Kindness is… Giving yourself a break!

Hello gorgeous,

Do you ever get overwhelmed by how much you want to do? And by the fact that you are not managing as much as you as you want…? And do you then feel guilty for not managing? And does your self-worth go down at the same time?

Do you ever get an overdose of self-development, when you feel there is so much moving in you, so many emotions surfacing, that what you really want to have now is some time off from it? Some quiet time just for a while?

Do you ever wake up and are not able to fall asleep again because your mind is already racing and processing all those things that keep you busy? Or do you have difficulties to feel asleep because it feels difficult to slow down your mind?

Well, personally I do, I am guilty of all of those… Today, it’s a mixture of too many things to do and too much inner work for instance that brings me in overwhelm.

So what’s the solution? What are the options? Let me try to give you some ideas here.

• When I get overwhelmed by a growing to-do list, it’s time for me to take a step back and get a helicopter view of the situation. What works for me then is to draw a mind map with all the topics first (work, family, administration, whatever topics are keeping you busy) and then all the details (prepare flyer, invite people, write blog post… etc.). When all is mapped, then it’s time to review the priorities and decide what goes first and what will wait until tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. And then take action, and strike it through (makes you feel good to do that, doesn’t it?)

• When I get overwhelmed by an overdose of personal growth, there as well I take a step back, in order to integrate what I just learned or to process what just happened, what I discovered about myself, before I can get back on the saddle again. I take it easy and do not force anything then, I try to relax and be gentle with myself.

• When I start having difficulties falling asleep or falling back asleep, it’s sign that I have been worrying too much. In that case, either I can do something about it so that I can stop the worrying, or there’s not really anything that I can do about it, then the only thing I can do is to relax about it. Meditation is then a great tool as it helps the mind to relax (at least a bit!). The other practices I use are using affirmations as mantras, in order to practice mostly trust and faith.

• But most of all, I need to give myself a break! That is also being kind to myself and not pushing myself over the edge, respecting my limits and my needs.

I hope this helps! Let me know if you have other strategies you can share, to help others deal with those issues!

I wish you a wonderful week!

Respect your time!

Hello gorgeous,

I came across a post from Elizabeth Gilbert (author of the famous Eat, Pray, Love book) and it resonated with me so I am expanding on that with you today. She said she always thought she was a low energy person, until she realized she was not, but she was giving away her energy to difficult relationships and to things and people who were draining her energy. When she stopped, she immediately got a lot more energy. Sounds miraculous, right?

I would like to invite you to have a look at your own energy levels, at how the days go by, and when you feel energetic, and when you feel depleted. For instance, when I am actively engaged in DIY, time flies and I am having so much fun that I am not “losing” energy but it’s like I am producing energy. After a coaching session (or a really good and inspiring conversation), just the same, I feel I have produced energy and feel on a high. But when I have to deal with administrative tasks and annoying neighbors, oh my God, I feel I need to recover after that…

How is it for you? Can you notice what are the tasks and activities that you go through and that are giving you energy, and what are those that are sucking your energy instead? Maybe it’s about the people who are around you as well, positive and uplifting people will always give you energy, and negative people will have a tendency to suck yours…

I encourage you to make a list – or actually 2 lists, one for what/who gives you energy and one for what/who drains your energy, so that you can contemplate it and change your schedule accordingly.

How can you spend more time doing what you love, seeing uplifting people, and less time doing what you dislike and with negative people?

Maybe it will require learning to say no more often… (You can read my post here on setting boundaries for more inspiration).

Maybe it will require you to be more conscious of how you spend your time (and maybe spend less on social media 😉 so that you get more efficient!).

Maybe it will mean do less and be more, as in be less active doing things, and take some time to journal, reflect, meditate, read (and for those of us introverts, time alone is a must in order to regenerate!).

I would love for you to join my 10 days Self-Love Challenge (if you haven’t done so already). Here’s the FB group for you to join (click here). If you are not on FB, no worries, you can still participate, just drop me an email at contact at madeleineroyere dot com! It starts on November 18^th.

I wish you a wonderful week!

Why you should love yourself as you want to be loved!

Hello gorgeous,

Warning: I am aware that I might sound a bit harsh today. Please bear with me and know that I love you!

Why do we feel people disrespect us sometimes? Because deep down we ourselves do not respect who we are and we let people trespass our boundaries.
Why don’t we feel loved as we would like to? Because we don’t appreciate ourselves enough, we don’t see how divinely perfect we are, so we can’t emanate that to the outer world, and they can’t see it either.

We need to lead by example. We need to set the tone. It all starts with ourselves. So we should be our own best friend all the time. We should be happy with ourselves, never feel lonely, because we are in good company, our own company! We should know how to best take care of ourselves, please ourselves, and love ourselves as the magnificent beings that we are.

Sounds good, right? Well, in practice, it seems to be one of the most difficult things to do. And we find ourselves waiting for others to love us, to please us; we expect the others to fill the gap we feel inside.

Stoooooop!!! I beg you, take responsibility for loving yourself first. Take responsibility for setting your boundaries. Take responsibility for making yourself happy. Only then will the outer world reflect it back to you. You will be respected by others, as you do it yourself first, so you know you won’t let anybody get passed the fence. Others will appreciate your value, as you know it very well by now and appreciate yourself fully. Others will love you for being you, because you will know that you are so lovable, cause you love yourself!

I know you want to follow that. I know you know that’s the thing you should do. And I know how difficult it can be to get there. And I want to help you! But this time I am going to do it differently. I am going to challenge you to do acts of self-love every day for 10 days. Because I can give you all the advice I can think of, but that’s not enough, you need to do the work…

So… I am preparing a 10 days Self-Love Challenge. I already created the FB group for you to join (click here) and share and feel the support of the other women out there. But if you are not on FB, no worries, you can still participate!
It will start on November 18^th and will run once a month after the initial round.

What do you need to do? Reply to that email saying: Yes I’am in! and I’ll make sure you get the emails every day. Join the FB group as well if you are on FB (it will be French and English language altogether this time – you’ll all get to practice!)

And if you like quizzes I have this one for you (no strings attached, just for fun!)
Are you in love with yourself? Take it here!

Finally, what I would love is to have many more joining us, so could you share this with your friends who could benefit from this challenge as well? Thanks a lot!!!

I wish you a wonderful week!

What do we suck at?

Hello gorgeous,

I feel very touched by your emails back after my post last week. I did not mean to let you believe I was perfect and I did not have bad days nor cracks or faults. I am no different and I keep working on myself ;-).

But it’s true that I prefer to focus on the positive, for me as well as for you when I write, so you don’t get to see much of those.

Well… I started reading a great book a few days ago (The fire starter sessions, by Danielle Laporte). Funnily enough, I knew about it for quite some time, but I only ordered it recently (and then it took me more time to start reading it!). Well, quite early on in the book (p 29 in mine), she advises to admit and to approve of your weaknesses, for it has lasting benefits! One of them being that you then give yourself permission to pursue your genius.
So I started thinking about my faults… And here’s what I could come up with:

• I can’t bake macaroons. I see myself as a good cook but this is going too far and I am not trying again, I let the professionals do it!
• I suck at condolences. I never know what to say and I feel useless.
• I forget all the time about watering the plants. It’s actually a miracle that we have plants inside, for they never get water from me (luckily, Rene takes over when he’s here!)
• I have read so much on manifesting that I feel I should already be “where I want to be”, but no! Seems like I can help others do it but not myself!
• I suck at keeping my administration up to date and sometimes I am late paying my bills…
• I suck at cleaning 😉 I can do the floor fine but I never get to removing the dust nor cleaning the windows!
• Patience is not my forte…
• No doubt there is more but I don’t see them right now J

Do we have maybe some in common? What are yours? It actually feels liberating to admit those; you really have to try this exercise for yourself!

Because once we got that out of the way, we can then focus on what we want to cherish and develop further, our qualities, and our skills, out talents. What I recognize as my main talent is “to make people feel good (about themselves)” (and I hope you agree I have this one ;-)). So now I can look at ways to develop it further (and I am already on it of course!).

I wish you a wonderful week!