Pretend

Have you ever said, thought, or believed any variation of the following:

“I always. . . .”
“I never. . . .”
“That’s just the way I am. . . .”
“You know how I am. . . .”
“I have a tendency to. . . .”

These are statements of belief, of permanence, of irrefutable patterns over which you seemingly have no control. And if you believe your personal patterns are a thing at all, this is what Steve Chandler calls a “mental mistake.”

Anytime you do or don’t do something and blame it on your so-called personality, you are “going back into your past to find the patterns and tendencies that explain it. You refuse to see that the past is over. It counts for nothing. Your word counts for everything. Your word you give yourself on whether you are going to do something.”

Why would you do that, you might wonder?

Because most of us spend most of our lives afraid of what might happen in our non-existent made-up futures, so instead we spend our time avoiding.  Avoiding our own potential, avoiding the things we don’t like, avoiding what we fear, avoiding what we hope won’t happen, avoiding conversations, and the list goes on.

“. . . we are using our creative imagination in the most negative, perverse way because we are using it to worry about the imaginary negative future. The antidote to that. . . is to reconnect human beings to their innate natural birthright of pure creativity” (Steve Chandler).

New Costumes

If you spend any amount of time with young children, you might observe their tendency to not limit their dressing up in costumes to October 31. In reality, children play make believe every single day. And their costumes are widely varied and not dependent on what they pretended they were the previous day. They are constantly creating new versions and visions of themselves. Additionally, they don’t even require external costumes to act out their internal stories of their own greatness and creativity.

What would it take for you to shed your costume of personality and step into your “birthright of pure creativity”? Does it seem frightening? Are you worried you’ll mess it up? That others might laugh at you? That you’ll have regrets?

Steve Chandler suggests the following encouragement:

Just jump in. Forget about making the right choice, and forget about being afraid of your intuition leading you wrong, and forget about attaching a story of regret to a time in your life when you were doing the best you could and then now looking back you are going to attach a story of regret to it — there’s no value in that. You can’t be creative when you’re taking things personally.”

Try on new ideas, test a new pattern, make up a version and a vision of yourself that you haven’t seen yet and go dream to dream collecting a bag full of encouragement from yourself because who you are is entirely up to you.

Loving you,
arminda

Steve Chandler quotes are from chapters 31 and 33 of Steve’s book:
The Life Coaching Connection; How Coaching Changes Lives 

Use This Door

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I have a friend who always said to me, “Don’t tell me what to do!” And every time she said that it would give me pause as I mentally rewound the conversation to determine whether I had, in fact, just told her what to do, or whether she was being silly (again). More times than not I realized I had issued a directive, but never consciously with intent to have my own way or to be manipulative. And since my friend was so willing to call me out every single time I did so, I soon became self-aware enough to stop myself from continuing the practice.

As I work with my clients, I am not surprised to discover that many of them haven’t noticed that they are living their lives based largely on what they’ve been told to do. So many of us exert a lot of energy making small and large decisions solely to avoid hurting someone else’s feelings, or disappointing a loved one, without thoughtfully considering what we would choose if we didn’t feel guilt or obligated to continue on the path outlined.

Think about it. Have you made a decision for that reason? Have you avoided doing something, or not been entirely forthcoming, for that reason?

You’re not alone.

But just because someone who loves you had an idea about what you should be when you grew up, doesn’t mean that you shared the same vision for yourself. And how long did it take you to realize that law school, or the military, or taking over the family business wasn’t as satisfying or exhilarating or fulfilling as you thought it should be? And do you now feel stuck? Obligated to stay? Frightened about what might happen if you should switch things up a bit?

I get it. And I understand.

What would happen if you practiced saying, “Don’t tell me what to do!” to yourself, to the voice inside your head that keeps issuing directives? (And just for grins and giggles, the next time you notice that voice — also notice whose voice it is that you’re hearing. I am willing to bet it’s not your own, but someone else’s.)

What if before you make your next move on auto-pilot, you switch back to manual and check in with yourself to be sure you’re not acting simply because your next step was outlined for you.

Just because all external signs point toward one door doesn’t mean you can’t choose a different door altogether.

You tell you what to do.

Loving you,
arminda

For, Not To

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The morning of our final full day in Italy our B&B host drove us to the bus stop to catch the 11:15 down the mountain. We arrived at 10:55 followed by the bus five minutes later, departing with us on it well before 11:15. Had we arrived any later than we did, we wouldn’t have made it down the mountain until nightfall, completely canceling our option to visit Pompeii, which was by far one of our favorite experiences the entire trip.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

The bus took us down most of the mountain until the bus broke and then we stood on the side of the road with the other passengers waiting for a not broken bus to replace our broken one. The second bus deposited us what felt like a mile from the train station, which we located only with the help of a kind fellow bus passenger, and secured passage on the local to Pompeii, where we spent the entire afternoon roaming chariot-rutted streets and long-ago abandoned buildings.

I ate my final pizza. 

After walking around Pompeii all afternoon we got back on the local train to continue our way to Naples, standing the entire trip because the train was overflowing with passengers. From the Naples depot, we took a taxi to our hotel and then walked to a nearby market for some snacks and collapsed in our room for the night, knowing our airport departure time would come much sooner than our bodies wanted to allow.

I thought a lot about that experience, even in the middle of it. Actually, especially in the middle of it — that part when the bus broke down and no one spoke any English and I watched other passengers wander away from the group and I wondered whether we were totally on our own to find new transportation for the remainder of a trip whose route I did not know? Or was I meant to stand in the middle of the road in front of the now defunct bus? Had I correctly understood the message the driver animatedly tried to communicate? Nothing was immediately apparent to me, except my feeling of immense responsibility for the safety of my daughter, niece and sister-in-law, all of whom were traveling with me.

And I decided to let it go, to drop my attachment to any feelings of frustration, anger or fear about what was happening. I had zero control over the situation with the bus and, therefore, zero control over what might happen next. So instead of being upset at the bus breaking down, I took a picture of the roadsigns directly above my head and smiled at how beautiful a day it was and if we had to stand in the middle of this Italian mountain village, then I was certainly glad the sun was shining! Besides, what’s a good adventure without a transportation mishap somewhere along the way? And within minutes a fresh working bus arrived to carry us the rest of the way down the mountain.

As I considered my entire three weeks traveling through Italy I am aware that we arrived every single place we wanted, saw every single thing we wanted to see, found every single house, apartment, hotel, or B&B we booked, were always safe, never missed an experience, and even discovered new delights that expanded our lives and world view because we could see that everything happens for us, not to us, and everything always works out for us.

That’s the way it always is. There are lots of variations and ways to say that life happens for you, not to you, and once you see that, life gets a whole lot better. Steve Chandler posits this shift in perspective is the difference between being a victim of your life and its owner. I like to see it as being the creator of my experience because with every single out of my control occurrence, I get to make a choice. I can choose to react (victim) or I can choose to act (create).

The bus is going to break down. 

Breakdowns and unknowns are a given. Do better than “just deal with it.” Choose to be expanded by the breakdown moments and see that they happen for you. No one is against you. Not the bus, not its driver, not the other passengers, not the universe. There is no universe. There’s only you and the stories you make up inside your own head. So if you’re struggling with a case of “I can’t believe this is happening to me,” then shift your perspective. Create a new story.

Play with the possibility that what’s happening is for your benefit.
What can you see when you rise up to street sign height?
Or higher?
The sky is gorgeous from up here.
Do yourself a favor and celebrate how for you it all is.

Loving you,
arminda

+1.336.601.8111 | North Carolina, USA