[Summer Series] Showing Up When It’s Hard

Welcome to the final episode of our summer series, and we are going to end on a note we all need, showing up when it's hard. Because let's be honest, there are days when you'd rather just disappear, hide under the covers or let self-doubt drive the car. And I've been there more times than you will ever know, but what I've learned is that how we show up when it's hard shapes our self-image more than how we show up when it's easy. So let's talk about it.

Welcome to the School of Self-Image, where personal development meets style. Here's your hostess, master life coach, Tonya Leigh.

Hey, you. I can't believe that this is the last episode of the summer series. It seems like I just announced that I was going to take a sabbatical, and now here we are. The summer is almost done and we are heading into the fall season. And I don't know about you all, but I am excited about the last months of the year. I think this is an opportunity for us to recommit and to finish the year strong and proud no matter what's happened the previous months. And so let's all just decide we're going to make the most of these next months.

Now, a part of what I've been doing over the summer is really thinking about what's next? What's next for me? What's next for the School of Self-Image? And the big question I've been asking is how can I step up? How can I challenge myself? How can I grow? And it's really uncomfortable when the answers start coming and you start having all of these excuses.

But there's one thing that I have been contemplating doing for a while and it's time. And that is this podcast is now going to be on YouTube as a visual version, meaning it's going to be me recording it live in front of a camera. Now, is it uncomfortable? 100%. I have been doing this via audio only for so long, and it comes with many perks. I'm able to take my mic and my computer anywhere and record. I don't even have to get dressed if I don't want to, even though I always feel better when I do. And so deciding to bring this to a visual component is really requiring that I step up my game, my professionalism. It means I'm going to really have to plan ahead. I'm going to have to do things in a different way, and that's always uncomfortable.

But then I think back to my very first podcast and how uncomfortable I was, how awkward it felt. And if you go back and listen to the first one, which was actually the very first of the summer series, you can see I've grown so much with this medium and this platform. And now I'm just choosing to do it all over again by doing video. And I hope more than anything that inspires you. I know that my very first video isn't going to be my very best. I know that I have a lot of growth and opportunity in that area, but at some time we just have to show up. We have to commit to doing what's hard because it's in that hardness that we grow. That's where the opportunity lies. And so come find me over on YouTube at Tonya Leigh. Make sure you subscribe so that you catch our very first video podcast that's going to be dropping next week.

Now, today's episode is all about showing up when it's hard. And yeah, we can make our own hardness through our resistance and our fear and our perfectionism, which I've been known to do. But then there are also times when life is hard, where unexpected things happen. Maybe you find yourself, you've lost your job, or you are dealing with sickness either with yourself or a family member. And those are the moments where we really need to ask ourselves, how do I want to show up in all of this? Who do I want to be in this?

I think back to the beginning of the summer, I lost my father, and yet I still had responsibilities. I still had a business to run, I had clients to serve, and I just kept asking myself, who do I want to be in this? And when life is hard, you have to make hard choices. That might be when you have to reprioritize, you have to decide to let some things go. But what I have found is that you need to just find your bare minimum. What is the bare minimum that you can commit to that allows you to feel like you're still taking some steps, you're still making some progress, you're still showing up? And more than anything, it's about giving yourself grace during those times.

And so I hope you enjoy the final podcast of the summer series, and most likely the final one where it's just me and you and this microphone, because next week it's going to be video. But you can still listen here on iTunes, Spotify, wherever you listen. So thank you all so much and I cannot wait to see you on the next one. Enjoy.

Hello my gorgeous friends. Do you know that one of my favorite things to do every single week is sit down and record this podcast? It is very rare that I have a week where I'm like, oh, I got to get this podcast done. It happens occasionally. But for the most part, I'm always excited. And I was thinking about why that is. And what I found in my mind is that I have thoughts like this is a way for me to connect with many people. This is a way for me to hopefully add a little sparkle to your day. This is a way for me to share with you what's worked in my life and what hasn't worked. And it's a great honor for me to be able to share these things with you.

I had a completely different episode planned for today, but I just wasn't feeling it. You all know what that's like, right? You just tap into the energy of what's going on, how you're feeling, and you're like, nope, that's not the podcast for this week. Just when I thought that we were having a moment where the collective nervous system could calm down, we now are facing new things to worry about. And I've been receiving many messages from clients and family and friends about how do I deal with this? I'm freaking out. I'm scared. Or I even have friends who are in the region of conflict right now or they have family there and they are feeling all of the things. And rightfully so.

Today's podcast, this might be hard for me to actually record you guys, I'm going to keep going. The show must go on. So my project manager and her husband who does our web design, he creates a lot of the magic behind the scenes. They moved to the States in December of 2021 and they moved from the Ukraine. All of their family is still there, and they are in the middle of this war that is happening. I can't imagine being in their shoes. They know I love them and I appreciate them so much, but this week they have shown up even when it's hard. I can't imagine having left my family and then a war comes along and they're stuck there and I can't get to them, I can't help them. I can't do anything really for them. And that is the situation that they're in.

And yet this entire week. They've been on the meetings, they have done the work, and they have showed up even when it's hard. And I've seen Anna's face, and I can tell that she's not well. She's probably not sleeping very well. She's worried. You can tell she's in fight or flight, and yet she's still showing up when it's really hard. And it was offered to her that she doesn't need to work right now, take time off. But she chose to keep working. And I get it. I know when I've been in hard situations, sometimes having something to focus on instead of what you're worrying about is a little bit of relief.

But as I was saying earlier, I know that some of you listening right now, you're in a hard time, and maybe just dealing with the past two years, you're like, I have had enough. I just want a break. And yet the world keeps happening and doing what the world does. And so I wanted to dedicate this podcast to all of you, amazing men and women. Because we have men that listen to this podcast, which I think is really cool. But I want to dedicate it to you all who are in the hard right now. And I want to share with you how I ideal with showing up when it's hard.

The first thing I want to share with you is around worry, because a lot of times I have found that hard and worry coincides. They usually come in a package. And so I've shared this on a previous podcast, but I want to briefly share it again here because it's been really helpful for me. When life is feeling hard and I'm full of worry, I like to do a list, and I write down everything that I'm worried about. Everything that I think could happen in the world, could happen to my family, could happen in my business, could happen to my friends. I just write it all down.

And then I create two lists. One is my list and the other one I put as God's list, and I start to separate things out. So the way I do this is I look at my list and everything that I have absolutely no control over, I put on God's list. And I have a conversation with the universe like, hey, listen, this is bigger than me. I'm going to let you handle this one. You got this. I love that I actually cheer the universe on when the universe has always had it, right? But I just give that to God, the universe.

And then everything else goes on my list. And that's what I focus on. I focus on what I have control over. I remember doing this during the pandemic. I couldn't control the virus. I mean, I had some influence, like wearing my mask and not being around people, that was in my control. Yes, 100%. But on a global level, we didn't know how this virus is going to operate. And so at the end of the day, I didn't have control over COVID-19. And so I wrote down, oh, we may all die. I may get sick. My business is going to crumble. All of the things that I know we all were thinking during COVID. That was probably what I was worried about too in the beginning, until I did the Week of Calm, it totally shifted me truly.

But in the beginning, I was freaking out. And then I wrote down what I had control over, taking care of my health, wearing my mask, doing all the things that we were told to do in the beginning to take care of ourselves and to protect our neighbors. I did all of those things. And that's all I had control over, and that's what I focused on. So write down your list and separate it out. Give what you can't control over to God, the universe, whatever you call a higher power, and then you take care of the rest. So that's number one.

Number two, and this has been really helpful for me, the other thing that has been really helpful for me is to honor how I'm feeling. I feel like a lot of our suffering, in fact most of our suffering, is because we don't allow ourselves to be human and to feel all of the human emotions. So when we start to feel sad or angry, or whatever those emotions are, we want to instantly change it. Especially people that don't know the law of attraction really well, and you're afraid of attracting bad things into your life. You're like, oh, I got to feel better right now. Or that, or you beat yourself up. You beat yourself up because you are being a human. That's what I like to say.

So for me, it's been so helpful just to be like, yeah, babe, you're anxious today. You're sad today. You're worried right now. It's okay. I got you. And that energy just lightens the mood a little bit because what I used to do is feel anxious, sad, or worried, then beat myself up for it and feel even worse. And so allow yourself to be where you are. In fact, this whole month within the School of Self-Image is exactly what we are talking about, emotional mastery. And as I told the women within the membership, I'm like, the first step is you have to feel and honor where you are right now in order to change it. But a lot of you're trying to change it without being where you are right now, and it's impossible.

It's like me being here in Denver and trying to get to California, but not wanting to admit I'm in Denver. I don't know if that was a good analogy, but it's what I got right now. But honoring where you are, I think, is the way to show up when it's hard. And here's why. When you finally accept that you are in a hard place feeling the hard things, you don't use all of your energy fighting with where you are. And trust me, that takes a lot of energy to suppress and deny and try to pretend. Instead, it's like, okay, I'm anxious today and I'm going to get some work done. Okay, I'm feeling really sad today, and I'm still going to show up and get some work done, or I'm going to show up for my family, whatever it is that you're wanting to show up for. So allow yourself and honor where you are right now.

And then that leads me to the next thing. I have found that it's really helpful when I'm in acute phases, like when I am so deep in just really uncomfortable and painful emotions, and I'm talking about sadness, grief, that kind of energy, to allow myself to do the bare minimum. I experienced this when my daughter was sick and I still showed up, but I gave myself grace. And I'm like, okay, you got some things to do. Whatever you can take off your plate right now, do. Get it off your plate and do the bare minimum. Because here's the thing. We want to honor where you are, but we also want to keep your momentum moving. I know what it's like to be in a hard place, and then you just stop. And as you stop, you just, I don't want to say indulge, but you just ruminate in that energy and then things begin to pile up around you. Maybe you're overeating, maybe you're doing things that don't serve you, and then you've added layers upon layers of hardness on top of the already hard thing.

And so how can you keep the momentum going, show up. And still get some things done, and also at the same time give yourself grace? And for me, that's allowing myself to do the bare minimum. Today, I'm going to go work out for 10 minutes, or I'm going to write one page. For those of you who work for someone else, look at how can you do the bare minimum outside of work so that you can still keep things moving a little bit, but you're not moving so fast that you're exhausting yourself and there's no space for healing and there's no space for processing.

The other thing is to allow yourself to do mediocre work. And this is really hard for us perfectionists. But when it's hard, what we often want to do, especially again for perfectionists, is we want to do nothing at all. We want to wait until we feel amazing or we want to wait until we think it's perfect in order to do the thing or to put the thing out into the world. And I really believe you all that the secret to my success, other than expanding my self-image, is my willingness to do mediocre work when it's hard. And I honestly remember putting some things out in the world four years ago that wasn't my best work, even two years ago wasn't my best work. But I still showed up and I still did the best I could, and I allowed it to be mediocre, knowing that the momentum would keep me moving. And not only that, I would learn so much about what I want to do different next time. And so allow yourself to do mediocre work, especially when it's hard.

The other little hack that I have for showing up when it's hard is to do the opposite of what your mood tells you to do. Because oftentimes our moods want to feed themselves. Sad moods want to feed themselves with sad music, sad thoughts, sad clothing, sad, sad, sad, sad, right? Now, I will add this in there. There is a moment for that, especially if you haven't allowed yourself to feel for a long time. You need to get that sadness out. You need to put on the sad music and you need to cry.

But a lot of times what happens is that we indulge in these moods and we stay there, and we constantly live a life based on our mood, not our desires. And so when my mood tells me to procrastinate, I get to work. When my mood tells me sometimes you need to go work, and it's always, I wish you could see my hands right now the way I'm doing them, but sometimes my mood's like you need to go work harder. And that's coming from fear, or it's coming from me wanting to avoid something else in my life. That's usually when I'll go rest. When my mood tells me to go eat, that's when I check in with my body and I'm like, hey, are you really hungry? And usually the answer is no when the mood's telling me to eat. And so just doing the opposite of what my mood tells me to do is another way that I get to show up even when it's hard in service of who I want to be and in service of the vision that I have for my life, my company, and myself.

The other thing that I suggest, and we talk about this in the Week of Calm, I think it's on the final day, but it's important that you have a goal when things are hard. Because what happens is, if you don't have a focus when you wake up in the morning and your brain is left to do its mental gymnastics, that is not a good performance. You can just spin in an energy that doesn't serve you. And sometimes the goal can be so tiny for that day, but it gives you a focus of where to focus your energy and to, again, keep things moving in a direction that serves you. So I think that's super important. So have a goal.

Now I want to talk more about self-care when things are hard and how to show up. The first thing I've noticed when things are hard, what my mood tells me to do is to stay inside and to worry and panic and feel bad. So I like to get outside. I like to get outside every day anyway because I feel like we all need more vitamin D. But being outside and being in the sun and being in the fresh air is a way to get your energy moving and to shift your mood a little bit.

The other thing that I suggest is to get into good company. Put yourself around those people who uplift you, that you can talk with, that help you see the world maybe in a different perspective than what you're seeing it right now that's making it feel so hard. I think that's super important. Eating well. It's crazy that when it's hard is when we often want to choose foods that make it hard on our bodies. And this is why when it's hard and you're having a hard time showing up, it is so critical that you take care of yourself, more critical than ever. So this is in time when I want you to really think about nourishing yourself well with delicious foods that work for your body.

The other thing is to move. This is all about movement. And you don't have to move as fast as maybe you would when life doesn't feel so hard. But we want you to keep moving. Because when you stop moving, that inertia is often what takes us down and spirals us out of control. And so move. And maybe you go to the bare minimum, as I was saying earlier. Maybe the bare minimum for you today is I'm going to walk for 10 minutes, or I'm going to stretch for 20 minutes. But make sure you're moving your body every single day.

And then I couldn't have this podcast and not talk about one of my favorite topics, which is style. What does style have to do with showing up when it's hard? Get dressed. Again, remember what I said, moods love to feed on themselves. So a bad mood will tell you to go put on your sweats and eat Cheetos. That's what my bad moods used to tell me to do. They still try to tempt me every once in a while. But getting dressed is a sign to the universe that you're showing up. And more importantly, it's a sign to yourself that you are showing up.

It's just like that act alone tells my brain like, let's go. And again, this might be where you go to the bare minimum. Maybe you don't get dressed to the nines and do a full face of makeup. Maybe you're like, okay, I'm just going to put on a dress because this makes me feel a little bit better, but I'm not going to do my hair and makeup today, and that's okay. We have to give ourselves grace as well.

It's really a dance between honoring where you are as well as honoring where you want to go, honoring your goals, honoring your vision. And sometimes in life, we're moving quickly in that direction and we're feeling great, and life doesn't feel hard. And at other times, things happen and we have a lot of thoughts about them that weigh us down, and life becomes hard for us. And that is just the reality of being a human being. And so honor that and also honor where you are and honor where you're going and honor the pace that you need to go at.

Finally, and this is more of a broad question that I ask myself, when life is hard, when it feels hard, and the question is, who do I want to be in this? Who do I want to be in this hardness? Who do I want to be in this life? No matter what is happening in the world, you get to decide who you want to be in that. Oftentimes when hard things happen, we revert back to past patterns of how we've dealt with hard. And maybe that hasn't served you. I know it didn't for me. Because I would freak out, I would panic, I would worry endlessly for days, weeks, years. And then I realized, oh, wait, I can actually show up in this hard in a new way.

And this question has guided me in purposefully living in the hard. When we've had hard things happen in the company, I've asked myself, who do you want to be in this? As I am starting to deal with aging parents, I'm asking myself, who do I want to be in this? When I went through my divorce, when my daughter was sick, when I injured my back, I asked myself, who do I want to be in this? And my answers have ranged from loving to strong, to supportive, to assertive. But asking that question has allowed me to show up in the hard in a very intentional way that has helped me navigate it in a way that serves me. And on the other end of it, helped me to learn and to grow, and oftentimes, to create results that I would've never been able to create had I just allowed my past self to take over and behave the way that she was used to behaving.

Even during this world crisis that we're facing, I'm asking myself, who do I want to be? Who do I want to be for you all? Who do I want to be for my family? Who do I want to be for my team? And I'm allowing that answer to guide how I show up in the hard times and the hard things. During COVID, I asked myself, who do I want to be right now? And the first answer that came to my mind was, I want to be calm. I love you all, and I will see you in next week's episode.

Before you go, I have a beautiful gift for you, especially if you're craving more ease, alignment, and clarity in your life. It's called the Sweet Spot Playbook, and it's completely free. Inside I will guide you through a powerful four-step process to help you define what truly matters, clarify the woman you want to be, and start living from that energy starting today. So if you're done with the hustle, the confusion, and the endless striving, and you're ready to feel good while creating the life you want, this playbook is for you. You can go to schoolofselfimage.com/sweetspot to download your free copy. Because when you find your sweet spot, life doesn't just work better, it feels better. I'll see you there.