Ep. 31 Navigating Fears and Disappointments: My Journey of Triumph and How You Can Overcome Them in 2023. Entering 2024 as a Healed and Confident You!

You know, there was a time when I was so anxious about the coming new year brought. The fear of what lay ahead often overshadowed the thrill of a fresh start. But now, I stand before you, Smilie Filomenos Rodriguez committed to helping you face this new year with courage, resilience, and a healing spirit. Our focus today turns to the ladies, especially those between the ages of 24 and 50. There's a lot we ladies juggle professionally, personally, and relationally. And with that juggling act comes a unique set of fears and disappointments. But remember, you're not alone. Let's explore how to recognize, acknowledge, and address these emotions without comparison. Each of us is on a unique journey, and it's time to build our resilience!

Scary choices and embracing discomfort. Can you recall the last time you did that? I can, and I'm here to tell you that it's where the magic of personal growth happens. Join me as we delve deep into methods to conquer those fears and disappointments that are holding you back. I'll share some of my battles and how I've fought them and emerged stronger. From setting future goals to seeking help, we'll talk about it all. So, get ready for an insightful journey of validation, control, and, finally, success.

We round off our session with a look at the importance of self-care and personal growth. I've learned the hard way that healing and development can come to a standstill sometimes without a supportive network and mindful language. So, let's tackle that together, finding a friend or a partner to walk this journey with us. And remember, it's okay to seek professional help. It's okay to tailor the journey to your needs. But it's not okay to isolate yourself. So, as we conclude, I want you to remember to prioritize self-care and live the best life possible. After all, it's your journey, and you deserve to enjoy it! Got this! 

Disclaimer: This podcast is for educational purposes only and should not substitute for therapy. We recommend you seek help from a trained professional for your specific situation.

Q&A: What are Your Thoughts on This Episode? Please message us at contact@smilieempowerment.com

Are you a leader dedicated to achieving success or a professional driven to boost your leadership skills, establish effective teams, and improve your personal and professional development? Look no further! Smile Empowerment coaching offers comprehensive and personalized guidance that caters to your needs, whether individual or executive coaching or team-building sessions.

To book a free 30-minute consultation, please contact us at contact@smilieempowerment.com. During this meeting, we'll discuss your goals and create a tailored plan to ensure your success. Together, we can make a difference and embrace a journey towards your ultimate potential!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:05

Hola Boschica. Welcome to the Smiley Empowerment Podcast. This is where we celebrate the strength, resilience and determination of Latina women and all women who are constantly on the go, pushing through challenges and achieving their goals. I like to call these women Boschica, like me. If you're a busy woman ready to be uplifted, inspired, empowered to take charge of your healing journey and be a Boschica, you've come to the right place. We can all agree, life can be hectic and overwhelming, but anything is possible with the right mindset, attitude, tools and support. Let me introduce myself. My name is Smiley Filomenos Rodriguez and I am a Latina Life Empowerment Coach and a social worker.

Speaker 1: 0:53

I started this podcast because I know what feeling alone and overwhelmed with past wounds and challenges feel like. I want to help you with self-discovery, self-love and self-empowerment so you can grow and thrive. Do you sometimes feel alone? Desciende sola? Well, you're not alone. No está sola. You have me, your coach, smiley. In each episode, I'll share personal stories of resilience, healing tips, practical advice, strategies for managing your time and priorities for improving your relationship with yourself and others, and insights on cultivating a positive and fulfilling joyful life. So grab your earbuds and tea or coffee, take a deep breath and get ready to be inspired and encouraged. Let's begin this journey together and empower each other to become the best versions of our lives. Let's get started. You got this.

Speaker 2: 2:08

Hey, fellow listeners, and my boss, chica Smiley, here One more time to really encourage you and uplift you. I don't know where you are in your journey of self-love and healing and also in that journey of self-discovery, but I want to share with you this special episode for you that is navigating through fears and disappointments this year of 2023. And now, as we're entering 2024, I want you to enter a healed and confident you. That's how I want to enter and I want to share a little bit about my journey, on how I have overcome some of those fears and disappointments that this year 2023 has put me through right and actually I'm still working on it and entering 2024 for me, I believe I am a better version of myself. I'm going to enter still on the healing journey. I don't think all areas of my life have been completely healed, but I know that I am entering a more confident me and that's what I hope for you. And with this episode, I want you to really embrace some of the strategies. I'm going to share some of my personal stories and stories of clients that I've worked with and how myself and others have really gone through some tough, difficult times this year, as maybe you have experienced, and so many people have experienced, right. But I want to focus on fears and disappointments, because through our life, through the life challenges, as we navigate through the unknown, we are faced with fears and we are faced with disappointments, as well as we have disappointed others. But I want to focus on my experience this year with my fears and my disappointments, and I am so eager to share with you a little more about what those fears were for me and some of the disappointments, and in what areas of my life. Right, that maybe it can resonate with you my both, chica and my listeners.

Speaker 2: 4:31

Right, when I'm recording this, it's November 19. As of today, when I recorded this, we're counting down six weeks and one day to the new year 2024. I'm going to air this episode on Monday, november 20, 2023. So we will be at countdown by November 20, at six weeks and so forth and so forth. So I wanted to really hone in on these weeks that are coming up as we approach the new year 2024.

Speaker 2: 5:00

How do you want to show up from this moment on as you enter the new year 2024, right, how do you want to show up? But I also want you to focus on what have you been through. I want you to really think about what have you already overcome in this year of 2023? And I want you to really celebrate all of your successes, whether they were small or big, as well as your efforts that you're still in right In your hustle and you really trying your best to become better and better as you enter 2024. Now, it hasn't been easy for me, for many of my clients that I've worked through the years my friends, my family, all over the world, right but I want you to take this time to really embrace what I'm about to share about my own journey on how I have overcome the fears and the disappointments of this year of 2023. And what's the hope for 2024 for me and for you to start thinking about that for yourself.

Speaker 2: 6:05

Now, at the top of this episode, I want to share that this is a place at the Smiley Empowerment community, whether you are listening in on the podcast Thank you so much for listening or you join me on Instagram, my daily post on motivation and my weekly free one hour coaching that I do, complimentary to you every Thursday at 7pm Eastern time, right? Or whether you watch, or whether you watching me on TikTok, wherever you connect with me, or if you don't have social media, but you've heard of me and you have a connection with me outside of the platform, I want you to know that this space, and whenever you interact with me, I always want you to feel safe. So, in the Smiley Empowerment community all across, I always want to create a safe and a non-judgmental space for you to be able to express yourself myself also to express myself, and it's freeing of judgment and it's really helping you and myself together for us to really explore our emotions. And I want you to express your emotions. Leave your comments, let me know how you're feeling, ask questions, let me know what's on your mind, and I want you to feel understood, because very often we are misunderstood and that is very important. We want to be seen, we want to be understood, we want to be cared for, we want to know that we matter. We all want to be loved, right. But it's challenging at times, right. It can really be very challenging, especially for us women, right?

Speaker 2: 7:37

I think that women across culture, a lot of women, young women in ages like 23, 24, in their young adulthood, all through, while we are aging, all of us year by year, right? So I want to speak to anyone who's really looking at themselves and saying, hey, I've gone through some tough stuff, how can I get better? How can I develop my resiliency? How can I improve? Right, and before I go into some of the experiences that I've personally shared, have actually experienced some of the personal experiences that I've had and those of others that I've helped.

Speaker 2: 8:17

I want to give you two categories which we're talking about, and it's the fears and the disappointment, and many of you, especially women, across the age group of 24 to 50, even 50 plus, you may experience a lot of different fears and disappointments, but yet you are individuals that are experiencing this, but there are some commonalities within our age group or even the human experience, right. So the first category that I want to really unpack is really the fears. We have many fears and I want to speak to you and know what are those fears for you. What are some of those fears that you have that this year have really maybe paralyzed you, not allowed you to grow, that you've maybe stuck in dwelling in those fears, whether they're personal right, or combination of personal and professional goals, right related to your career advancement and growth. It could also be fears related to your relationships right, whether they're platonic, in your friendship groups or in your romantic relationships. Right, and also in your personal development.

Speaker 2: 9:24

There's many fears that people like you and I are experiencing on the day to day. Right, you may feel, you may have fears, failure you may have the fear of failure. You may have the fear of rejection Right, constantly worrying about people liking us and being accepted and being appreciated by others. Right, and many times these fears and worries about rejection can impact the relationships that you're keeping Right, and, like I said, it could be platonic relationships or romantic relationships. Right, and even the relationships that you have with co-workers and the relationship you have you may share with your boss or upper management or in your businesses, with your employees and your business partners.

Speaker 2: 10:11

Right, you may also be experiencing fear of uncertainty. That's one big one for me this year, right, and it's scary. The unknown and for some women and people in general, that fear of uncertainty of the future can really paralyze us. Right, you may have a lot of nights that you're not sleeping well just thinking about your future and the uncertainty of it, and that can be in your career path. That can be your financial stability. Right, it could be you making a big, major life decision. It could be being a first-time homeowner, it could be selling your home and moving to another state or cross-country Right, it could be making a major decision of separating or filing for that divorce Right. So these are major fears, and you may also be experiencing the fear of judgment. Many of us fear being judged Right, and this can really have a big effect on your personal choices Right Judged on your appearance. Right On your life decisions.

Speaker 2: 11:14

And then we want to talk about a little bit about disappointments. Right, we all may have experienced disappointments. You may be disappointed in your relationships. You may be disappointed with your partner, your husband, experiencing disappointments in your friendships, in your relationships with extended family members Right, and disappointments, really, what it is is the unmet expectations that we have or conflicts that come about from your expectations not being met and in relationships. That's huge. That's big. Another disappointment that you may be experiencing as well as in your career. You may be feeling, wow, I have not been promoted in a long time. I'm facing some setbacks in my workplace. I feel not fulfilled. Right, you might be feeling at the end of this year, 2023, you're not fulfilled in the workplace, you're not fulfilled, and this can really lead for you to feel disappointed, right.

Speaker 2: 12:11

And there are times also that disappointments goes right into our own personal achievements of our own right Milestones, things that we want to achieve, that we are disappointed in ourselves, right, that maybe we didn't get the result that we wanted and we start feeling disappointed with ourselves, right. And then there's, possibly your family has some expectation of you, of your personal achievements Right. It could be your mother expecting you to graduate from college or go for that masters or that doctorate and you decide that you don't want to do that and next thing you know, within your family, they may feel disappointed because you did not achieve that that they wanted for you, where you actually learned. I don't want that anymore, and this could be across age groups, right.

Speaker 2: 12:59

Then there are challenges, right, with your health dealing with some health, some physical, as well as your mental health, right, not being at its top shape, and you may feel disappointed at the way your mental health has been, maybe disappointed at not getting those results that you wanted from your annual checkup or from your own right Mental health maintenance Right, and this can also be a source of disappointment. You might be also disappointed with the difficulties that you're encountering this year with financial stability, your goals financially right. Many of us may experience, at times, unexpected financial challenges that could be the loss of a job right, unexpectedly you got laid off and that creates disappointment and stress within yourself and in your family unit or in that household. So these are just examples of fears and disappointment that maybe you this year have had in the different categories. You may have experienced it and you're feeling hopeless and you're like how am I entering this new year with all of these fears and disappointment?

Speaker 2: 14:07

And it's important to understand that we need to really approach each of our fears and disappointment really from a place of individuality, right? I don't want you to compare yourself to someone else, right? I want you to feel comfortable or at least be uncomfortable and learn how to be in that discomfort of really recognizing what are your fears and disappointments. Right, because as you are able to name them right and acknowledge those fears and disappointments and address them, address the concerns that they may bring, this will help you in your personal growth. This will help you to be more resilient. This will help you to overcome some of these fears and disappointments and it's so important that you understand that I acknowledge and really understand you, and I also want you to know that your feelings and your, your emotions are very much valid. Your fears, your disappointments are valid. They are not to be dismissed, and oftentimes we may be dismissed by others, whether that's in the workplace. Your boss, your manager, your coworker, whether that's a friend, a partner, may dismiss the fears and disappointments that you have, and sometimes you minimize and dismiss your own fears and disappointment.

Speaker 2: 15:30

So I want you to take this time as you're listening to this episode. I want you to take time to digest what I'm saying. Process it whatever resonates with you. Process it a little bit at a time. You might even want to listen to this episode twice, right, just to come at it from a different perspective. Each time you listen to it, you might be at a different place. So make sure you download it, save it and listen to it twice, because I think that what I am sharing and I am wanting you to get from this episode is so important that you may not acquire all of the processing that you need to do in one sitting and if you need to pause it and come back to it, but I would highly recommend that you do this before the year's over.

Speaker 2: 16:21

You might be listening to this when, actually, the new year already kicked in, but it's okay, because all of this is really information that transcends time. Right, we are always dealing with fears and struggles, as we are human, and that's the human experience, right? So make sure that you're taking notes, make sure that you pause this and reflect a good, solid time for you to really not only enjoy the episode, but try to be open to the suggestions, to the experience. Share with me how you experienced this episode. You might experience the episode and become more fearful, and that's okay and understandable. So take your time and know that I am here. If you would like to work with me, you can reach out to me in the show notes. I have all the links and information for you to get in contact with me. I always encourage you to stay connected where you feel comfortable, where you feel understood, where you feel that you can relate. Not everyone can relate to different podcasters, right? Or different friends, so just stick with what works for you and I'm hopeful that, if you've been tuning in and it's your first time, or you've been tuning in for a while, now that we really get to know each other and understand that I'm like you and you're like me.

Speaker 2: 17:39

Right, we share so much of these same emotions, and fear and disappointment are two emotions that we really don't like to feel. But it comes with being human, okay. And it does create a lot of stress and, for many people, even torment, mental torment and that's why I wanted you to do this episode to relieve some of that, to really encourage you and to let you know that there's hope and that, like you, I feel it too, and together we can rise above the fears and the disappointments or work through them and get to the other side, where we're more confident, we're less fearful and sometimes fear pushes us to move right, to get out of danger or to achieve something. So fear is not always bad. We can use that energy to get moving. It's when we allow fear to paralyze us and make us feel so scared that we don't do anything about it. That's the fear that I fear the most for my life is when I stay stagnant due to fear. I don't know about you, but that's a place that I don't grow. My anxiety increases, my stress increases. I've seen it in my clients as well when we become paralyzed by fear. So I hope that you are really tuning in with your heart, not just with your ears, so you can really take in and absorb what I'm saying as well as really start thinking about.

Speaker 2: 19:13

What do you want, how do you want to show up and what has been challenging for you this year? What has been challenging for you Is it that you are going through a breakup with your lifelong partner? Is it that you have been disappointed in the workplace and you are so fearful of parting ways? Are you afraid of finally putting down for that home? Are you afraid of even dreaming of having a home sometime of your own, and what does it take? And you're even fearful of finding out what's your credit score. What do you need to save in order to do that? And you don't even dare to dream that someday you could be a homeowner. Or you don't even dare to dream that someday you can have your own business and be an entrepreneur.

Speaker 2: 20:03

I say this because I have experienced that myself for so many years. I was so fearful of doing what I love in my own terms, and that's where Smiley Empowerment grew and I gave birth to Smiley Empowerment. But at the beginning, many years ago more than 10 years ago I had another vision for my business, and it was one that I wanted to bring so many people into to join me so they can also be prosperous and join me in the effort. But so much betrayal, so much confusion and people wanting from me when I didn't even have everything completed yet, but they were already looking at oh my God, that's such a great idea. What can I get from her instead of let's build together, let's work right with one another? So for many years I paralyzed, fear paralyzed me and I did not move forward.

Speaker 2: 21:03

And I'm talking about close to a decade where I was so fearful of dreaming again of having my own business and what would that look like, and comparing it to my dream from a decade before that, and the failures that happened and the trusting of people that ended up betraying me, and all of that was so scary that for almost a decade I stopped completely the dream that I had of coaching people, of helping people, and even though I do do it in my nine to five in a workplace, but that's not my own right. When we work for someone else, we work under their rules, their policies, their vision. Right, and it could be aligned with you for many years and then, all of a sudden, there's a disalignment and many other factors that go in when you work for someone else and we're not knocking that because for so many years we, this society, thrives on people working and the working community and all of that and that is all great. But if you have that dream within you to be an entrepreneur, to be a business owner, to create opportunity for you to hire people for you to do things you want to do, to be a business owner, to create opportunities for you to do things your way with your vision, and for you to find other people aligned with your vision for your company, that's so beautiful, that's amazing, that's empowering, but it can be very scary. So that that was one of my biggest fears and and there was a share of disappointment in that. But I launched the podcast in May of 2023, this year and I did it through the fear, but I hired a podcast coach and this is where community comes in and you asking for help and there's nothing wrong with that. So I encourage you to take time to reflect on what do you want and the fears that you've been experiencing, how real are they right? And if they're real to you and they're impacting your ability to grow, then I really want you to take the time to think about the strategies that I'm sharing, that I'm sharing and unpacking here. What can you do different to get a different result? If the result is that you want to be fearless, the result is that you want to achieve these dreams and then to get that results, there's steps, there's work to be put in right.

Speaker 2: 23:32

Many of us, when we go to the nine to five, we're hired. We go to the interview training, we're hired and we go by the steps and the focus of that agency and the culture of that agency or that workplace, right, and we follow those rules and we do our best and we go above and beyond. So why not go above and beyond for your dreams, for your own vision? And it doesn't have to be that you have to quit your job and do your business or do a side hustle. It's just whatever that dream is for you, right? It could be that you want to work in another company that you've been looking at, that you love the culture there, that it's so great to get there, and you're like I don't know if I can ever apply for that job or if there's an opening, or if I'm worthy of interviewing for that job for that corporation that I really admire. So it's working on that, working on those things, right?

Speaker 2: 24:29

So some of the strategies that I've used for myself and for my clients is really at the beginning of anything you want to do is that you need to acknowledge yourself. That is so key and that is so important. Number one, you need to acknowledge and validate your own feelings, and we're talking about the fears and disappointments in this episode and I want you to focus on that. What are your fears, what are the disappointments that you have dealt with in 2023? And I want you to continue to reflect, right? I encourage you to do self-reflection.

Speaker 2: 25:12

That's a second strategy, right? The first one is I want you to really validate yourself and understand that your emotions are important, your feelings are important, they matter, and if you have people that are around you dismissing you, minimizing it, you need to set boundaries with those individuals, because you really have to accept your own feelings and you don't need to listen to someone else saying what's the big deal? Why are you afraid of that? What's the big deal? Why are you feeling so disappointed with so-and-so? That's not even a big thing. What's not a big thing for the other person, it is for you, and what matters is what you are feeling Now, of course, I'm not asking you to be not caring of what another person may feel.

Speaker 2: 25:56

That's why we always have to practice compassion and always practice this theory of I will treat people the way I would like to be treated, right. But in the interest of us evolving and growing and getting better with ourselves, we have to acknowledge our fears. Some of us walk around thinking or showing to other people I'm not afraid of anything, I'm fine, I'm good, I'm golden, that's all great and there are powerful affirmations. But you have to believe right. Believe that, because if you are acting as if you're not afraid of anything, but privately, you are struggling I'm not saying to tell the world everything and become vulnerable with everyone. But I want you to acknowledge for yourself this year.

Speaker 2: 26:43

Let's focus on the 2023. There might be, from past years, fears and disappointments that we continue to carry on to the next year because we haven't worked through them and we haven't healed right Properly or completely. But we're a work in progress. But I want you to focus on 2023. What have been those fears? What are those disappointments for you. So that's the first step to acknowledge, and the second step that I want you to hopefully do and I am still doing is self-reflection, right?

Speaker 2: 27:15

I want you both, chica, to really reflect on those fears, those disappointments, and then, once you are acknowledging them and you're reflecting on them, I want you to see what were the patterns. What are patterns that you're repeating? What are triggers? What are some of those beliefs in the foundation, right, that's at the foundation, that contributes and influence these emotions of fear and disappointment. What was it? What are some of those triggers? Maybe it's from years ago and you continue 2023, it's the same pattern, the same triggers again, but they're all stemming from your own belief, right? So what is that? What's contributing to those emotions for you?

Speaker 2: 28:00

And, number three, I want you to really look at goal setting. I know that for me, I've set some pretty high goals this year and I hit them right. One of them was the podcast, but that has been for many years, a few years. I was trying to do it on my own, looking at stuff. I'm gonna be honest with you I've been disappointed by other folks that are in the industry or that are very competitive. Women are women, or whatever the case might be, and that discouraged me. So I started doing my own research to say, no, well, I'm gonna do it by myself, I'm not gonna work with anybody.

Speaker 2: 28:39

It wasn't from a place I don't need no one. It was from the place of being disappointed. I've had people take advantage of my kindness. I've had people take advantage of me not knowing everything in the industry of podcasting, getting better in social media. So what happened with that is that I became fearful of trusting individuals and I started just looking at YouTubes and trying to figure it out. But that took me years because, as I work on nine to five and so many other elements and not understanding everything, then I would get frustrated. And when frustration kicked in for Smiley what it did, because it triggered my feelings of I've shared before in the seventh grade being emotionally abused and bullied by a teacher and it was really traumatic, which that has impacted my life, as when I learned right Something new, I shut down. So after many times of trial and error, I shut down completely until I was able to find a podcast coach, which I love her. She was amazing and I said you know what I'm gonna need help. There's no shame in it, even though I did feel a little uncomfortable asking for help, but it was more from the place of is this the real deal? Am I gonna be taken advantage of? Is this a hocus pocus? Am I gonna be taken out from, taken a run for my money? So that fear left me for a long time not reaching out for help and then finally I said no, I have to do something. I gotta take a risk, and that's what I want you to really do at times. Right, take a risk.

Speaker 2: 30:06

Look at your fear. What are you afraid of? What's the outcome that you're afraid to happen? Is it fear of being rejected? Is it fear of failure? Is it fear of succeeding? Because, also, many times, we may fear success. Because with success comes right More responsibility, more eyes on you, more of a demand on yourself. We're comfortable in the comfort zone because we got everything right down. Pack. You know my job, that I've been for 18 years, 18 plus years. I can do it with my eyes closed, and what I mean by that is that there's already systems in place that I've put, especially at the beginning, when I was expanding this programming, that I was told hey, we want you to expand this department, and I did through the years and 18 years now. So much is second nature to me, right, but at the beginning it was very scary, so, getting out of our comfort zone.

Speaker 2: 31:00

So in strategy number three, I want you to go do some goal setting and planning right. Plan out what are some realistic goals that you want to achieve, ending this year Because you can start now, if you're still in 2023 when you listen to this episode and then going all the way into the upcoming year of 2024, right, or an upcoming year, right, because at the time that you're listening to this, maybe it's even another year, so, but each year you want to get better and better for yourself. You want to grow, right, so you want to break down some of those large goals really into small steps, baby steps, actionable steps, right, steps that you can take action. Because when you do that and I know for me when I hired the podcast coach I started feeling good about myself. I started feeling accomplished because I did something. So it made me feel in control and, at the same time, I started feeling I'm progressing and I paired up right. I hired a podcast coach that understood me right. That's why it's so important when you're hiring a therapist, when you're hiring a coach, whoever you're pairing yourself up with whether it's fee for service or even for free or with a friend it's always good to pair up with someone you feel understood, that you can resonate with them, right?

Speaker 2: 32:27

So, goal setting and planning realistic goals for yourself, and not really looking at your failures and then getting so hung on your disappointments about yourself. I didn't do this last year and I said I would. I remember a long time I felt like every year I was like, oh my God, I'm always talking about this podcast and the years were piling up and going by and the more the years would go by, the more I felt disappointed with me and also that this is something I want to do. I felt like they were judging me or disappointed, and many times they weren't. But I started feeling that for myself. Right, how many of you go into your head and you're thinking, oh my God, I said this and then I didn't do it. And sometimes that's why we don't even share it with a soul, because we don't want to be held accountable. We don't want to disappoint someone else.

Speaker 2: 33:16

I know I once had a friend that was like you know, as you're sharing with me. I'm feeling more anxious about what I need to get done, and that's not from a space of envy or jelly feeling jealous. It's from a space that I understood for that person. They felt overwhelmed with as I was doing the things that I was set out to do, and then they were not. They themselves were judging themselves, they were feeling disappointed, and I am going to share with you that's not a good place to be because it makes you.

Speaker 2: 33:46

You put a lot of pressure on yourself, right, and while you may be hitting other goals, but you may be stressing yourself out to the point where fear takes over, to the point where you're paralyzed and you're not moving forward. And many of you have growth mindsets already, but fear holds you back. And that's what was holding me back and many other kinds that I've worked with the fear of the unknown, the fear of success, the fear of what their parents have to say once they do something that they're set out to do, because they care a lot about what people think about them people that they care about is very legit. And in step number four of the strategy the fourth strategy I want you to really cultivate your skills. Build that resilience right, learn. What do you need to work on so you can work through those setbacks? I want you to really develop more resiliency, and that is by you really looking at what the challenges are and looking at what can you do to get better at coping and growing your mindset. What do you need to do to get a bit more resilient? What new skill you need to learn? And that could be from a skill set of right technology. It could be from your own personal management of your own feelings, developing skills on how do you speak to yourself, developing skills on how do you work with other people. It may be.

Speaker 2: 35:20

Some of you may say I'm very shy, I don't connect too much with people, but if you want to create bigger visions and do great projects, and you need networking, you need connections. Nobody becomes successful by themselves, right, but for some of us that's hard because you have to trust, and that's another challenge for me. In my fear, I fear trusting people with my dreams, I fear being open about my dreams, and it's not for you to tell everyone there's a lot of dream killers, right? So make sure that you're sharing with people that help you to overcome and that they're also like minded, that they are also chasing right that dream and not just chasing it, going for it, because you could chase something all your life and never capture it and resolve it and see it to fruition, right. So I say you can chase the bit at a time. There's nothing wrong with okay, I'm going to go for that, right. But then finally taking hold of it and molding it and executing it to your liking, to your needs, right for it to serve you.

Speaker 2: 36:33

And two more strategies that I want to share with you that will help you to overcome or work through your fears and your disappointments. The last two are for you to practice on being gentle with yourself. I want you to be more gentle with yourself in these last two strategies, right. I want you to practice on being mindful of what you're feeling and decompress, right, how do you reduce your stress? I want you to get to learn more how can you manage your anxiety and your fears, and that can be by simply taking a moment during the day to practice a little bit of meditation, just staying still with yourself, right, and incorporating some deep breathing and incorporating maybe a little bit of exercise going out for a walk, nothing major. You don't have to join a gym and become a gym rat right. But just moving and practicing activities that bring joy and a sense of calmness and ease for you, that's to help you to decompress. That helps in you reducing your level of stress and anxiety, because the fear and the disappointment it creates a lot of stress. It creates a lot of mental stress. It also can create some physical stressors in your body that you become tense with your muscles, right. So do some breathing exercise right. Rotate your shoulders back a little bit, a few rotations back at a time, to try to relax your shoulder and your neck area, right.

Speaker 2: 38:11

And lastly, I want you to really connect with social support networks, right. I want you to connect with friends so they can provide you some emotional support. I want you to connect to groups. It doesn't have to just be here on social media, it could be in your church, it could be in a club that you join right. But that these groups of people or clubs, they really align with your perspective and they give you this feeling of belonging and feeling welcomed. Right. And as a bonus, I want you to also practice your positive affirmations, because I have to say that this year for me, I struggled. I struggled with sometimes the way I was speaking to myself. As much as I teach this and I encourage folks and clients and my staff and in the place of work, right I also struggled with saying positive affirmations to myself and that's just the statements that I talk about myself and the statements.

Speaker 2: 39:09

You have to look at your statements as how you speak. Are your statements when you speak about yourself and others? Are they empowering you? Are they making you feel optimistic? Are they promoting you to feel a positive mindset? Are they promoting the growth that you want? Are they promoting you to move forward? Or are these affirmations negative? Or the statements that you're constantly saying about yourself and others? Are they promoting, splitting, separating people? Are they promoting you degrading yourself? Are they promoting you not going for your goals? Are they disencouraging? Are they really making you feel less than so? That's why it's so important to incorporate the positive affirmations, that they're just the language that you choose to speak about yourself, the statements that you tell yourself and others.

Speaker 2: 40:01

Take notice of how you speak about yourself and about other people. Right, take notice about that Is your vocabulary has more of the negative words and statements and then what you could do. You could do something about that. You can slowly shift that and catch yourself. I'm like, oh no, no, let me rephrase that, right, Let me rephrase and say, yes, I am capable, yes, I'm more than enough, and healing takes time. So I want you to make sure that you understand that if you need support, if you need professional support, it's okay to do that as well. Okay, professional guidance, whether it's a coach, whether it's a therapist, a counselor it really helps you to engage in your own personal journey. Right, because some of us are disengaged. I know that.

Speaker 2: 40:48

I experienced that this year. I've had a lot of disappointments in the areas of my career, of coming out of certain friendship groups that were disappointing, right, and I had to really hone in and say wait a minute, I have to think about what's best for me, not what other people expect of me or don't expect of me. I have to this year, and especially towards the end of this year 2023, I had to hone in on what are my specific fears? What am I fearful of? What am I disappointed? Right, and how do I want to change that for myself now and going into 2024, and going into the next year and the next year, because I always want to have the best year as possible. I want to be the best version of myself while I can, while I am here. We all have an expiration date on the planet, on earth, and we all want to do the best.

Speaker 2: 41:41

Nobody wakes up thinking I want to be hated today, I don't want to be accepted, I don't want to be seen and understood. No, we misunderstood. We all want to be loved, we all want to be seen and accepted, and some of us I've had clients that tell me I don't care, I really don't care. But when we unpack it further, they do care. Right, it's just that that's their shield to put up. Many of us put that shield up I don't care, so it can protect us. It's a defense mechanism and while in a short time it can be effective and sometimes helpful in order for you to get through, and get through some of it could be some traumatic events. It also can be some hard events to deal with. It's okay, but for the short time, we don't want to live off our whole life from a place of fear-based, from a place of disappointment, from a place of people pleasing, which that's something that I'm still a work in progress of healing, from this notion that I want to please people in order to be loved and accepted, and that stems from childhood. A lot of us may have abandonment issues.

Speaker 2: 42:48

So, as we are ending our year, I encourage you to take advantage of the resources you have around you. We have so many resources on social media which are positive and giving so many different coaches, so many different resources available, whether they're free or for service, for a fee for service, whether that's in your community, on social media platforms. Seek the positive and what can help you, because if you seek the negative, it's always going to be there. So hone in. This is the last strategy and advice I can give you on this episode Seek what serves you. Go out and seek what serves you Through the fear. Do it. Do it through the fear. You're not alone. Find people that can pair up with you. Don't stay self-isolated. You can stay with yourself to explore and take time to analyze what you want to do, but you need to be in conjunction with others as you evolve in this world and as you go for your dreams, and there's nothing more exciting than to pair up with someone else a friend or someone else that's also going through a journey of healing and of prosperity and growth, to do it together and get excited about it, and as well as help each other when the times are tough. So I hope that these strategies helped Make sure that you're taking good care of yourself and make sure that you are living the best life that you want.

Speaker 2: 44:20

Tailor it for yourself. Get into a good support group With that I mean your friends, coaches, myself. Just get involved, lighten up. You're living. You're here, you're vibrant. You've survived so much and I know that you can overcome more. And if you're in a place that you feel happy at your job and content, there's nothing wrong with that. So continue to embrace what you want to do, as long as you're not harming anyone else, you're not harming yourself. You're all about growth. You're all about spreading love and kindness, and you just want to live and create for yourself the life that you want, and many of us are creating it for ourselves and for our families and for people that we care for, making this planet, this earth, a better place.

Speaker 2: 45:07

While you're here, making your mark what is the mark that you want to leave?

Speaker 2: 45:11

And while you're here, enjoy it. Enjoy the process. Within the discomfort, there's joy. You can find that. You can find that you are stronger than what you think. That's what I have found this year, and I've made some major, scary choices for myself that I'll be sharing as we go along, maybe entering this new year. That was not easy and that it was good for me at the time. And as scary as it is and the unknown is scary I don't want it no other way, because within that unknown we grow. We find such great joys and pleasures that when we look back we were like I'm glad I went through that, because now I am here and I'm better for it and I can help someone else. So I hope that this episode has helped you. I'm signing off. This is your coach, smiley. Take good care of yourself and of each other. Until next time, let me know what this episode meant to you. Tune in, share it with a loved one. You're not alone. You got this Besitos.