The Positive Pants Podcast

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Go grab your £20 or $25 discount on your Sensate device: https://www.getsensate.com/fran Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ What Would You Do Differently?   This week's episode comes with a little trigger warning, talking about themes of death so if that's sensitive for you right now then come back to this when you feel ready.   It can be hard to talk about, and sometimes feel a bit morbid, to think about our own or loved ones' mortality but I feel like this is an important conversation to have, and a perspective to potentially live by that can actually lead to some really positive changes.   And I know that's what you want for yourself, because you wouldn't be here if you didn't.   As you'll know by now I'm a big believer in sharing things that impact you and the way you think, in case it can have the same impact on someone else and might make a big difference to their day, week, month, life…you get the idea.   So let's start with a little context for why I'm talking about this today.    Full credit goes to a friend of mine who I caught up with this last week. Someone who played an unexpectedly big role in my own healing this summer for which I'm hugely grateful for.    We were just catching up and talking about all the big things still going on in my personal life and big decisions I still have to make and he just said to me, ‘Can I give you some advice? Just be happy. Do what makes you happy. Tomorrow isn't promised.'   Now, him saying tomorrow isn't promised isn't new, he already thinks that way.    But it hit particularly hard because his best friend had recently been killed suddenly in a road accident.    Sometimes things happen, to you or other people, that just put things into perspective. Context matters.    He also said that he's not even thinking about the future right now and just living in the moment and taking every day as it comes, which is an easy thing to talk about, a lot of people do.    To the point the message gets lost I think. But again, I think it hits different within the context of the words and the situation they're said in.    If you really lived like that, knowing that you might not get tomorrow and to totally be in the moment, even if it was just for a day, what would you do differently?   How might you think differently?   What would you just drop because you realise it's just not important.    What would you let go?   What decisions would you make?   What would you make sure you did?   What would you want to experience?   Who would you reach out to?   What would you say?   How might you throw caution to the wind?   What would make you feel like you're really living, not just existing?   Pay attention to your first answers to these questions, they'll tell you a lot. Maybe pause, grab your journal and write them down.   How different might it feel to live by that?   Perspective really is a wonderful thing.     The other side to this conversation I think was also important.    How can you channel the thoughts, feelings and behaviours that come from something negative, into something positive?    I've talked a huge amount about this before, the idea that some of the worst things that happen to you can lead to positive things if you allow them to.   It doesn't take away the pain but it channels it into something good. Something that you can be proud of.    I always find huge comfort in that way of thinking and I've not been proved wrong yet. Amazing things have always come out of my worst moments. Always.    He then told me that he's been looking after his friend's son and he's going to be running a marathon with him to raise money for him to get a bench installed for his Dad so he has somewhere to go and talk to him.   I thought this was such a beautiful example of that.    So if you're in the thick of it right now, like I know a lot of you are, 2023 has been an annus horribilis for so many people. If that's you, or someone you love, what could you do that could channel that pain and energy into something positive?    Again, it's not ignoring the pain, it's not putting on a brave face or wishing the pain wasn't there.    It's alchemy. It's turning something into something else. Taking lead and turning it to gold over time.    Also, it's worth saying, be open to where and who your healing and your lessons might come from. It might surprise you.    The same friend also said to me pretty soon after we met that people come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. You can't predict which one that will be and one is not better than the other.     So, with all that said, what would you do differently if you knew today might be your last?   Stay open. Stay humble. Live more. Do what makes you happy. Focus on what really matters.    Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Go grab your £20 or $25 discount on your Sensate device: https://www.getsensate.com/fran Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Adulting 101   I'm always talking about how the things I love to teach most I consider ‘humaning 101'.   But I want to talk about the elephant in the room that comes along with that.    And that is, ‘Adulting 101'.   Why?   Because in one week I had a total of 7 people say the same words to me. ‘I really thought I'd have my sh1t together by now'.    These people, some of my favourites, beating themselves up because for some reason they believe that by a certain age we're supposed to have everything clicked into place and know what we're doing.   And in all honesty, nothing could be further from the truth.   I saw a quote that I loved recently and I'm sorry I can't give credit to the original creator because I can't find it but it was ‘I used to think adulthood was one crisis after another. I was wrong. Multiple crises. Concurrently. All at once. All the time. Forever.'   Yes it made me lol but I actually think this can spark a really important conversation.    I've said it 1000 times that so much of ‘the work' is simply learning how to deal with the inevitable stuff that life throws at you, and how reframing each of those things as growth opportunities can hugely help.   To live a happy and fulfilling life we MUST let go of the notion that that is what life is supposed to feel like all of the time.   It's just not.   So much of the healing work is about breaking the patterns of historic triggers, recalibrating and rewiring neural pathways and your nervous system and constantly creating a new baseline of safety in your body and increasing your window of tolerance.   Literally increasing your capacity to cope with what life throws at you.    Life IS going to throw things at you.    You ARE going to be tested.    I believe that learning to not see challenges as big, bad, scary things but things that we breathe through and grow through.   I'm so grateful for the work I do and the knowledge I have around how to do this because it genuinely is easier than most people think, which is why I'm always hammering home to go back to basics and prioritise the basics.    I'm definitely not saying it's always easy, especially at the beginning, but it is simple.   Learn to regulate your emotions and your nervous system and your life WILL get better, easier, happier, more calm.   That's what I believe our priority is when we're talking about ‘adulting'. It makes all the difference.    Think about the level of responsibilities that grow as we get older.    You might have kids, elderly parents, friends or family who are unwell or struggling, mortgages, our own health and wellbeing, job security…or lack thereof. The list really is endless.   And because life crises really don't tend to follow a predictable or linear pattern it can sometimes feel like it's one thing after another.   We also love to attach our age to this. Like I said, 7 different people uttered the words ‘I thought I'd have my sh1t together by now.'   That's just a big fat lie. We think as kids that the adults in our lives have it all together. It's interesting to consciously look back, or have the conversation with parents or grandparents and ask their perspective on where they were at your age. You might be very surprised at the answers you get.   This is one of the things I've actually loved as an adult. The dynamic can shift with your parents and you can have totally different conversations and ask the hard questions.    If you feel like you can, I wholeheartedly recommend doing it, it can be incredibly cathartic.   So, from my perspective, ticking the boxes you think you ‘should' have ticked as an adult really means nothing.   I thought I had ALL the boxes ticked, I'm turning 40 next year and life turned completely on its head.   I did not think I would be nearly 40, nearly divorced, living with my parents and all the other things that have happened over the last 12-18 months.    It was not my plan.   I had everything I thought I ever wanted on paper.    But you know what…I couldn't be prouder of myself.   Even though there's a long way to go still and some pretty horrendous next level adulting coming my way over the next few months, I can genuinely say that I am the happiest, calmest, most peaceful, confident, solid version of myself.   I did that.   No one else.   And I did it through my own bravery and gumption to do the big, hard, scary things I needed to do to get there.   To stare uncertainty in the face and say ok, I've got this.    To put myself and my own wellbeing above anything else.   And I know there's lots of you out there doing the same right now and might not be recognising that this is the adulting stuff that matters.   Removing yourself from situations that aren't good for you and don't make you feel loved and respected is a huge act of self care.   Making big decisions that might go against the grain or against what you had hoped for yourself and your life.   Staring fear in the face and doing it anyway.   Respecting yourself enough to say no, I deserve better, I'm worth more.   That's huge.   Leaving the relationship, getting out of a toxic situation, changing careers, starting or quitting the business, leaving the situationship.   Yes it can feel like one thing after another.    But the thing you think you should have done or be ‘at this age' is not the right version of adulting to focus on.   That's not the important stuff at all.   Do you like yourself?  Do you respect yourself?  Are you proud of yourself?   If the answer is no to any of those things, are you working towards it?   That's just as brave!   I promise you no one has their sh1t together.   No one.   Doesn't matter how old you are, or what you know. No one has it all figured out.   But knowing you're going to be ok in the process is what matters.   Consciously living according to your values and belief systems is winning at life!   Making hard decisions and doing the right thing by yourself and other people is winning at life.   Knowing that you're going to mess things up and get things wrong but you're still a good person is winning at life.   Don't focus on the material or societal things you think you should have by now.   Don't focus on the notion that life should be rosy all the time.    You're probably doing way better than you think!   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Go grab your £20 or $25 discount on your Sensate device: https://www.getsensate.com/fran Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ How To Make Friends As An Adult   I wanted to follow on from last week's episode around how to navigate friendship break ups as an adult with how to make some new ones!   I know a lot of people struggle with this, for some reason it can just feel harder as an adult.   For all the introverts and enneagram 5's out there going nooooooo I don't want MORE people to deal with, sorry not sorry!   Humans are social creatures, we seek to belong somewhere. That can look totally different for different people. It could be that one person you know has your back, it could be sharing interests, family, community etc.    Our growth and development lies in our interaction with others.   A huge way we heal is relationally. We can co-regulate with other people. Our emotions are contagious.    Friendships form a hugely important factor in that.    There are countless studies on the positive effect of friendships on depression, our health and well-being.    Many people refer to their friends as ‘chosen family'.    But how do you do find them as an adult?   Some obvious ways to find some new friends is through work. Remote working has caused a fair few issues in this respect because it's hugely difficult to form bonds with people if you're on your own most of the time.    Companies have recognised this and are adapting with many moving to a hybrid model and essential days in the office.    But if you work for yourself it's even more important to make sure you're doing what you can to connect with like minded people.  This is where networking events come into play.  It can be incredibly lonely running your own business so the first thing I did was make sure I was always meeting new people and I've made friends for life through it.    There's something magical about just being around people who think in a similar way to you and want to achieve similar things that makes everything easier and faster.    You will not be surprised when I say that having a good level of self awareness is really going to help you with making new friends as an adult.    Having a clear understanding of your own boundaries, interests, priorities, values, what makes you happy, what makes you sad, what's important to you etc. What would you love to learn or do more of?   This is all so important in being able to understand your own behaviour within a new friendship and also who might be good or…less good for you.   Embrace new hobbies and interests and don't fear being really bad at new things…because let's be honest, you probably will be! It's really important to maintain a growth mindset when it comes to doing new things, you're not supposed to be great at it straight away, you're there to learn with other people in the same position. Allow yourself to see the humour in it, or surprise yourself if you're a natural, win win!    One thing you definitely will need to do is put in the effort. It will not just come to you.  So once you've done the self exploration I just mentioned, have a look locally for classes and events and GO!  You will not be the only one on your own there and it's always a nice talking point to find someone else in the same position.    Say yes more, when you have the capacity to. A lot of friendships form through friends of friends. What's the worst case scenario, you say yes to something, go, don't enjoy it and leave? The likelihood is that if someone is friends with your friends, you might have some things in common.   Perhaps you might want to consider volunteering for a cause that's important to you.    Get yourself on neighbourhood apps like next door or make an effort to introduce yourself to your neighbours.    Bumble actually created a friendship version of its app called Bumble BFF. So if you're not up for dating you can literally put yourself on there to find friends. There's one for new mothers called Peanut too. There's lots of them out there. You just need to decide you want to put yourself out there and do a little research.    The biggest thing that needs to be essential when finding new friends as an adult is to put yourself out there and be yourself. Yes this can feel easier said than done sometimes. It's very high in my value system so I do find this easy. If anything I find it harder to be ‘less' me. I don't see any point being anything else or toning myself down because I know I'm not going to attract the right people into my life that way.  Plus it's exhausting.    Rejection can be painful but I really believe that being yourself 100% and someone not resonating with that, really isn't personal most of the time.    What do I mean by that, because it sounds like it would be pretty personal right? I mean, if you are yourself and that doesn't fit with someone else. It does NOT mean anything negative about you.    It simply means you're not a match.  Most people won't be. You're trying to match interests, values, beliefs, one of you might be a night owl, one might be an early bird. It's about compatibility, not not being good enough, being different.    Of course opposites can attract and having fundamental differences doesn't mean you can't or won't be friends. But what it also doesn't mean is there is anything wrong with you, or them. You just simply might not align at this time in your life for what you're looking for in someone to spend time with. That's totally ok.    Childhood and teenage friendships can be brutal. I choose to believe that if you can learn to know your own worth, adult friendships really don't have to be that way and can actually be the opposite.    I think adult friendships can bring joy, healing, growth and so much more.    You've just got to be brave and put yourself out there to find the right ones.    Approach it positively and with excitement about all the fun things or deep conversations you'll be able to have.    There can be so many reasons we might be ‘in the market' for new friends. It could be you've moved away, you've ‘broken up with' a friend or friendship group because your values no longer align. You might have gone through a big life change like a relationship break up which inevitably means people take sides and you might have drawn the short straw.    Look forward to all the things that come with new friendships based on who you are at your core and where you're at right now.    It's a beautiful thing.    Fx  

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Go grab your £20 or $25 discount on your Sensate device: https://www.getsensate.com/fran Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Navigating Friendship ‘Break-Ups' as an adult   Friendship brak-ups are a natural part of life.    But no one really talks about the intense pain that they can cause.   Friendships come and go. One minute you think someone is your ‘ride-or-die' and then something shifts.   At the end of the day, life happens. Sometimes life happens and it creates a seismic shift in who we are.   It's natural.   But it doesn't mean it isn't painful. Sometimes even more painful than romantic break-ups, so it deserves a little attention because I know a lot of people are navigating these sorts of things at the moment.    I certainly have over the last year or so.   So, why do friendship break-ups happen?   Sometimes it might be a betrayal, a move away, a lifestyle change. Fundamentally it tends to come down to one thing.   Different core values.   Our core values shift and change throughout our lives as we go through experiences and learn lessons.    It's not to say it's for worse or for better but they definitely shift so it's always a good idea to keep coming back to your analysis of them and being really clear.   The more clear you are on your core values, the easier you'll find many situations to navigate because you'll really understand why something feels off or awful. You'll understand why you might value a brand new friendship more than someone who has been there your whole life.    As we age and grow these things change and we also get less ok with tolerating someone pushing our boundary or value buttons.    A lot of the time when we form friendships, particularly when we're younger, it's because people live near us and like doing the same things as us.    It might be a shared sense of humour, interests, a number of things.    When we get older it shifts to how we behave. What we value. Do we fundamentally behave in ways that we value, to ourselves and others?   When you want to change something about your life, it might be eating healthier or getting fitter, or starting a business or becoming a parent for example, the best thing you can do is to get around people who want the same things as you. Or already have the things you want. People who fundamentally share and understand where you're at.    But how do you know if it's time to let go?   The biggest way is to be really mindful and conscious of how you feel around this friend.    Do they add or subtract positive things in your life?   Do you feel judged or unimportant?   Name what you feel.   I think as you get older and your priorities shift you realise that you simply don't want to be around people who don't add value to your life.   You're too busy for starters! It's like taking a Marie Kondo attitude to the emotional side of your life. Does this person spark joy?   At the end of the day, if you value reliability, consistency, contact and you have a friend who delivers precisely the opposite of that then you're signing yourself up for constantly feeling let down and hurt. It's not that one or other of you is technically ‘in the wrong' but you have a difference in your value system. No right or wrong, just a mismatch at this time in your life.    It's worth noting that friendships that end for whatever reason, doesn't always mean it's forever. I've had plenty of friendships where we've drifted apart, sometimes more dramatically than others, and come back together a few years later when we were more aligned again in terms of our values.    Communicate, communicate, communicate.    Listen, listen, listen.   SO many things can be sorted and changed through these two things, and they're probably the very things that get missed out the most. They're vulnerable. You need to be brave and speak your truth but also be open to hearing things you don't like to hear about yourself.   Particularly because we put so many stories and assumptions on other people's behaviour. Sometimes things are going on for people that we just don't know about. Sometimes people's capacity is totally depleted due to what's going on in their lives and we might have absolutely no idea.   Compassion and understanding first.    You don't want to make a decision to end a friendship or distance yourself from one without being able to say you communicated everything you needed to and also heard their side and you did everything you could at this point.   If you feel you need some distance, that's ok.   Remember that it's normal to feel a profound sense of grief when a friendship ends. Allow it to be there. It makes sense!   Being able to take responsibility for your side of the fence is hugely healing and important, while it may not be fun. There can be important lessons hidden in there and it takes two to tango. It's not about blame or fault but we will always have some sense of responsibility there that might be an opportunity to learn and heal.   There certainly was for me.    One of the best things to come from my turbulent year has been the reconnection I've created with a lot of friends.    I took responsibility for letting the friendship fade, reached out and I've got some incredible people back in my life now that has led to a huge amount of fun and gratitude and feeling supported. It really has been an amazing journey. It takes guts to reach out to someone and say ‘Hey, I'm so sorry it's been a minute, It's on me. I'd really love to see you and catch up if you're game.'    The other thing I've done is made new friends. New friends are often more aligned to your values and they can come in all shapes and sizes.    With the amount my life is going to continue to keep changing over the next year I'm so excited to meet all the friends I haven't met yet.    The same is waiting for you. There is always a new or rekindled friend right around the corner. It doesn't stop friendship break-ups being incredibly hard and painful.  It does mean you have an opportunity to keep growing and improving and being around people who make you feel amazing and vice versa.   We all deserve more of that. Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Go grab your £20 or $25 discount on your Sensate device: https://www.getsensate.com/fran Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ What Is SAD And How To Handle It   As we're getting deep into cosy season now in the UK I wanted to talk about something that I personally think is really important to be aware of.   And that is SAD.   Seasonal Affective Disorder.   This is where when the cosy season and dark mornings and nights draw in, a lot of people can feel like they're in a big old funk and have no idea why.   So what is SAD and how can we deal with it?   Please bear in mind I'm not talking here as a medical professional but from my own experience and understanding of what boosts mood. So as always please do your own research and talk to your GP if you have any worries or concerns.   Seasonal Affective Disorder, otherwise known as the ‘winter blues' or SAD, is essentially a type of depression and low mood that is affected by the seasons and changes in daylight hours.    And, according to the NHS, over 2 million people suffer with it in the UK alone.   It can leave you feeling withdrawn and unmotivated. Like you don't want to do anything, go anywhere or see anyone.    It can be harder to stick to your routines. You might feel you need to sleep more and crave and comfort eat those carbs more.    You might feel lethargic, general low energy, low sex drive, increased anxiety.   It often leads to us doing more of the very things that we know don't make us feel good, and less of the things that do, so you can get into a little bit of a vicious cycle with it all.    Which is definitely not pleasant all round.   The reason I wanted to highlight it is because you might be sitting there wondering what the hell is wrong and why you're feeling the way you're feeling and beating yourself up for it when you might not be able to put a finger on a reason.   And we don't want that because it really doesn't have to be that way.    My firm belief is that often an understanding of where these kinds of thoughts and feelings are coming from, and what's really happening in your brain and body, can really dissipate the control and affect that they can have.   You know I'm all about that sweet sweet awareness! For good reason.   It's not all doom and gloom, there are lots of things that you can do to ease it and take back some of the control for yourself.    You won't be surprised but funnily enough, selfcare is even MORE important in these seasons if you're struggling with SAD.   Consciously making sure you're catching yourself in the moments where you're about to do something that you KNOW makes you feel worse and consciously doing more of the things that make you feel good.   I think of it as bubble bath season. I know baths are absolutely cliche when it comes to talking about self care but they really are my ‘thing'. Put me in a bath or a hot tub and I am happy as Larry. Calm, zen, at peace, doing my breathing exercises. You will not see me for at least 2 hours and trust me when I say I'm going to be using all the fancy oils and products.     Exercise is always going to be a winner when it comes to low mood.  Movement of any kind within your own capabilities is absolutely fine. We all have our own limits to work with. It's about finding any possible ways around them that you can. If exercise isn't possible for you for whatever reason it's so worth talking to a professional about what might be possible for you.     Watching what you eat. It's comfort food season and I'm definitely not a subscriber these days to any kind of deprivation and saying one thing is allowed and another isn't or is ‘naughty' or you ‘shouldn't' have something.    I subscribed to that school of thought for far too long and what I've found is shifting the focus to how you FEEL when you eat certain things really helps you make better choices.    For example, I'm not going to have a huge portion of cottage pie in the middle of the day when I know I have work to do and I'll likely have a glucose spike and feel lethargic and ten times worse.    I might, however, if i'm having a cosy night in front of the TV or a movie and i'm more than happy to be in a cosy little food coma afterwards.    It's about choice and agency over your choices. If it's going to make you feel worse and you know it, don't tell yourself you ‘can't' have it, just choose to have it at a time that is better for you and more in keeping with how you want to feel.    Again, not a professional, this is just what has worked for me with a long history of eating and body issues.    I refuse to feel shame about what I eat these days, but I also refuse to make myself feel awful WITH what I eat.    Food has a HUGE impact on mood and we all know it so it's worth paying attention to how certain foods make us feel.   Take a class or pick a new hobby.    There is this feeling you get when you've done something new, or created something you didn't know you could. It's such a pure feeling.    Get out there and do the things you love.    Know that you're likely to totally suck at it at first, but that also doesn't even matter, if you love it, do it.    Plus there's the added benefits of meeting like minded people.    Which leads me nicely onto…Be social. Even if that's just messaging or calling a friend from your sofa.    If that's all you can muster it's better than isolating. Isolation usually does nothing but make us feel worse and also pile on guilt for the fact we haven't replied or reached out to people in a while.    This is something I do all the time. The moment I feel a desire to isolate myself, I reach out. It changes the game every time.    The next one is important, try to get as much natural light as possible. You can also get a SAD lamp which mimics sunlight while you're inside.    The one I use is from Lumi and available on Amazon. I put it straight on first thing in the morning, I do my make up and get ready in front of it. It makes a huge difference for me.    Embrace the cosies as much as you can. Cosy socks, hot water bottles, blankets, cups of tea, soups. Whatever makes you feel like you're having a warm hug and feel supported. Game changer.    And finally, if you're really struggling do not be afraid to seek professional help.     Whether that's a form of therapy, coaching, acupuncture or other body work modalities like Reiki or speaking to your GP.    The more I study the field of human behaviour the more I'm desperate for people to understand it makes no logical sense for there to be any shame in seeking help.    It's a hugely empowering thing to do and in all honesty, I believe it's essential for everybody. I promise you that the vast vast majority of the most successful people you see have multiple sources of help.    This is because they know needing a little support sometimes is incredibly human and the best way out of our own automatic responses is to have them reflected back by someone who can see what you can't see. That's how you become the very best version of yourself.    We're not meant to sit there suffering thinking we're the only ones to have these feelings. It's so human and you are NOT alone by any stretch of the imagination. The more it's out in the open the more we reduce shame and stigma.    So essentially the message here is be conscious, do what you can to look after yourself and not beat yourself up, try to limit doing the things that you already know make you feel worse. Like eating lots of junk that you'll beat yourself up for and feel sluggish afterwards. Or not being active because it's cold but you know sitting on the sofa all day is going to make you feel worse about yourself too. Limit that stuff!    So if you're feeling it a bit at the moment, try doing any of these things and really try to consciously notice any differences in how you feel. Understand it's likely not YOU. YOU are not always the problem!   Fx  

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Go grab your £20 or $25 discount on your Sensate device: https://www.getsensate.com/fran Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ What To Do When You Don't Know What To Say   What do you do when you just don't know what to say?   Let's be honest, there's a huge amount going on in the world that is beyond hideous and a lot of people have no idea what to say.    The fear around getting it wrong and upsetting someone, or being called out, can be incredibly strong and uncomfortable.   This can happen in all areas of life, when something big happens, when someone gives you bad news, when someone tells you about a big health issue, a breakup, when someone is navigating any kind of loss, so many situations that can leave you speechless or on wobbly footing in terms of how to handle it or what to say.    So I thought it would be helpful to do a little dive into how to handle it.    First things first, and something that should be obvious but often isn't.    It's totally ok for you to literally say ‘I don't know what to say, I'm lost for words.'   You don't have to, and aren't supposed to have the answers all the time.    You're allowed to not!   So give yourself a break and allow yourself a little space to be vulnerable and honest. Most people appreciate and respect that.   Pay attention to what's going on in your body.    It's really common for people to feel anxiety in moments where they don't know what to say.    If you notice that coming up for you this is a great moment for you to do a quick breathing exercise before you choose to respond if you have the option to do so, so if you're replying over text for example.    You can use the 4-7-8-3 technique, in through the nose for 4, hold for 7, out through the mouth for 8 and repeat 3 times.    You can use heart math, around 5 seconds in, 5 seconds out, slower and deeper than you normally would.    If you don't have a minute or two to do this there are plenty of techniques you can use in the moment. Simply take a deep breath and exhale slowly.    Then respond.    Deep belly breaths through your conversation will also be incredibly helpful.    This will help you be in the right part of your brain to be able to provide the best response.    The stress response will put you into a state of fight or flight and take away your rational thinking processes, which is not what you need.    Using your breath to get you back into a parasympathetic state will allow you to access your prefrontal cortex, which you need for rational, conscious thinking. It will also allow you to be more present.   It's important to remember, sometimes no words are actually needed. You can simply give someone a hug!   You can even ask someone what they need or how they would like to be supported.    Sometimes people aren't looking for words of advice or anything to make them feel better, sometimes that's just not possible and we must recognise a need to jump into ‘fix it' mode when sometimes there are impossible situations where nothing can be said in the moment to ease the pain or tension.    So simply saying something like, ‘I'm here for you, whatever you need' or ‘What do you need right now?'    Even just doing things for someone who is struggling to ease the mental load. It can be tricky, or not appropriate, sometimes to ask someone what they need, sometimes they're totally overwhelmed and they don't have the words to say how you can help. Only you can judge the situation.    Sometimes jumping into action without words is what's needed.    Making someone some meals so they don't have to think about it. Tidying or cleaning the house for them. Running errands or picking up the kids.    Rallying round someone with no words is often incredibly powerful and can mean the world to someone in a crisis.    Ask yourself what YOU might want or need in a similar situation. What would you want to hear?   In terms of things that are going on in the world, if you're running a business or have a presence online, please remember that you don't have a responsibility to find words.    You're probably not a political correspondent or sociologist or someone with full understanding of a situation.    It's ok to say that. It's ok to say you don't understand the whole situation and you're educating yourself and sharing a reliable resource if you want to. It's ok to communicate how you feel or literally just say you don't have the words.    You can simply validate someone's feelings. You can say something along the lines of, ‘That must be so hard, I'm so sorry'. ‘I'm so sorry you're having to go through this'. ‘I can't even imagine what this must be like for you. I'm here for anything you need.'   The crux of it is to listen more than you speak. Ask questions and really hear the answer. Empathise and validate and be honest with your own thoughts and feelings.    Even though I literally have a degree in communication I've learned SO much about it in the last 12 months or so and it's life changing.   Not everyone is going to be able to meet you where you're at but if you can live with honesty and integrity and open communication you genuinely will change your life and avoid so many uncomfortable situations.    Focus on connection, try to stay out of your head and drop into your body and really just be there with someone or be there with your own thoughts and feelings and pay attention to what you notice.    There are so many situations where ‘I don't know what to say' is perfectly ok. It's honest.   Let go of creating an ‘outcome' for someone. You don't need to. It's such a natural thing for someone to want to change something for someone. It's worth asking yourself, ‘Am I looking for this outcome for them, or for me?' It can be confronting for sure but the answer often helps shift our approach in the moment.    If it's appropriate you can signpost some resources for them. If you don't feel equipped to talk about something or handle a situation or you feel out of your depth, do some research and find some relevant resources and send it across and say ‘I saw this and thought it might be helpful'. Or if it's something that helped you or someone you love, ‘I wanted to send this in case it was helpful, it really helped me.'   So many people just want to feel seen and heard.    Remember, no one has all the answers. You don't have to either.     Fx  

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Go grab your £20 or $25 discount on your Sensate device: https://www.getsensate.com/fran Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ The Art Of Surrender   This is a little bit of a follow on from last week's episode about the identity death and rebirth process of change, so if you haven't listened to that episode yet I suggest you start there.   When we're talking about any kinds of changes and identity shifts in any way we need to learn to let things go.   We need to learn to be in those moments of uncertainty and essentially, surrender to the process.   So this is all about the art of surrender.    This is something it took me a while to truly learn.   I'm an enneagram 6 so naturally I'm quite the planner. I've always liked to look at all potential outcomes with a tendency to veer towards the worst case scenario.    So this is a valuable skill to learn because that's no fun. It makes everything feel harder, like you're swimming against the tide or pushing water uphill.   It's recognising that trying to control everything is a protection mechanism.  It FEELS safer BUT there's a LOT more mental suffering involved than there needs to be.    It's about literally stopping fighting with yourself and the process. Learning to handle all the things that can make it more difficult.    So we're talking about releasing the need for control.It's about allowing, not controlling or forcing. Even when you say those, which feels easier and more enjoyable?   How many times have you suffered in your own head about a potential or worst case scenario and the reality was far better. That has its merits at times for sure and is certainly where I've spent most of my life. BUT, what if you can have the same outcome WITHOUT the suffering in your own head first?   That would be better, right?   So it's learning to trust that whatever the outcome you WILL be ok. This is something I really live by. I have ‘everything happens for a reason' tattooed on me in latin. Many people cringe at that phrase, and I get it. For me it really is a life philosophy and my interpretation of it really is how I've learned to surrender.    It's not my natural state of being by any stretch of the imagination. But my solid belief is that whatever happens to me (or FOR me, wink, wink, nudge, nudge) no matter how awful it feels at the time. I completely trust that something good will eventually come from it.    Even if it takes time.    I know in my bones that eventually I will be looking back and saying, that was awful, but if it hadn't happened I wouldn't be who and where I am now.   It's a solid belief system for me. I got there by looking at the evidence across my whole life. It's ALWAYS been true. Even the darkest of things has had a positive outcome or lesson that I'm grateful for eventually.    When you have that, you don't feel the need to control as much and do the all important process of not having an attachment to the outcome.  It's hugely freeing.    It's another reason why I call it growing pains. It doesn't stop it being painful at the time. All change is painful, like I said last week, we're fighting against our unconscious programming and our nervous system's idea of what's SAFE. So it's going to be uncomfortable.    There are a few other things you can do to lean into the art of surrender.    Firstly, you really have to know what it is you're working towards or moving away from. Knowing what that looks like and at the same time being open to it being a bit different, better even.  How many times have you heard someone say ‘it's even better than I could have imagined'?    Be open to a few potential nice surprises along the way. ‘This or something better' vibes! Stay open. Stay curious.   Deal in truth, not story.   Figure out what the story is lying underneath the truth. What are your biggest fears around you not controlling the outcome?  What would you do if those things actually happened? Where could it lead? Question everything. Is it REALLY true? What else could be true?    Remember that momentum can be QUICK. Things can feel like you're totally stuck and things are never going to change, then the next minute your entire life is different and everything has clicked into place. So try not to focus on the negatives of where you're at right now, as long as you're taking action you ARE moving forwards.   If you're needing to let go of a part of yourself or something or someone in your life, recognise that it is NOT a failure. Things change. People change. Circumstances change. Let go of what you know in your heart isn't good or right for you anymore. What's more painful, the pain of staying where you are or the pain of letting go? Only you can decide.    Educate yourself and understand the inevitable parts of the process.   Keep reminding yourself of what you're moving towards.   When you find yourself too much in your head, get into your body. Go for a walk, move in any way that feels good to you, breathe deep belly breaths, meditate. Don't forget that the mind influences the body, but the body also influences the mind. I find it one of the quickest ways out of my head and back to regulation and it's training you out of overthinking the more you do this.   Let's be honest, where has trying to control everything got you so far. Where can you honestly say that approach has been the best and the way that you'd suffer the least?   How would it feel if you could let go of the reins a little bit?   Ease off the mental load.   Protect and prioritise your peace.   You're not supposed to know all the answers, and no one ever will!    The art of surrender is not about not taking action. Far from it. It's about taking action with deep trust that it's all going to work out how it's supposed to.    Think about how and where you could practice this during the rest of your week and see how it goes!    Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Go grab your £20 or $25 discount on your Sensate device: https://www.getsensate.com/fran Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ The Identity Death And Rebirth Process of Change   I want to have a chat with you today about the rollercoaster that is the identity death and rebirth that you experience during any big changes and transformation work.   It's worth talking about for so many reasons, including that it hugely helps you understand certain thoughts and feelings that are highly likely to come up for you.    It also helps in understanding why it can sometimes feel so tough and even when we really want to change something and why we might procrastinate and avoid it and feel like we're in a constant battle with ourselves.   We have to start by being honest that any big change is normally a total identity shift.   Sometimes referred to as an ‘ego death'.    The ego is literally the sense of self and what protects that sense of self.     It's a huge part of the work of Joseph Campbell and the Hero's journey.    It's your very own little hero's journey, and we all know how they tend to pan out.    Usually these ego deaths are absolutely for the better, but it involves you going against your current unconscious wiring and programming which funnily enough, registers as a life or death situation to your nervous system and your ego to get to the other side.   The rebirth or awakening if you will.   So whatever change you're currently in, whether it's a new career, a new business, navigating loss of any kind, weight changes, all the various phases of parenthood, anything.  You're going to bump up against a few things along the way.    Trust the process and trust that it's leading you to where you're meant to be and somewhere where you're even more ‘you'.    It's stripping back the layers of the onion to get back to who you really are at your core.    And it can sting!!   Please get all the support you need too, you don't have to go it alone. That support might look like a friend, a coach, a mentor, therapist or body worker.    They will absolutely speed up the process and turbo charge your growth.   I've had so many identity deaths and rebirths in my life and I think it's a nice exercise to recognise these and write them down as a reminder of how strong and capable you are.    A reminder of what you learned in the process.    A reminder that you've overcome every single one of your worst days.    Everything is temporary and evolves and that's a GOOD thing but something that many of us fear immensely because it's uncertain and unknown.   My previous identities feel so foreign and unrecognisable to me now, I don't identify with them in the slightest but I have 100% love, gratitude and compassion for every single one of those parts and previous versions of me.    Your identity is wholly tied up in your unconscious programming, your upbringing, values and beliefs you hold about yourself and the world.     A lot of it is around the boxes you put yourself into.    The experiences you've had. The job you have. The level you're at. The salary you earn. The place you live. The people in your life. The relationships you have.    Pay attention to when you make ‘I am' statements and how you label yourself.    All of this combines to create our identity and who we believe we are.    Now, when we're going through a death and rebirth of ourselves there are certain stages you might find yourself in, which even if they're not so fun, you can recognise as progress in absolutely the right direction.   One thing that frequently comes up is questioning EVERYTHING about who you are and what you believe. ‘Who am I if i'm not this thing or if I don't have this thing'.   Remembering that the old version of you might already be ‘dead' and no longer around and a new version of you is coming, but you might be in the inbetween stage where you haven't fully figured it all out yet.    It can often feel messy and confusing and that's ok. It's part of the process and needs to happen and is a really natural and often necessary part of our growth as a human.   You might feel a lot of confusion and a big state of feeling unsettled.    The way I've always described it to friends when it comes to myself is ‘discombobulated.'  You can't quite put your finger on it but you definitely don't feel yourself.   You might feel all the emotions under the sun, it can feel like a complete rollercoaster. Please try not to suppress this and let yourself feel what you feel and allow yourself some compassion because it can be, or at least feel like, deep grief that you're feeling and it needs to be allowed to be there and processed.   The cocoon phase is a big part of it.  This can feel particularly confusing if you identify as a social butterfly. You might want to be by yourself a lot. It's a phase and not forever so listen to it rather than beating yourself up for it. You might feel a desire to isolate yourself from others during this phase. Which is ok, try to communicate it with people though because if you do, they feel informed and won't make up stories about you not caring about them and then you can enjoy your cocoon guilt free so communication really does make this phase easier ironically.    You might find yourself relating less to your friendship circle. The fun part of this that I've found every time is the new friendships and relationships that develop. Society puts a lot of worth onto longevity but I actually find a lot of the time the people that you meet later in life, particularly after a few deaths and rebirths of self, are the ones that you REALLY resonate with and might be your ‘lifers'.    So it's clear to see why we might resist it. It can be scary. But remember you still have choices and communication goes a long way.    Let things fall away that are meant to fall away. It doesn't mean it will always be that way. I've had friends who fell away for certain phases of my life and came back and we're closer now than before.   It's an evolution.   It's learning to feel safe to let go.    Know it's the right thing for right now and trust that if that person or thing is meant to be in your life it will be.   The next phase will see you potentially feeling things like a sense of pride or gratitude. A sense of increased self worth and self compassion. You might find yourself smiling more, feeling more capable, stronger.   So if you're in the midst of being a glorious little ‘changeling' and experiencing your own death and rebirth of self and the ego then I see you, I feel you, good on you, you're a rockstar, i'm proud of you and I hope you can't wait to meet yourself, it's going to be so worth it!   Fx  

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Go grab your £20 or $25 discount on your Sensate device: https://www.getsensate.com/fran Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ An Exercise For Shifting Your State   Today I have an exercise for you around shifting your state.   Why is shifting your state important?    Shifting your state is a super quick and efficient way to be able to feel more of how you want to feel and less of how you don't.   Learning to shift your state can help you with anxiety, depression, being stuck in a freeze state, generally getting out of a funk…all sorts of things.   Please remember, as always, it's important not to avoid or suppress feelings because it's a sure fire way for them to stick around longer than you want them too.   But shift the focus a little away from avoidance to retraining. Learning this tool is a great way to start rewiring new neural pathways for feeling MORE of what you do want to feel.   A great example of this is a gratitude practice.    The more you consciously focus on the things you're grateful for, the more of it you'll start to find.   Gratitude is called an ‘intervention' in positive psychology because it can shift your negative state to that of gratitude. Plus, the more you do it the more it's wired in as an unconscious pattern.    It becomes a way of being.   So it's kind of handy right!   So grab your journal for this one because we're going to do a little exploration, but first, a little context.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     So, I've explained this before but if you're new here, you have 3 core state ‘categories' Mental, emotional and physical' (there are technically 4, the 4th is spiritual but that's for another day because it takes a little more explaining) and then comes the magic part.     This is a super quick way to get out of most negative headspace.  If you change one, you change them all.     Which is another key piece of information to help us leverage a little knowledge about how we tick to our advantage.   So, If you're feeling emotionally low, beating yourself up or you're in a negative thought loop, deep in procrastination mode, if you change your physical state (movement, posture etc) Or your mental state (consciously choosing another thought, etc) then automatically your emotional state will change which can be exactly what you need to get you moving again.    Changing your physical state is THE quickest and easiest way out of all of them.   One of the presuppositions of NLP to be aware of is ‘The mind and body are a linked system' which illustrates this really well. (It also correlates with looking at the vagus nerve and the brain to body pathways) So if you're physically feeling a certain way it will affect your state of mind and vice versa. Posture is a really good way to show this. When you're feeling down and a bit low what does your posture do and how does it make you feel?  When you're happy or having fun what does your posture do and how does it make you feel? Noticing these simple physiological changes you can make are a nice little way to learn to ‘trick' your mind into believing you feel a different way so it then follows suit. So catch yourself in those moments where you're not feeling at your best about to procrastinate or self sabotage in some way and make the decision to do something about it, KNOW you can change it if you want to and if you choose to. The bottom line is the more self aware of all of these things you are, the better you can manage it and the quicker you're able to take a step back from your emotions, observe them instead of being consumed by them and go HANG ON...and realise it may not be YOU! So, we might not want to feel the same thing all the time.   Sometimes we might want to feel happy and energised.   Sometimes we want to feel calm and content.   So the first thing I'd love you to do is identify some of the ways you regularly like to feel.   For example, if you feel anxiety, what would you rather feel?   For me, Peace always comes high on the agenda.   For you it might be different. You might like to feel productive instead, especially if that's something your anxiety gets in the way of.   So the next part is to create awareness around what you normally do that helps you feel that way.   For me, if I'm wanting to create a sense of peace, calm and contentment I know exactly what to do. It will be either going to the gym and then the hot tub or it will be getting out in nature.    I know doing something active will always create that for me. There are SO many other reasons why getting active does that for me but you don't need to know that for now, you just need to start noticing all the things where you feel that state you'd like to feel.   Once you have your awareness and your list. Start trying to catch yourself in a state you don't want to be in and consciously do one of those things, and then I just invite you to notice the difference, and how quickly.   Eventually when you're doing this exercise you'll end up with a great awareness of how you'd rather feel AND the tangible things you know to do to create that for yourself.     I hope you find this helpful. It was a huge game changer for me and something I still use daily.     And remember, as with everything, the more you practice the more natural and automatic it becomes.    The more it's wired into your system and the more ‘you' it becomes.    Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Go grab your £20 or $25 discount on your Sensate device: https://www.getsensate.com/fran Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Why we need to understand validation   A need for validation, and where we get it from, is something that can hugely trip us up on our quest for a happier, more fulfilled life.   According to the dictionary the definition of validation when it comes to psychology is ‘recognition or affirmation that a person or their feelings or opinions are valid or worthwhile.'   So why is it hugely important to understand our own individual nuanced version of validation?   It's inextricably tied into our view of ourselves. Our self esteem, our self worth.   And often all it takes is an awareness of it to understand that a lot of the ways we try to validate ourselves are ridiculous, and we're missing some more ways that are far more important and create changes in other areas of our lives.   I often think back to why I started this podcast.   It became almost like my own little journal of self discovery and things I had learned through ‘doing the work' myself and through years and years of study and training.    It made me a bit mad that nobody had told me this stuff before.    Until I realised, most people haven't been told it themselves!   So I kind of went on a bit of a mission to help people understand themselves in all their glorious humanness.   It's something that brings me immense joy to know.    It's something that genuinely creates awe and wonder for me on a daily basis watching other people and witnessing my own thoughts and behaviours and changes and shifts I've been able to make in my own life and the lives of my clients.   It's game changing stuff and far more simple than we make it.   I believe the world would be an unrecognisable place if people simply understood the way they worked as humans and had self awareness.  If they understood on an intimate level what their own individual nuance was in their programming that made them think, feel and behave in the ways that they do.   Understanding validation and the ways in which we seek and try to create it for ourselves, and the ways we validate others, is a huge part of this.   We will all have had different experiences of the messaging that we're given in society, through our culture, gender, when we grew up, income level, appearance and so much more around what makes you ‘valid and worthwhile'.    I just want to briefly remind you that you are ALWAYS valid and worthwhile no matter your background, upbringing or any of these things.   There's only so much of this I can cover in one episode but I highly, highly suggest you grab your journal and dig into this.   When you start to unravel it all so much starts to change.    The way you see yourself, the way you see others, the way you start to see the world.   So what do you believe makes you valid and worthwhile?   Is it being in a relationship? Whether you're married or have kids?   Is it your job title or income level?   Is it the number on the scales or the size of your clothes?   Is it being masculine or feminine?   Is it the friends you have and the circles you keep?   Is it your family?   Is it what you choose to eat?   Is it where you choose to go?   Is it true?  Does it?   Does it make you a better or worse human?   Less worthy in any way at all?   Hopefully you'll start to see what I'm getting at here.   Does any of it REALLY matter?   Does it really matter to YOU?   The trick is to start to seek INTERNAL validation.   The way you do that in my opinion is to start to analyse your thoughts and beliefs and really, truly figure out what YOU think and be open to that shifting.   Really understanding what you think is important and live by it as much as humanly possible.   You might have heard the saying before ‘your word is your bond'. I kind of like that in this instance.   If you consciously choose to live in the ways, and make choices according to what YOU believe makes someone a good person then your self esteem is going to skyrocket.    I'm not saying it will always be easy, particularly at first because you're going against your protection mechanisms and ingrained neural pathways but I DO know that it's 100% worth it any day of the week.   So what do YOU believe is the makeup of a good human being?     What qualities do they possess?   What does their life look like?   What are their thought processes?   What do they have? Would they be just as good of a valid and worthwhile human without it?   Look at what you want in your life and really dig into WHY you actually want it. Is it for external validation?  Internal validation?  You're not really sure anymore?   What are you judging or not judging them for? (Easy place to start with this one is what do you already judge yourself and other people negatively for right now…what's the opposite of that?)   This is such a simple but hugely valuable exercise to do.    Always flexing that self awareness muscle which gets you closer and closer every day to living the life you want to live and being the person you want to be.    But also, something worth mentioning that's slightly different to what i'm talking about in this episode but still very important to mention when we're talking about validation.   How are you validating or invalidating other people?     This is a huge part of healing too. Feeling understood and that you make sense and your feelings are valid.   There are so many ways that we do this to ourselves and others, toxic positivity is a great example of that.    Ways that we tell people they shouldn't be, feel or think a certain way.(I'm obviously not talking about the extremes here, there are of course a lot of ways of being, thinking, feeling and doing that have no place in civilised society)I'm talking in general conversation. If someone's opening up what do you say to them?   Do you tell them other people have it worse? Do you talk over them and go straight into fix mode and tell them what to do instead of just listening and letting them know it makes sense they'd feel that way?   As you go about your week I'd love for you to just notice with curiosity when you feel invalidated by someone or if you notice yourself doing it to someone else.  Unfortunately it's very very easily done and most of us do it often. It's something we have to make a conscious effort to unlearn.   So, as a final reminder, you are a hugely valid, valuable and worthwhile human being. Wherever you're at right now and however you may feel about yourself, your progress or where you're telling yourself you should be.   I said to a new friend recently that I believe life is about constant growth and evolution for the better. Not from a place of not already being good enough but peeling back the layers of armour and protection that we've built around ourselves through our lifetimes to get back to being MORE of who you really are. Not someone different, who you've always been.   The reality is that often the opportunity to create that growth comes from some sort of pain or darkness, but it doesn't have to.    We can choose to start looking for that incremental growth consciously whenever we choose to and feel ready to…and I think that's kinda magical.   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Go grab your £20 or $25 discount on your Sensate device: https://www.getsensate.com/fran Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Proud Of You   In the most non patronising way possible, I want to get a message across today.   I'm proud of you.   I'm proud of me.   For so many things.   Sometimes you have to take stock of what we're all working against to really acknowledge that we're doing a great bloomin job…even if it doesn't feel like it right now.   There are so many phrases that teach us from little kids to be modest. To not shout about our achievements. It's undesirable to think, let alone say, that we're good.    Good people, good at our jobs, good looking, a catch, good at something.     We're taught to play it down.   Don't you dare think or believe you're good enough for what you want. It's unattractive.   Don't be arrogant.   Don't talk about the things you're good at.   Don't think you're funny. Essentially, don't like yourself too much…or at all!   This is by proxy what we're taught.   No wonder we have generations of people who can't acknowledge their achievements or worth!   But this also serves to make damn sure we don't notice the little things that we do that are amazing.    So we're going to change that today because you deserve it.   I'm proud of you for getting up this morning.   I'm proud of you for making hard decisions.   I'm proud of you for every time you've pushed yourself beyond your comfort zone.   I'm proud of you for every time you've done something you know is good for you.   I'm proud of you for every time you haven't but you've noticed you WANT to!   I'm proud of you for every hard thing you've done.   I'm proud of you for facing things you didn't want to.   I'm proud of you for every time you've let yourself rest.   I'm proud of you for every day you've kept going.   I'm proud of you for trying!   Some days…that's more than enough!   I added a little prompt into my daily journaling for the non dear diary type (as a recap, go back to episode one but every day it's writing down 3 things you're grateful for, 3 good things that happened that day, something you're looking forward to tomorrow, I also added a challenge that you overcame or learned a lesson from, and nice things you did for other people - As a reminder what this is doing is training your neural pathways to see these things as a default every day. To see the positive every day. To see your progress every day. It's magic.)   The prompt I've added is ‘what am I proud of today'. Hopefully you can see exactly why this would be so valuable.   When we think about increasing our self worth, which SO many of us want to, it's actually a lot easier than you think.    It takes a little time, effort and energy to rewire those neural pathways but it's beyond worth it.   It starts with learning for it to be safe to acknowledge our good points, the good things we've done and the ways we're growing.   Learning that it is absolutely ok to acknowledge and celebrate yourself and your wins, no matter how big or small they are.   The last 12 months has been the biggest rollercoaster for me and I am SO beyond proud of myself.    I've made heart wrenching decisions. I've made decisions that are the right thing for the short term and the long term, even though they were all painful and I could have easily looked at myself as a failure in SO many different areas.  I've done what's right for me and prioritised my health, wellbeing and peace every day.   I can look back on this time in years to come with tremendous pride.   This attitude is beyond helpful in tough times, it's something I've worked on and cultivated and allowed myself to learn over time.     I've had confronting things to unlearn.   It's not been easy every step of the way but I can safely say I'm proud of myself and I really am my own best friend inside my own head.   The way I talk to myself in my own head now vs most of my life is unrecognisable and that's all available to you.   It starts with allowing yourself to acknowledge your smallest of wins every single day.    Learning to see yourself in a new positive light, every day.   Learning that the smallest of steps are still steps in the right direction, and that if you take a step back, there will STILL be another step forward.   Learning to be KIND to yourself.   Learning to have compassion for yourself.   Learning to understand that YOUR opinion of you is the most important thing and something you have control over. What other people think of you is up to them.   Understanding that it's all possible and that it's possible for you!   I'm proud of you.   I'm proud of me.    You deserve to feel proud of yourself!   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Go grab your £20 or $25 discount on your Sensate device: https://www.getsensate.com/fran Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Nobody Has It Together All The Time   Without exceptions, nobody has it together all the time.    So why do you think you have to?!   What does it even mean to you to have your stuff together?   That's going to look different for everyone.   For me it's about resilience. It's not necessarily about having everything you ever wanted but it's knowing you're working towards it, even if there are a few bumps and bruises along the way.   What is it for you?   Grab your journal and really get into it and write down what ‘having your stuff together' really means and looks like for you.   Feel free to pause, I'll wait.    Now look at what you've written.   Is it actually realistic?   Do you know anyone, personally, not on the interwebs, who meets the criteria?   I wonder, what would they say if you told them that's how you see them?   These are the day to day assumptions that wreak havoc on our self esteem, self worth and mental health that NEED to be challenged and picked apart.   If we can remove the immense pressure we put on ourselves, how different would things look?   Do you think you might be more accepting?   More forgiving towards yourself?   Kinder?   I describe myself as someone who has their stuff together, even when they don't have their stuff together.   What do I mean by that?   For me having your stuff together actually means knowing and recognising when you don't! Then being able to do what you need to do to prioritise yourself and your own wellbeing. To do the things that you know are good for you and know that everything is going to work out just fine.   So really I see it as not having your stuff together at all ha! Quite freeing when you think about it.   Right now, on paper I do NOT have my stuff together.    Pretty much every key area of my life is in flux, or limbo as i've been saying.And i've been doing a tremendous amount of #adulting.   There are so many things I DON'T have control over right now because you can never have control over other people…no matter how much you might like to. Being accepting of that is a skill you can learn. Trust me on this ha!   The amount of huge things I've been through this year is bananas and unpredicted.    BUT, so many people have said to me things like, 'How do you have such a positive outlook on this?'  ‘How are you so calm, you seem in a really good place?' and ‘You're handling it really well!'     Because I am…most of the time. I'm very very honest that there are many MANY human moments along the way.    There have been days where things have seemed hopeless and even when I've said that, I knew I didn't really mean it and I was just having a human moment…and they are allowed!   But there are days where all I see is possibility.   All I see is the opportunity and the growth and potential and I find that magical.   It tends to be out of the hardest things that come the best things and I hold on to that.   I'm very self aware and always approach things with curiosity over judgement. Sometimes other people have a harder time with my emotions than I do because they don't know how to handle them.   But that doesn't matter, I don't judge them for that. But I also don't take on that opinion just because it's theirs.   I don't push away my emotions because I know that's the quickest way through them and to process them.   Most of society have been trained to shun their negative emotions and panic a little in the face of someone else's. Big emotions can make other people uncomfortable and that's ok.    But never, ever tell yourself that they shouldn't be there because they are all clues and messages for something that needs to be dealt with head on, or it's just going to stick around and get louder until you pay attention!   Gotta feel it to heal it!   It's FAR too easy to look at the curated versions of people on the internet and make huge assumptions that they have it good all the time. They don't.   They're dealing with the same amount of humanity as you are! They are lying if they say otherwise.   It's about how you look at and recover from these moments that is the difference that makes the difference and that's what you're looking for.   Not the absence of them. Or to have your stuff together all the time.   It doesn't matter how much you know you will always have human moments, thoughts, beliefs, reactions.   We've just been programmed for far too long that these things are undesirable.   And it's, as always, completely nuanced.   Because we all have different unconscious programming and experiences.   So how could people with all of that going on ever look at things in exactly the same way?   They don't.   There's always ALWAYS nuance to it.   This is where values, opinions, beliefs all come into play to make you the beautiful, perfectly imperfect,  flawed and nuanced individual that you are.   And that should be celebrated.   All of this unconscious stuff that we add on top is what causes the issues and when you can look at that with honesty and curiosity about what's there. What stories, beliefs, thoughts and attitudes are underneath the feelings that's where you can create huge change.   So much of what we really want in life is about acceptance. We have to accept ourselves, in all our glorious humanity first.    Be kind to yourself today and see what happens! Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Go grab your £20 or $25 discount on your Sensate device: https://www.getsensate.com/fran Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ The Power Of One Conversation   The power that just one conversation with the right person can have can be so underestimated and undervalued and under utilised.   So I wanted to talk about it today, consider us in a little (one sided) conversation right now.    There are far too many people bottling things up for fear of judgement from others, their own self judgement of what reaching out to someone ‘means' (for example, you're weak or can't cope yourself)   And that behaviour usually makes perfect sense when you take a little look back over various dynamics when you were growing up.   It can be parents, siblings, teachers, peers.    We learn reasons that it's not ‘safe' to talk about our issues. It's incredibly common.   It might be that you were always the one looking after people so you de-prioritised your own issues. It might be that you were taught you had to be the strong one for whatever reason. SO many things where it would make perfect sense why you'd learn to not share.   If you take a look back please, as always, remember to do it with compassion for yourself and not from a place of judgement, blame or shame.  Curiosity is your friend here over judgement.   Now, for context, sharing my problems was something that always came very easily to me.     I'm an Enneagram 6 and I would always talk through any problems I had with other people because it helped me work it through in my mind and it always helped to say it out loud and hear other people's perspectives.   This is why you always need to look at the nuance of any situation or behaviour because the same behaviour could be a result of totally different circumstances. We're all individuals and we have to figure out OUR reasons for our programming. You don't even have to KNOW the reasons to be able to identify the behaviour and change it. I just have found that to be the quickest route to self compassion and shifts in perspective for me, and my clients too.    It can also shift based on your experiences later in life too.   I was in a situation for a long time where I felt like I couldn't share my problems or what was going on for me.    I couldn't share what was going on for me for shame, embarrassment, fear of judgement, various stories around how I ‘should' be able to handle it myself, all the things!   So I didn't share, I kept it in.    Guess what.   It was the worst thing I could have done and I honestly feel like I lost myself in that way for a number of years.   I'd keep everything to myself and that stress and anxiety would build and build until the inevitable moments where you feel broken and like all hope is lost.   Not fun.   I'm sure lots of you can relate to this.   It's easily done.   So for me it was a behaviour I unlearned due to circumstance and had to RE-learn.   I had to change my stories around it and I had to put myself out there to change the pattern and make sharing ‘safe' again.   If it's a brand new behaviour for you too it will absolutely feel tricky at first to put yourself out there and say, ‘Hey, can I talk to you, I have some stuff going on.'   The people on the other side create stories too.   So this really does work both ways.   You might think that your strong friend not reaching out means they're totally fine when they might not be.   You might think the person NOT reaching out to you might be being selfish when actually they have their own stuff going on.   So don't allow the story to take over, ask yourself what else could be going on.    We tend to protect ourselves and assume the worst, but more often than not there's an explanation and being vulnerable yourself to say, ‘Hey,are you ok?' instead of going straight to anger, hurt or cutting someone off.   There are also moments where we might isolate ourselves. Sometimes it can feel like you're incredibly lonely, but you also don't want to talk to or see anyone.   If I ever feel like this, like I did recently because there's still quite the roller coaster going on in my world where it feels like limbo at every turn sometimes, I make a conscious effort to reach out to people who feel safe to me because I know how quickly something can turn around with one conversation.   So that's what I did.    I reached out and said, ‘Hey, I'm struggling a bit at the moment, do you have any time to talk or meet up?'   The trick is to know who your ‘safe' people are.    It's easy to find excuses as to why you can't. When you're in self preservation mode you'll always find a really good, rational reason.   That's the trick sometimes…overriding what our unconscious patterns are telling us are good for us vs consciously knowing what's best for us.   In the words of Brene Brown, there's immense power in vulnerability.   You're 100% allowed human moments!   But as with anything, you have to start small and allow the pattern of safety build up in your brain and nervous system.   That might be reaching out to one friend. It might be a counsellor or therapist, it might be a free service offered by charities like the Samaritans.    Allow yourself to build up the experiences where being honest and vulnerable with someone helps.   The worst thing we can do is allow it to sit there and grow when it doesn't have to.   One conversation has the power to completely shift your mood, your emotions, your perspective.    One conversation can find you a solution when you couldn't find one.   One conversation can make you feel validated.   One conversation can help you breathe a sigh of relief or have a much needed release.   One conversation can change everything in an instant.   One conversation can bring you an opportunity.   You just have to be brave and vulnerable and take that first step.   One conversation can create new possibilities that weren't there before.   One conversation could get you everything you've ever wanted.   One conversation can ease your pain.   One conversation can show you all the stories you created to fill in the blanks in your head aren't true.   One conversation can bring you closer to someone.   I'm sure listening to this you're thinking of a tonne of conversations you'd like to have and for whatever reason may have stopped yourself.   Communication is everything. It really is the key to having what you want.  Yes it won't always go your way. Yes there might be a little heartbreak or disappointment to contend with from time to time.   But you will learn hugely valuable lessons along the way.   And be honest with yourself, what's the alternative?  What is not reaching out or being brave going to get you?   Probably not much better than more of the same right?   Honesty and communication is a winning combination and it really can just take one conversation to shift everything.   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Go grab your £20 or $25 discount on your Sensate device: https://www.getsensate.com/fran Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Are You Able To Spot The Metaphors Under Your Nose?   There are powerful metaphors everywhere.    Metaphors have the power to completely shift and change how we see a situation.   Let's start by defining what a metaphor actually is.  The dictionary defines a metaphor as a way of describing someone or something by showing their similarity with something else.It's making a point or explaining something by comparing two things that on the surface might not look the same.They can help us connect dots that we aren't seeing by mapping one experience onto another.   So some common examples might be ‘Time flies when you're having fun' or ‘He's as slow as a snail.'   Metaphors in stories are particularly powerful in helping us understand complex ideas or see how our experience could map across and help us see things in a different way from a more helpful perspective and break down old ways of thinking.   Metaphor is used in so many different healing modalities and therapies, particularly ones that work with language patterns such as hypnotherapy and NLP.   The bottom line is they can be incredibly powerful.  And they are everywhere, if we look for them.    So what's making me want to talk about metaphors today?   I had my own little live action symbolic metaphor moment that made me stop in my tracks, and lol a little bit.   And I wanted to share it with you because I think it can be applied to so many things and in all honesty, this little moment sparked joy for me.   I'm going to tell you about it and also see how many metaphors I can get into my story about my metaphor ha!   If you've been with me a while you know i've been going through some big, complicated life changes for the last year.    It's been a rollercoaster.    I've been feeling recently like i've been a little bit stuck in groundhog day and the light at the end of the tunnel of my situation has been feeling further and further away with setback after setback.    I'm not complaining…it's been awful but there's a lot I'm grateful for and I feel like I'm so close to being able to share all my stories and lessons with you and I for one cannot wait for that day.   Anyhoo.    It's safe to say I've been in the weeds and often feeling like I'm wading through treacle.   Every day I'd wake up and I'd open my curtains. Nothing new. Nothing really to notice.   I have a few plants on my windowsill.   I'm a serial plant killer so I only allow myself to have practically indestructible plants like succulents and I still manage to over or under water.   I've also had a white orchid for a number of years and in all honesty, it had seen better days.   The leaves were yellowing and dry and the once proud stem looked like hay with a dead and dried flower at the end.   I had been told more than once that it was dead and I needed to throw it out.   It didn't look good.   The other day I opened my curtains as usual, nothing different.   And I notice there's an entirely new stem, as long as the original one, with 7 buds on!   Every single day I had looked directly at it, this thing that looked pretty much dead and hadn't even spotted the life and the growth that was right in front of my face and it was about to erupt into beautiful flowers.   How could I have not spotted an entire foot's worth of stem when I'm looking at it every single day?   And I realised, how often am I (or we) doing that?   Seeing something every day, thinking it's dead or on its last legs but actually in the background it's growing something new and beautiful?   I know I know, I'm feeling existential but it's true.   How often do we just run on auto pilot and not notice something incredible right in front of our faces?   How often is something amazing happening and growing in the background when all we're seeing is the doom and gloom or the pain of what isn't going right for us.   So what can we take from this glorious little piece of symbolism that brightened my day and created an instant shift in what was going on for me.    Can you be patient?   Can you trust that there are positive and beautiful things happening alongside the pain b?   What growth are you not seeing?   What could be blooming where you're not paying attention?   The funny thing was, and take from this what you will, literally the day after the discovery of me not spotting an entire foot of new growth and 7 budding flowers on my seemingly dead orchid that I look at every day, there was a huge breakthrough in my own life of something that had been growing very quietly and invisibly in the background of something where on the surface all looked lost.    Keep the faith.   Just keep swimming.   Look for those metaphors.   You got this!   Fx     There are powerful metaphors everywhere.    Metaphors have the power to completely shift and change how we see a situation.   Let's start by defining what a metaphor actually is.  The dictionary defines a metaphor as a way of describing someone or something by showing their similarity with something else.It's making a point or explaining something by comparing two things that on the surface might not look the same.They can help us connect dots that we aren't seeing by mapping one experience onto another.   So some common examples might be ‘Time flies when you're having fun' or ‘He's as slow as a snail.'   Metaphors in stories are particularly powerful in helping us understand complex ideas or see how our experience could map across and help us see things in a different way from a more helpful perspective and break down old ways of thinking.   Metaphor is used in so many different healing modalities and therapies, particularly ones that work with language patterns such as hypnotherapy and NLP.   The bottom line is they can be incredibly powerful.  And they are everywhere, if we look for them.    So what's making me want to talk about metaphors today?   I had my own little live action symbolic metaphor moment that made me stop in my tracks, and lol a little bit.   And I wanted to share it with you because I think it can be applied to so many things and in all honesty, this little moment sparked joy for me.   I'm going to tell you about it and also see how many metaphors I can get into my story about my metaphor ha!   If you've been with me a while you know i've been going through some big, complicated life changes for the last year.    It's been a rollercoaster.    I've been feeling recently like i've been a little bit stuck in groundhog day and the light at the end of the tunnel of my situation has been feeling further and further away with setback after setback.    I'm not complaining…it's been awful but there's a lot I'm grateful for and I feel like I'm so close to being able to share all my stories and lessons with you and I for one cannot wait for that day.   Anyhoo.    It's safe to say I've been in the weeds and often feeling like I'm wading through treacle.   Every day I'd wake up and I'd open my curtains. Nothing new. Nothing really to notice.   I have a few plants on my windowsill.   I'm a serial plant killer so I only allow myself to have practically indestructible plants like succulents and I still manage to over or under water.   I've also had a white orchid for a number of years and in all honesty, it had seen better days.   The leaves were yellowing and dry and the once proud stem looked like hay with a dead and dried flower at the end.   I had been told more than once that it was dead and I needed to throw it out.   It didn't look good.   The other day I opened my curtains as usual, nothing different.   And I notice there's an entirely new stem, as long as the original one, with 7 buds on!   Every single day I had looked directly at it, this thing that looked pretty much dead and hadn't even spotted the life and the growth that was right in front of my face and it was about to erupt into beautiful flowers.   How could I have not spotted an entire foot's worth of stem when I'm looking at it every single day?   And I realised, how often am I (or we) doing that?   Seeing something every day, thinking it's dead or on its last legs but actually in the background it's growing something new and beautiful?   I know I know, I'm feeling existential but it's true.   How often do we just run on auto pilot and not notice something incredible right in front of our faces?   How often is something amazing happening and growing in the background when all we're seeing is the doom and gloom or the pain of what isn't going right for us.   So what can we take from this glorious little piece of symbolism that brightened my day and created an instant shift in what was going on for me.    Can you be patient?   Can you trust that there are positive and beautiful things happening alongside the pain b?   What growth are you not seeing?   What could be blooming where you're not paying attention?   The funny thing was, and take from this what you will, literally the day after the discovery of me not spotting an entire foot of new growth and 7 budding flowers on my seemingly dead orchid that I look at every day, there was a huge breakthrough in my own life of something that had been growing very quietly and invisibly in the background of something where on the surface all looked lost.    Keep the faith.   Just keep swimming.   Look for those metaphors.   You got this!   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Go grab your £20 or $25 discount on your Sensate device: https://www.getsensate.com/fran Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ How To Handle Disappointment   Disappointment is something we have all and will all experience at various points in our lives.    Of course there's a spectrum of disappointment that can go from not being able to find your favourite snack in the shop to hearing bad news of varying degrees, disappointment from other people, situations and even disappointment in yourself.    It can be that relationship you were hopeful about not working out.    It can be getting a no for something you really wanted.   I don't need to explain disappointment to you at all. We've all been in the trenches.   But I'm still kind of going to anyway!   The dictionary defines disappointment as sadness or displeasure caused by the non-fulfilment of one's hopes or expectations.   I think we can all feel that one!   One of the things I have noticed throughout my years of learning about why we do the things that we do, why we react the way we react and feel the way we feel, how our brain and nervous system contributes to that and how we can learn to work WITH that information, is how much my ability to handle disappointment has changed.    I'm always talking about how feeling our feelings is so important and how what we're aiming for when we ‘do the work' on ourselves isn't to ‘get rid' of ‘negative' emotions. Or to avoid them.    But almost learn to befriend them and see them in a different light.   To see negative emotions as part of the human existence that contributes to the sweet sweet polarity of experiencing all the positive emotions too.   To understand them more so we don't fear them or judge ourselves for having feelings and emotions that make perfect sense!   Disappointment is one of those inevitable emotions.   Can you imagine a world when you were never disappointed…ever?   You might think it would be nice, maybe it would be, but personally it would take some magic out of life for me.   Let me explain why I think that way.   Sometimes you can think something is right for you, you want it, you don't get it, it stings.   We've all been there.   However, these moments tend to be the ones that lead you to something even better.  Or in a totally new direction that's better for you. Or where you learn an incredibly valuable lesson.   It's always been the case for me.    The last year for me has been full to the brim of disappointments for me.    AND it's also been full of incredible experiences, deaths and rebirths of my ego aplenty, lots of twists, turns and redirects and as much as it might suck sometimes i'm totally trusting the direction and 100% know that there's so much beauty, positivity, happiness, joy and all the other good stuff just on the other side.    When it comes to handling disappointment there's two things to consider.    The short term. What do we actually do in the moment of disappointment?   And there's the long term. This is what we can do to totally change and shift the way we see and respond to disappointment.    You'll be unsurprised that it requires both cognitive and somatic angles.    So the thinking stuff and the working with the body stuff!   You'll also be unsurprised that it involves self awareness and self reflection.    I won't spend too much on the long term things that will help all your future disappointments because I bang this drum all the time.    You need to be focusing on the things that work with your nervous system to create more ‘flexibility'   If you'd like a deep dive into this please do listen to my interview with Stefan Chmelik, founder of the Sensate.    The more you work to create balance within your nervous system the less reactive you are and the quicker your recovery is…aka…more resilience!    Focusing on breathing techniques like Heartmath, using devices like the Sensate (there's a discount code in the show notes)meditation, mindfulness, EFT, diet, exercise, sleep. All the key essentials.    So let's talk short term, you're in the thick of the disappointment.    First is to of course allow it to be there without judgement. It makes sense that the disappointment would be there. You get to feel it, often disappointment can come with grief too and it's important that you allow yourself to feel what's there. (Skip to the episode on feeling your feelings if you need help with understanding some of the tools that can help)   Whether that's on your own if you feel you have the capacity, with a friend or loved one or a licensed professional. Surround yourself with good people.    You'll find when you can do that, you'll be able to take a step back and see the situation more clearly.    You can analyse how you were feeling about that thing happening or not happening in the first place. Did you have real clarity in your mind   Be kind and have self compassion.    It's always worth checking your expectations vs reality. Was it a realistic outcome?  Were you rigid in your thinking?  By that I mean, this or NOTHING else thinking.    The next stage is, what do you want to do about it?  What do you want your next step to be?  Make sure you don't stay ruminating on it for any longer than is necessary and you take action to move forwards. Whatever you decide for that to look like.   Can you go as far as allowing yourself to be excited about the redirect?  If you have beliefs in any sort of ‘higher power' getting involved, can you trust it?   What could you learn from it?   Is it the kind of disappointment where it would be incredibly helpful to talk to a professional about it?    Can you get yourself back in the game and be open to disappointment knowing that you're going to be absolutely fine and any future redirects could lead to something positive?   That's often the hardest thing with disappointment, how we'll try and protect ourselves from it happening again.    Can you be brave and stay open?     Sometimes hard things happen, and that's ok. I always love the phrase ‘it'll be ok in the end, if it's not ok, it's not the end' Kind of says it all really.    Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Navigating A Career Change When You're ‘Older'   It can feel tricky when you've worked hard to forge a career, you've invested time and energy into it, you've climbed the ranks.   Then you realise you just really don't want to do it any more.   Urgh.   Now what.   I do believe this very thing is what creates a lot of the solo business owners we have now.   This comes again from a listener question about navigating this specifically in your late thirties.    And here's the kicker. If you're in your late thirties it's highly likely that what was instilled in you at school was that you decide what you're going to do for your whole life aged 16-18.   You get the grades, perhaps the degree, you get the job and then you stay there and work your way up.   This is a broken model because the amount we change as humans throughout our lifetime is huge.   You cannot and should not be expected to stick in the same career for your whole life.    It doesn't take into account any of the nuance of human existence.   Your priorities will change, your values will likely change, What's most important to you will change, what you actually want to get out of and feel in a career, will change (whether that's a job or a business, the same applies) YOU will change!   The issue is our beliefs and fears around that change. As usual so much of it comes down to our habitual thinking patterns and belief systems.   For example, if you believe it would be intolerable to have a lower salary or job title…you'll find it harder.   If you feel that starting at the bottom comes with shame and a feeling of failure, you'll struggle to do it.   But if you can shift the way you're looking at it all, guess what happens?  It changes what you see.   It's also not inevitable that changing careers will always mean a step down or change in income. Transferable skills have a lot going for them!   The other issue is that the majority of women will only apply for a job if they tick 100% of the boxes of a job description, whereas Men will give it a go if they only tick a few.    It's like any change really. What are you making it mean about you?   What can you not tolerate about it?   You may have another 35 years of working ahead of you. You have to be happy doing it, or it has to GIVE you something in return.   You can retrain if you want to.   You can go to or back to university if you want to. A gorgeous friend of mine, Chloe Burroughs, starter her new career and it's teaching non-traditional students. She literally created a career change to help other, older students change theirs.    If that's not proof it's possible I don't know what is.   Of course there are often other factors at play. If you're in your late thirties, as my lovely question asker is, there are usually a lot more responsibilities.   There are potentially mortgages and bills.   BUT…i'm a big fan of asking ‘how can i?'.  Thinking ok, this isn't ideal but my happiness and wellbeing are important so what would need to happen and what could happen that means i'd have more flexibility in my finances to change careers.    Of course, this is only if you need that. It's absolutely possible to do it without having to take a big dip.   Asking yourself and being really clear on what is an essential need vs a want.   Asking yourself and challenging yourself around what would really make you happy.   Asking yourself what assumptions you might be making is also helpful.    It's a common belief that you need to start at the bottom. You might remember what it was like when you were first starting out. But it is NOT the same situation. Whether you're learning and starting a new business or a new career you have SO many transferable skills under your belt, it's totally different.    People in their thirties are actually what Gallup calls the job hopping generation.    Think about who you could talk to in your network who might be a way in.    Think about your passions.   Think about what you really want your ideal day to look like.   How do you want to feel in your career?   Speak to a careers advisor to see if there are careers based on your skills, experience and passions that you might not even know exist!   There are so many avenues to go down and it's FAR more prevalent than you think.    The biggest thing I see getting in the way is the beliefs around it ‘meaning' you're a failure. Or the feeling that you will be judged as not as successful.    Fear of change and risk.    You need to recognise that it could be a complete identity shift in a lot of ways so you're ego is going to flare up big time.   If you're thinking you're too old to change I urge you to seek the many, MANY stories of people who've totally started over and thrived in their thirties, forties, fifties and way beyond.    Life it too short to believe you have to stay in an unhappy situation. That leads to so many more problems in the long run. Not to mention the toll it takes on you mentally or physically.   Age ain't nothin but a number baby! Don't believe the hype from society. Keep making decisions for you simply as a human being who deserves to be happy and fulfilled.   It's never too late to make a different choice.   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ How Do You ‘Lean Into' Your Emotions?   You've probably heard me talk about how leaning INTO rather than avoiding your emotions is incredibly beneficial and important.   But how do you actually do that?   What does it look like in practice?   This episode comes from a question from a lovely listener on exactly this so I thought I'd dig a little bit deeper with you today.   It's important to understand that, as with most things, leaning into your emotions is a skill you can learn.    So the first thing to understand is our emotions aren't really the issue at all.   The issue is our own judgement of our emotions.   Labelling some emotions as ‘good' and some as ‘bad' is one of the ways we do this.   The beliefs we have around what it means if we feel things like sadness, anxiety, depression and what we make it mean about us.   Because the reality is, the more you avoid and suppress them, the louder they get.   Perhaps you've experienced that before?   Much of this is a learned response from childhood. It might have been that people in a position of authority didn't know how to handle your big emotions and you were made to suppress them, or even told off for having them, making them be seen as undesirable, inconvenient and leading to not being accepted.    Leaning into your emotions is the very thing that enables them to move through your body and be processed as they should be within a few minutes, rather than still ruminating on them hours, days, weeks or even years later.    So it's a good skill to learn right?!   So what does it actually mean when we say to lean into your emotions?   Leaning into your emotions means not suppressing or avoiding.     It means really allowing yourself to feel what's there, without judgement.    It means being able to take a step back, observe and allow.   It means bringing in self-compassion in moments of big emotion.   It means acknowledging that all emotions are part of the human experience.    It means being able to not be consumed by them and decode them as you feel them and allow them to be there.   This is when they move through the body.   An emotion itself only lasts approximately 90 seconds but it's all the other ‘stuff' we put on top of that physiological feeling.   If you can stop judging your emotions and making them good, bad, right or wrong and feeling like we should only feel certain emotions and not others…that's when the magic happens and your emotions no longer control you.   BUT, we have to learn to feel safe expressing our emotions healthily. You might want to do this with a professional so you have a safe space and assistance.    You might feel comfortable doing this on your own or with a trusted friend. It really is up to you.  Healing happens in relationship so I would always recommend working with someone else in the beginning.   You'll find it soon becomes second nature and you're able to feel far more neutral about what you might previously have perceived as ‘negative'.   It's not about being consumed by your emotions, it's letting them be there with curiosity.    Again, what does that mean?!     It means being able to observe what's going on for you.     What's going on in your thoughts and what's going on in your body.    Can you name the emotion?     If so, how do you know that's what it is?  What are the characteristics?   Where do you feel it in your body?    How are you expressing it outwardly to others?   What do you notice about your behaviour and any urges that come up when you either have, or try to avoid and suppress emotions?   For many people it might look like numbing with social media scrolling, food, drink or shopping for example.   Noticing this is a big key to helping you stop avoiding them in the future.    If you can become consciously aware of your own patterns you are able to override them far more easily, meaning you can interrupt and CHANGE the pattern, recode and rewire your brain and nervous system.   Learning emotional regulation tools to help the process of an emotion moving through your body is incredibly helpful.    For me whenever I experience big emotions my personal favourite is a somatic tool, EFT, otherwise known as tapping.    Think of it like acupuncture without the needles where you're tapping on some key meridian points on your face and body.    It allows the emotion to come up and be processed. It might take a few rounds but you should notice feeling calmer and more regulated.   Reframing negative emotions to be helpful is…well….helpful!    Acknowledging that they have a purpose and a reason for being there and that they make perfect sense can be a game changer.    For example, anxiety is a threat response. In some situations it's a helpful alert system. Unfortunately for many of us it's just got wildly out of control.   Sadness can be a cue to people around you for support.    All the usual suspects I talk about a lot are also incredibly helpful in getting you to lean into your emotions and creating that acceptance and allowing for curiosity over judgement.    Journaling, HeartMath or other kinds of breathwork, movement, mindfulness.   Many of these are in The Positive Pants Toolkit too.     So much of life is almost like learning to dance with your emotions.    Not seeing them as an enemy or yourself as a failure for having them.   It's all part of the beautiful human existence and polarity.    It's about gratitude.   It sounds so counterintuitive that allowing yourself to ACTUALLY feel your emotions is the very thing that causes more balance, peace, calm.   Talking from my own experience of learning this little dance it's incredibly freeing.    Like I've said 1000 times before.    It doesn't mean I don't have emotions, it means I don't judge them or myself and they move on so much more quickly and I can find my peace again.   Calm in the chaos.    You just might not have learned it yet, but once you see the shifts and changes happening it'll become second nature to sit with those emotions and let them move through you.    I hope this helps!   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Things I'm Learning From A Social Media Hiatus   It may or may not have escaped your attention but if you're on my email list you already know…I missed my first podcast episode since 2018.  I totally lost my voice for a whole week…and it's kind of an essential tool when it comes to recording audio.   But I'm back.  Not 100% firing on all cylinders so please forgive me if there's a cough that I don't edit out.     But, it's ended up being a happy turn of events because had I recorded this episode when I was meant to I wouldn't have had the glorious opportunity to bring the new kid on the block into the mix…Meta's new social platform, Threads!   The new kid on the block that it feels like EVERYONE is talking about!   And if you haven't heard, it's basically Meta's new version of twitte so i'll touch on that a little in a moment..    So… for the context of this episode, It may or may not have also escaped your attention but i've been on a bit of a social media hiatus for quite some time!   I've not really been online at all for a number of months.  Either posting or scrolling.     There were various reasons why that started and in all honesty it wasn't 100% intentional at first. I was just doing what I do and listening to what my mind and body needed in the midst of the chaos I have been managing personally.    In all honesty it's been one of the best things I've done for myself and I want to talk about why i've done it and why I think it's been so good.   If you've been listening for a while you'll know that the last year has been quite the personal rollercoaster.  Which annoyingly I still can't really talk about yet but ohhh it'll be worth it when I can. There have been SO many lessons learned and SO much growth.   However, it has meant that I have felt like I can't really show up and be authentic on social media most of the time. If I can't be totally authentic I honestly don't see the point.    If i'm not having fun with it and being genuine I'd just rather not in all honesty. In spite of any ramifications in terms of audience and revenue and all that stuff.   I'm all for being a human being first!   I'm still showing up on my emails every single Wednesday and here every Monday…obviously you know that because you're listening.   Because those two places feel good and authentic to me right now.    I've always done my best to make sure that anything I put out is authentic to me at that time and I don't want to feel like i'm hiding things because at the end of the day this whole podcast is about being able to share lessons and knowledge around how to live better, think better and behave better as a human right?    There's also some very ‘practical' reasons, which will eventually all become clear, as to why I haven't wanted to be online.    You have to think about what social media is training into your brain.    It's training you to have a shorter and shorter attention span.   It's getting you addicted to the little dopamine hits that come with likes and follows and a feeling of inclusion and belonging.   It's also getting you addicted when that DOESN'T happen too.   It's training you into distraction and procrastination.   It's training you to not be present.   It's training you to use significant amounts of your precious time doing essentially nothing and then feel like you don't have any left.   It's training you to not be out in nature, with people, reading books, to be removed from what's going on where and when you actually are!   It's training you to value the thoughts of people you've never met before over your own.   And I feel like I have all of this back, which is glorious.    I feel more balanced, calm, in control.   Now all this sounds super ominous and it is, IF you're not consciously aware of how you choose to use and engage with it because lets be honest, for all it's faults it can be fun.    Social media can connect you to people you wouldn't have been able to be connected with previously.    As a child of the 80s and 90s I remember what it was like not having that.  A time before mobile phones and the era of snail mail.    I remember what it meant if friends moved away or if you moved schools etc.     Don't get me wrong, I'm so grateful I experienced it and grew up in that environment. I'm simply saying I CAN see the benefits in SPITE of the negatives.    With social media and the interwebs it means you can stay connected to people far away.  You can connect to people with similar interests from across the globe. You can have long distance relationships etc etc.   So there ARE positives.    You have to be intentional when using and prioritising your energy and emotional resources.   It's so important. You can very easily LOSE yourself to the dopamine hits on social media.    I've seen a lot of celebrities and influencers come out and talk about the negative effect that feeling like they have to be online ALL the time is having on them.    How other people's opinions are affecting them negatively…because let's be honest, social media really can be the cesspit of human behaviour at times.    So knowing how and when to protect yourself is essential.    You're a human being, not a robot, and it's SO important to be able to listen to your mind and body and do what's right for you. Often that means a break.     I've seen lots of celebrities and influencers taking breaks and coming back when they feel better in themselves and i'm glad they're modelling that. So i'd love for you to see that as evidence that the world doesn't implode if you do what's right for you.   Yes of course it likely means a drop in stats, maybe even income.  But if you have your ducks in a row then weigh up what's more worth itand/or important in the long term for you.    There's no judgement to be made either way if you're not judging yourself for it.    We only fear the judgements we're already making ourselves, so get that in check and you'll be able to make much clearer decisions.   This is, guess what…where self awareness comes into play! Shock horror.    If you know what your values and priorities REALLY are it makes it so much easier. This includes all the unconscious ‘stuff' at play behind your decisions.    What feels authentic and GOOD to you?   How do you measure success?   How do you measure worth?   Where do you see your mental and physical health in your priorities?   If you need a break, take a break.     Figure out how you can make it happen.   Monitor the changes in you.   Go back if and when you feel like it.    Then we briefly need to have a little chat about Threads really don't we.    The success of Threads so far shows that people are craving change.   It's slightly unnerving how many people are talking about how it's more fun over there and they feel like they can be themselves rather than a curated version of that.   It's good that that feeling of safety is over there for now but I think that also tells you a heck of a lot about how much is being forced and fake over on other platforms, which is definitely food for thought!   So with Threads, don't feel like you have to jump on the bandwagon or you'll feel left behind.    Be aware of the addictive dopamine that will be coming out to play.    Notice how you feel when using or perusing.   Does it feel fun and expansive?   Does it feel authentic to you?   If you're having fun, have fun.    If you're not, leave.   So much of our happiness in this life comes from our own conscious awareness of ourselves. Our behaviour, thoughts and feelings.     The same is absolutely true of social media.    Don't beat yourself up for giving yourself what you need and being honest about what you don't.    For me it's been one of the best things i've given myself permission to do.   It's made a world of difference and increased certain thingsin my life like presence, authenticity, calm, time, peace and so much more at a time when all of those things were needed.  It feels like the definition of staying in your own lane.   It might give you something different.   It's all about intention.   I've absolutely zero interest in any falseness or fakery of any kind. It's not something I like or am comfortable with in my world.   I've joined Threads to see if it will be a place with more authenticity and maybe i'll find it fun and dip my toe back in the water. Who knows. That's the beauty. You get to choose.    I'm loving knowing that i'm the one in control of my boundaries, time and energy and I get to choose to go back if and when feels right for me.   And in the meantime i'm going to enjoy the connection I feel here and over on my email list.    Fx  

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Other People's Behaviour Isn't A Reflection On You   One of the things I get asked so often is about dealing with other people.     How can we change their behaviour or how their behaviour is making a person feel.   What we really need to control is our reaction to it.    And seek to understand it. Not condone it…understand it. Often that in itself takes out the sting.   While it's true that other people's behaviour is far more about them than it is you, there is one caveat I'd like to make.    It may be reflecting something back TO you, which is where the self awareness I'm always talking about comes into play.   And what other people's behaviour may be reflecting back to you is something that needs healing within yourself.    It may be reflecting back your own feelings of worth and what you deserve.   Which isn't fun!   BUT…when we catch it, that's when we can do something with it.    The question then becomes, ‘what lesson do I need to learn from this interaction or what is being reflected here that is actually my own belief about myself.'   Big questions to ask but super important.    When you learn to ask these kinds of questions without judgement, blame or shame then that's where the magic can start to happen.   There can be so many feelings associated when you ‘allow' someone to treat you badly.    You might feel angry, hurt, betrayed, foolish, blame yourself…so…many…feelings.   But it happens to all of us at some point.   Whether it's a client, a friend, a partner, whatever the context, we've all let people in who have turned out to be not exactly who they claimed to be at the start.   Or who have treated us in ways that resulted in us feeling less than or awful about ourselves.   And it can be incredibly painful.    Especially when we didn't see it coming.    And in these situations it's FAR too easy to blame yourself for that person's behaviour towards you.   ‘Why didn't I see it?'   ‘What does it say about me that I didn't see it?'   ‘Maybe I deserved it.'   ‘Was it all a complete lie?'   But that's a double whammy right?!   You've been treated badly by someone else, and now you're treating yourself badly!   No wonder you feel like you can't catch a break. It's important to be open to learning new ways of doing things yourself.  Unlearning YOUR old patterns and reactions.    This is something I'm doing myself in real time at the moment and it's definitely challenging at times but also feels really good.    I'm pretty well wired to sit in discomfort these days and knowing that the good stuff is around the corner.    I know it's good for me and I know it's wiring new neural pathways that are probably far healthier.   Even though it might register as unsafe because it's new and unfamiliar.   But I'm open to it and here for it!   When you allow new interactions to teach you something new you don't ever go back to how you were. It's new information that's being encoded into your brain and nervous system.   I used to get so hurt and upset by other people's behaviour towards me and really went heavy on the self blame and lack of self worth.   That's very different now.    I know different now.   Even when someone REALLY lets you down it's easier to handle.     Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt, of course it does.    It doesn't mean there's no anger and frustration, of course there is.    But I also know it's not about me.   And even when it might be annoying to do so…compassion for the other person can still be found if you want to find it.   Hurt people, hurt people.   Wounded people tend to be the ones to create wounds in others.   You cannot control the other person's behaviour.   You cannot control the way someone decides to judge you or see you.   You cannot control the narrative they choose to create.   None of this is within your control.   It's not a reflection on you if someone behaves badly towards you, it's on them.   It's not your ‘fault' and you're not to ‘blame'.    Ask yourself the necessary self awareness questions about what it may be highlighting for you to work on in terms of your own healing and how you see yourself.   Hold your head high in the situation.   The more you know yourself deeply, the easier this is.   When you know in your core you're a good person. You know your worth. You know your values.  You'll find the less other people's behaviour will affect you.   That's what you have control over and that's where you can create some real change.    If you've been in a situation where there has been any sort of abuse this may take a little longer and I highly recommend getting some professional support too but it's so possible.   Hindsight is a marvellous thing, once you're out of the situation. When you're in it it can feel all consuming and confusing and overwhelming and it can be hard to see the woods for the trees.    But it's absolutely possible to heal, take the lessons, be able to take any responsibility that's yours to take (very important you understand responsibility is NOT blame!) understand yourself more deeply and not get yourself into a similar situation again.   It was never your fault, or a reflection on you.     Some people are deeply wounded themselves and those wounds can hurt others. It doesn't matter the situation. This could be clients, colleagues, loved ones, partners, friends.    Some of the worst situations I've been in where people have treated me badly, although painful, have created who I am today.   I won't tolerate behaviour today that I would have even a few months ago. I'm quicker to learn.   It doesn't mean no one will ever hurt you again.  That's just part of a richly human life!   It doesn't mean no one will ever lie to you about who they are and you won't see it coming again.    It doesn't mean you're going to find it easy to trust people or let them in straight away.    It doesn't mean any of that and that's not what we're aiming for.   What we're aiming for is for you to KNOW it's not about you.    To not take on other people's bad behaviour or toxic ‘stuff' as YOUR ‘stuff'.#   To know yourself on such a deep level that you have unshakable confidence on WHO you are…while also knowing you're always improving, growing and learning and never a finished product.  Your feelings might get hurt…but your self-worth stays totally intact.   To know that it's not a BAD thing to want to see the best in people.   To be able to do the necessary self awareness and healing work when it comes up.   You might just come out the other side as the best version of yourself!   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ You Get To Be Picky!   You get to be picky about who and what you allow in your life.   True story.   One I had to learn for myself in many, many ways!    With friends, in relationships, situations I would constantly find myself repeating.   Urgh…we've all been there!   And the beauty is you'll always be learning.    I'm constantly surprising myself on the daily with some of this stuff ha!   All those little ‘ooooh I wouldn't have said or done THAT before' moments that make the hard work worth it.   Of course sometimes there's going to be less of a choice in what you can be picky about, that's always going to be the case, but often there's MORE of one that we're not allowing ourselves to see.   So many of us were taught as kids to ‘do as we're told' and if we didn't there would be negative consequences.   We might have been taught we have to be polite or else there's negative consequences.    We might have been taught we have to spend time with people we don't want to.    Play nice with people who don't play nice with us.    Like people because we've been told we should or have to. Maybe because they're in our family or family friends circle.   You might have literally just been taught it's not good, or desirable to be ‘picky' about anything!  Think of phrases like ‘you get what you're given'.   It's important to caveat this, like I do everytime I talk about the things that we learn as kids, this along with many other things has always been considered totally ‘normal' for want of a better word.   It can be very innocent and no harm intended and remember people are only ever doing their best based on the resources and awareness they have themselves. So we steer clear of blaming and shaming anyone else in our quest for what I call ‘the great unlearn'!    We have to unlearn a huge amount of what we were taught as kids because it's not relevant, or helpful now as adults. And often completely untrue as adults.    And we do that piece by piece, not in one go.     This is where the self awareness work becomes so important, so we make sure we're looking at it from the perspective of ‘ohhhh this is why I think or do that, that makes total sense'.    It becomes ‘yeay me and my brain and nervous system for protecting me!'   Instead of judging ourselves or anyone else.   And this little piece is one of those such things.   You get to be picky about who and what you allow into your space, into your energy to take your time.   You get to do that.    If you have a boss you don't like or get on with, can you change teams or move companies?     You get to be picky about who is in your friendship circle.    You get to be picky about your relationships.  On this one it's worth noting there is far more to breaking ingrained patterns than simply cognitively knowing or telling yourself you get to choose. It definitely requires work.  But that's all part of the choice you're making to not repeat the same patterns and to change the game in your own life.   You get to be picky about your environment.    You get to be picky about who you allow to take up space in your life.    You get to be picky about the clients you take on.   You get to be picky about whose company you keep.   It's being able to say, ok, I don't like this, what CAN I do about it?    I'm not saying the options are always ideal, or easy, and of course privilege is always going to help in all areas, but they are options and you're capable of incredible things.   The problems come when we don't think we have options.  Because you're not going to make peace with that. You'll feel that sense of injustice. But once you see that you can make a decision, and it's more within your control…it changes the game in terms of how you feel day to day.   I always think it's a good idea to do little ‘audits' of these things.    Who or what has a positive influence in your life.   Who or what has a negative influence in your life.   Who or what doesn't bring nor take away.   Then get picky about how much time you spend in each!    On the tasks, in the places, with the people.   When you do the work around this and you grow in your own worth, values and boundaries, just watch how quickly the right people come into your life.   Watch how your relationships transform.   Watch how every area of your life improves.    You can't do any of it without awareness of your own patterns.    If you don't do it you're just going to repeat the same patterns of familiarity, which for most of us, don't tend to be good for us.    Seek support.    Seek the stories of other people going through similar things.   Seek the stories of triumph over adversity.   Seek the experiences that prove your current beliefs wrong and allow you to relax into yourself and rewire old traumas and patterns with the new information.   That's the good stuff.   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Little things for big changes   Happy Monday to you, or happy any day that you're listening!   I wanted to talk about something that I have found to be absolutely transformative in my life and creating changes.   It's things that are very very easily overlooked but can really make a huge difference in how you feel in, and about yourself!   The reason i'm wanting to talk about it today is because i've had a really big focus on it this year and the difference has been huge.   These things become even more important if you're going through a turbulent time, which also makes them easy to ignore or forget about so it does require a little bit of effort on your part.   But i'm going to help you make it as easy as possible.   Now, what are these THINGS I keep talking about?   That will be TOTALLY individual to you.   But it's the things that make you feel GOOD.   Not just good in general but good about your SELF.   The things that make you feel good in your own skin.   The things that lead to more confidence.   The things that lead to you having a different posture.   The things that make you trust yourself more.   You see the knock on effects?  They're huge.  And all the while you're rewiring these feelings of self trust, self compassion, self confidence to be your new normal, and trust me when I say feeling this way spills out onto everything that you do.   2023 is the year of me.  But that's just because it's fun to say and reminds me of the focus. It's about habits.   It's how you talk to yourself and how you treat yourself and what you know you want and need to feel your best.   For me it's things like making sure I get to the gym and spa.  Firstly because as soon as I drive into the entrance and see the trees I physically feel my nervous system shift.   When I was really going through it before and during my break up it really was my sanctuary.  It was my escape.  It was where I could focus on me and have the space that I needed to look after myself.   I make sure I get there 3-4 days per week.   Perhaps you have somewhere like that?  Somewhere where you just feel safe and calm and in control.  Knowing what you need to do to take care of yourself?  It might be a friends house, with family, it might be a place in the woods that you walk to, somewhere with a view that calms you right down?   It can be as simple as a favourite cafe. You FEEL the physical shift when you're there. Notice that and notice how you feel about yourself in those moments.    Another one for me is getting out on the river on my paddle board. I find being in and around water incredibly regulating and I also feel good that i'm being active.    Funnily enough, because it's the polar opposite energy, is making sure i'm in London 2-3 days per week.  For me it reminds me who I am.  It reminds me of the opportunity and vibrancy that is available to me.  It means i'm spending time with people, new friends and old. It makes me feel like me.    But I definitely start to tip over the edge after a few days without my green spaces.    I've talked about this before but little things like making sure I look after my skin and moisturise every day makes me feel amazing. Using the posh stuff…just because it's Wednesday!   In the year of me that's where my money goes too. So every time I buy something I ask myself, is this going to make me feel good?    Put simply it's looking after yourself and allowing yourself to know you're worth the effort!   For me at the moment it's all about me time, exercise, relaxation and regulation, skincare,    But it's not about how you look…it's about how you FEEL…which incidentally changes the way you look anyway ha!  I've had a fair few people tell me now that i've got more of a ‘glow' about me…and i'm not mad about it!   I can't tell you what a huge effect that has on everything else. Including how you show up with other people.   Another thing i've been doing, which I kind of touched on in a recent episode, is allowing myself to be more in the moment. Take things day by day. This has allowed me to open myself up to some things that I would never have been able to do before. And i'm not gonna lie…i'm having a lot of fun with it!   Less in my head, more in my body.    So have a think about what some of the little things might be for you.   It really doesn't matter how small. Practice saying ‘will this make me feel good' before doing or buying things.    See how much it changes how you feel about yourself and your outlook.   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ How To Not Freak Out That We're Half Way Through The Year   How can you stop freaking out that we're half way through the year?   Good question my friend.   And one I've been hearing a LOT lately.   The amount of people who have said ‘OMG I can't believe it's June already' this week is immense.   I get it.    But also…breathe.   It's all too easy to look at these arbitrary made up time frames and ‘should' on yourself.   Grab your journal and spend some time reflecting on the last 6 months, I bet you've achieved way more than you think you have.   Don't just look at a list of things you told yourself you needed to do by this point in the year. Really allow yourself to take a look back at where you were in December or January.    How did you feel?     If you haven't achieved that list yet, why not?  What's happened?   There's zero judgement here so I invite you to offer that compassion to yourself and ask these questions in a way that is genuinely curious rather than accusatory.   There's a BIG difference.   What happened in your life, or your loved ones, or the world that meant things that were a priority in January stopped being so.   What has been on your plate?   When you set those goals, where were they set from?   A place of them genuinely being YOUR goals and achievable in the time frame?  Or was someone else in your head at that point or were you operating from a place of not feeling good enough?   It's SO easy when it comes to goal setting to do these things. I like to think of goals as just that, things I'd LIKE to do…but allow for flexibility!   Things change. Circumstances change.   Spend some time planning the NEXT 6 months, IF you want to, challenge yourself sure, but also ask yourself, what would you be happy with achieving in the next 6 months?  That's probably less than you've set yourself.   I always love the quote ‘shoot for the moon, if you miss you'll land among the stars'.     Time is a funny thing.  It can feel like it's moving extremely fast, or extremely slow. The same 6 months might feel like a whirlwind to one person and a slow wade through treacle to another.   Ask yourself what you're proud of in the last 6 months. But don't just focus on the tangible, financial, obvious goals.    What have you got through that was really tough?   Where did you push yourself out of your comfort zone?   Where did something happen where you allowed yourself to learn a valuable lesson?   What are you making where you're at right now mean?   There are always going to be times of the year where it's natural for you to feel like you're behind where you're meant to be, but please try to remember it's basically a societal construct, or your own!   It doesn't really mean anything unless you make it!   I look over the last 6 months and geeeeeeeeeeez, I'm a totally different person.    I actually didn't set myself any tangible goals other than to take a day at a time this year because of the upheaval and change that was coming…because I set it in motion in fairness. And taking things a day at a time is something I'm getting better at all the time.   There's new people in my life teaching me that too.    I've always had a tendency, as an enneagram 6, to try and prepare for every outcome. To plan, plan, plan.   And sometimes, you simply can't.   As a qualified Mindfulness practitioner I have learned to be intentional about presence and I'm great at creating ‘moments' of bringing myself back to the present as and when I want or need to.   But, LIVING in the present is a very different beast.   It requires conscious thought and effort.   I'm letting this year simply be a year of lessons and growth.  I don't need anything more tangible right now, and in fairness some people wait a lifetime for that in and of itself.  We're just trained to not value it as highly as material goals.   This year there's been a huge amount of upheaval in pretty much every area of my life, which you know if you've been with me a while.     Which has been discombobulating to say the least. And required a HUGE identity shift. But it's been very necessary and 100% the right thing.   But I'm certainly not feeling behind, even though on paper some people might squint their eyes and look at it that way.   In many, many ways I'm ahead.   We have such a tendency to look at certain elements, often professionally, and decide we're behind.  Or that we're running out of time.    But we tend to ignore all the ways we've grown.   All the ways we've created big shifts.   So don't try and ‘catch up' with yourself, or other people. It really is pointless.   If you could just take a deep breath and look at where you're at right here, right now without all the other ‘stuff' you put on it.    What would you see?   What would you do?   Where might you take action?   What might you say yes to instead of no?   Get specific about where you're feeling behind.  Is it REALLY true?   What could make you feel or KNOW that you're moving forwards?   What are you grateful for?   So if you're one of the many people feeling like you're behind where you ‘should' be in June of 2023…I invite you to take a minute and try to see a different perspective.    The bottom line is, the quickest way to change how you're feeling is to change how you're thinking.   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ How To Stay Open When You've Been Hurt   How can you stay open when you've been hurt?   Oof, it's a big question that can be thought about in SO many contexts.   It could be the end of a relationship.  Or a betrayal of trust of some kind.   The end of a friendship or a betrayal of trust in one.   Someone you trusted at work, or your boss, didn't have your back.   A family member.   A client or business associate.   We're all human and we all get hurt sometimes.  Whether it be intentional or not.   But when these things happen, how do we make sure we don't close ourselves off and go into protection mode to the point that we can never have those trusting relationships or deep connections again?   Or if we have a bad experience with a client, how do we make sure we don't unconsciously fear the next one?   Because that's what we're doing right?  Unconsciously projecting our previous experiences onto new ones.   We do this our whole lives, until we're conscious of it.   And when it comes to having what we want, whether that be a fulfilling career, relationship, friendships etc our nervous system is always scanning for threat.   Scanning and assessing whether someone or something is going to cause us pain or be a threat to our identity and ego.   So this sounds like something to work on when it comes to living the life you want to, and are capable of, right?   Good old self sabotage. We're getting in our own way. And it makes perfect sense based on what's happened to us previously and what we've made that mean.   But it's not going to help us live full and happy lives in the long run.   So we need to take a little look and decode it.   Often this feels easier said than done!   The biggest thing to bear in mind is be kind to yourself and practice self compassion.  It makes perfect sense on a biological level why it would feel hard to trust again.   Your nervous system is doing its job. So that's a win.   But now you need to consciously work with it to make sure your path of least resistance doesn't become fear and mistrust, because that's not going to help anyone.   So where do we start?   We start by making sure we're prioritising the things that calm our nervous system.   Heartmath is ALWAYS my go to in the moment. I also know I need to make sure I prioritise movement and being around water and making sure I'm outside. All of those I find incredibly regulating.    Doing these things in general are always, always going to be helpful but when you're thinking about the situation that hurt you, or the potential that another situation might, you'll be sending the signals of safety to your brain and nervous system.   The biggest thing for me is always remembering that people and situations are always there to teach you lessons. I was talking to a friend of mine about it being an upwards spiral, you'll continue having to re-learn the same lessons until you REALLY learn them. So question yourself, what could this be trying to teach you?   What good could come from it? What amazing things COULD it lead to IF you stay open?   Do you really want to shut yourself off from something incredible because it might cause you pain again?  Which side tips the balance for you? The potential for a happy, fulfilled life with everything you want, or the potential pain of it not working out?   We're human and we have negativity bias and we're always unconsciously going to try and avoid pain. But we can choose to consciously move towards what we want in spite of the threat of pain.    Remaining open after a painful experience is a big act of trust. And that might already be feeling fragile in other ways.   You might have lost some trust in other people, in your own judgement, or maybe even the universe or whomever/whatever you believe in yourself.   And that's hard.   There's no denying that.   And you get to feel all the feelings around that. In fact, I'd say that's an absolutely essential part of the process.   But don't stay there.    Don't let it build into anger and resentment.   Don't tar everyone with the same brush.   When you're in the moment and moving towards a situation that COULD end up hurting you again, ask yourself, am I reacting to what's happening right in front of me right now?  Or a moment from the past?   What positive lessons did you learn that ALREADY means this situation won't be the same?   I was listening to a podcast of Brene Brown talking about the anatomy of trust and she nailed it as always.    She talks about how trust is made up of 7 different components that spell out the word BRAVING.    Because at the end of the day, trusting after being hurt IS brave. It's vulnerable.   So BRAVING stands for the following;   Boundaries - If you're clearly communicating them and someone is consistently trampling all over them. They do not deserve your trust. If they don't respect your boundaries or can't have a clear and open conversation about any potential compromise or new perspectives then they do not deserve your trust and it tells you everything you need to know. This comes to physical, emotional and sexual boundaries.   Reliability - If someone consistently doesn't follow through on what they say they will do, you will never be able to create trust with that person. There is no safety or security there. This counts across all levels of interpersonal relationships…including yourself. Keep your promises to yourself and watch some serious magic unfold.    Accountability - This counts both ways. Can you own your own stuff? Can you take responsibility for your own actions and apologise?  Can they?  Do they?   Vault - I love this one. If someone gives you someone else's secrets, how can you trust them with yours? Simple really. Gossip, as fun as it can be, is a recipe for not feeling safe with someone. Notice how you feel if you stop doing it.   Integrity - Are your words, actions and behaviour in line with your intentions. Do you feel someone lives their values? I said this to my friend the other day too. It's about show me, don't tell me. What are they SHOWING you. How do you FEEL when you're with them? There is a section of the brain that literally scans for incongruence. These are the subtle clues we pick up on physically. We can be over attuned to them when we've been hurt, this doesn't mean we can ignore them but a healthy deep dive into what might be going on is always a good call.   Non-Judgement - This is both parties again. Do you feel like you can share openly with a person, and they you?  Do you fear being judged? Do you feel you can set boundaries and have a healthy debate without fear of being abandoned?  All huge clues to look for while keeping yourself open.   Generosity. - I love this one. In this context she's talking about assuming the best in people. Being more generous in our assumptions around people's words, behaviour and intentions. Being conscious of when we might be putting something on someone that's actually nothing to do with them.   You have to know your non-negotiables.    You have to remain self-aware.   Remember it takes time, go at your own pace.   Did anything amazing in life ever come without any risk?   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ How To Deal With Selfishness   How to deal with selfishness and lack of thought when it comes to friends and family was a question I was asked this week by a lovely listener.   So I'll take on board what they have said and make sure it's generic enough for everyone to take something from it.    I appreciate the question but it's important to try to consider all angles as always.   It can feel really exhausting when you feel unconsidered, un-thought of, like people are taking advantage of you or expecting from you.   I've definitely felt this throughout my life as I'm sure most of us have.    One thing I learned when starting to unpick it was how I wasn't actually communicating my needs and I also wasn't self aware enough back then to know what was really going on for me and how much I was adding my own colour to the story.   Creating meaning and assumptions that weren't necessarily correct.   Absolutely not saying that's what's been going on behind this question, this is me talking from my own experience with this and what I learned in the process and found incredibly valuable.   The first thing that's worth mentioning is, when people get used to taking, they'll take.  This doesn't necessarily mean they're selfish.   For example, If they're used to you being the one to organise things it can be taken for granted and not even be a thought to organise something themselves…because they assume you will! The thought might not even cross their mind.    This is when our conditioning comes in.  It's also where autopilot can take over. For the people pleasers amongst us, this is where you can easily slip into feeling incredibly taken advantage of.   It would be great if people could just understand what we might be thinking or feeling without us saying so, but the reality is they simply don't.    So first things first when it comes to dealing with selfish people, this sounds obvious but the vast majority of people don't do this, and that's don't take it personally.    Of course do your own analysis around this and figure out if you think it MIGHT be personal, communicate what needs to be communicated and if you come to that conclusion, asking yourself if that person deserves as much of you or your time in their life might be necessary.   It sounds harsh but we all have our drains and radiators in our lives.  The people that sap our energy and leave us feeling drained and depleted and those that give us energy and make us feel good.   We can't always just cut people out of our lives willy nilly and it's certainly not always necessary. There are a lot of steps before that point.  However, I am a big fan of loving some people from a distance when you know it's best for you.   Something else to think about is, are you able to step into their shoes and see what's going on for them?     Is there a potential valid reason for them behaving selfishly? There are SO many reasons that are often really acceptable when you take a step back and see if from their perspective.   A lot of selfish behaviour could be conditioning or put down to assumption or lack of communication, it could be It could also be due to a lack of empathy. When selfishness is due to a lack of empathy it's unlikely to change because they simply can't put themselves in your shoes and understand why the behaviour is damaging.    It's always important to consider in any interaction that triggers you in any way is asking yourself, what are you making it mean? What assumptions are you making?  What is underlying the discomfort or trigger? What feelings are there for you?   Communication, communication, communication. There's so much that goes unsaid that could be so easily solved if it was talked about. We have to learn how to do that. Start small, dip your toe in the water, if it's relevant, use a mediator, couples or family therapist to help you have the conversations and learn that it's safe to do so.   A lot of it is about learning to be assertive and ask for what you want and or need.   Boundaries play into this hugely too.  Identifying your own needs and being able to articulate them.    Remembering your part in the interaction is important, because we always have some responsibility.  Please remember also responsibility isn't about blame. Like in the earlier example, When people get used to you being the person to organise, they often just expect you to continue doing it and might not even consider it.    But if you don't communicate what you'd prefer, or how it would make you feel, then they can never know and therefore DO any better.    Ask yourself if they're even aware of their behaviour. If they really knew and understood how they had affected you, how might they feel and what might they do differently?  Are you giving them that opportunity?   Remember that the only person whose behaviour you can ever control in any way is your own!  All you can do is communicate your wants, needs and boundaries, the rest is up to them.    There is also such a thing as healthy selfishness. Are they simply trying to make sure their own needs are met? The more you're able to meet your own needs, the more able and capable you are to look after others. It's the age old put your own mask on first before trying to help others. You're better equipped when your own cup is full.    Remember, sometimes when someone might accuse another person of being selfish it's simply due to their unmet needs. It's not necessarily about what's wrong or right because everyone has a different map of the world that they're operating from.    There's always another perspective to everything. It's not always convenient but it's always worth looking at.   The bottom line leads back to communication. If you can communicate your needs and someone can't meet them, you have choices.    You're more than worthy of being treated how you treat others, and looked after how you look after others…sometimes people need a little nudge and help to see that.     Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Change Can Be Fast And Long Lasting   Change CAN be fast and long lasting.    A lot of real, lasting change takes time. It takes effort and energy. Deeply ingrained patterns and neural pathways take time to rewire.   Consistency is key.   HOWEVER…change can ALSO be very fast and long lasting.   This is the idea that you push yourself and give yourself the total opposite experience than your brain or nervous system might expect and you instantly expand.    You don't ping back.   It's similar when you learn something new that blows a belief out the water.   The issue is the pull to NOT push yourself outside your comfort zone can be SO strong that we don't do it.   I feel in a very privileged position to have known this information for a long time.   I definitely used to be the err on the side of caution type.  I used to be the ‘I could never do that type'.   Until I knew and really understood that I didn't have to be.   That we are all absolutely capable of change.   As you'll probably know I've been giving myself PLENTY of these experiences lately and if you're on my email list you've been getting my regular updates and encouragement to have a think about what you might want to do to push yourself out of the ‘I could never do that' camp.    I have never been great at travel.  I'd never travelled on a plane anywhere by myself.    I'd never booked an entire trip of many moving pieces by myself.   I consider myself an incredibly capable person but this has always been a bit of a blocker for me.   Until now.    And now I'm planning my next adventure.   I said before I left that I was really excited to see who I was going to be when I got back.   This is exactly what I meant.   Instead of worrying or feeling like I couldn't do anything I had the attitude that I could overcome anything that felt uncomfortable and it would only be uncomfortable short term.   I took the trip of an absolute lifetime and I did it myself.   I had an amazing opportunity land in my lap and initially brushed it off as wishful thinking.     Until it wasn't.    I flew 9 hours long haul to Nairobi by myself.    A friend picked me up a the airport so I felt safe (obviously super important with solo travel, make sure you do your due diligence and have back up plans)   I then hand fed giraffes.    I touched orphaned baby elephants.    I went to lovely bars and restaurants.    I organised, booked and went on a 3 day group safari to the Masai Mara by myself with total strangers. Travelling hours away from anyone and anything I knew and I saw THE most incredible things.   It's been a lifelong dream as an animal fanatic to go on safari and it didn't disappoint.   I noticed I had zero desire to be on social media and allowed myself to really be in the present.   I watched a family of baboons from my balcony on the first day and a family of giraffes the next.    It was baby season out there so I saw baby Zebras, hippos, elephants, giraffes, I saw hyenas, buffalo, cheetahs, leopards, lions and so much more all in their natural habitat. I had a baby chameleon cling to my finger.   In fact, now I mention it and I'm back, I really should spam some of these things to my instagram stories. Ha!   And talking of Lions, our truck got stuck in a hole and in order to get it out, which took some serious manpower, we had to get out and walk across the brush to another truck. We had eyes on two male lions…and then there was one!   I asked for adventure and boy did I get it. How many people can say they saw Lions in the wild on foot ha!   I walked up the Ngong hills. Bought beads from the Masai people. Went to busy bustling markets. I went all over Nairobi in ubers by myself.   Trust me when I say the Ubers in Nairobi are not the same as the UK.   It was a huge culture shock at times.   It was hugely confronting at times due to the extreme wealth and most extreme poverty I've seen.   My privilege smacked me right in the face on so many occasions.   I was absolutely humbled on many more.   I am a different person.   I'm even more resilient than ever before.    If I had stopped at ‘I could never do that' I would have denied myself this entire experience and I genuinely feel like a totally new human being.   I feel capable of anything.   I feel energised.    It was exactly the shift I was looking for.   And what I really want you to take from this is that I am absolutely no different to you.   It's just a series of choices we make and one step at a time in the direction of them.   Allowing ourselves to shift and change and form new neural pathways in the process.   This change was FAST, but made with INTENTION.   And I already know it will be long lasting, I feel it in my bones.    Yes, there are always things that might require a little longer but my goodness once you start providing yourself, your brain and your nervous system what's possible the opportunities become endless.   More resilience, confidence, bravery, steadfastness, stability, boundaries, optimism even in the face of adversity.    It's all waiting.    I'm not saying you need to take a huge solo trip half way across the world, but what could you do today to prove that it's possible?   One of my favourite things to remind people is who you are today isn't who you have to be tomorrow.    So what do you wanna do? And who do you wanna be? Who do you need to be and what needs to happen to make it happen?   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Essential Listening   Today i'm doing something a little bit different and i'm going to keep it short and sweet because I'm sending you elsewhere.   It's occurred to me that there are approximately 300 episodes of The Positive Pants Podcast.   300!!!!   That's a LOT to listen to and I feel like sometimes it's hard to know where to start.   Particularly if you're new here and wanting to bag yourself some quick wins in understanding yourself and understanding how you tick as a human and how to create lasting change and find that sweet sweet self compassion that so many of us are chasing.   There are a few episodes that I believe are essential reading and they will all be linked up in the show notes.   When you fundamentally understand the themes in these episodes a whole world opens up in my opinion.   So the episodes I've picked to get you the quickest wins are as follows.   Number one, i've recommended a fair few times but I really believe it's fundamental to anyone's healing journey and that is my interview with Stefan Chmelik, inventor of the Sensate device.    This is a great episode where we dig into how the nervous system works.  Why some people really struggle to meditate and how to start to heal your nervous system to become a calmer, less anxious more resilient version of yourself.   The second episode i've picked is How Are You Wiring Your Brain. It's so fundamental to figure out what's driving your thoughts and behaviour because so much of it is easily changed with a shift in what we're wiring in on a daily basis.    The third is What Is The Enneagram And How Can It Help. I'm always talking about how self awareness is the number one thing that you need when it comes to changing anything in your life. I dig into how The Enneagram profiling tool is a HUGE short cut to that. It really is a gamechanger.   The fourth is Why You Are Not Your Thoughts.  Most people go through life just blindly believing every thought that pops into their heads.  It's perfectly natural and how were wired on autopilot BUT when you can grasp how wrong this is, again, it can super charge your healing process.    And I think those 4 are more than enough to get you on your way to knowing with absolute certainty that you're capable of change, you're capable of anything!    And as always, thank you so much for being here!    Fx  

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ The Art Of Letting Go   Following on from last week's episode about how to know when it's worth persevering or changing course, I thought it might be helpful to go through the art of actually letting go.   It's one thing knowing it's the right thing for you to do but it's a whole other ball game actually doing it.   And it can be tricky…and it can also take its sweet time!   It can feel really frustrating but your body needs to catch up with your mind.   Whether you've decided it's time to move on from something or been forced to for other reasons it's absolutely a process!   Cognitively you might be ready to move on but your nervous system might still be scanning for whether it's safe to or not!  Which is where both the cognitive and somatic work comes in to help speed up the process.   Using your mind AND your body to heal.   It's not a process you can judge by anyone else's standards. It's unique to you.    But holding on to pain never helped anybody.   There's a phrase I love that's ‘nobody ever drowned by falling into the ocean.  They drowned by staying there.'   You have to let the inevitable grieving happen.  However long that takes.    Even when it comes to something that other people might not think is a huge deal, it might be to us.    Even if someone thinks we should just ‘get over it'. It's not up to them.   It takes as long as it takes to really let go.    From my own experience it's a really gradual process and then one day you realise there's no pain anymore.    The feelings are very neutral and calm.   Even if you might still be in the eye of the storm at times!   So what can we do to make sure we're remaining conscious and helping the process along as best we can?   Firstly, acknowledge that it's happened and the decision has been made.  You may feel like you're flip flopping at times just before you're clear. This is when you lean on the people who know you best and who will be a willing sounding board for your thoughts and feelings.    It's totally natural.   Next it's very very helpful to consciously seek out the positive lessons that you've learned in the process.    Even if they may have been tough lessons. What's changed in terms of what you will or won't accept in the future.  How will it mean things will be different next time you're in a similar situation?   Always make sure you check in with the stories you're telling yourself and if they're actually true.  What are you making it mean about yourself? Whether you're leaving a relationship and will be single again, what are you making that mean?     Or if you've decided you don't want to run a business anymore or stay in your career.    What are you making that mean?  What story is there around what other people will make it mean?   A hugely important part is to recognise what your non-negotiables are now, and how the previous situation wasn't meeting them or your needs. Always helpful to know that despite it potentially feeling painful, it's not what you wanted anymore and you get to dream and visualise what you do want now!   On that…it's really important to make sure you're not looking at the past with rose tinted glasses.  There may have been some amazing positives but what wasn't right for you?  How long were things hard, or you feeling unhappy   My favourite part is to start to get excited about your future and all the new opportunities ahead of you that simply wouldn't have been there without needing to let go of this situation first.  Things you can do now that you couldn't before.   A HUGE one is to allow yourself to be supported.  Don't try and do it all on your own.  Allow yourself the space you need but don't shy away and isolate yourself.   Prioritise YOU.  Your needs, your wants. This is YOU time and that won't last forever. Embrace it and take full advantage.   Recognise any guilt, shame or blame you're piling on top of the situation and challenge it as if you were a casual observer of the situation and not so personally invested in it.   Don't get attached to a timeline of being on ‘the other side' of it. These things take time and that's ok.   Look for what you can be grateful for from the situation or by getting out of it.   Seek the stories from people who have been through similar and come out the other side, bigger, better and stronger for it. The people who are challenging the status quo and showing the positives of a situation that aren't often talked about.   Remember these feelings are only temporary.  Don't judge yourself for having down days. Cry. Scream.    Take any responsibility that yours to take, and nothing more. Forgive yourself for whatever you need to forgive yourself for in the situation. You didn't know better or couldn't do better then, you do and you can now and moving forwards.   Practice emotional and nervous system regulation MORE now. This is the time to double down and help your nervous system catch up with your mind.  EFT, hypnotherapy, Heartmath, making sure you're moving your body are all my first port of call.    Recognise what was within your control and what wasn't in the situation.   Do the healing work.   Keep yourself busy but not out of avoidance. Do it in a positive way. Fill your time with things you're looking forward to. Go see new places, spend time with people, do new things, learn a new skill.    And finally, remember you never know what amazing things can come from a situation that might feel awful at the time. Hold on to that and allow yourself to be excited. Good things are coming if you let them.   And as i've recorded this i'm practicing exactly what I preach and i've put myself way out of my comfort zone on a long haul solo trip. I've done something I never would have before. I've pushed myself out of my comfort zone solidly towards post traumatic growth. And I couldn't be happier and more content.   Even though I'm still in the eye of the storm in many ways. The focus is on the light at the end of the tunnel and I couldn't be more excited.    Know that's available for you too.    Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ How To Know If The Perseverance Worth It   Is the perseverance worth it?   Is that feeling of trundling through, wading through treacle to get to what you think you want, or what you used to want…is that still the right thing for you?   Sometimes we find ourselves keeping on keeping on in situations that actually might not be right for us.   We may feel tired, anxious, low, beaten down, but we still keep going.   It's so easy to just keep going with something and try to just ignore any negative feelings you might be having.   And also, not taking a deep dive into what they might REALLY mean.   This is one of the many, many reasons why self awareness is so important and building that neural pathway where you question your thoughts, beliefs, behaviours and why you might be doing something.   It doesn't necessarily mean that it's wrong for you. But it might be a clear indicator that something needs addressing.   We do this in all areas of life, our careers, relationships, friendships, our businesses, where we're living etc.    We often just keep going instead of analysing if something is REALLY working for us   It can feel like flogging a dead horse sometimes, but often even that isn't enough to get you to really look at it.   You might be still following a path in your business that someone else told you was the right thing.   You might be in a relationship and you've noticed you're unhappy more than you're happy.   You might be in a career and your feelings and values have shifted and it doesn't align for you anymore.   This is the thing with being human and growth being a part of that It means we're constantly growing and evolving and we change.   Our outlook changes   Our perspective changes.   Our views on what we think is right and wrong shifts.   Our needs shift.   Our attitudes shift and what we find important.   It's totally normal to feel like things are ‘off' sometimes when you take all of this into account.    Society praises longevity a lot of the time which keeps people moving in a direction that's not right for them anymore.    Longevity has absolutely nothing to do with happiness and it's a really important distinction to make.   The real flex is being able to say ‘this isn't what I want anymore' and then doing something about it.   That's the brave part!    That's when you'll inspire other people.   Not sticking at something when you're not happy.   Being able to ask yourself, am I staying in this situation or on this path because I think I SHOULD? What or who is making me feel that way?    You know the saying, change only happens when the pain of staying where you are outweighs the pain of the change itself.    And it's so true. We often have to reach that point where it's almost unbearable to stay where we're at.   It's only then that we start going, hang on what the fudge is going on here?!   And then the question quickly turns to ‘and what can I do about it?'   So how do we get there WITHOUT having to reach that point?   It all comes back to asking yourself great questions.   Which is a skill, and one you can quickly develop, this is where journaling is so helpful. Along with working with someone like a coach, therapist or counseller where they can help you fast track the process.   The better questions you learn to ask yourself the more you'll be able to identify if sticking with something and persevering is worth it for you in the long run.   You'll be able to identify if it's the right thing for you but it's just going to take some time vs not moving on due to sunk cost fallacy (scroll down for the episode I did specifically on that!)   So here's a few questions for you to journal and/or ponder on to get those cogs ticking.   Feel free to do this for each of the key areas of your life,  Work, relationships, friendships etc.   Are you happy now where you're at?   Can you see yourself being happy in the future following the same path?   Does it still excite you?   What's right about the situation?  What IS working for you and why?   What's wrong about the situation? What really isn't working for you and why?  How would the alternative feel?   How do you feel about not being in the situation?   What are the potential positive possibilities if you take a different path?   What are the stories about what is negative about not continuing down this path?  As in what are you making it mean about yourself?  What are you making it mean for other people?  What are you making it mean in the context of society?     What are the feelings you have when you think of staying on this path?  Notice how it feels in your body and where you feel it. Can you name it?   What are the feelings you have when you think about NOT staying in this situation?   When I imagine myself 1 year, or 5 years into the future staying on this path, how am I feeling?  Am I happy?   Then the big question…What can I do about it?  What do I want to do about it?  What WILL I do about it?   Then future pace that too. How do you feel?   Life is always leaving us clues but we need to ask ourselves better questions, dig a little deeper and discover the truth beyond our conditioning.    A whole world of magic lives there.   And I'm not going to lie to you and tell you it's always pretty on the way, it's not.    But the question is, is it worth it?   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Why Reflection Is An Essential Part Of Growth   It may not sound like a big deal at all to skip the reflection piece of the puzzle when you're doing any form of personal growth.   You might think ‘Oh I'll remember'.    But I promise you, skipping this step is a mistake.   It's incredibly important.   Of course the first part is to have a record of where you were at when you started. This is one of the reasons I love journaling so much. It doubles up as your very own personal timeline and also, when you reflect back it also serves as a visible interpretation of improvement and positive things.   It's so, SO easy to forget where we've come from.   Especially when you don't feel like you're exactly where you want to be just yet.   This honestly applies to any area of your life.    I've had a few instances lately where I've reflected on something and been genuinely amazed at where I'm at now.   I really hope it gives you a nudge to do the same and serves as evidence that if you put in the work, anything is possible.   One of the BIG things that has happened recently is I've booked to go do something which is WILDLY out of character.    It's absolutely not something that Fran of even 6 months ago would have felt able to do.    Or even considered being able to do.   Firstly, I'm going on a solo trip. If you're on my email list you'll know what I'm talking about. If you WANT to be on my email list head to www.franexcell.com and scroll down and nab any freebie that catches your eye.    We have the procrastination buster, Journaling 101, How to discover your Enneagram type and a few more. Links are also in the show notes but go have a peruse and you'll hear all about my adventures and get some inspiration into your inbox every wednesday.   Anyhoo…back to it. I've never travelled by plane anywhere by myself…ever.    Flying and airports have always given me anxiety, all my Enneagram sixes out there will get this.    I'd check I had my passport about a million times, i'd worry about missing the plane, or going to the wrong place, or being late, I wasn't great with take off, I'd get there at least 2 hours early and always worry I didn't have enough time, i'd worry about not knowing where to go and find transport the other side, waiting for my bag to come out on the carousel was torture because I'd always imagine it was lost.    You get the idea, it was painful. But always less so with someone else there.    For a highly independent person this has always been a bit of a conundrum ha!   So…I have organised a huge trip, long haul, lots of different elements to it, and i'm doing it solo.    I also couldn't be more excited.    It's things like this that when you reflect back really show you how much the time, energy and effort have hugely paid off.   I'm always saying to clients, there's a time in the future where you forget this was ever hard.    And it's so true.    It's so easy to forget how much you've overcome, how much you've grown, how far you've come.    But at the same time, do not give yourself enough credit because you're not the finished product yet.   Spoiler alert there is no finished product. ;-) Life is about constantly growing and evolving, which is another reason this reflection piece is so important.   The other thing that got me reflecting on my own growth is linked to this but absolutely game changingly huge.   I've had a really bad needle phobia since I was little.    It was really intense, I could descend from being a fully fledged adult to regressing into being a scared child in seconds.   If I ever had to have any medical procedures I had to have gas and air before they'd be able to get the cannula in. I'd literally be scared of my hand and cry when I woke up.   I'd put off anything that required blood tests. Which is not great.   I have never travelled anywhere that required vaccinations because I was too scared to get them, it wasn't worth it.   I was missing out on things I really wanted to do because of it.   Not great.   So then Covid hits and I know I have to figure it out.    I was desperate to not have the vaccination.   I went at the last possible minute and having to wait in the long queue building up all the anticipation was NOT pretty by the time I got to the front.   I couldn't avoid dealing with it any more.    I thought to myself, which was very reminiscent of my moment in 2014 when I started to do this work, I thought ‘I can heal this' I know what to do, I can do it.   So I used EFT and self hypnosis to work through each element of this phobia that I'd had since I was 2 years old.  I held the intention it was going to work.   I used it to work on what I already knew.    I used it every time I thought about having to go again.   I used it every time I went.   I cleared it all out.    It wasn't instant.   It was an effort.   But in the last 2 weeks I've booked a trip somewhere I knew I'd need 4 vaccinations.   And I went and got them.   By myself.   No treats.   No hyperventilating.   No anxiety.   Done.    3 of them were in the same 5 minutes.   So this is my long and convoluted way of saying.   The work is worth it.    Stick with it.   Whether it's clearing a block to help you do amazing things in your life or business.   Or it's clearing a life long phobia that's stopping you from living the life you deserve to live.   Or it's working on being able to leave a situation that's making you unhappy.   Or healing from trauma.   It's SO worth it to LIVE.   But reflection and self awareness is absolutely essential to being able to recognise how far you've come.   So often when doing this work the changes are subtle and build over time. O call it ‘slow and low'.    It's not the big grand ‘I am healed' that you see marketing to you that just leaves you feeling inadequate when it doesn't happen for you.   It's the slow and low stuff that unless you stop to notice, you might miss.   The way you reacted differently to something.   The thing that would normally trigger you didn't.   You feel calmer in situations where you used to feel anxious.   But you only see these when you look with intention!   So please, if you have a few minutes today, grab your journal and start thinking through things like this where you've not allowed yourself to notice the epic job you've already done.   It takes time. But if you keep going you WILL get there!    And in a few weeks time I'll be able to give you more lessons and reflections that come from my wildly out of character trip.   In a few months I'll be able to share more about my lessons and growth from everything else that's been going on in my life.    Because that's the beauty, the lessons that you find in the discomfort of growth.   It's glorious, don't deny yourself those moments.   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ How To Forgive Yourself   How to forgive yourself.     I'm going to put a little trigger warning on this episode in case you're going through something on the heavy side at the moment and feeling a little more on the delicate side.    Please look after yourself and only listen when you're ready.    This is close to home for myself and people I love at the moment and it's something i've learned is important over the years of letting myself suffer needlessly and also through my study in this field over the last 8 years that is is in fact something you have more control over than you're giving yourself credit for.   There are a LOT of inevitable times in our lives when we didn't behave in a way that shone us in our best light.   There are inevitable times where we've been in situations where we've let things happen or enabled behaviour that we wish we wouldn't have.   We can spend a lot of time blaming ourselves for situations that we find ourselves in.    This could be in relationships, in your business or work, in friendships, family, the way we treat ourselves, the way we treat others, the way we allow ourselves to be treated.   The things we might need to forgive ourselves for can be a bit of an endless list.   But there is so much power and liberation in forgiving yourself.   You need to acknowledge that there will be countless versions of you in this lifetime.    Each change and identity shift or upgrade comes through growth and lessons, usually via a scary or painful catalyst.    Holding onto a grudge towards yourself just adds more pain, with no outcome.   Punishing yourself or berating yourself is a surefire way to you not living the life you're capable of and deserve.   I've forgiven myself for MANY things in my relatively short lifetime so far, and even knowing what I know now about myself, human behaviour and the way we tick as humans, will have to forgive myself for in the future.   We're humans. We make mistakes. We make mistakes repeatedly!    We accept behaviour that we shouldn't.    We stay in situations we shouldn't.   We say things in the heat of the moment.   It's human.   But how do we start to forgive ourselves for our human moments and mistakes?   We start by taking any responsibility that's ours to take.    By that I mean ONLY what's ours to take and recognising what isn't ours and wasn't within our control.   Apologise for what's yours to apologise for.   Yes it can be confronting. But it's also freeing.   Self reflection is a huge part of self forgiveness.    Look at the situation and your own behaviour with curiosity over judgement.    Recognise where it really wasn't your fault!   Where and how does the behaviour make sense?  (You might find it incredibly helpful to work with a therapist or counsellor for this part to help you unpick it because it will be there!)   Focus on moving forwards. Being grateful for the lessons and acknowledging that you aren't the same person with the same wiring after this experience.    You are not destined to make the same mistakes again if you work on being conscious and self aware and seek to understand yourself.   A huge part of forgiving yourself is allowing yourself to understand your behaviour, emotions and what drives them.     It becomes a lot harder to hold onto resentment, guilt and shame towards yourself when you really see what was going on underneath it and where it makes sense.   How was that behaviour trying to protect you?     Or repeat a familiar pattern?     What was that behaviour trying to help you avoid?   Whether it was good for you or not you're wired for your own safety!   Are you blaming yourself for something that absolutely wasn't your fault?   It's SO incredibly easy to do this, particularly when it comes to many forms of abuse. You are not responsible for having to predict other people's behaviour.    I've forgiven myself for all sorts of things, some of which include my eating disorder from 16-18, my hideous anxiety I had through my teens and twenties, getting into abusive relationships, staying in toxic relationships, allowing myself to be used, allowing myself to be bullied, the way i've treated and abused my body, things i've said and done to other people, destructive behaviours, where i've given up on things. So many things.     It's an incredibly powerful thing to learn to do.    Forgive yourself for what you did when you were in survival mode.     Forgive yourself for the times you didn't know better.    Don't bottle it up inside and let it eat away at you. Your body will store it and it will show up in all sorts of other ways! Anxiety, illness, aches and pains. Speak to someone non judgemental who can help you process anything that needs processing so you can truly move on.   What really matters is not what's already done but what you choose to do next.   Treat yourself with the same compassion you'd treat a friend in a similar situation.    How will you make sure you won't repeat the same pattern in the future?   Self reflection is super important in making sure you really process your emotions and have as much information as possible that will help you not repeat the same behaviour if you know you don't want to.   Being able to really take a step back and grab the lessons with both hands.    You only know what you know…until you know different!  That's when everything can change.    It doesn't mean you'll never make a mistake, treat someone badly or allow them to treat you badly.   It does mean you'll be able to recognise it more quickly and with more compassion.   Learning to forgive yourself can have profound effects on all areas of your life. Your emotional, mental and physical health.    Ask yourself what benefits there are to holding on and not forgiving yourself.    What story are you telling yourself about what happens if you do forgive yourself?   Are you telling yourself the same situation will happen again? Where might you unconsciously be holding on intentionally and why?   Also ask yourself if you would hold someone else to the same standard you're holding yourself to in this situation.    We often hold ourselves to a higher standard than we would anyone else and it's important to catch that and recognise it.   And as always, with anything we do round here, practice emotional regulation and make sure your nervous system is in a good place. The Positive Pants toolkit is ready and waiting for you at just £9.99 per month with tonnes of tools and techniques to help you do just that. The link is in my bio but it's also in the app store.   Forgiving yourself might feel a million miles away from where you're at right now but you will get there! I did!    You deserve the peace and freedom that comes with forgiving yourself!   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Things I Wish I'd Known Sooner   There are so many things I know now that, had I known sooner, would have saved me a lot of time, energy, heartache and stress.   We put ourselves through so much just in our own heads and it's only on the other side of the growth that we get that amazing gift of hindsight and can look back and see with more clarity.   We can see the lessons.    We have the lightbulb moments.   When I started this podcast that was my biggest aim.    To help people see that it's so possible for things to change.   So I thought i'd share 25 of my favourite things that I wish I had known sooner with you today.   It's ok to love what you love. Other people will love it and you will find them.  Be your very own special brand of weird and embrace it.    School wasn't set up to nurture ‘different'.  It doesn't mean you're wrong or not good enough, it usually means the opposite. When you read the autobiographies or pay attention to the stories of a lot of the most successful people around you'll see the patterns. More often than not they were not in the popular crowd. They were the outcasts. The quiet ones or the people who didn't fit in. Whatever people told you about who you were when you were young, it means nothing. What are YOU going to decide about who you are?   You have way more control over your life and outcomes than you believe.  We are ruled by our unconscious programming, but the more you decode it, the more in the drivers seat you are. Learn the inner workings of your SELF! It's far more important than you realise.    Growth is always in the things you're scared to do. Not the things you're already great at.  Get excited about what's on the other side. Sometimes the things we're scared to do are exactly the things we need to do.    Friendships go in ebbs and flows. People come into and leave your life. It can be really sad but if you're in a different stage of your friendship right now, it doesn't mean it will always be that way. Either way it's ok.    Spend less time with the people that make you feel not good enough and more time with the people who make you feel ‘you'. It's never worth the pain of feeling like it's not ok to be you and you'll just reinforce that time and time again. Stick with the people who make you feel like sunshine!   Time with the people you love is not something to take for granted. Work and purpose are great, but not at the expense of time.    You can learn to regulate your emotions and rewire your brain and nervous system and when you do it will change your whole life!   Curiosity is a huge key to your own happiness. When you seek to understand yourself and other people, everything gets much clearer and less judgemental.    The people who are the most successful are the people who are the most comfortable being uncomfortable and the most ok with failing, making mistakes and getting things wrong. It's more than ok to make mistakes!    Communication is a skill and one of the most important ones that you can learn.  Actively learn to listen and communicate.  So much of this is shut down when we're young. It's something the majority of us need to relearn as adults.   Fear has nothing to do with who we are as people. It's not part of our identity. It's a protection mechanism and when you learn the tools to regulate your nervous system, fear has no control over you.   Discomfort means growth is coming. You literally can't have one without the other. It's part of the process. You can absolutely learn to embrace that discomfort as a positive thing!   It's impossible for everyone to like you. Stop trying to make them.    There are no fixed timelines for you to ‘make it' or feel like you have your ‘stuff' together.  Restart. Trust it can lead you somewhere great. It usually does.   It's ok to take a break when you need one. In fact, it's essential. Listen to your body.    Your thoughts influence your physiological reactions and vice vers leading directly to your actions. The quality of your thoughts correlate directly to the state of your nervous system and vice versa. Heal your nervous system, change your thoughts.   There's no point holding on to regrets. Focus on what you learned and move on. There's always something positive to find there and rumination doesn't change anything.   It's ok to change your mind ad decid you want or need something different.   Sometimes not getting what you want is a huge blessing in disguise and leads you somewhere far better.    Don't compare yourself to anyone else and ignore nuance. There is SO much you don't know about what or who you're comparing yourself to. You are not comparing apples with apples. It's an absolute waste of time. Just because someone SAYS they're happy, doesn't mean they are.    Know your values and make sure you live them.  Not living in alignment with your values is a sure fire path to unhappiness and anxiety.   Bad days and negative emotions are totally normal.    The simple things are often the most effective. Don't overcomplicate things when you don't have to.   You are and always have been good enough.   There are probably a million more but these are some of my favourites that have well and truly stuck with me. I hope they stick with you too.   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Reframing Wasting' Time   Fear about ‘wasting time' is something I'm hearing time and time again at the moment. Pun intended.   As a society we're so wired to be busy and rushing around all the time. People often wear it as a badge of honour.    If you're not busy then you're doing something wrong.    Thinking this way has taken away some of the simple joys in life for many so I wanted to do a little reframing of the ways that people might perceive to be ‘wasting' time that in fact, are doing wonders for our mental, and physical health.   I'd love that the next time you allow yourself to ‘waste' some yourself, that you feel good about it.   Mathematician and philosopher Bertrand Russel said it best when he said, ‘The time you enjoy wasting, is not wasted time.'   As always, this is nuanced. There are some very real reasons that we fear this. Often chaos is encoded into our nervous system as the baseline of safety so it's always going to seek it in order to stay alive.   This is where deep healing work and self awareness comes into play and if you think that might be going on I highly recommend talking with your therapist about it and doing some research because it's actually very common.    It's also very changeable but it starts with the self awareness to recognise that you find it incredibly difficult to allow yourself to rest or relax.    I do feel like the tide is turning with the rise of JOMO, Joy Of Missing Out.    I believe the only ‘wasted' time is the time where you TELL yourself you're wasting it and then by proxy, don't enjoy it.   I hear people all the time saying they're giving themselves time to relax, but when you dig a little deeper, that time ‘relaxing' was actually spent mentally beating yourself up.    Or overthinking something you need to do and have been putting off.    Or researching something you're going to do.   We can even look at the time we spend looking after ourselves as wasted time too.   So what do we do about this?   As usual it's good old self awareness for the win.    Imagine that moment when the guilt switched to realising you're enjoying yourself, and ALLOWING it to happen.   What would you do?   Would you chase some creative pursuits or start learning a new skill…even if you're rubbish at it to begin with?   What are you wiring in?   You're wiring that it's ok to not nail something on the first try. You're wiring that it's beneficial and enjoyable to have a beginner's mind. You're wiring that you can GET good at something over time.    Would you spend time reading?   What are you wiring in?   You're wiring that it's ok to take time for you. You're wiring that you are allowed to take time for something you enjoy. Whether it's learning with non-fiction or a little escapism with fiction.    Would you be able to spend time with friends or family, even if you did nothing in particular?   I love doing this. Just chilling out with friends. Whether it's spending a whole day in the pub just chatting, or having a pajama party and watching a movie.    Some people might consider that wasted time and that you should ‘do' more with it, but I really believe the opposite.    I believe these times are SO important because it allows you to just be!   Not have to perform in any way. Be nothing and no one but totally yourself. Be in the company of people you love.    There's so much pressure around us to ‘be' or ‘do' or ‘perform' a certain way when a  lot of the time our bodies or minds are screaming out to do less and rest more.    The only way out of this cycle is awareness.    As you're thinking about things that you have often previously thought of as ‘wasting' your time, even if you enjoyed it, what comes to mind for you?   What would you do more of if you didn't think of it that way?   What would be on your ‘wasting time' list?    How much more joy would it bring into your life?   What difference could or would it make to how you feel?   How can you bring your inner child in to play with it too?   What did you LOVE doing as a kid that you stopped?   Could you get back into it?   The bottom line is if it's something you enjoy doing, it's NOT wasted time.    Cliche as it sounds we really do only get this one life. You're all here because you want to feel more positive right?   It can be so much easier than we think and it starts with awareness, curiosity and the willingness to challenge your, other people's and society's opinions.    Call BS on what you don't agree with and go chase that joy!   If joy lives in chilling out, peace, ease and flexibility like it does for me…amazing.   If joy lives in sitting in nature just watching and listening to the scenery…amazing.   If joy lives in taking yourself for dinner by yourself or people watching in cafes…amazing.   If joy for you lives in spending hours learning a new skill and still being bad at it…amazing!   If joy for you lives in doodling in notebooks that will never see the light of day…amazing.   If joy lives in writing, with no intention of ever publishing…amazing.   If joy for you lives in naps and pajama parties for one…amazing.    We really need to get to know ourselves on a far deeper level and give ourselves permission to do the things we enjoy.    Knowledge really is power in this instance.    You just need to see this behaviour in your kids to see the happiness it brings, the good that it does and development it creates.    The same still applies as adults! We just lost that gift over time due to other people's and societies opinions of what we ‘should' be doing with our time and what counts as high value or low value tasks.    We get to take that decision back.   Nothing you enjoy doing is ever wasted time! Let go of the guilt and do more of it!   See how much of a difference it makes.   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ What Is Mental Fitness   What is mental fitness?   I was listening to a podcast with Simon Sinek recently where he was talking about preferring the term ‘mental fitness' to ‘mental health' or ‘mental illness'.   And I'm SO in agreement.   So much work still needs to be done and so much still needs to change when it comes to the stigma attached to working on yourself and struggling for any period of time emotionally or mentally.   The idea that there's something ‘wrong' with you or fundamentally flawed or broken for experiencing things that are simply part of the human experience.   For having a bad day. A bad week. A bad month.   Struggling when something is going on in your life where it would ABSOULUTELY make sense for you to struggle, feel pain or challenging emotions.   Having what people may call ‘negative' emotions.   Judging ourselves for experiencing anxiety, which at it's core is our human alarm system and trying to alert us that something needs attention.   Managing reactivity and triggers.   Not being totally happy with where you're at.   There's nothing ‘wrong' with you.    We simply haven't been taught how to handle being a human a lot of the time.   This is why I'm so passionate about helping people shift the way they think about things.   Fundamentally shifting the lens that you look at life and yourself through.   Understanding why you the things that you do, or feel what you feel WITHOUT the judgement.   It's the judgement piled on top of the emotions that makes everything feel so much worse.   The focus on concerns over being judged by other people, as if you need to hide something.   That it's ‘bad' or YOU'RE ‘bad' if you experience it.   We're taught it's not ok to not be ok.    But also, let's be honest, the judgement from yourself is usually way worse.   So, we work on our health and fitness when we realise it's important in having a happy, long life right?   We might be more conscious of what we eat, move our bodies, and exercise.    Hopefully in a sustainable way that's something we can easily incorporate into our day to day lives and we can create sustainable habits.   Not all or nothing.    Not beating ourselves into submission from the perspective of not being enough.   But either way, we're praised for healthy choices, even when sometimes it's to the detriment of other things.   We're complimented for weight loss, even if it's come through disordered eating.   We're seen as ‘better' in some way because we're looking after ourselves.   So why doesn't the same thing apply to our mental health and fitness?   I believe it's starting to.    But the important shift is how we look at it on an individual level.    Society will catch up.   You need to start with the question, what does mental fitness look like to you?   Is it clear thinking and decision making?   Is it the ability to not beat yourself up for getting something wrong or having a down day?   Is it deciding to do what's right for you in the moment in spite of self sabotage?   Mental fitness to me are the things that you consciously do that you know are good for you.   It's actually utilising the knowledge that you can retrain and rewire your brain and that it will feel hard and clunky at first but the effort pays off.   It's the ability to allow yourself a human moment and understand why it's there, without the judgement.   What could it look like if you were consciously improving your mental fitness as well as your physical?   What if you treated those as the same thing?   Watching what you eat vs watching what you feed your brain.   Moving your body for your muscles vs moving your body to move stagnant energy and emotions through you and benefitting from those lovely endorphins.   Diet culture is, for the most part, inherently toxic. And unfortunately, the mental health space can be too. This is another reason I like to think of it as mental fitness.   When you're working on your fitness levels specifically it's not always just for aesthetic reasons.  It's not as much extrinsic than it is intrinsic.   You're doing it for different reasons than trying to lose weight.   That's the way I choose to think of it anyway.   When I started working out I was doing it to have a better quality of life. To aid the health of my rickety arthritic knees. To FEEL better. To know my internal organs are healthier.   I've lost a stone and a half but as a nice side effect.   It wasn't my explicit goal.   My goal was to be able to walk for longer than 30 minutes without having to pay for it for 3 days. I'm now up to 2.5 hours and only having to pay for it for about an hour after.   Do you see the difference?   Diet culture comes from a place of you not being acceptable or good enough as you are. That you have to look a certain way to be accepted and acceptable.   The mental health space can absolutely do the same.    Which is SO counter intuitive.   It can make you feel like if you're not meditating for an hour, journaling for another hour, doing breathwork for 30 minutes, taking a cold plunge, doing yoga, getting out into nature, reading non-fiction for an hour, reading fiction for an hour, visualising, Heartmath every single day, and if you're not…then you're doing it ‘wrong' and hey presto…guess what, you're not good enough.   These concepts in and of themselves are all great things, they really are, I talk about all of them a lot.    But not about doing them at the expense of your life. And in all honesty as ironic as I know it sounds…not at the expense of your mental health!   And not as a tool to beat yourself up with.   It sounds EXHAUSTING right?   It sounds like a full time job in and of itself.   The bottom line is scientific studies have proven that even just a few minutes of a lot of these things is incredibly beneficial.   So to me, working on your mental fitness involves the discernment to be able to know, and do, what's best and right for you.   I say it a lot and i'll say it until the cows come home.   You have to find what's right for you and you have to meet yourself where you're at right now.   Sometimes that's the ability to be able to say ‘actually, I need to do nothing right now'. But know it's from a place of being what you need and not some form of self sabotage to reinforce negative feelings about yourself.   Mental fitness is the consciousness to listen to your mind and body and do what you NEED.  Which will sometimes be the last thing you WANT to do.   For example, you're having a bad day and you're really in a funk. You don't want to talk to anyone, do anything, leave the house. You KNOW that's not making you feel any better.   You can listen to the part of you that wants to stay there knowing that it's likely to make things worse.. Or you can consciously question why you might want to and what could be better for you and what you might need in that moment.    You manage to get yourself in the shower and go for a 15 minute walk and maybe even message a friend saying, ‘hey, I could use a little support right now, can you talk'.   Mental fitness is understanding you have choices, and what they are.   It's knowing you're good enough and you're worthy even when you're experiencing big emotions or having a bad day.   It's categorically NOT about not having challenging and painful times, negative emotions, thoughts and feelings.  It's KNOWING you have the capacity to handle them and that they are temporary.   It's resilience.   So how do you want to work on your mental fitness today?   Not what are you going to tell yourself you have to do every single day for 100 days or else you're a failure.   What are you going to do to meet yourself where you're at right now?   What could fit easily into your day and into your life?   How are you going to choose to consciously shift your thinking today?   You'll find the more you do this the less reactive you are, the more quiet it becomes in your own head, the more positive emotions you're able to identify, that the negative emotions hang around a lot less time, the more confidence you feel.   Remember we're all just walking around following the path of least resistance. The thing we've rehearsed the most in our brain.    This is absolutely changeable and over time we totally shift and create new paths of least resistance. New autopilots that serve us much better.   You're already doing better than you think.   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Reframing uncertainty   Uncertainty is not something we love as humans.   Often the fear of it will keep us in situations that aren't good for us simply because that fear of uncertainty and what could happen is so strong.   But what if we could reframe it?   What if we could totally change the way we view uncertainty and not have all the answers?   Would that change your behaviour and your decisions?   As humans we're wired to seek certainty and repeat familiar patterns because that's safe.   When we can get on board with the idea of being comfortable being uncomfortable, the whole world opens up.   I'm so thankful I have wired myself for this over the years, especially with my personal situation having a huge amount of uncertainty at the moment.   That's not to say it doesn't affect me, of course it does, you can't expect it not to.    BUT it means I can begin to talk myself round pretty quickly.   The more you practice reframing the things that are uncertain, the easier it is to handle because you're utilising good old neuroplasticity to literally rewire your brain and nervous system to tolerate it.   As per usual this is where all the glorious tools for emotional and nervous system regulation come into effect.   It's also where understanding that we are not our thoughts, but the observer of our thoughts is hugely important.    The more you can catch your thoughts spiraling to the negative, the more you can talk back. Rationalise with them. Be curious about them and question them instead of blindly accepting them as fact.   This is a skill that you can absolutely learn.   Neuroplasticity at work again. Hooray!   This is very much how I trained myself to stop being Eeyore on a bad day, catastrophising and expecting the worst to being someone who even when the negative thought pops up can automatically go ‘hang on, is that true? What else is also true?'   It's a very magical skill let me tell you!   So even in the midst of the most uncertainty I've ever experienced I've still managed to create some.   How could that change things for you?   To find certainty in the uncertainty?   The main way I do this is in the way I question myself.   Where CAN you create some certainty?   What do you have control over?   When can you think of a time that things were uncertain and it led to amazing things coming into your life?   I've been speaking to a lot of you over on Instagram really struggling with a lack of certainty.    Most of you have been business owners but lots of people in corporate roles too.   What does that tell you?   Uncertainty is something we need to learn to live with right?   It doesn't matter if you have a job or a business there is always some level of uncertainty to deal with.   So…the more we learn to tolerate that and reframe that uncertainty the better right?   My favourite way to do this, and something I've genuinely been writing in my gratitude journal every night, is to think about all the potential positive possibilities that could be available to you.   Ooooof I love it.   Our brains tend to go to all the assumptions we make and to all the ways this uncertainty could be a really negative thing.  Think job loss, business shifts, relationship breakdowns etc.   What COULD it lead to?   What could you get excited about in the uncertainty?   If you're being made redundant, what could this mean for you in a positive way?   Will it allow you to have a career shift?   Does it give you an opportunity to sink your teeth into something new that could be so much better for you?   Could it lead to MORE happiness?   If your business is struggling at the moment because of the seismic shifts that have been going on in the world for the last few years and not showing any signs of stopping, could you think of a new programme or service you'd love to sell?   Is there a totally different way to earn money that you'd love to explore?   Could you get a part time or full time job at the same time to take the pressure off and support you?   What could that look like?  Could that be fun?  Could that get you out of the house and meeting new people?  Could it increase your confidence?   If your relationship has ended how could it be a positive thing?    Relationship breakdowns are brutal and a huge upheaval but can you be excited about finding yourself again?   Trying new things that you wouldn't have within the relationship?   Meeting someone new that you might be happier with?   Being able to have that flurry of excitement again around meeting someone new?  The first time they hold your hand or that first kiss?   How can you think about something differently that could create a total physiological shift for you?   There really can be so much to be excited about when things are rocky. Even though it might not feel like it at the time.    A lot of the time the thing we add to it that really doesn't help is the feeling of other people's judgement of that situation.   How would you feel if you put that aside?   What different decisions would you make?   How are YOU viewing your situation that you might judge in someone else?   Can you shift that?   How would it shift things if you focussed on the short term rather than panicking about the big, huge gargantuan big picture view?  This is where mindfulness can come in incredibly handy.   At the end of the day the only thing that's certain in life is uncertainty.    Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ What Is Happiness?   What is happiness?     Oof, big question!   What is this big thing that so many of us spend our lives trying to find?   Do you actually know specifically?   How will you know when you have it?   What happiness looks and feels like will vary from one person to another, yet we all feel like we're chasing the same thing.   It can feel pretty elusive and hard to nail down.   I could ask 500 of you what happiness meant to you and end up with 500 different answers!   It's another part of our collective human experience that we may have never even thought to question or dig into.   Like so many things. We walk around on auto pilot making assumptions based on our own maps of the world and think that everyone else thinks the same as us, or should think the same as us.   But sometimes even that part isn't clear. What do we REALLY think?   This is why I love digging into our own psyches. It's SO fascinating when you really look into the things we believe, think and feel. It's so subjective and can often be changed simply by daring to look a little closer and pick apart our unconscious programming and natural learned protection mechanisms.   It's also entirely likely that me asking you this question today, and in 10 years time, and 10 years ago, would have completely different answers.   And yet we can feel like we're chasing this elusive happiness without realising we might already have it.   It comes down to perspective again. You might have something big going on that isn't ideal, but could you still be happy underneath it all?   Can you have that not ideal thing going on and not judge it or transpose it over to all other areas of your life and still be able to say you're happy?   To some people happiness might be joy, elation, laughter.    To some it might look and feel like peace and contentment.   To some people it might be love and connection.   To some people it might look like passion and purpose.   To some it might be high levels of self esteem and pride.   To some it might look and feel simply like acceptance.   So what is it?   Is happiness something that it's realistic to expect to feel all the time?   Is happiness a fleeting feeling or a more general state?   Is it a passive or active state?  Meaning, do you have a responsibility in it or is it just something that happens to you?   I often love doing a little deep dive into what certain emotions and feelings really look like for me.  Without society's opinions and the opinions of other people.    Really allowing myself to dig in and essentially create a map of that emotion according to me.   I often find some surprises in there.   What words do I associate with it?     What feelings do I associate with it?   Where do I feel it in my body and what does it specifically feel like?   How much can I name about this emotion and its qualities?   It creates some next level self awareness and real clarity over what you want and how you are going to achieve it.    The kind of awareness that most people simply don't get to without the desire to what I call ‘seek to understand'. I mean that in the context of self, others, society and the world.   The more you can question, be curious and understand yourself, other people, society and the world the more sense everything makes.    I find mapping out an emotional state can also give me more of a map on how to reach it too.   It takes away any judgement around perhaps not having it, or having it if it's something like anxiety for example, and replaces it with curiosity.   When your filters are clouded by other people's and societies and cultural filters it's usually very difficult to really find what you're looking for.   The waters are a little muddy.   It can be clouded by what we think it ‘should' or is ‘supposed' to look like.   There's so much nuance to the human condition, to our feelings, our thoughts, our behaviours and it's easy to assume we're all singing from the same hymn sheet but in reality we simply aren't.   Our own experiences throughout our lives, particularly before we're 8 years old have shaped a lot of our expectations.    I mean let's be honest, Disney and romcoms have a LOT to answer for here too!   Do you know what makes you happy?   Is that different to what brings you joy?   Joy tends to be fleeting and happiness more long lasting.   Let's look at this a different way. Do you know specifically what STOPS your happiness or interferes with it?   Do you feel like other people or external things are required for you to be able to feel it?   The reality is there is no one universally agreed upon definition of happiness.   Different cultures have different words and expectations when it comes to happiness.    If you compare America to Japan for example, happiness looks very very different.    In America happiness is seen as more joyful, energetic and in Japan it's more calm and serene.    So many people, when you ask what's important to them and what do they want for their lives, will say happiness or to be happy.    So I believe it's really important to define what that is for ourselves.   And to make sure we're super clear on the things that do make us happy so we can do more of that.   Emotions are and will always be transient. They're moveable. You're not meant to feel just one thing all the time.   The way I see happiness is that the underlying feeling of contentment and peace can still be there, even when things are a little more rocky.   It's a sense of solidity.    A sense of groundedness.    A sense that everything is always going to turn out ok.   A sense of calm and balance in my nervous system.    That feeling of being able to do a big deep sigh and feel like all is well.  Even if it's not 100% true at that moment.    A sense of satisfaction and optimism.   So you can see, I really don't think happiness is one thing. I think it's a combination of lots of things.    So what is happiness?     Happiness is entirely subjective and exactly what you decide it to be.  And it might be closer than you have allowed yourself to realise.   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://franexcell.com/stressed-to-success Download your guide for How to journal, for the non ‘dear-diary' type! https://franexcell.com/journaling-101 Grab your free Procrastination Buster workbook https://franexcell.com/procrastination-buster Find out YOUR Enneagram type:https://franexcell.com/introduction-to-the-enneagram  Ways to work with me: Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App for just £9.99 per month https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ How To Be Authentic, Even When You Feel You Can't Be   Authenticity has been a core value of mine since I understood what values even were. Until it became a buzzword for people who quite often weren't actually authentic at all and it all felt a bit cringe ha.   Authenticity will also have a different meaning to each individual person too.   It might mean trustworthiness.    It might mean honesty.    It might mean saying what you think without concern.    It might simply mean the opposite of fake to you. (I hugely struggle with fakery which is probably one of the reasons it's so important to me.)   It might encapsulate all those things.   Often in the workplace people are told to be their authentic selves but that can get confusing if it's delivered without clarification.   It can feel like, ‘be yourself but…on our terms.'   In online businesses people are always told ‘be authentic' you'll attract more people. And it's true, but it's also nuanced.    There will be times when you feel like you can't give all of yourself because there are personal things going on that need to or should remain personal.   So what does authenticity look like when you can't share everything. Maybe there's ill health in the family, a situation that involves someone else. Legal issues. Your own health battles. There are so many reasons that you might feel like you can't or don't want to share what's going on for you.   Also, should you ever feel like you have to share everything in order to be authentic?   I can't tell you the answer to that but I encourage you to reflect on it.   For me authenticity is the ability to truly be oneself.    To be able to live authentically to me means not feeling like you have to hide anything and accepting all parts of you. Including loving the parts of yourself that are harder to love, because we all have those. And also knowing you don't HAVE to share everything with everyone if that's what's authentic to you in that moment. It's the self awareness to know where you're at and what you need.   I spent a lot of time in my youth feeling like I couldn't be myself.  Like if I was truly myself then people wouldn't like me.   I felt like I didn't fit.   So I people pleased a lot, in terms of more often than not going along with what other people wanted and not speaking up for myself and what was important for me.   I let go of things I was interested in and loved doing because I thought it made me ‘different' or ‘weird'.   I was absolutely, fully, completely uncomfortable in my own skin which made authenticity feel almost impossible because it was terrifying.     This didn't lead to any kind of happiness.  It led to feeling like I had to hide parts of myself.  There were a few select people I could really be myself with and not worry they would judge me. People who were the same brand of weird as me!   As if parts of myself were unlovable and had to be kept secret.   I don't think I even really knew who I was myself.  I knew who I thought I should be to be acceptable to others.   It wasn't a fun way to be and is something I put a lot of time and energy into healing.   Because of this, being authentic is hugely important to me.     In two ways.   Being authentic AS myself to make sure i'm always surrounded by the right people, being true to who I am and not ever feeling like I have to hide parts of me for fear of judgement or being unloveable.   And being authentic FOR myself. Advocating for myself. Knowing my values and boundaries and making sure I'm prioritising things I love and that make me feel good, playful, joyful and myself.   I now know that the more authentic I am the more the right people and opportunities come my way.   So, it's not a secret that for the last few months I've been dealing with HUGE changes in my life (which are of course leading to the almighty glow up!)   I've been feeling like I can't talk about them or what's going on because it's really not right that I do just yet, and therefore i've been struggling to figure out how to navigate all that AND feel authentic. Which meant my annual end of December first half of January social media hiatus went on for WAY longer than originally planned.   Talking on the podcast and to my email list felt a lot more doable so I didn't totally disappear. I just came off social media.    It's a funny one because the hiatus was absolutely what I needed for a hot minute to create some space for healing so it WAS authentic to me.   The difficulty was when I felt like I wanted to come back and didn't really know how to do that AND be respectful to other people in my life AND show up authentically myself.   It has been a conundrum!!   And I think I've figured it out.    So last week I ended my hiatus after having some incredibly lovely messages from people for the last few weeks telling me they missed my content and asking if I was ok.   As always I try to turn personal experiences into something helpful, practical and actionable for you too so hopefully I manage that today because I feel like this is something a lot of people struggle with.   Whether in the office or in your business feeling like you have to ‘show up' on social media there will be times where your humanity takes the front row seat.   There are inevitably going to be times where big life stuff happens and it's not appropriate or you simply don't want to share it.   The big question is how to navigate that while maintaining your authenticity.   And it's a delicate one that I'm learning in real time and I don't pretend to know all the answers.   However, there are a few thought processes I've had and things that I've done that have helped me start to feel like I'm getting my mojo and rhythm back and I thought I'd share it with you.   The first thing is to remember you don't OWE anyone anything.  Your life is YOUR life and you should never feel pressured to share something before you're ready.    I navigated this one by letting people know SOMETHING was going on and that I couldn't say more publicly.   I shared in places I felt comfortable. For me that was to my email list and here on the podcast. There's something about owning the narrative and knowing that some people might be annoyed with the cloak and dagger but that MOST people will understand and be patient with you.  I also replied to anyone who reached out and was happy to tell them.     Recognise where people's need to know comes from.  Anyone who does get annoyed with you not sharing or holding something back is probably not doing it from a place of having your best interests at heart. So let them move on.    Please don't concern yourself over losing people who aren't willing to have compassion and understanding.  They aren't your people.   Know your values.  The more you know your values and can stay strong to them in general will always help you be more authentic. Even when there's something you have to hold back. When you talk with authenticity it really does shine through.  People will feel it coming from a genuine place.   When it comes to authenticity, know, lean into and own your strengths and weaknesses. This is more of a general comment on how to make sure you're able to cultivate authenticity in your life.    Be clear on your boundaries.  No one can push you into sharing what's not right for you to share. Or doing something you're not comfortable with. Know your boundaries and know they are absolutely valid.   Do what works for YOU!    Maintain high levels of self awareness. However you choose to do this. Whether it's journaling, mindfulness, meditation or something else.    You'll find that the more aware of yourself you are, the less your ego will get involved and the more calm, confident and comfortable you are being authentically you.   Share what you're comfortable sharing, with who you're comfortable sharing with.  Lean on your support system. Even if there might be one please you might feel like you can't be completely authentic, make sure there are plenty of places you can.   An important thing I think when it comes to authenticity is to do what you say you'll do and if you can no longer do it, communicate that.  When you stick to your word it does WONDERS for your self esteem.   For me, letting people know something huge was going on behind the scenes was important in me navigating being able to come back onto social media.   Like I say, if people can't bear not knowing what it is they aren't your people. Stay within the perimeters of what you're comfortable with.    Be honest with yourself.  So, so important. Being able to challenge yourself with curiosity and be super clear on who you are and what is authentic to you.   Always, always continue working on your self awareness. Authenticity comes alongside self acceptance.   The more authentic you're able to be, the more your anxiety will reduce. The more solid you'll feel in yourself.    Joseph Campbell said, ‘The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.' And as someone who used to struggle to find anything they liked about themselves, I wholeheartedly agree.   Life begins when you can truly be you!  And if you've been feeling like you can't be completely authentic right now because you've got big personal stuff going on then I hope this has helped. You will figure out how you can stick to your values and boundaries and still feel like you don't have to hide.   Sending you a huge hug.   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://bit.ly/stressedtosuccess  Book in a free discovery call: https://calendly.com/franexcell/20min Ways to work with me: For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ How To Build Resilience In Uncertain Times   Resilience is the ability to recover quickly from difficulties.    How quickly you're able to bounce back from adversity.   Bouncebackability if you will.   And in more ‘sciencey' terms it's psychological flexibility.   I like to refer to it as your ability and capacity to cope with what life inevitably throws at you.   However, it's not just bouncing back to where you were but in my opinion springing forward into your next stage of growth where you feel even more strong and unshakable to deal with what life throws at you.   Adaptability through times that feel like you're playing a very consistent game of whack-a-mole.    As soon as one issue is resolved, another one pops up unexpectedly.    Resilience is that feeling of being unshakable.  Less panic and implode, more deep breaths and ‘I can do this'.   Basically, the more resilient you can learn to be, the easier every facet of life becomes.   Who doesn't want a bit of that?!   Resilience to me is the calm amidst the storm.   It doesn't mean the storm disappears.  It just means you can navigate those choppy waters a lot more steadily and don't let the fact there's some choppy waters take over every other area of your life.   It's a learned skill and a muscle to flex and grow and when you put the time in and understand that it WILL grow and WILL develop it makes it that much easier.   The growth that happens through the adversity itself is hugely powerful. Post traumatic growth for the win.   As I've talked about before, I always find it a huge comfort knowing that positive growth comes from being in the weeds of a situation that from the outside does not look or feel great.   It's something I hold on to throughout.   That feeling of, ‘I wonder who I get to be on the other side of this.' And, ‘I wonder what this could lead to for me in the future.'   But…You don't HAVE to be in the thick of things to be able to build your resilience though.   Much of it comes down to learning to look at the truth of the situation.    Making sure you're questioning your perspective and assumptions with curiosity.  Making sure you're really dealing in reality and not unconscious programming.    The ability to reframe and change the narrative to be about the potential positive lessons and growth you can experience rather than the pain or inconvenience facing you in the moment.   We all make mistakes at the end of the day and we all go through hardships.   Using the right tools and techniques is also very helpful in cultivating resilience, even when you aren't in the weeds.     Breathwork is incredible for this.  Specifically for me as a qualified Heartmath coach, Heartmath is my favourite technique and it's so simple.    We call it heart focused breathing and also a balancing breath.   It works specifically with your nervous system and vagus nerve to increase your vagal tone and what Dan Siegal calls your ‘window of tolerance'.  It literally creates homeostasis, in other words balance, in your nervous system.   It increases your vagal tone, which is your ability to move quickly and easily between states.     Between the sympathetic nervous system (Flight or flight) and the parasympathetic nervous system (rest and digest).   It also increases your heart rate variability (HRV) which is known to be a measure of resilience.    HRV is the space between beats of our heart and can be a measure of our nervous system flexibility. More variability means more flexibility which means more resilience.   Your breath is incredibly powerful when it comes to resilience and one of the reasons a yoga practice can make such a difference.   Slow belly breaths too.   There are lots of ways to increase your HRV which I might go into in a future episode and lots of them are in The Positive Pants Toolkit too.    There are also some cognitive processes that you can use too to shift the way you think and create neural pathways for more resilient thinking.   One is allowing yourself to move towards the fear and pain instead of avoiding it.  Allow your brain and nervous system to learn that it's safe through giving it evidence.   Naming your emotions and learning to sit with them and let them be there.   Being in the present moment and looking forward with a focus of what IS within your control, rather than ruminating on what's already happened that you don't have control over.   Think of all the times you thought you couldn't handle something and you did.  This is such a simple but powerful exercise.  Allowing yourself to really recognise what you've overcome and how far you've come already.   Think of the times that negative things have led to positives for you or paved the way to a new path that's so much better for you.   It doesn't mean that you'd love to go through those things again.  It just gives you the evidence that you need that you are more than  capable of handling it.   It also doesn't mean that you start trying to take on more than you can handle on your own.  You're a human and we all have limits.   It means you start to recognise your ‘levers'.  You start to utilise your community.   Those people and resources in your life that help make things easier.  It means you're more comfortable speaking up and saying ‘I need your help.'   Flip the switch and reframe potential outcomes.    There might be an initial reaction to something, often an assumption of what will happen, but there are likely multiple different potential outcomes.     Explore those and consciously ask yourself what is within your control to go towards those more positive outcomes.   Do not underestimate looking after your physical health when it comes to resilience too.  Exercise is one of the many things that can help increase your HRV.     What you feed your body will also have an effect too.   As always, one of the most important factors in resilience is self awareness.   When you can catch yourself when you're feeling stress activation or identify your emotions this is where you can create the biggest change in the shortest time.   The more aware you are of what's going on in your brain and body, the easier it is to use the part of your brain responsible for conscious thought processing.  Here you can challenge your thoughts.     Developing optimism is a huge part of resilience. I can attest to this as a previous Eeyore on a bad day. Asking yourself how COULD this become a positive in the future or what positives COULD come from this situation?   When I tell people now how negative and worst case scenario I used to be they don't believe me.  That's purely as a result of doing this work.   The work has been building my confidence, working with my nervous system, understanding how I tick as a human and being, being able to objectively look at all the things i've been through and come out the other side.     Collecting the relevant evidence.     Leaning on people and learning that i don't have to do everything on my own and it's actually better for me if I don't.   If I can do it, so can you. I believe in you.   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://bit.ly/stressedtosuccess  Book in a free discovery call: https://calendly.com/franexcell/20min Ways to work with me: For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Staying Strong Through The Stages Of Grief   In the late 60s Elizabeth Kubler-Ross developed the 5 stages of grief in her book ‘On death and dying' specifically about people facing terminal illness. It was quickly adapted to grief in general.   Just before I dig in I'm putting a trigger warning out for you, I'm not actually going to be talking about death but if you're in the midst of going through anything traumatic yourself right now please do go easy on yourself and maybe come back to this episode when you feel more ready.   I wanted to do this episode because since the pandemic I feel a LOT of people have been grieving a LOT of different things.   We can't deny that life has changed immeasurably. Whether that's for better or worse.   I'm having so many conversations with people at the moment who are dealing with what feels like grief and it's worth acknowledging because so many of us have faced losses of some kind over the last few years alone.   The thing with grief is it's really not just reserved for death.   Grief is a natural response to a loss of any kind.    Grief can hit us in so many other circumstances and having been through my own deep grief recently I believe it's helpful to understand the stages of grief and that healing is not linear.    As you'll likely know by now, I believe that understanding ourselves and what to expect when it comes to how we tick as humans is incredibly comforting in times of stress or pain and can alleviate a lot of the added negative thoughts and beliefs that we can pile on top of it.   The last thing anyone needs when they're in a grief process is to be nasty to themselves in their own heads or to beat themselves up for having incredibly natural feelings that do need to be processed one way or another.   Some of the very common grief processes that we might go through and perhaps not identify it as grief is at the end of a relationship.     The end of a friendship can bring up deep grief too.   Coming to terms with limiting illnesses and grieving the way we thought our lives were.   Even the loss of a job or letting go of a business.   Identity loss can hit us hard too and there are so many ways that can happen. Whether it's down to our appearance, a breakup, pregnancy, infertility, retirement or something else.    We attach so much to our identity and when that fundamentally shifts for some reason if we're not supported or equipped to handle it it can have a profound effect.   There are SO many more things we might grieve too, but we might not allow ourselves to recognise it that way.   There should be no judgement around what you ‘can' or ‘can't' grieve.   It's a process and every person is different.   For me the reason this episode felt important is because I'm seeing so many people struggle at the moment and when we can normalise our internal processes and understand that we aren't broken or alone and that things WILL get better and that you can have immense growth throughout the process it can make it easier, even if it's just a small fraction.   There is no time limit with grief either. Whatever it is you might be grieving.    But one thing that I find incredibly comforting is knowing that alongside these stages you are also GROWING at the same time.   You are healing at the same time.  Even though there might be days where it really doesn't feel like it.   Grief and healing aren't linear.    The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.   I believe that healing and processing and growing are the final stage and also happening throughout.   Denial is a tricky stage because it's where we might be ignoring the signs that it's time to let go of something that is right under our nose.    If you've lost a loved one this is different, it might show up as a feeling of numbness and carrying on as if something hasn't happened.    We need to remember that this is a way of protecting ourselves and is totally natural and not anything to feel shame around. Our minds need to adjust to a new reality and that can take time and feel confusing.    The next stage is anger. Oof I went through this one big time!   This is where we're seeing our new reality for what it is a little more. We might be angry with someone else or we might be angry at the situation itself, or some higher power.   You might lash out at others in this stage.    We need to remember in this stage that it's part of the process and it's justified.    The way I saw it though was progress. Things are moving. It's another step forward and an opportunity to work WITH the emotion. Finding ways to process the healthy anger and not be consumed by it.    The next stage is bargaining. This is where we're still trying to protect ourselves and trying to find ways to alleviate the pain.   We might do this with someone else that's involved or we might do it with ourselves or a higher power. This is where we might feel like we'd do anything to take away the pain.   This is where, in relationship break ups, it can be so easy to go back to someone that's not right for us. Or we might start to look for the positives and ignore the negatives in a situation because it might feel easier to go back than do the healing work to move forwards.     Remember change happens when the pain of staying where you are outweighs the pain of the change.   Please be kind to yourself if you recognise this in yourself and be kind to others who might be going through this as it can bring with it an intense feeling of powerlessness and lack of control and can feel very isolating.   Then we have the depression stage. Again, a painful but necessary part of the process and one where healing IS still taking place. Again, double down on understanding where you're at and the things that you know help you feel better.  You ARE processing pain in this stage. This is where people might want to isolate themselves more and be less sociable.   In this stage for me I felt the need to retreat and I gave myself that sometimes but I also made sure I Was reaching out to people and being honest about where I was at. Some really beautiful memories have come from this for me and every time I did spend time with people I always felt better after. It might be different for you.   So much of what makes these first few stages so hard is how much we're trying to resist and fight against it.    Eventually you come to the acceptance stage. This is where the fog clears, things feel calmer and the pain is not as painful.    We're coming out of survival mode.   You can see the growth and the learning that you'll take through life in this stage.    You might feel like you're coming back to yourself. Hopeful.    Please remember grief is not linear. You might move through these stages quickly and in order or you might go backwards again but you WILL come out the other side.   This is just one model of the grieving process and it's one that I found helpful.   Whether you're grieving a loved one, an identity, a relationship, a friend, a business you've let go of, a job you've lost, you ARE healing.   You might find you need to sleep more and also struggle to sleep. You might procrastinate more.    It's a time to go all in on looking after yourself and listening to what you need.    You will likely need more rest, allow it instead of beating yourself up for it. Let go of the guilt.    Please take good care of yourself, and other people in your life that you might be recognising these signs in and don't feel the need to rush and have patience.   Fx  

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://bit.ly/stressedtosuccess  Book in a free discovery call: https://calendly.com/franexcell/20min Ways to work with me: For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ How To Have A Quantum Leap   So many people talk about quantum leaps as if they are a magical mystical thing.   Maybe they are. I'm totally open minded to these things.   I'm also very practically minded too.   So, what is a quantum leap?   The term is less used in reference to its place in physics and more in terms of having a huge change or leap in the direction you want to go in a seemingly far shorter amount of time than most people think it ‘should' take.    The idea of collapsing time.   The Cambridge dictionary describes it as ‘a great improvement or development or advance in something'.     And my goodness have I been quantum leaping all over the place over the last month let me tell you!   My life, and who I am, is fundamentally and completely different.    Unrecognisable in fact from the version of me a month ago.   So who could I be in another month?   Who could I be by the end of the year?   How exciting is that?   You're always SO close to a HUGE change but it takes a little bravery to take a leap and take the action required to get that quantum leap where there's a moment that you look back and go ‘whoa, how did I do that so quickly?!'   It might be a career change.    It might be a niche change in your business.   It might be a change in relationship status.   It might be letting go of a toxic person in your life.   It might be simply being super honest with yourself about what feels out of alignment and finally stopping ignoring the niggle and taking some action.   So often we can plod our way through life not really changing anything much, yet still hoping for these epic quantum leaps and it just doesn't work that way.   But why do these quantum leaps seem so ethereal and unachievable?   Often because we're looking for a short cut to where we want to be and we're looking in the wrong places.   People think they're intellectual missing some key piece of information but the missing piece is actually the action that you're avoiding.   This is where nervous system work comes into play.   The more tolerant you are of discomfort the easier quantum leaps become.   You have to learn to sit in tension.   You have to learn to work WITH your nervous system to increase your window of tolerance.   This is the trick to SO many things in life. When you do THIS foundational work everything becomes easier.   You're always going to feel tension when you're doing anything new or making a big change because that's how we're wired.   We're wired to instinctively protect ourselves at all costs.   That means anything outside the realms of our current habitual wiring.   That's why it can feel so difficult to make changes and we can feel like there's this internal tug of war happening with ourselves.   That's because there is.   There's dissonance between what you want and your current wiring.   This is where support comes into the equation.    Think back to hard things you've done, did you have support?     Did you talk it through with people and enlist help to make sure you don't go back on doing what you say you're going to?  Or making sure you stick with something to get you through the hard bit before it's wired in?   That's absolutely something I've done HUGELY that has immeasurable contributed to my quantum leaps over the last months, 6 weeks really.    If I hadn't had the support of my incredible friends, family and therapist I guarantee I wouldn't have achieved what I have in such a short space of time.   So what support have you got in place right now?  If you don't have any, where could you find it?    There's very real, physiological reasons that these things are hard. You can't out human yourself!   I believe psychoeducation is essential, which is a big part of what I try to do here for you.  When you understand how we all tick as humans it becomes easier to override your own wiring.   When you know what to expect you can navigate it with so much more ease and less internal struggle and less internal negative self talk.   You understand what's REALLY going on AND how to move through it, without being horrendous to yourself in your own head and believing what you're telling yourself.   This makes things so much quicker.  Even just understanding that rewiring your brain and nervous system is in itself a huge piece of the puzzle.   The next thing that I believe is essential in creating quantum leaps I've touched on previously.  You have to get comfortable being uncomfortable.   Comfort is the killer of quantum leaps.   Taking the time to increase your nervous systems window of tolerance and increasing your vagal tone. The vagus nerve is the key to a huge amount of change and to be fair warrants an entire episode but for now if you want to learn more please go back and listen to my interview with Stefan Chmelik who is the founder of Sensate which I'm an ambassador for.    The sensate device is one of the many ways you can increase your vagal tone and heart rate variability (again, I think that warrants its own episode!)    You can also use Heartmath, the Apollo Neuro device, breathwork, meditation, exercise, singing, gargling, humming, EFT (tapping) and lots lots more.    This really is fundamental in learning to tolerate the discomfort that you will inevitably go through when making big changes.   Work on your consciousness.  Unlearn your conditioning through self awareness work.  Watch out for where your attention is. Is it on moving forwards or being stuck?   It matters hugely. When you can become the observer of your own thoughts you really do become the master of your life. No joke. It takes practice but it becomes simply how you think.     Everything becomes habitual with practice and repetition.  Be intentional and curious.   TAKE ACTION and KEEP MOVING.     Do the healing work, regulate your emotions and work with your nervous system.   Your next quantum leap starts with one choice or decision, followed by action. Then another. Then another.    You aren't missing pieces of the puzzle.  You have it all already, you just need to use it.   I often say ‘who you are today isn't who you have to be tomorrow.' I love that. I lived that.    I love how empowering it is to KNOW that in every fibre of your being.   To know that if you're having a tough time or you're not happy or you want something big to change that it's actually FAR closer than you think.   I for one am SO excited for where i'm going to be by the end of the year because I know the possibilities are endless and I'm already reaping all the energetic benefits of the big, giant, quantum leaps.   Like I say, where I am and who I am now is NOT the same as a month ago. Unrecognisable, and it started with a big, huge, terrifying decision, along with all the other things I've talked about today.   You're absolutely capable of quantum leaps.   But you have to take action.   I can't wait to hear about yours!   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://bit.ly/stressedtosuccess  Book in a free discovery call: https://calendly.com/franexcell/20min Ways to work with me: For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Diamonds Are Formed Under Pressure   I've spoken to so many people in the last week about the pressure they feel under.   The pressure to be visible.    The pressure to be seen to be doing things you don't necessarily want to be doing.   Financial pressure.   Emotional pressure.   Work pressure.   Business pressure.   Relationship pressure.   The pressure to do ALL the things and be a whole, fully formed, brand new person just because it's been January.   Oof! I feel the pressure just talking about it.   We're a couple of days away from February, I hope you feel the pressure is dimming just a little remembering that spring is just around the corner.   If you haven't noticed, I took the whole of January off social media.   I was silent on the gram!    I've already got lots of hilarious animal posts ready for my return don't you worry. So please do come follow me over @imfranexcell and @enneagramandexcell if you're keen to learn more about that.   Of course the podcast went out, my wednesday email went out every week without fail.   I was around but, behind the scenes.   I've been in my own personal pressure cooker of late as you'll likely be aware.    It's still not appropriate to talk about it just yet but I'm sure by now you've read between the lines to understand what's been going on for me in my personal life.   That's the thing with pressure, sometimes something has to give and for me, that was social media in January, I really just needed the time offline.   Lots of you have been SO lovely and sent me messages asking if I'm ok.   The answer is absolutely yes. Thank you very much for asking. I'm looking after myself, using all the tools in my toolkit, giving myself what I need and practicing what I preach.   I'm all good.    What was really lovely is most of the messages were along the lines of ‘I just want to check in that you're ok because you've not been on stories for ages, but whatever might be going on for you if anyone can handle it I know it's you.'   Which, in all honesty, really hit me in the feels and helped me see how much of a dramatic change ‘doing the work' was for me.   I was an anxiety ridden little negative catastrophiser for the majority of my life and even though knowing what I do and practicing what I preach doesn't mean I don't have bad days or the proverbial doesn't hit the fan, i'm resilient AF these days and not so easy to rattle!   I'm always wanting to be honest about realistic expectations and normalise negative emotions and bad days as a significant part of the human experience.   Curiosity is always going to be your best friend when it comes to this.    Making sense of your thoughts, feelings and behaviours is such a game changer in all areas of life and I want that for you because I know through training and been there, done it, got the T shirt experience just how possible it is to achieve.   I also want you to know that these moments are where all the good change happens.   Diamonds are formed under pressure.   All too often we're taught that we ‘shouldn't' have negative emotions or bad days. We toxic positivity ourselves until the cows come home and I promise you that won't get you anywhere.   Address, don't suppress.   Our biggest lessons and transformations tend to come from leaning into our shadows.   Having this attitude that good stuff is on the other side of anything negative really means the world to me because it means I never see hard times or bad experiences as inherently BAD.    I can be in them, feel all the feels and ugly cry as much as I like and be excited about what's to come.   Sometimes things happen which allow you to go to far deeper depths of healing than you ever could have got to on your own.    The next 6 months or so is still going to be hard for me but every single day the ‘sads' heal and the excitement builds.   If you're on my email list you'll know that this year is all about chasing joy.     Joy for me in January wasn't on social media.    Sometimes it is.   This time I knew I needed to be Offline Fran for a bit.  And it's been glorious.   I've seen so many amazing friends and had more laughs than I've had in ages. I've reconnected with people who are important and I'm in life re-build mode.   Trust me when I say there's an almighty glow up coming! I feel it in my waters!   So much of our distress in life comes from fearing what ‘might' happen.   Or what might not happen.   There's such a focus on what we don't want that the fears can sometimes overwhelm us and that leads to more distress and then we're in the spiral.   What I thought was genuinely one of my worst nightmares has happened.    Plus it's an almighty life upheaval in pretty much every area of life and as an Enneagram 6, I'm not traditionally great with those.   I'm a planner. I plan for all situations and outcomes.    I usually have a plan A, B and C.    I always have options.   It's how I roll.   It's how my nervous system feels safe.   And I've had to let go of a lot of that over the past few months.   And hard as it has been I'm already reaping the rewards.   I feel more solid in myself than I ever have before, and I was already pretty solid in myself.   I feel more clarity about what I do and don't want in my life, and what I will and won't tolerate, than I've ever had.   I feel excitement for a future where I have literally no idea what it might hold.  Who knew that was possible for me?!   I'm a freaking diamond baby!    And you are too.   When you can start to look at the times in your life where it feels like intense pressure and there's a huge amount of big feelings, and maybe some ugly crying and intense uncertainty, as turning yourself into that big beautiful diamond instead of something that's going to break you, how do you think you'd handle things differently?   At the moment I feel this strange sense of peace and excitement. Yes there are days where it's underneath some uncertainty and fear.    It's also letting go of worrying about anyone else's judgement, letting go of any guilt or resentment and remembering that every single time I've been through anything awful in my life the glow up has been imminent.   And this will be a pretty big glow up ha!   When you can let yourself sit with those big feelings and help them move through you, maybe by dancing, breathwork, exercise or my favourite big ugly cry it happens even faster.   You're a magical creature who is capable of SO much.    So if you're facing something tough, or new, or a big change that's full of uncertainty…Remember that diamonds are formed under pressure and the glow up is imminent!   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://bit.ly/stressedtosuccess  Book in a free discovery call: https://calendly.com/franexcell/20min Ways to work with me: For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Why Deprivation & All Or Nothing Thinking Can Be So Damaging   All or nothing thinking when it comes to achieving our goals can be tricky, but VERY common.   The idea that often comes up at this time of year that you MUST cut out lots of things from your diet or from your life to ‘be better'.   And you better watch out for ‘falling off the wagon' because that means you're a big old failure who's simply just not good enough.   That if you take a bite of the biscuit or a square of chocolate then you may as well throw the whole thing out the window because you're never going to be able to do it anyway.   I mean, hopefully you can probably see the issue with this thinking straight off the bat but this is a HUGE part of our conditioning that all too often we don't challenge ourselves on.   I'd love for you to think of a time, I'm sure it's not in the too distant past, where you said you weren't ‘allowed' something, or to do something anymore, or you HAD to do something EVERY single day.    Usually this might be around dieting at this time of year but it could be anything. If clients have ever said to me, ‘I'm challenging myself to do X, Y or Z every single day' or ‘I'm going to ban myself from doing X,Y or Z from today' I highlight the red flag.   We have to give ourselves a different kind of challenge.    The challenge of being conscious to where these all or nothing ideas come from in the first place, because more often than not they actively reinforce the very thing you were trying to change anyway.    Not helpful!   Also, being conscious of why it's important to you that you get the result.   And what is actually sustainable for you, your personality and your lifestyle.   Is it actually something you WANT to do EVERY day?  Is it even viable?    When it comes to health and wellness, whether it be physical or mental, there are so many fads that are all about deprivation or all or nothing thinking.   I do love a bit of routine, but I also won't beat myself up if I skip a day because usually if I do it's because I'm tuning in to my own energy, how I'm feeling and what I'm needing that day.   Some things I'm religious about like making sure I get at least 7-8 hours sleep per night.    But other things I'll go through phases with. I use SO many tools for mental wellbeing that to all or nothing my way through them all every day would take all day!   So it's about going with what your intuition tells you you need.   So the habit becomes, rather than every single day I meditate, exercise, do heartmath, journal, do breathwork, yoga etc etc etc, that I do SOMETHING every day that's for my own mental wellbeing.     Otherwise I tend to hold myself to ‘most days'.   It's about finding what works for you. That's one of the reasons I keep a lot of my subjects open to your own interpretation, there is no one size fits all.     So much of this work is learning your SELF. That awareness is the most important part and I promise you it leads to FAR less mental clutter and instead of having a bully in your own head you get a friend.    Yes it's possible that inner voice can be a SUPPORT to you instead of a hindrance.    I'm talking from my own experience here and hundreds of clients who report the same. It's worth the work.   So, for me MOST days i'll do some journaling, Heartmath, make sure i'm moving (that might be in the gym or simply going for a walk), singing, drinking at least 3 bottles worth of my water, I'll read and make sure I talk to at LEAST one other human!   All or nothing thinking keeps you in a cycle of beating yourself up and feeling like you've failed.     What could it feel like if you relaxed it to a little bit of what you fancy?   When we take how we feel into account, deprivation is not something that usually leads to happiness or joy. (Unless there's a mental or physical health reason for what you're depriving yourself of, or when addictions or damaging substances are involved of course.  As always, there's always going to be nuance to your own individual situation but I know we're all sensible grown ups here who can discern that for themselves)   This lack of joy feels like we're punishing or torturing ourselves from a place of we're not good enough so we must beat and bully ourselves into submission.   Wellness to me IS enjoyment.    When you shift the intention it can be a game changer.    I don't go to the gym or exercise to lose weight. I go because of how I feel. I know how it works with my brain and body. I want to make sure I have less pain in my dodgy knees. I want to look after myself. I want to be healthy. Weight loss is just a nice side effect.    THIS is what makes it sustainable.    I'm all for self improvement but I tend to take it from a different angle.   I'm not coming at it from a place of i'm not good enough.   Quick fixes and trends tend to be based on you not being good enough and making sure you feel that way.  I'm coming at it from a place of I'm absolutely worth the time, energy and money and I'm worth looking after and feeling good.    See the difference?  So I'm going with my ‘is it worth it' philosophy this year. This is my version of ‘a little of what you fancy.' For example, if you're having a drink and you know you might not sleep well or have a hangover…is who and where i'm having that drink fitting into my ‘worth it' category? Are they people I really want to be hanging out with or spending time with?  Am I there out of desire or obligation?   Sounds ruthless but it's a game changer!   Same with food we might deem ‘naughty' or in the ‘I shouldn't' category.    Is that cake worth it? Am I REALLY going to enjoy every single morsel and do a happy food dance for it?  If not, it's a nope!  This genuinely helps me make WAY better food decisions and it's from a place of is IT good enough for ME. Not ‘I can't have it because I'm wrong' in any way.   See the subtle shifts here?   Shifting the focus to enjoyment. Mindfulness over mindlessness.    Being conscious and aware of your habits and turning them into choices instead.   At the end of the day nothing is worth the expense of your mental health.   Nothing is worth reinforcing the opinion that you aren't good enough in any way.   And life, in my opinion, is supposed to be enjoyed.   That voice in your head can be your friend.  It doesn't need to be a bully.   Balance over deprivation.     Conscious choices.   So if you're listening feeling like you've already fallen off the unrealistic wagon you set for yourself I hope this might shift your perspective.   And if you feel the all or nothing approach works for you…have at it!   My message here is doing what's right for and works for YOU.  From a place of self respect and love rather than beating yourself up or feeling not good enough.   Because you're more than good enough my friend!   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://bit.ly/stressedtosuccess  Book in a free discovery call: https://calendly.com/franexcell/20min Ways to work with me: For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Letting Go Of Timelines   I had said I would be properly ‘back to work' last week.    That didn't quite go according to plan.   I did what was necessary but I'm definitely still feeling a need to hibernate in a little cozy cocoon.   Which is TOTALLY normal considering behind the scenes i'm going through one of the biggest life upheavals i've ever dealt with.  That's naturally going to take its toll on mind and body so looking after yourself is going to be essential in those times. If you're going through big life stuff too I'm sending you so much love and the biggest hug because it sucks but if you're on my email list you will have had a handy pep talk last week reminding you that you are FAR braver than you're giving yourself credit for. You've got this.    Besides that, let's be honest once the glorious twinkliness of the festive season dissipates you're left with this cold, wet weather, not much ‘greenery' around and short days with not enough sunlight.   It got me thinking about all the ways we blindly follow timelines and time frames that, more often than not, weren't ours in the first place.   If you read anything about the laws of nature or cycles, winter is for slowing down and hibernating. Spring is when you pop into action.    So I've decided I'm going with that a bit this year to try it on for size.   There are so many other ‘timelines' that so many people seem to tear themselves up about.   A lot of societal ‘shoulds' and what not hitting those timelines ‘means' about you as a person.   A lot of the time they're related to age and gender which is also not particularly modern.   So I think it's time we break some of them down and look at them a little differently, perhaps give ourselves a little reframe.   My dissertation at university was all about women and aging in the media. How society has let women believe they are second class citizens after a certain age and that it's ‘all downhill' after a certain age.    This is a crock of you know what.    Women are taught to fear and do everything in their power to prevent an aging appearance from about the age of 20.  It's madness.   What's the solution?    This is thankfully starting to happen, we need REAL women being championed and showcased in advertising, on the TV, in movies.    If you look now I'm LOVING how many women in their fifties are still being championed as sex symbols and I am SO here for it but there's still work to do to create the societal shift.   I follow body positive and age positive people on Instagram and make sure I'm filling my feed with their glorious confidence.     When I want to shift the way I see something this is what I'll do. I'll seek the evidence that it's possible. Marinate myself in places where these things are celebrated. It has a profound shift on how you see things.  It also has a profound shift on how you see the world.    I seek places that are diverse, championing things that are not traditionally championed, challenging societies status quo and it really works. It's actually quite profound because all of a sudden, these things you feared becoming are seen in a positive light and you don't feel like ‘everyone' thinks it's negative, or not normal, insert the right word for yourself depending on what's popped into your head as i'm talking.    So we have all this around our appearance going on and on top of that let's throw in that you ‘should' be married by a certain age.   You ‘should' own your own home by a certain age.   You ‘should' have kids by a certain age.    You ‘should' be on a certain salary with a certain title by a certain age.   You ‘should' be making six figures in your business in a certain time frame.   And it's all a crock of you know what.   It's all other people's conditioning and opinion.   And none of this takes any nuance of what we actually might want into account. Or the negative potential aspects that could be involved.   And it is SO harmful to people's mental health.   Mostly because of the judgement we might feel from other people and what we make it MEAN about us if we don't hit that target.   It can cause people to stay in jobs they hate. Stay in relationships where they aren't happy. Get themselves into debt trying to find the quick fix to the timeline. Live beyond their means.    Essentially society says it's better for you to have these things and be miserable than not have these things and be happy.   It's another one of these unconscious thought processes that isn't questioned.   As if you're in some way a failure if you're single in your 30s or rent instead of own.    As if you should stay in a job you hate purely for the salary and the title. That job you chose when you were still in school and didn't know yourself.   What if people knew it was ok to change careers at any age, even if it means an initial drop in salary or title.  In all likelihood it wouldn't stay that way for long because you're already super skilled and that will shine through.  But you could be happy and love going to work every day.   What if people knew it was absolutely ok to leave a relationship that's not making you happy or even abusive. And that you're likely to learn really important lessons and meet someone else who you can be a bazillion times happier with.  OR, heaven forbid, be single by CHOICE!   Or CHOOSE not to have children.   If you've been with me for any amount of time you'll know how fundamental I believe challenging our unconscious programming and thought processes is. This, in my opinion, really is the key to living the happiest life you can. The key to finally being able to love yourself and respect yourself. To make sure you're surrounding yourself with the right people. To finding your confidence.   The more you work on yourself, the more you know yourself, the more happiness, peace, calm, joy and potential into your life.    The possibilities really are endless.   So grab your journal later and start thinking about some timelines you've bought into that might in actual fact be a crock of you know what.   Seek people who have been through what you've been through and come out the other side. You'll notice they're often a little more ‘glowy' after!    It's also important to talk things through with people who are going through similar situations so you can support each other.    Seek the stories of people who've done the scary thing that goes against the grain of what society tells you you should want or have and see where YOU land. With YOUR opinion and beliefs, without the clouds of these random societal timelines that have got in the way and clouded decisions.   It's your life and you are in far more control of it than you believe. IF you challenge your conditioning and programming with curiosity.    Especially at this time of year when you're being bombarded with all the ways you don't fit the bill or aren't enough.   It goes back to your values. What's more important to you?  What other people might think, or FEELING happy in your own skin and in your life.   You are GLORIOUS and you get to create your own timeline.     Fx  

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://bit.ly/stressedtosuccess  Book in a free discovery call: https://calendly.com/franexcell/20min Ways to work with me: For corporate coaching, training and workshops email hello@franexcell.com Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Mindset Shifts For 2023 As I gear up to be ‘properly' back to work this week I've been having a little ponder and reflections on some mindset shifts and ways of thinking that I personally believe could be helpful for 2023. I've seen too many people get sucked in by certain messaging in marketing or in society itself that I believe is problematic.  2022 saw me the most disappointed I'd ever been at some behaviour I saw.  The way people were treating each other. SO…MUCH…DRAMA, and I don't do drama. Not my circus, not my monkeys.  So I tried to see as little of it as possible. It frustrates me seeing people behave badly towards other people. But, after 8 years digging deep into human behaviour, controversial as it may be, I feel huge compassion for those doing it. It's wrong, plain and simple, I'm certainly not excusing it or saying I think it's ok. I categorically think the opposite. BUT, when you REALLY understand where that behaviour comes from it IS hard to not find compassion. People that behave in nasty ways to people, or talk badly about people, are not happy people.  It's often child consciousness following us into our adult life.  There is something going on there that is defense and protection mode.  That behaviour comes from deep wounds.  When you really, truly understand that it's hard to not have compassion, which in turn changes how you react. There's things that happened to me last year that were super hurtful. But I understand where the behaviour came from. I choose to view it with compassion and exit the situation and know it's my choice who to be around and who not to be around. No hard feelings, new boundaries! I'm on a mission to help people be more conscious because it's so fundamental to living a good life.  That comes from being aware of and then challenging our own thoughts and perceptions and also taking responsibility for our own behaviour.  When 95-99% of what you do is habitually wired in and automatic, we need consciousness as the absolute basic start to making any change and living a happy life. It's not to demonise the unconscious, far from it. It's incredibly helpful in many ways.  We want automation to conserve energy. What we don't want is for it to rule our behaviour, our results and our lives.  So these are a few of the shifts I think are important to at least think about going into the new year.   Rest vs hustle mode.   Hustle has been glorified for many many moons. This idea that if you're ‘busy' that equates success. It doesn't in my eyes. I don't want to be ‘busy' because in my mind that means I'm not being efficient (based on my own personal circumstances, privileges, nuances etc) Some people say ‘balance' doesn't exist but I disagree. I believe that balance looks different for everyone. Define your version of balance that makes you FEEL you had balance in your life. Screw what anyone else thinks. They're not you.    Doing what suits you. You do you boo! It really feels like time that we stop focusing on what everyone else is doing or thinking about how they might be judging what we're doing and just do what we want to do! Do what suits us, our personality, our experience, our life. It's OURS at the end of the day.   Remembering that nuance exists. I think this one is really important. I talk about it a lot.  It's impossible to talk to all people at any one time. There is nuance to everything. People can't judge people in exactly the same way. We have nuance. They have nuance. Business has nuance. Careers have nuance. Friendships, relationships, family dynamics, things we've been through, what we want. There is SO much nuance to every single thing you see! Try not to blanket-coat opinions and start to question everything with curiosity.  You might be surprised by what you find and how it shifts things for you.    Compassion vs cancel culture. As I was saying previously, this one can bring in two of my previous points. Nuance and the fact that people's bad behaviour is often driven by deep deep wounds. In 2022, more than ANY other year, I've seen anger and hatred everywhere I look online. It's literally served to us and I'm absolutely not here for it.  As a society it seems like we're being driven by reactive aggression and outrage. ‘This person must be punished'. The need to hit people where it hurts and have them lose money, their business or be shunned from society in general. It's horrific behaviour and while many of the people being ‘cancelled' I wholeheartedly don't agree with.  When you bring nuance and curiosity into the situation things can look very different. There have been MANY times through the ages when the mobs have been wrong. Remember that next time you jump on a bandwagon.  Do you have all sides of the story? Extreme views often come from some semblance of psychology or neurobiology that makes sense. Again, not simply stating who's right and who's wrong but more, how can we make this make sense. What could have happened to this person to make them think or behave this way? We're very quick to react to how something ‘looks' on the surface, usually without going deeper.    The truth. Leading nicely on from my previous point, try to remember all of the lenses we look at things through are different.  This goes back to nuance again. (sensing a pattern here?!) When it comes to the truth, there are always more than one version of it. In the example of two people falling out there's one person's truth, the other side's truth and somewhere in the middle is THE truth. Question with curiosity!!   YOU as your biggest investment. Time and money spent on your own health, mental health wellbeing, development and enjoyment is, in my opinion, the BEST and MOST important investment you will ever make. It makes everything infinitely better and the ROI is bigger than you could ever expect.  Whatever that looks like for you. It could be spa trips and retreats, it could simply be finding 5 minutes to yourself. Figure out what you feel YOU need to be the best version of you. That will look different to everyone.   You get to change your mind. Oh my goodness, if you realise something isn't working for you. If something feels heavy. If something or someone is not serving you anymore. You get to change your mind!!  It's such a bizarre thing, the amount of stories and judgement that people can put on what other people do with their time and their lives. It doesn't matter! That's a THEM thing, not a YOU thing. Follow joy.  Follow happiness. Follow peace. It's YOUR life.   Know your people, know your rooms.  If you feel you have to be fake or hide parts of yourself, it's probably not your room or your people. Just because there's a clique that you're not in, doesn't mean you're not good enough. Spend more time with the people and in the rooms that give you a felt sense of safety. Be around the people your nervous system is calm around. Y ou deserve nothing short of that. Your body is always talking to you and giving you clues about these things. Make a point to listen.   High fives over judgement. On that front, on the flip side, if you see someone changing it up HIGH FIVE them.  Keep your judgement to yourself, question where that judgement is coming from in the first place and realise big changes take gumption, bravery, cahones! It's to be high-fived!   Lead with values and kindness. I don't think this needs much explanation really. You're not going to win this every time, you're human. But how could things be different if you did it MOST of the time? If it was your intention? Ego can be a little beastie. It's human for that to get in the way sometimes but when you're solid on your values and how you want to behave towards others I promise you'll start to not tolerate anything different from other people. It's the very basics of treating others how you'd like to be treated. Game changer. Remember even the toughest, strongest-looking people can be extremely vulnerable underneath it. People are very quick to forget the phrase, ‘In a world where you can be anything, be kind'. Aim to remember it as much as possible. Everyone has their struggles and demons. You never know what's going on for someone else. Check on your strong friends.   Be a good person. As much as you possibly can. Just be a good person, lead with that. I hope that's given you some food for thought and perhaps a few things have spring to mind that you'd love to add.  2023 is my 'year of me'. And I'm SO here for it.  Like I've said before, there's still some tough bits still to come for me but I know how glorious it's going to be on the other side and I'm here for the lessons and the growth. I'm honing in and doubling down on all the things that make me FEEL good. I've cheated the system and I've chosen TWO words for 2023. How very bold of me indeed. The first one is authenticity.  To me this means absolutely not changing myself to fit anyone else or anyone else's opinion on what I ‘should' be doing. Not dumbing myself down or suppressing who I am. It means being with and around the people I feel 100% myself with. Not ignoring my gut or red flags. The way I see it is if you're not being authentically you what are you left with? A career or business you don't love. People who don't make you feel your best. Surface-level relationships. No thank you! Not everyone is going to like it and that's absolutely ok. There will be plenty who do. Think of authenticity like a spam filter for your life. The more YOU you are the more the pieces that don't fit fall away. Wonderful. The second is fun. This year, I'm going to have some flipping fun! I'm going to try new things, go to new places, spend time with my favourite people and let my inner child run absolutely wild.  It's going to be glorious and I'm so glad you're coming with me on the ride!! Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://bit.ly/stressedtosuccess  Book in a free discovery call: https://calendly.com/franexcell/20min Ways to work with me: 1:1: https://franexcell.com/work-with-me SOS! (Success Over Stress) Group Programme (Coming back winter 2022!) Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Lessons And Growth In The Dark Scary Times   Well here we are.    Feels like yesterday it was 2019!   So, I'm easing you in with this one in the hope you're still taking as much time as you need for yourself.    As much rest as you need.   As much time with your loved ones as you need.   I for one tend to take the first week of January off and ease myself back in super slowly, no pressure.   I've stayed totally off social media too for 2 weeks which has been wonderful.   I am giving you a bit of a raw one today but I know that it's going to give someone who's going through it at the moment some hope or a different perspective so it's worth the vulnerability hangover.   2022 for so many people, including myself, was a bit of a shocker personally.   It's very easy when things are hard to drown in it and miss all the good that is right there in front of you.  Your brain will be very helpful and filter this for you too if you don't put your conscious hat on and intentionally look for the good bits so remember that. There's always an unconscious filter on everything so pop on your conscious hat and take another look, you never know what you might find.   It's especially difficult when you're surrounded with people's highlight reels, that are LITERALLY highlight reels leaving out all the bits they don't want you to see or know about,  making it look like they've had a wonderful year and you're left feeling a little flat and wondering what's wrong with you.   There's nothing wrong with you my love, you're just comparing apples to pineapples and thinking they're the same.    So here we go…I've been honest about the fact that 2022 was difficult for me personally.    One day I will talk about it all and the lessons but it's not appropriate for me to do that for a little while yet, I know you'll understand.     I've had to let go of what I thought my life was, and what it was going to look like from pretty much every angle.    I've had to let go of some of the things I love the most in my life too.   It's been brutal and incredibly painful honestly, and now I've been ‘in' it a while and starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel I can see it's also been very beautiful.   Things have happened in the last year that I used to think would break me but my goodness it's done the opposite.    The things I used to fear, have happened.  And guess what, I'm still here.   So if you've been through the ringer the last year I hope you can reflect back and see the same, even if you're still in the thick of it I hope you allow yourself to start looking for the value and the lessons that might be there.     My priority in 2022, particularly the second half, was really doubling down and practicing what I preach.     I let go of goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year because they just weren't a priority anymore. (Pssst…you get to change your goals by the way…thought that was an important point to make on Jan 2nd!)   I have looked after myself like never before. I've been in the gym, in the spa,meditating, doing heartmath, tapping, journaling, making sure I'm outside, really simply listening to my body every day and giving it what it needs. (by the way, that's how you improve your confidence and self love too…actually love yourself, treat yourself well and keep promises to yourself, you'll find when you do that you care far less what other people think of you and more about what you think of yourself!)   I've been painfully honest with myself about what's serving me and what's not across all areas of my life.  It's something I do often but I've really gone for it over the last few months and it's very cathartic!     I've let a huge amount of things go. I've burned a lot of stuff down, metaphorically, that were sapping my energy!   I've supported myself like never before. It's actually been really lovely to witness how I've handled things and I'm incredibly proud of myself.    As someone who had such terrible anxiety and negativity and chronic catastophising for most of my life, to be able to handle some of the really big things life can throw at you in the way I have gives me a tremendous sense of pride.     That girl back in 2014 wouldn't have believed the 2023 version could exist.  So wherever you're at right now, I promise it can change! It will take work but your life can be unrecognisable in the best ways.   I'm particularly proud of the calm I'm able to access in the chaos. The way I'm instantly able to shift my perspective. The way I'm able to acknowledge and feel any negative feelings with no judgement and know there's always the calm after the storm that brings with it incredible lessons.   Doing this means that things that could have knocked me down for days previously, last a matter of hours or often just minutes. The magic of allowing yourself to feel your feelings and know that they are valid, valuable and justified!    It's as if every time I move through something negative or dark there's a new layer that sheds and new growth that happens.     I don't fear the big bad things anymore.  I take a deep breath, zoom out and just think about the next step.    I hope you're finding this episode helpful because I think there are too many people who talk about things being sunshine and roses all the time and it's simply not true. I promise you these are the parts that make us who we are. They are the catalyst for growth.  Post traumatic growth is magical. These things that you thought would break you happen and your baseline of happiness, resilience, self worth all shifts for the positive when you allow the growth to happen.   I know and I absolutely trust that the things I thought would break me are actually building me.    That's magic in my eyes.   I don't fear other people's judgement of me because I know it always says FAR more about them than it does about me.   There's so much pressure in this world to show up and be perfect, people will look to tear you down. That's their thing, you don't have to take it on. It's really not about you anyway!   I've been let down by so many people this year who I thought I was close to and had my back. It's been very painful at times but also I'm grateful because I don't want that energy in my life.    When people SHOW you who they are, believe them.  You get to grieve who you thought they were and what you thought you had, but know it was never really there in the first place and you will be far better without them. Let the gap they leave create space for amazing people to come into your life.    I'm very solid in my opinion of myself these days.  I don't need validation from anyone outside of me, nice as it is when it happens ha!    I know who I am and I'm excited for who I'm going to be in the future.   I've also allowed myself to be supported like never before.  This was newer for me this year.  I've always been very independent and identified as ‘capable' of doing everything myself. It's been something I've really practiced and worked on and it's brought so many beautiful things into my life. I've talked about it in a previous episode.    I'm not putting any pressure on 2023.  It will involve some things that I never thought I'd be doing.  Things that I don't want to do.  Things that are hard, sad, heartbreaking and challenging to my ego but I promise you the episode you hear this time next year will blow your mind.   So whatever your last year has looked like please allow yourself to zoom out and start to get excited about the potential positive possibilities.   I can see them so so clearly now, and I AM excited. What an adventure I'm going on.    And I hope that you can start to see things that way.     Please remember that the 1st January is just another day.    It's a societal thing that has made it so important and made people feel like it's the ONLY day of the year where you really need to get your shiz together and if you don't stick with it you're a mighty failure.   I don't believe in resolutions that set you up to fail and don't take the science of habits into account and are set through a lens of all the things that you think are ‘wrong' or ‘not good enough' about yourself.    No thank you.   I like to do things a little differently.    I love this time of year for reflection and I also love it because as much as you really can do this any day during the year, I do like the energy of a clean slate. I just take away the pressure.   You're perfect as you are. If you want to tweak some things this year from a place of self love rather than self judgement then I'm so here for that.    Although there are still some hard things to come for me in 2023, I know I'm going to handle anything that comes my way.      There are lessons I've learned, and am still learning that I will be forever grateful for. Even though they SUCKED at the time.    I know who my people are. I know who I am!   There are also plenty of exciting things that are coming up for me this year outside the personal growth I know is coming my way in abundance.   There is going to be an even more affordable and accessible way to use the Positive Pants Toolkit app coming very soon that I'm really excited about.   There are hugely exciting developments with the podcast AND the potential launch of 2 more.  One that ties in nicely with this one but longer form interviews so I KNOW you're going to love that one.    And one that's something I'd love to do just for fun. So keep your ears peeled for those.    I'm going to be doing more individual enneagram sessions and bringing you the gift of sweet sweet self awareness and the roadmap to your own growth and happiness.  If you're not following @enneagramandexcell please do go follow, there's a link to book your session in the bio over there too. I ADORE these sessions because they never fail to blow clients minds and completely shift the way someone sees themselves. So much self compassion comes from understanding your enneagram type and it gives me chills to see how that shifts for someone.   You can also now work with me 1:1 through your company, just email hello@franexcell.com and put me in touch with your HR or learning and development contact.     I'll also be doing more corporate trainings and workshops too which again, if you'd like me to come into your company or work with your team just put me in touch with the people responsible and we shall make it so.  I've worked with some very cool companies this year around understanding self sabotage and emotional regulation tools and techniques as well as the enneagram and it all brings me absolute joy so the more the merrier!   Instead of fixing any goals for myself this year outside of continuing to look after myself and support myself to the best of my ability and lean into what my body is telling me it needs, I'm going with authenticity and flow.    There are still a lot of unknowns in my world, and a little more pain to get through so i'm going to allow myself to follow the nudges.  I'm letting things unfold, feeling my feelings, allowing myself to say yes to opportunities or to what scares me.    And also…lots of healing.   I hope wherever you're at or however you're feeling today that you know how much you matter.    Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://bit.ly/stressedtosuccess  Book in a free discovery call: https://calendly.com/franexcell/20min Ways to work with me: 1:1: https://franexcell.com/work-with-me SOS! (Success Over Stress) Group Programme (Coming back winter 2022!) Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Time to look at progress differently, There's A Shift Coming!   It's time to look at progress, success and what happiness in your business truly looks like, differently.   There's a shift coming and I'm SO here for it!   I've been banging this drum for a very long time now and if you've been listening for any amount of time you'll hopefully know that I do not subscribe to the crazy ‘guru' marketers and ‘celebrity' coaches out there's depiction of what success and progress really looks like and I find it incredibly problematic and toxic.    Whether that's in business, careers, weight loss, personal growth and healing…anything!   The idea of overnight success, click your fingers and it's done and the very concept of what that success actually looks like, or ‘should' look like.   It becomes the very thing that keeps people trapped in a cycle of feeling worse and worse when they don't get the unicorn results.    People are waking up and wising up to it and I for one am ELATED about that.   So many people come into starting their own business purely because they want more flexibility in their lives.   Which is actually easier to achieve when you're going for what were your original goals in the first place. Often to replace a salary or a bit more.   Then they're sold the ‘six figures in six months' idea and the concept of seven, or even eight figure businesses now without taking into account any real version of what it took to get them there and the original goal seems like you're ‘playing small'.    Or the idea that they are completely healed (impossible by the way, growth IS the human experience, the work is never done and that's a beautiful thing!) and they can show you the exact steps to do the same thing yourself.   We don't actually know if they're really ‘there' at all.   We never hear the nuance of their personal circumstances and privilege.    We don't know the nuance of any healing they had to go through to get there or how long that took.   We don't know the full story of any of it.    But we benchmark ourselves against it!   Or, we have done for far too long and people are more clued up and are asking themselves better questions.   And nothing could make me happier.    The bottom line is your identity has to catch up before something shows up in your reality.   Without doing the inner work and having a deep look into the self awareness piece of the puzzle you'll hit barriers every step of the way because your brain and nervous system WILL put them there.   Having what you want has to feel SAFE in your nervous system, if it doesn't then self sabotage ahoy!   Last week I was oop North in Blackpool for the wrap up of The Mentorship. The high level 6 month programme that I run with Dawni Baxter and Abi Hugo.   I'm amazed I didn't cry when we were going round the table talking about results, what the biggest thing they're taking away from the programme is, their plan going forward and their focus for 2023 because everything i've ever wanted to hear from someone I'm working with was exactly what was coming out of their mouths and I could be more proud of every single one of them.   So I wanted to share some of the key points in the hope that it might inspire a little shift in you too, to see what's possible when you let go of some of the conditioning that's very purpose is to keep you trapped in a cycle of needing more when you have so much of what you already need within you right now.    I wholeheartedly believe that. You just have to back yourself and have the support and reminders to believe it.   So here we go, these are some of my favourite key points from our discussion.   The shift to Internal from external validation.  This is HUGE for me. Hearing this felt like absolute ‘mission accomplished' for me. Letting go of numbers in exchange for how you FEEL about yourself. Knowing that numbers do not define you in any way.    Putting yourself first. I believe we all need to apply this. Nothing should come at the expense of our physical, mental or emotional health. It's been too long that hustle culture has been glorified to the detriment of self. It HAS to stop. Not compromising self to keep up with the joneses.   Turning away money if it's at the expense of mental health, physical health, ethics. Being able to do this in the face of potential scarcity is a HUGE win! Knowing when it's right for you and when it's wrong for you. There are SO many more benefits that come from being able to do this than will ever come from taking the money anyway.    How important doing the inner work truly is. Being able to truly find themselves in the process of undoing unhelpful conditioning. The strength and clarity that you find there is invaluable and life changing.   Recognising what a REAL ‘lifestyle' business can look and feel like. A lifestyle business is one that fits into the lifestyle you really want.  For most people, when they're really honest with themselves, is far simpler (and easy to achieve!) than the social media ‘lap top lifestyle' images. For many people this might look like working less per week, with flexible hours, loving what you do and staying under the VAT threshold. There's no judgement to be had either way but all too often I see people sacrificing what they really want for what they think they should want, and that if they don't have means they aren't good enough. Remind yourself of what it was you originally wanted and why. Get there first, then continue to grow if you want to.   Feeling confidence and clarity around your direction while being able to be authentically you. This should be so obvious but the vast majority of people don't have this. Not having this is when shiny object syndrome can wreak havoc.   The power of Real authentic support, do you have it?  If not, where could you find it?   Having the confidence to say yes to opportunities instead of hiding. Oof, I loved hearing this one!   Offerings that actually FEEL good.  I promise when they do they'll be so much easier to sell.   No more feeling like trying to fit square pegs into round holes. The reality is humans are nuanced creatures.  No two are exactly the same in every way. You have to get to know your square pegs and round holes AND not judge yourself for not ‘fitting' somewhere.    Braveness.   Flexibility and not being afraid to pivot.   If you take away the pressure cooker you'll move so much faster!    A lot of that comes from figuring out YOU, which is at the heart of everything I do.  When you do that, everything will become easier.   So I hope that inspires you to think a little differently about the year just gone, the one coming up and your own progress.   It's often not the surface level ‘showy' things that prove our progress, it's the deep shifts of patterns, self identity and the way we feel which are the real marker of success.    I'm so grateful to have been a part of this for them. They did the work.  There's no getting around that part but if you have the right support around you you will absolutely fly!   And finally, before I take my little Christmas break, I wanted to say a huge heartfelt thank you to every single one of you listening to this.    Every single listen, subscribe, download, share, recommendation, review, it all means the absolute world to me and I can't believe my little brain child of helping people understand themselves and how they tick has grown to where it is now.   So, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.    I wish you happy festivities for whatever you're doing.    I'll see you on the flip side in January!   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://bit.ly/stressedtosuccess  Book in a free discovery call: https://calendly.com/franexcell/20min Ways to work with me: 1:1: https://franexcell.com/work-with-me SOS! (Success Over Stress) Group Programme (Coming back winter 2022!) Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ How To Handle Festive Season Triggers   The festive season can be rife with triggers.     This year I'm having a lot of conversations with people who are feeling a little nervous going into said festivities and I wanted to offer up my perspective, in case it's helpful for a little reframe or to remind you of the tools you have available to you.   To many people the festive season is a time for joy, fun, family, frolics and great food.   For probably just as many people it's a little less joyful and more anxiety inducing for a number of potential reasons. Particularly this year when so many people are still operating from fight, flight or freeze responses after the intense last few years we've all had.   So I'm going to talk about some of the common triggers that might come up because awareness is going to be the biggest key to making sure you're not overtaken by triggers. I'll also give you the key steps to managing them. Awareness is and always will be number one.    But not just for you, to also help you step into someone else's shoes too and understand why certain things that might not be triggering for you, could be for someone else and how to support them.   Remember as Carl Jung says, ‘Until you make the unconscious conscious it will direct your life and you will call it fate.'   The more aware you are the less power they have. When they remain unconscious you don't have any other choice but to run on autopilot and from your old, often unhelpful, protection mechanisms that might result in a self fulfilling prophecy.   We want you to use the most efficient area of your brain, your prefrontal cortex, which is responsible for decision making, rational thought, and choice. All the things you need when potential triggers are around.  It's known as the CEO of your brain and it literally goes ‘offline' in stressful situations.    So, we want to know how we keep that online as much as possible.   Money is going to be a very common festive season trigger.  Finances in general are a big one for people, especially this year.    There's so much comparison, particularly on social media.    There's so much ‘shoulding' on ourselves about how our festive season ‘should' look.    So much expectation.    However,  a lot of it is actually self generated. We do it to ourselves. We put the pressure on ourselves.   In tricky financial times we need to think a little outside of the box. Set boundaries with ourselves and others. That might be instead of the financial pressure on food being on one person could it be split amongst everyone. For example, one person brings a starter, one sorts the turkey, one sorts pudding, one brings the trimmings.   Of course I can't speak to your individual situation but I'm hoping you get the idea!   People might be feeling awkward this year and we don't have to wait for them to say so.  We can suggest ways to all be in it together, we can even make it fun, and help take the pressure off.   If you're really struggling this year please do google what's happening in your local area because there are lots of charities that will be putting together dinners and donated gifts.    You could make presents, do secret santa, get creative but please take the pressure off yourself as much as you possibly can and don't try to keep up with the Joneses.    Family and relationships are next up. Goodness these can be a big trigger for so many and often when things we thought we'd healed might sneak back in when we're spending more time with people we might normally love from a distance.   Being in the wrong relationship, not being in one, arguments. People not pulling their weight.     Within the family trigger might also be loneliness or loss too for various reasons.  If that's you I'm sending so much love. Please have a google again for things going on in your local area. Even if there's people to meet up with online. Please don't suffer in silence.    Toxic positivity and having to answer questions about ‘where you are in life' also play a part here so plan out in advance how you want to handle it. Brainstorm some killer comebacks.  If people ask you questions you don't want to answer, turn it back around and ask them something about themselves. People love talking about themselves and they love judging other people…don't give away the fodder!   Food and booze can be a trigger for those managing addictions and eating disorders.     Booze can be triggering for people in various ways. It could be being around it. It could be worrying about how you'll behave or what you'll say after a drink, how someone else will behave with you after they've had a drink, or it could be the hangxiety that ensues and plagues the day after for yourself.    Obligation is huuuuuuuuge during the festive season. Feeling like you have to say yes to things you don't want to.  Going places you don't really want to be. Feeling like you ‘should' be out all the time and creating elaborate stories of what it means if you're not and you're not posting about all the festive fun you're having.   If you want to stay in your pajamas until January that is your prerogative my friend!    If your nervous system doesn't want sensory overload on nights out and you want to chill at home…you do you!    Nobody, I repeat NOBODY will remember that you chose to be in your jimjams instead of going to a party.   There are plenty more and it's so individual but I wanted to highlight some of the most common.     There is one more I'd like to briefly mention before I go onto some of the ways to handle these things and that is…Board games!   If you know it's going to descend into rage and destruction…walk away from articulate.  Or hide it in advance!   So what are some of the additional reframes and things you can do to make sure you're feeling as balanced as you possibly can be?   Remember, first up we have the awareness piece.    What tends to trigger you during the festive season? The more you're aware of it the more control you have over it, than it has over you.   Awareness of your own triggers and being sensitive to what could be going on for others.   Next, decide in advance what could make it easier for you?    That's nuanced to everyone's situation and I can't give you the answer to that but for me as an example, when I've been adamant I don't want a drink I've brought my own. I would also often drive meaning I couldn't drink and the peer pressure was taken off.    I actually love a lot of the non-alcoholic options out there on the market now. My favourites are from Three Spirit and Edi.     When times have been tough I've shopped in charity shops and found really thoughtful gifts. I used to have a budget of £1-3 per person and I'm not kidding when I said I won Christmas. Poundland was my friend back in 2014 when there were 8 nieces and nephews to buy for!   Recognise what a trigger is. It's an alert system to a previous threat, alerting you that something similar might be happening or about to happen in the present.  It's not necessarily true.  It's trying to protect you.  It's worth saying we're not actually talking about ‘Triggers' in the truest context here as that's a much bigger subject (a trauma response associated with PTSD or CPTSD, often a sight, sound or smell that triggers the fight/flight/freeze response that can cause flashbacks and physiological effects) but the word trigger has become the word most people understand and associate with a reaction within ourselves to something in the present moment that has reminded us (consciously or unconsciously) of something that has happened in our past or making us feel intense discomfort.   It's a nervous system response.   Meaning you can intentionally send your nervous system signals of safety by activating the parasympathetic nervous system through something as simple as using a longer exhale.     This will also bring your prefrontal cortex back online allowing you the distance between stimulus and response that gives you back the power to respond vs react. You have choice back.  You can rationalise and make a different choice if that's what would serve you better in the moment.    How do you think you could prepare to be around your potential triggers?    Can you create yourself a game plan?     Grab your journal and write down all the potential triggers you're aware of and write down how you could deal with it in advance or in the moment. Look at it from the position of the causal observer, the fly on the wall that has no emotional attachment to it.     What might you recommend to a friend asking for advice on how to handle the same thing?   Do you HAVE to be around the potential trigger at all?  Are there any ways that you might not have to be and still keep the peace?   Where can you kindly but clearly set boundaries?   Where could you take a break or get outside for a walk in nature?  How can you plan these things in?   When it comes to triggering and stressful times it comes down to making sure you're doing MORE of what works.   What normally supports you day to day that might fall to the wayside in the festive season?     Is it exercise? Journaling? Meditation? Being out in nature?   It's easy to see the festive season as ‘time off' for certain things, especially positive habits but I would argue it's a time to double down and make sure you're supporting yourself in the best possible way.   It really comes down to 8 core things.    Awareness.    Self Care.   Boundaries, with yourself and others.   Communicate your thoughts and feelings.   Reframing.   Preparation.   Asking for and allowing support.   Emotional regulation.    The more you can regulate your nervous system, the better.   Grounding, breathwork, Orienting using your senses (what can you see, hear, smell, feel, taste) Heartmath (in for 5, out for 5), meditation, using a device like Sensate (information is in my link on Instagram).  If you're a member of the Positive Pants Toolkit and have the app, dive in there!   We have a lot of tools and resources at our disposal. We just have to remember to use them.    Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App to access all the tools & techniques to rewire your brain and revolutionise your life https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://bit.ly/stressedtosuccess  Book in a free discovery call: https://calendly.com/franexcell/20min Ways to work with me: 1:1: https://franexcell.com/work-with-me Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp Book a call to discuss corporate training and 1:1 coaching https://calendly.com/franexcell/freeconsultation Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Can you go slow to speed up?   Can you allow yourself to go slow so you can speed up?   What do I mean by this?   Well, we're wired as a society for instant gratification, in so many different contexts, and if we don't get it we often give up and in the process make a tonne of negative assumptions about ourselves.     Or at least berate ourselves for something not happening instantly and then beat ourselves up some more and think everyone else can do it instantly so there's something wrong with me.   We then seek the evidence for that being true.   But the trouble is we're not often looking at the whole picture and making assumptions about what it took for people to have what they have.   We take the same approach whether it's working towards something we want or our own healing.   We want everything to happen now.     And there are plenty of people who are ok with setting us up to fail by telling us we can bypass the hard work.   Again there are parallels in so many areas of life, business work, healing, weight loss etc.   There are some fundamental issues with this mentality.    Which by the way is absolutely not your fault. Too often we're sold the ‘you can have this right now…without doing the hard work' messaging.    First of all it really is setting people up to be disappointed.    It's also often going to result in you spending a lot of money and a lot of time chasing the quick fixes when in fact you'd get where you want to be so much more quickly (and cheaply!) if you took and focused on the slower road.   I know it sounds counter intuitive.    I love to illustrate this as thinking about wanting to build a bridge from one place to another place where you'd rather be.    If you build one bridge slowly and consistently and really take the time to do it properly, how long would it take for you to get there?   Vs how long would it take if you constantly rush, start frantically building one bridge and it either crumbles or you realise it's not robust enough or the right method for you so you start building another one and the same happens. Then you start building another one and the same happens.    How long is it going to take you to get to the other side?   You won't, right?   You'll spend the same amount of time, usually more, and create more frantic and frenetic energy stopping and starting and building using shoddy materials on shoddy foundations vs allowing yourself the time to do it properly and allow that bridge to last a lifetime.    Even if some of the bricks were a little heavier, and things may have been a little harder along the way, even though at many points you wished there was a quicker way, but you feel in your bones how solid your bridge is and how it will last a lifetime.   Which sounds more productive and better in the long run?   We live in a pressure cooker and nervous systems can't heal in pressure cookers.   As much as we'd love it to be different.   Nervous systems heal in the slowness and the softness, what i'm always calling softly softly catchy monkey.   Allowing yourself to take your time, dip your toe in the water and create safety as you go.  At the same time allowing yourself to completely rewire your brain and nervous system.   Dysregulation cannot heal dysregulation.     Think about it logically. How could that happen?   This is why burnout takes TIME to heal. There comes a point where your body forces you into it.   You need to think about what you're actively doing while you're healing.  Literally creating new neural networks.  Undoing and reworking decades of patterns into your nervous systems. Creating a new story of what safety looks like to your brain and nervous system.   It's flipping magical that we can do that!   But we do have to put the work in and often that means taking it slower than you'd ideally like to.   We need to stop trying to PUSH everything. Stop trying to FORCE everything and seek unicorn quick fixes that leave you feeling ten times worse than when you started.   Like I said, there comes a point where all that pushing takes its toll and you'll be forced to slow down.   Remember your bridges!   Give yourself the gift of really good, solid foundations.   I know in the festive season lots of things often feel like they speed up.    There's less rest. Less sleep. Less time for you. That in itself can be hugely triggering.   This usually happens when you're being run by obligation so I invite you to ask yourself what you really WANT to say yes to and what you don't this festive season.    Remind yourself, it actually takes less time if you allow yourself to take it slow than it would if you constantly try and use quick fixes and quit.  You will heal faster if you let yourself take it slow.   I know how tempting it can be to seek quick fixes when you're in any sort of pain. It makes perfect sense. I'm certainly not saying things won't feel better before you reach your end goal.  If anything I believe it's LESS painful in the long run.    So, how could you take things a little slower?    What could it look like?   How could it feel?   As always, you're a rockstar and you're capable of huge things.   Allow yourself the time to make it happen.   Fx  

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App to access all the tools & techniques to rewire your brain and revolutionise your life https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://bit.ly/stressedtosuccess  Book in a free discovery call: https://calendly.com/franexcell/20min Ways to work with me: 1:1: https://franexcell.com/work-with-me Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp Book a call to discuss corporate training and 1:1 coaching https://calendly.com/franexcell/freeconsultation Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Can You Fall In Love With The Person You're Becoming?   What if you could fall in love with the person you're becoming?   Before you become that person.   What if you can look at where you're at and the reasons you'd like to create change with compassion and absolutely love the person you're on your way to being, before you're there?   How could that change things for you?   What does that person look like?   What does that person feel like?   We have to remember that all these behaviours and foibles that we have, and beat ourselves up for having, served us at one point in our lives.   The feelings we've been taught to push down and deny serve a purpose. They are there to be felt.  Fully.    We're not taught this as children.   A lot of it comes from our experiences as children.   Like I always say when we're delving into our protection mechanisms and the ways that we self sabotage and why, it's not about blaming or shaming the people in our lives who didn't know better at the time but it's understanding it's impossible to meet another human's needs 100% of the time.   When those needs are met as infants we internalise that. It's not ‘I'm a good person in a situation where my needs aren't met'. It becomes ‘my needs are not being met because I'm bad'.    This is the basis of a lot of shame and ‘i'm not good enough' feelings.   It's not our fault.   It's not true.   It's often not our primary caregivers fault either which is worth noting.   People are often searching for the ‘perfect' way to be. How to be the perfect partner, parent, friend.   The reality is it is impossible.   It doesn't exist.    No one is immune to this process of being human.   For me life is about incremental improvements and being ok learning the lessons.   I'm always loving on the person I'm becoming.     Having self compassion when I get it wrong and learning the lessons.   The beauty of allowing yourself to be human and have the entire human experience.    So let's get to know this person you're becoming now shall we?   Best get comfy and grab your journal for this one! If you're out and about let it percolate in your noggin and come back to it.   Remember when we're doing this it's from the perspective of seeing ourselves AS that person. Not beating ourselves up for not being there yet! Spoiler alert, you'll never be THERE. That's half the point.    Life is about growth and evolution. You could do this exercise today and have a totally different experience and vision in a year.    So much of what I do is about inspiring kindness towards yourself.   I beat myself up, berated myself and hated myself to various degrees for the majority of my life.   When I realised that was simply a behaviour that I'd learned and not who I am, and that it's all infinitely changeable, it was one of the most freeing experiences of my life and led me exactly here!   So, ready to dive in?  Awesome!   How do they handle setting and honouring boundaries with other people?   How do they handle setting and honrouring boundaries with themselves?   How do they think, feel and behave when they get something wrong or something doesn't go the way they wanted it to?   How does this person show that they know their worth even when they aren't feeling their best?   How does this person show up in their friendships?   How does this person show up in their relationships?   How does this person show up in their work?   How does this person behave when the proverbial hits the fan?   How does this person show up when they're annoyed or angry?   How does this person treat themselves physically? (Think diet, exercise, self care)   How does this person treat themselves emotionally? (Think self talk and looking after their mind)   What is the difference in thoughts for this person?   How do they carry themselves?   What's their posture like?   How do they dress?   And most importantly how does all of this feel?   It's all within reach, and nowhere near as far away as you think it is. Come back to this episode as many times as you like. Visualisation is incredibly powerful and you'll be training your reticular activation system to start filtering out all the opportunities for you to get what you want AND showing your brain what's possible and already available to you.   Ooof it's powerful and oh so bloomin simple!   So, I hope you got some insights through this exercise that shows you what's possible.   The difference in Fran 2.0 vs Fran most of her life and at her worst in 2014 is immeasurable. Incomparable. Unrecognisable.    But no one can do the work for you I'm afraid.   The more you understand yourself, your thoughts, your feelings, your behaviours and motivations the more compassion you have for yourself and the quicker you move towards being the person you want to be.   I'm not for a second saying there's anything wrong or that requires fixing with who you are right now. But as you're here I have a sneaking suspicion there is some self judgement going on and some changes you'd love to make.   You are always good enough, you are always worthy. There's just some layers of experiences, traumas and societal stuff that once it shifts, will help you feel infinitely lighter.   The more you understand, strip back and rewire your unconscious programming on a nervous system level, the easier life gets.   If you'd like my help with that you can of course book an Enneagram Essentials call to get you really moving on the self awareness piece and understanding how to move towards who you always were and who you were always meant to be before life got in the way.   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://bit.ly/stressedtosuccess  Book in a free discovery call: https://calendly.com/franexcell/20min Ways to work with me: 1:1: https://franexcell.com/work-with-me SOS! (Success Over Stress) Group Programme (Coming back winter 2022!) Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ What's going into your psyche right now?   What's going into your psyche every day right now?   I know I hammer this home a fair bit but I feel like it's a really important subject to reiterate time and time again because it's so, so easily overlooked.   So even if one person hears this today and shifts something leading to a brighter day, well then I'm happy as larry.   What are you currently watching, reading, listening to and who are you surrounding yourself with?   This stuff penetrates your psyche so whether it's positive or negative it's going to be influencing how you think, feel and behave right now.   In my opinion it's more important than ever to make sure you're surrounding yourself with the right, most supportive things and allowing it to work some magic.   I just spent 3 days at an event that was all about tapping into your intuition, that was good to feed my psyche for 3 days for sure. It also meant that I was busy so had a LOT less screen time.   It's no secret how much I love Instagram over some other social platforms because it's so easy to curate your very own little inspirational happy place on the internet.   I share what I consider pure joy to my stories all the time.  That's what I see when I'm on there. Inspiration, education and joy…and cute fluffy animals which you guys also seem to get immense joy from.   I've also been intentionally spending time with some of my favourite people.   People that bring me joy.   People who have meant a lot to me either now or at some point in my life.   I honestly can't tell you the joy I've felt doing this. If you can't tell, chasing joy is one of my priorities and focus right now.   I spent the week in London staying at my friend's house and in that time I went out for pizza with one of my best friends of 17 years.   I went for dinner with 3 of my girlfriends who I've been friends with for 22 years.   I went out with 2 gorgeous friends who are going through something similar to me personally and we really put the world to rights over lunch that didn't finish until 11pm.   I had a zoom call with a guy friend of mine who was my absolute ride or die from 14 years old who I hadn't spoken to for about 7 years.   I went for a drink with one of my old friends from school, so we've been friends 22 years and again, didn't see each other for 7 years and it was like no time had passed and we had a really great catch up.   Life gets in the way right?   Particularly when we had 2 years of not really being able to go anywhere and most people dealing with their own stuff, it's so, so easy to let the people and things that matter fall by the wayside.   Then sometimes it gets to the point that you feel like it's been too long.   It's never too long.   Every single one of these people as soon as I saw them it was like no time had passed at all.   Pure joy.   It's a good reminder that people still love you even if you haven't seen or heard from them in a while.   You're in control.   You can put yourself out there to just say, ‘hey, you mean something to me, can we catch up?' whenever you like.    Yes there was probably too much red wine consumed.   Yes I'm tired.   But my goodness is my heart full.   This is what I'm feeding my psyche.   It's all too easy to get bogged down in doom and gloom and scare mongering.   Focus on what YOU have control over.    Place your attention and intention on how you want to feel.   Listen to podcasts that inspire, educate or entertain you.  If you're here you're already doing it, gold star, do it more!   If you feel yourself slipping into doom scrolling or getting involved in drama or comparing yourself to other people, catch yourself!   Then shift the focus.   So what do you want to put your attention on?   What inspires you?   What brings you joy?   Who brings you joy?   What doesn't?   Like I say, I know I talk about this a lot but with these episodes I'm very led by what I think people need to hear right now and this is what came up as important to me.    Check me out already using my intuition more.   It's scary out there, there's no denying that. It doesn't have to feel scary inside too.   Create your own safe space and your own safe haven and be meticulous over what and who you let into it.   Remember you're the one that's in control. Notice the difference when you start intentionally shifting your attention. See how it feels.   And remember you're amazing and you've got this!   Fx

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://bit.ly/stressedtosuccess  Book in a free discovery call: https://calendly.com/franexcell/20min Ways to work with me: 1:1: https://franexcell.com/work-with-me SOS! (Success Over Stress) Group Programme (Coming back winter 2022!) Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Things To Pay Attention To Daily   There are some simple things to pay attention to daily that, when you do, can really have a huge effect on your life and the way you feel.   If you've been listening to me for any amount of time you'll know my passion is helping people be a little more conscious of the way we tick as humans, how society forms a lot of our opinions and ways of thinking and how our childhood and experiences do the same.   The vast majority of the world is roaming around completely unaware of themselves.    And you simply can't change anything when you're existing on auto pilot.   When those same negative thoughts and beliefs are looping in your brain.   I believe that we are all capable of change. But it starts with awareness.  Consciousness.    This is why I love the Enneagram so much because it shortcuts so much of the awareness piece and it is so transformative because once you know…you know!   You can't unlearn it.   Add to that the huge self compassion and self understanding that comes with it and the compassion for others   We kind of walk around believing that everyone thinks the same way we do.    At the same time we know it couldn't be further from the truth based on our experiences.   There are a few things that you can start to really pay attention to daily that will help with the awareness piece.    It will also help you consistently keep moving towards incremental growth and to be able to notice little incremental changes that you can make on a daily basis to keep moving you towards the life you want to live.   Whatever that looks like for you.   For me it's peace, ease and flexibility.  Happiness. Calm.    It might look different for you but that is my inner compass.  Knowing that means I can ask myself the right questions on a daily basis of if what I'm doing is moving me towards or away from that.   So let's go through a few of the things you can start to notice daily now.   Notice what gives you energy.   This might be something you physically do.  It could be certain people you're around.  It might be certain things you eat or drink.   For me some of the things that give me energy are really looking after myself through exercise.  Even when I don't want to do it, I ALWAYS feel better afterwards.  I feel sluggish when I haven't moved.    Mr Milo doggo pants gives me energy.   Being outside gives me energy.  Sunlight gives me energy.   Earl grey tea in the morning somehow gives me energy…which is totally psychosomatic because I drink decaf ha!   Being with my girlfriends gives me energy. Great conversation gives me energy.   Singing and dancing gives me energy.   So how does noticing this help?  Well, when you KNOW what gives you energy and you also know you want to have more of it you can consciously do more of the things that give you energy!   Notice what saps your energy   Same thing, This might be something you physically do.  It could be certain people you're around.  It might be certain things you eat or drink.   Junk food saps my energy.  Doesn't mean I don't eat it…comfort eating was something I learned at a very young age and I get a lot of joy from my food BUT I'm sensible about how much and when.  I know when it could be problematic for me. As an example, i'd never eat junk food if i've got client calls. It totally saps my energy and I want to be on top form!  In fact any big meal in the day does so I save that for my dinner.  Otherwise I need a nap! That's just me…i'm not advising you to do the same ha!   I'm super tuned into people's authenticity so when I'm around someone whoI feel isn't authentic I politely make my excuses to leave. The same applies to small talk.  If it's not a genuine connection I struggle. I actually want to start another podcast for in depth interviews for people who feel the same.  This is one of the reasons I often struggle in the online industry and if I don't feel like I can be super genuine or authentic I don't really want to show up. I'm not labelling that as good, bad, right or wrong…just interesting to notice.    There's some obvious things too like not enough sleep or a hangover of course but i'm talking about the slightly more subtle energy suckers. They're the things you really want to notice.   When you understand these things about yourself you can make changes or seek the solutions that get around those obstacles. Without the awareness you aren't able to do that.   Notice what makes you feel grateful   Same, same! The what's and the who's that you might take for granted. When you intentionally seek gratitude you wire your brain to find more of it.    Notice what makes you not feel good about yourself   This is a biggie and something that often remains unconscious and on autopilot until you see it and are able to challenge it. Things can feel so ‘normal' to us that it's not questioned. It's a feeling we're so used to that we forget we have a choice to be around it or not.   Notice what brings you joy   My favourite. I've been talking a lot recently about chasing joy. It's something we can so easily have, without it having to cost anything, and yet it's so easily overlooked.   Chase it, intentionally. Seek the little things that bring you joy. When you notice them you'll be amazed how much joy you can bring into your life even when things feel hard!    Notice what's not working for you   Another one I talk about a lot. Sometimes we can feel a low level of dissatisfaction without actually being conscious of what specifically is causing it.    When you get to the root of it you can do something about it! This is another one I talk about a lot. Check out the sunk cost fallacy episode next if this one strikes a chord.   Notice how you feel after doing certain things   This is genuinely how I got into my exercise habit. Well, most of the habits I have now to be fair. It's very easy to focus on things feeling like a bit of a ‘chore' or like something you HAVE to do.  Noticing how you feel AFTER doing them vs the before is the game changer.   I feel 10x better in myself after exercise, meditation, heartmath, sitting in the hottub at the gym. This is again how you move incrementally towards feeling more of how you want to feel.  Notice it and try to name the feeling.    I don't exercise to lose weight.  Even though I piled it on over the pandemic and with my bad knees. It's simply a glorious side effect to something I'm doing anyway now. Shift the focus. Notice how it makes you feel.   Notice where you feel resistant   Finally for today is this one. Where do you feel resistant?  What specifically are you resisting? There are a lot of clues in your resistance!   So, there we have it.  This isn't exhaustive of course but my goodness if you start to notice some of these things the changes can be phenomenal.   So enjoy your noticing this week!    As always if you want a little help on the self awareness front you can book in an Enneagram Essentials call with me. You, me, an hour and a half of helping you understand your unconscious programming and how to go about creating changes…glorious! You'll find the link in the show notes, on the @enneagramandexcell instagram link or just pop me a DM and I'll send it to you!   Fx   Fran Excell, Success Mindset Mentor at www.franexcell.com - Helping Business Owners & Executives Overcome Stress & Self Sabotage so they can get back their time, get off the emotional rollercoaster and feel more in control.  RESOURCES: Check out The Positive Pants Podcast Here Download your FREE Stressed To Success Meditation Here Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App Here Work with me. Book In a Free 20 Minute Discovery Call Here

Show note links: Download The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Freebies: Grab your FREE ‘Stressed To Success' meditation: https://bit.ly/stressedtosuccess  Book in a free discovery call: https://calendly.com/franexcell/20min Ways to work with me: 1:1: https://franexcell.com/work-with-me SOS! (Success Over Stress) Group Programme (Coming back winter 2022!) Join The Positive Pants Toolkit App https://franexcell.com/positive-pants-toolkit-app Enneagram Essentials 90 minute 1:1 & Guide book https://app.moonclerk.com/pay/2b6wubgnysrp Products: Grab Your 365 day Gratitude Journal on Amazon:https://bit.ly/365daygratitude  Grab Your Positive Pants Firmly On Notebook:https://bit.ly/positivepantsonbook  Contact: Make sure you're following me on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/imfranexcell/ and tag me into your key takeaways! Email me at hello@franexcell.com with any questions or take aways! For more, head over to: www.franexcell.com/ Are You Comparing Yourself To A Catfish?   Are you comparing yourself to a catfish?   What is a catfish?  Well it's both a small, sharky type fish with big whiskers and it's also a person who creates a fake persona online to lure you into a relationship.   Someone who pretends to be who or what they're not.   We're all being catfished a lot of the time!   In this context I'm not really talking about the romantic relationship cat-fishers.   I'm talking the personal brands,    Of COURSE there are plenty of lovely, authentic, genuine people out there too. That goes without saying.  But they aren't the problem.   And the people I AM talking about make it even harder for the people who ARE being genuine and authentic.   As I'm always trying to get across to you, not everything is always as it seems. Including our own thoughts and stories.   So we need to be astute when we're trying to compare ourselves to someone else and making ourselves feel bad about ourselves.  We need to take things with a pinch of salt and know that we're never going to have the full picture.   Social media and tik tok or instagram influencers are the first to consider.    Danae Mercer (@danaemercer) and Alex Light (@alexlight_ldn) are amazing at trying to dispel myths and the tricks that people use online. Danae lets you in on SO many of the posing tricks that people use and Alex is all about body positivity. They're also both incredibly lovely.   First of all let's take how people look on social media. The vast majority of people these days don't even look like their own photos! So if you're comparing yourself to that image, you're not even comparing yourself to something that is real!   You can have a whole new face, new hair, new lips, new cheekbones, new abs, no cellulite, a nip here, a tuck there and all the things in the click of a button now.   How many celebrities have been caught out by the distortion that photoshop sometimes leaves? So just because some people are better at hiding it, doesn't mean what you're seeing is real.   Most people use filters on their face too. Even me! I tried to make sure that I use one that doesn't change my actual face but I'm still catfishing you ha!   You don't even have to put makeup on these days with the filters getting more and more sophisticated, it does it for you at the click of a button.   Then you're trying to recreate a makeup look that wasn't real in the first place!   You're amazing exactly as you are. Please know that the majority of what you see isn't real.   Then we have the lifestyle piece of the puzzle.  Again, a HUGE amount of what you see isn't real.  I love the Instagram vs reality trend, it's always quite the eye opener.   People have been caught out changing the backgrounds of images to places they haven't been. People have been caught out hiring fake private jets and paying to pose next to a car they don't own, all in an attempt to make you believe something about them that isn't true.   Often to get you to part with your hard earned money.   Pinch of salt!   So, so many lifestyle entrepreneurs are using these tactics.    They'll talk about income claims that aren't true. They'll make up testimonials. So many shady tactics and it's one of the reasons I've been slowly pivoting my own business to one that's able to keep me in my own lane and not having to see so much of it because it drives me bananas.    It's so painful to know how many people fall for the tactics and are left feeling like they aren't good enough. I was caught out too, more than once, at the beginning of my journey into my own business.   It's SO easy to do. These people know what they're doing.  Please don't ever blame yourself if you've been caught out.   There comes a point when you become more aware of this catfishing that you do start to question if things are really as they seem and although it can sometimes feel confusing to not know who to trust you will find yourself making far better decisions.   There are lots of people out there who ARE trustworthy and do walk their talk.  You just have to find them. Talk to other people. Look underneath the messaging.   Are they using false scarcity?    Are they forcing your nervous system into a dysregulated state in order to get you to buy?    Do you have evidence that this person is for real and has got the results they're talking about?     Have you heard the testimonials that aren't just about the financial goals?   Use your discernment and look at the nuance in every situation but most importantly please don't compare yourself to the cliff notes or fakery of someone else's life!    The other thing to talk about where we're being catfished by marketing is before and after pictures. Oh my goodness!!!    Again, it tends to be things where self esteem is involved so weight, skin, hair, body etc.    Companies are airbrushing skin before and afters.   They will use light and makeup, poses and all sorts of other things to create before and afters that aren't real.   They will even use hair extensions in hair product before and afters.   So please, if something seems too good to be true it probably is!    Before buying anything like that check the testimonials (these can be faked too so look for ones with images and read the negative ones too. I actually like to look at 3-4 star reviews most because they tend to be more honest in my opinion.   They're pretty much saying, ‘it's good, could be better' or ‘it's good, but I didn't like this element'.   When you really start to look out for this stuff you're going to save yourself so much money ha!   It's rocky out there peeps!   Catfishes are everywhere.    BUT, so are the good eggs. The genuine people. The authentic people. The people who have your best interests at heart and they are easy to spot.    Notice how a person makes you feel in your body.    Do you feel anxious and on edge?   Do you feel not good enough?   Or do you feel safe?   Do they feel like a warm and cosy hug on a chilly day to your nervous system?   Your body is always communicating with you. You just need to listen.    Don't attach something you see online to your own self worth.  You are good enough and you have always been good enough.   Fill your feed with authenticity.    Mute, block, delete anyone who's triggering you into comparison.   Create your very own social media safe space and know that you are glorious.   Fx