"Under Pressure"

Ok so if you can stop singing Queen and David Bowie for just a couple minutes I promise to put a link to that awesome song at the bottom!

I wanted to write a blog about a reoccurring theme I see in the kids/teens I work with, that being PRESSURE! As the teen coach my job is to get to the bottom of this teen's stress and 7/10 times it is parental pressure! I know you are already being defensive I can sense it.  I understand you parent's have pressure too, I am a parent, I get it! The pressure on a parent in Vegas particularly is due to lack of things for teens to do, kids don't play outdoors anymore, you get the idea that if you don't keep them busy, the streets will find them! You are not wrong about that, there are statistics to sort of back that up.

Here's a scenario though, I wanna give an example of a pretend client.
Gorgeous Alice is 8 years old, she is growing up fast and she seems to do pretty well in school.  You start to notice she is hanging out with a girl more and suddenly her grades start to slip a bit and you take a stand and say something like "You need to do better in school, when I was young I got good grades and I expect that of you too!"  Alice heard "You suck, if you don't get good grades you are stupid!"
 Hey, I didn't make the rules, I just happen to know them, and this is how kids hear things!
Alice begins to put pressure on herself just because it seems to make her parent(s) happy to get good grades.  As the grades continue maybe you suggest getting into Advanced classes and even running for class president oh and on the side you insist she plays baseball too so she learns the value of a team and earn a scholarship for college.  So now Alice is in 7th or 8th grade and she is constantly stressed, she has an attitude toward you, she is under constant pressure from school and sports for 2 seasons or more a  year.
Alice suddenly starts wearing dark clothes and begins hanging out with the "scary kids" or maybe Alice just starts a nasty little habit of cutting herself behind the scenes.  There are about 100 other very similar scary scenarios (i.e. drugs, alcohol, suicide, sexual experimenting.)

So, as you can see this all started with a few "well-intentioned" parenting style choices and comments.  Alice took it upon herself to constantly please you and eventually fell apart inside without you noticing until it was too late.  Are you wondering why I am blaming you? Well, I am and I'm not.  I want you to see the direct correlation between parental pressures and teen behaviors.

Now I wanna tell you why to stop and how to stop! Why should you stop? Because you LOVE your kid.  How do you stop? By loving your kid Unconditionally! 
Unconditional love shows the child that even though they screw up, you still love them.  Allowing kids to experience the NATURAL consequences of life choices allows them to correct their behaviors on their own. There is plenty of research to show this parenting style works and is effective in raising some pretty amazing leaders.

Suggestions: Start with this book "Parenting with Love and Logic"  and start remembering you were once

this young and watch this----> WORDS PARENTS NEED TO HEAR NOW! 

And finally your link to Queen/Bowie Under Pressure

Down the Rabbit Hole

It's no secret I have an obsession with #AliceinWonderland.  It all started when one of my family members compared my dad and I to the Cheshire cat because of our smiles!

But I never really knew how much I relied on the story of Alice in Wonderland until I started my healing journey and my subsequent speaking career.  See Alice and teenagers have an awful lot in common.  Jumping into rabbit holes without caution, regard, or any preoccupation of consequences.  However, there is a secret to that whole scenario.  Alice (teens) don't necessarily need to think before they act.  That's something that is learned with life lessons and age.  While there are a lot of reasons we would love them to think first act second, scientific studies prove the reasoning region of their brain is simply not fully developed.

The great news to all of that is, we all love the story of Alice in Wonderland, and you wanna know why? Because even though Alice does a series of really stupid things, she comes out of that rabbit hole with the understanding of life that most of us only dream of.  She now understands life on a whole new level, and all because SHE MADE MISTAKES!

So, teens....Don't stop making mistakes because even if I could stop you from doing it, you are going to need those! Now before you P's (parents) get your pants in a bunch, I am talking about making a mistake and learning from it.  Just as you did when you were a teen, your teen also has to do.

Even though you make mistakes, follow a rabbit down a few holes doesn't mean you are a bad person.  YOU MUST however, LEARN from those mistakes, and that's what I do in my teen life coaching.  I help you decide to take those mistakes and turn them into something good.  Life is nothing more than a journey to become the ultimate human.  In order to be the master, you must learn.  That's the only difference between you and the 45 yr old miserable old dude.  Those people never turned their mistakes into lessons.  They turned them into shame and guilt.

Mistake into Lesson Formula:
1. Make mistake
2. Seek out someone to help you talk about it. (shameless plug PICK ME! PICK ME! )
3. Learn ways to avoid mistake in future.
4. GROW as a human!

And now to show some love to my favorite Etsy peeps that sell Alice stuff! LOVE to you! and you!  & U

Breaking the curse

I know, what a title huh? But have you ever wondered if indeed you were cursed.  Maybe one bad thing after another keeps happening to you and you just naturally begin to believe maybe even say "I think I have been cursed or something."  Well, let me shed a little light on your curse.  

"There is no curse or evil spell.  That's worse than one we give ourselves. There is no sorcerer as cruel, as the proud and angry fool.  And yet, we cry life isn't fair beneath our cries the truth is there.  The power that will break the spell, we should know very well Is locked within ourselves." -Ribaldi

So, what does that all mean really? It means that the only curse you have is your pride and ego.  When pride and ego get damaged you get angry.  Anger turns us into victims because it is an all consuming emotional coverup.  You know that person, the one that is always saying "that pisses me off, they piss me off, that makes me so mad"  This person is consumed by an emotional cover-up because they are too proud to experience real emotions.

This leads to the crying of life isn't fair and all the time the solution was within.  All a person need do is begin to feel gratitude.  Gosh this reminds me of another post I wrote.  Easy is anger, but happiness is something worth working for.  Just like a lie can be referred to as a black hole that eventually swallows it's creator, anger can literally do just the same.  The choice and solution are all within your control. 

If you haven't read my Gratitude blog yet, now would be a good time.  Remember, being anti everything is easy, try being PRO-Things! 

99 Reasons Not To...

I have at least 99 reasons not to write a book and about 5 not to write this blog, but I am again forcing myself to do something that feels uncomfortable in order to grow from it!  WoooH what great mystic wisdom is this? Do something you DON'T want to do in order to GROW? WTH?

Many of you hear that life is full of difficult choices and maybe you've even heard you are not the first one to be disappointed.  Yeah, well as true as it is, it's not very comforting in the moment is it?  Because I want you to be the best person you can be and sooner than I did it, I pass on these wonderful tips in the form of sarcasm and witty, dry humor.  You'll have to try to keep up.  

Ok so, why does facing a fear, or doing something that makes you feel vulnerable help you grow? Well, it's actually quite simple really.  Let's take an easy example and say I am scared of birds, kinda a weird and slightly obnoxious fear, but many people still have this fear AKA : Ornithophobia.  

So, I can run scared every time I see a group of birds or I could get a pet bird and learn to love it.  The fear can continue or you can grow as a human being and stop needing attention called to a fear you have.  
So, which would you rather have attention for being a strong person who faces fear and loves living, or the cowardly lion running away from everything?  Seems like a no brainer to me.  I wanna grow up to be a strong person that people don't dismiss when I speak.  I don't know about you! 

I wrote a book called 99 Reasons Not To Write This Book.  It will be released in Jan. 2014! You should know I am asking every teen NOT to read this book. Please it's totally embarrassing!  

How gratitude WILL change you!

    For my very first blog I wanted to share a lesson that embodies my blog: heart, wisdom, and action all in one.  The topic being Gratitude.  Many people have a generic idea of what gratitude is but do not understand it's true harnessed power.  The reason I chose gratitude to be my first blog is because it is the one thing you can begin today and see your happiness exponentially increase instantly.  

    Gratitude is the act of being gracious or thankful.  It is taking the time to recognize a person, an event, an act, a gesture, etc and to actually sit in that moment and say .....

    So I do not make this blog all about me I will give you only a brief synopsis of how gratitude has benefited my life.  6 years ago I had a nickname, people called me Reggie Downer.  I was blunt, honest, and negative.  Even though I would show gratitude I often also would pay more attention to all the negative facts as well.  "Yes that person gave me a free t-shirt, but don't you know that's just a marketing ploy!"  Wow, talk about a different woman now.  I don't even recognize her.  I wish for you all to not have to learn this the hard way like I did though.  It took disease ravaging my body and the actualization that if I continued I would die early.  

    Research Shows Gratitude Heightens Quality of Life- wow!

  "The study split several hundred people into three different groups and all of the participants were asked to keep daily diaries. The first group kept a diary of the events that occurred during the day without being told specifically to write about either good or bad things; the second group was told to record their unpleasant experiences; and the last group was instructed to make a daily list of things for which they were grateful. The results of the study indicated that daily gratitude exercises resulted in higher reported levels of alertness, enthusiasm, determination, optimism, and energy."  McCullough/Emmons, et al

     Why make life harder than it has to be? So, I want you to decide your method of showing gratitude.  There are many apps for your phone, good ole fashioned paper and pen(cil), and the art of conversation via phone.  Pick one!  I chose the app for convenience factor, but I also make sure to vocalize as well when it involves another human.  This is your challenge: One time per day you will decide to write/type down one thing you are grateful for.  It looks like this: Today I am grateful for: "Sharing a blog that could very well be someone's change."  Do this for just 1-2 weeks and start to notice those little things that begin to happen.  You begin to see the world a bit differently and amazing doors begin to open. 

    For the "realists, negative, and sick" I challenge you to start the very same way I did.  Mine looked like this 
Today I am grateful I woke up.
Today I am grateful I can still walk.
Today I am happy I didn't say a curse word.
Today I told my mom/dad/sister I love them. 
Sometimes, we have to literally start from scratch to retrain our brain so to speak.  

Please follow up with comments when this works and you begin to see the shift.  As usual if you need more assistance or one on one help feel free to contact me via my website www.dreamthis.org