Intentional Living With Tanya Hale

Why is personal growth so important?  Because our personal growth puts a lid on everything else that we engage with in our lives -- our relationships with others, God, and ourselves, as well as our work.  We are limiting every aspect of our lives by our lack of personal growth by what is known as The Law of the Lid.  

When is it self-care and when is it selfishness?  Good question!  But here's an important distinction.  Self-care is us taking care of our needs so that we then have the energy to take care of the needs of others, while selfishness seeks to exploit others to take care of our own needs.  We actually have to engage in self-care in order to be self-less.

Did you know that the actual words we speak are only 7% of our communication?  93% of what we say is communicated through the tone of our voice and our body language.  Today we're going to talk about our emotional tones and how they impact our relationships with others.  If we want to truly connect with the people around us, it's important to pay attention to our tones, understand where they come from, and how to change them.

What is it about mid-life that makes us feel tired all of the time?  I'll tell you a secret -- some of it has to do with what you're thinking.  Today we're talking about how to create energy with your thoughts when it feels like you don't have any.  Our thoughts create energy. . . who knew?!?  

So many of us are just not honest with ourselves.  Not on purpose, mind you, but unconsciously our brain perpetuates lies.  At one time these lies may have kept us safe or been coping mechanisms that helped us to manage the difficulties in our lives.  And even when they're no longer useful, our brain continues to tell these lies because they're easy and comfortable.  Learning to become aware of these thoughts and develop honesty with ourselves is vital for our growth and progression.  Let's chat about it.

Did you ever think that we couldn't have courage without fear?  They really do work together.  We often think of fear as only being a negative emotion, but when we adjust our thoughts around it, fear can be a great motivator to move us into courage.  And courage is when we grow and get things done!  

Is patience your thing or not your thing?  Most of us struggle at some level with being patient.  Today we're going to discuss the reasons behind our lack of patience and how to learn how to be more patient, creating a better version of ourselves and healthier relationships with those around us.

Alright, My Sweet Lady Friends, let's have a chat.  What do you want?  Do you know?  Some of us don't.  If you do know, do you let people around you know what you want?  Some of us don't.  Do you speak up and ask for what you want?  Some of us don't.  Today we're going to explore all of these scenarios and discuss why it's so important for us to know what we want and ask for it.

Want to be happier and more content in your life?  Numerous studies point to gratitude as a major player in creating what you're after.  And where can we find gratitude?  In our thoughts of course!  Because thoughts create our feelings.  Believe it or not, gratitude actually has nothing to do with the circumstances in our lives.  It's what we think about our circumstances that creates our feelings of gratitude.

I believe that one of the most damaging things we can do in our lives is to play small.  As women, we often feel this person inside of us wanting so desperately to come out and impact the world in amazing ways.  And yet we keep shushing her and buy into the cultural ideas that we have our place and should stay there.  But I know God gave us these talents, abilities, and desires for a reason.  Because we need to use them.   Let's get started!

What is it about other people's opinions and criticisms that can make us feel hurt or insecure or good?  Actually, nothing.  Their opinions and criticisms are just neutral circumstances.  It's what we make those things mean that cause our feelings about them.  Let's dig into our thoughts to figure out how to manage our feelings better around what other people think and say about us.

Growing up is such an amazing journey.  I feel that this stage in our lives is perfect for putting all of the pieces together, discovering who we are and what amazing contribution we can make in this world.  Today we're talking about the process of finding our wings and really stepping into what we feel we are called to do while here on earth.

Emotional Adulthood.  It's a beautiful thing when we learn how to take full responsibility for all of our emotions and stop blaming others for how we feel and for our behaviors.  It can be a process to learn because most of us were taught from the time we were young that other people were responsible for how we feel, but taking back the control over ourselves is an amazing, empowering process!

This is #10, the last of our concepts necessary for mental health -- money management. Our emotional relationship with our money and our stewardship over it plays a huge role in our self-respect, which is a major player in our mental health. When we can learn to understand this relationship and learn to engage with it in a healthy way, we make a direct deposit into our mental health.  And the better our mental health, the happier we are and the better relationships we have with those in our life.  

#9 on our list of mentally healthy behaviors is Time Management.  Technically, it's managing ourselves within our time, and it's brilliant when we can wrap our discipline around being clear on what we want and need to do to progress into a better version of ourselves.  On this podcast we talk about the processes necessary for better "time management" and why it's all so important, anyway.  Turns out, it's vital for our self-respect which is always a must for better mental health.

#8 on our list of things we need to be mentally healthy is unconditional self-love.  This one is SO IMPORTANT!  When we can first, learn what it really means to have unconditional love, and then apply that to ourselves, we are finding a place of acceptance and kindness and real growth.  And mentally healthy people grow, and grow often!  They embrace their imperfections as part of this amazing human journey and they exhibit grit and resilience.  This is all part of our unconditional self-love.  

#7 on our list of important things to do to have good mental health is contribution.  This refers to contributing to ourselves in order to become the best version that we can be, and then turning that best version around to contribute to the world in meaningful ways.  And a third piece to this -- embracing our contributions as important and valuable to the world.  Such a great piece to the mental health component!

#6 on our list of mental health behaviors is self reflection and self coaching.  When we become more aware of where we really are, and when we can start intentionally moving ourselves out of negative thinking and into more positive thinking, we are also moving into better mental health.  Awareness and intentional change are a powerful combination in helping us to truly discover our true selves.

#5 on our list of good mental health indicators is internal control.  This refers to our ability to take full responsibility for our feelings, realizing they come from our thoughts rather than from external situations.  Tapping into our internal control allows us to feel empowered in relation to our future and our potential rather than at the mercy of outside forces.  And feeling empowered is great for our mental health.

#4 in Brooke Castillo's list of things we need to do for good mental health: Take Action.  And this is brilliant because when we take action we create confidence and self-respect.  We grow into the person of our dreams and we move forward in accomplishing our goals.  And all of those things are key elements of having great mental health.