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5 Tips to Deal with Family Triggers

December 4, 2019 by Marian Buck-Murray Leave a Comment

Ahhh. Holiday time. So often that means family-gathering time. And time with family can be wonderful. Unless, of course, it’s not.

For some, family gatherings mean a whole host of triggers getting triggered. Everything from old sibling squabbles, unresolved wounds, political or lifestyle differences, and even food choices, are game in the family trigger arena.

Even when we’re trying so hard to be ‘zen’ about it, old hurts can throw us right back into the ring.

So here, my friend, are some tips to help you actually feel a whole lot more zen, so maybe you can truly enjoy your family this season. Or, for that matter, anytime you get together, call, write, or somehow communicate with your family members. Enjoy.

Peace,
Marian

P.S. Reach out to me if you’d like help releasing old hurts and disappointments.

Let Go of Trying to Fix It

February 21, 2019 by Marian Buck-Murray Leave a Comment

I hear it again and again from my clients. And in the meetup group I run for sensitive, empathic people. It’s hard to let go of the desire to fix what’s wrong. It seems that for sensitive people, there’s truly is an innate sense of responsibility that drives us not only to help people, but to try to fix what’s wrong as well.

There’s nothing wrong with helping. There’s nothing wrong with showing compassion and empathy for others. Sometimes, there’s nothing wrong with fixing. What gets us into a pickle is when we believe it’s our responsibility to fix other people’s problems.

It might feel natural to want to fix things. And that’s okay. So often, however, we want to fix things because we feel uncomfortable when others are uncomfortable.

Because we easily pick up on what others are feeling, it’s only natural that we would want to stop what hurts.

This, however, is not always possible. Nor is it warranted. Just because we have an innate sense of responsibility, it doesn’t mean we need to take responsibility in all situations.

So, what do we do when we are confronted with the discomfort and disappointment of others?

As hard as it might feel, it’s truly about surrendering to the moment, and accepting whatever is happening. It’s about relaxing into the discomfort of not-knowing. It’s in this allowing that we are able to respond most effectively. It’s in this acceptance that we sometimes realize that our love and compassion is all that’s needed.

Recently my daughter became quite ill from anesthesia she received for a minor surgery. She couldn’t even hold down water. She eventually became so severely dehydrated that we took her to the ER.

As a mother, I wanted to fix things. I wanted to tell her exactly what to do to feel better. I wanted to find the answers that would solve her problem. But, no matter what I tried, I couldn’t help her. She just kept throwing up. And so, I relaxed. I relaxed into the not-knowing. I relaxed into the extreme discomfort. I relaxed into letting go of how I thought things should be.

And it was in that relaxation that I found the strength to truly be there for her as she struggled through her pain. It was all I could do. All I was meant to do. All that was needed. Once we got to the ER, I took care of necessary details, and then I stepped back and allowed the nurses and doctors to help her. I also allowed the disappointment that even this help didn’t prove to immediately heal her.

Thankfully, my daughter did recover, the effects from the anesthesia finally dissipated, and she’s back on her feet. The ER fluids were likely a life-safer. But in the end, it was a daily waiting game until she finally healed.

Here are Some Steps to Let Go of Trying to Fix Things:

Relax – This will allow you the clarity you need. Clarity will allow you to see if your help is actually needed, or warranted. In order to relax, try a combination of deep breathing, EFT Tapping, meditation, soothing music, Tulsi tea, yoga, aromatherapy, or any other technique that helps you.

Get Comfortable with Discomfort — Let go of resisting someone else’s pain. Instead, step into the role of compassionate witness. Compassionate witnessing allows you to honor and validate someone’s pain. This witnessing, without fixing, can be profoundly helpful.

Respond – As necessary. Fixing and helping are not the same thing. You can help someone without fixing their problems. You can be there for a person, to truly help them during their time of need. Often, that’s the best help there is. And, in some situations, sometimes saying “NO, I can’t help right now” might be the most helpful response of all.

With practice we can learn to create balance. We can learn to ask for help as we need it. We can let go of believing we’re responsible for fixing what cannot be fixed.

Sometimes, we just have to surrender, and wait it out.

Blessings,

Marian

Need help letting go of feeling so responsible? Contact me.

Daily Practices for Focus, Peace, & Joy

September 10, 2018 by Marian Buck-Murray Leave a Comment

I know sometimes I must sound like a broken record. I repeat myself again and again to my clients, my students, my friends, my family. And I’ll say it again. Self-care is not an option if you want to live a happy, peaceful life. Especially if you’re a sensitive, empathic, person.

Self-care, of course, includes the obvious elements, such as a nutrient-rich-plant-rich-diet, plenty of exercise, and good hygiene. None are optional if you want to maintain good health.

To maintain happiness and inner-peace, self-care must include emotional, spiritual practices as well. My daily practices, which I share below, help me stay centered, focused, optimistic, connected, creative, productive, peaceful, and happy.

These are the tools and techniques that work for me. With most, I mix and match, depending upon the day, the amount of time available, and my emotional/spiritual needs. Some practices, such as Meditation and Gratitude, are non-negotiable, and I do them every day.

Most days I usually do at least 4 or 5 of these techniques. Some days I do only 2. Other days I might do them all! Some are so quick, or so easy to fit in my day, that they don’t take ‘extra time.’ And, truth be told, when I don’t do anything, which does happen once in a while, I feel completely off, out of focus, and anxious. That’s why I use a checklist to track my progress. I’ve learned the hard way, it’s not worth falling off track.

Create your own plan. Take any of the following techniques that work for you, add in your own, and tuck them into pockets throughout your day. Choose at least one activity, such as meditation, to do each day, no matter what. None of the activities need to take a lot of time. And, as long as you’re peppering them throughout the day, you’ll be optimizing your energy.

Meditation
I practice some form of meditation, each day, from 10 to 60 minutes. Some days I do two or more shorter meditations. Insight Timer, is a fantastic, free, app, that I use to time my meditations. It comes with an extensive library of sounds, bells, meditations, and music.

Another meditation I love is the Eco-Meditation, created by Dawson Church, founder of EFT Universe. When I assist at Dawson’s professional trainings, we practice this meditation each morning before we begin class for the day. At home, I use this meditation on my own, without audio. Click here for the Eco-Meditation instructions

Abundance Meditation
For this meditation, I use The Abundance Book, by John Randolph Price. It’s a little green book with 10 principle statements. I meditate on one principle a day for 15 minutes, for 40 days or more. This helps keep me in an abundant, spiritual, frame of mind.

Gratitude Meditation
Closing my eyes, I meditate for 5 minutes on something for which I am grateful. It can be something that I already have, or that I would like to have. This sense of gratitude feels truly authentic, and really, really good.

Goals
I hand-write write my goals, in present tense, expressing my gratitude for reaching them. This feels good, and it helps me keep on top of my goals. I write my goals nearly every day. This takes about 10 minutes.

Morning Pages
Originated by Author Julia Cameron, morning pages are 3 hand-written free-flow pages each morning. They’re invaluable for clearing the mind, and sparking creative flow.

Yoga or Exercise
Exercising in the morning invigorates me for the rest of the day. Movement is crucial for efficient energy flow, lymph flow, strength, anxiety release, and more.

Heart Breath
I add the Heart Breath in whenever I feel stuck in my head. The Heart Breath helps me drop out of a busy, over-worked mind, into the peace and calm of my heart. It’s a great tool for reducing anxiety. 1 minute, or longer.

Uplifting Reading
Somewhere during my day, I find time to read. Sometimes it’s work-related, but it’s always uplifting.

Uplifting Listening
This includes music, podcasts, Hayhouse Radio, audio courses, and more. I like to listen when I make dinner. This helps keep me in a positive, optimistic, frame of mind.

EFT Tapping
This is an any-time-of-the-day, as-needed, practice. EFT Tapping is perfect for releasing anxiety, tension, fear, sadness, or any other unwanted feelings that might creep in. Click here for an illustrated guide for the tapping points.

More Gratitude
Gratitude is something that can be expressed in many ways throughout the day. In addition to my 5-minute gratitude meditation, I enjoy spontaneous moments of gratitude, or write a gratitude list, or a thank you note, or simply say thank you, thank you, thank you as I do something that brings me joy. Gratitude helps me feel more connected to the spiritual world. And, the more grateful I am, the more I have to be grateful for.

Nature Walk
Nothing better for pleasing the senses and soothing the soul.

Enjoy! And reach out — let me know what works for you!

Love,

Marian

To schedule a FREE 30 Minute Call, where I’ll help you get clear on your best strategy to honor your sensitivity, and give you a tool to turn it into a superpower, click here.

How To Honor Your Sensitivity

March 21, 2018 by Marian Buck-Murray Leave a Comment

Being sensitive means many things. As a sensitive, empathic person myself, I know how painful it can be to feel or see certain things more deeply than other people. Over the years I have learned how to manage my sensitivity so that it has transformed into a gift I truly embrace. It’s this process that I share with my clients and students.

If you’re a sensitive person, you might notice that when others’ don’t share your depth of experience, you wind up feeling misunderstood, or even excluded. You might have heightened sensitivities to noise, smell, foods, and environment. If so, these sensitivities can easily contribute to feelings of weakness, illness, and irritability.

In addition, by believing society’s negative critique of sensitivity, you might think that you’re wrong for being ‘so sensitive’. Nothing could be further from the truth!

What’s important for a sensitive person, is to take steps to honor your sensitivity so that it transforms from something painful into a true gift of beauty and strength.

Below are some key steps to turn your sensitivity into a gift that will enrich your life, over and over again.

Understand Your Sensitivity – Understand that if you are one of the estimated 20% of folks with heightened sensitivity, you have a nervous system that feels things more deeply than most. This means that you need to care for yourself differently than someone without your depth of sensitivity. Get to know yourself better. Read up on the different aspects of sensitivity – there are a number of good books on the topic. Understanding yourself will help you increase feelings of self-acceptance. And, self-acceptance is key to honoring your sensitivity.

Get Clear About What Feels Right for You – We’re often brought up to believe that we ‘should’ enjoy certain experiences that others enjoy. Getting clear on what feels right for you might mean you don’t go to that party, or you opt for one or two good friends over a group of friends. Get clear about your ‘shoulds’ versus your true desires. Trust your intuition to help you find the right balance for you.

Honor Your Need for Downtime – Sensitive people need downtime. And, it can be easy to implement. Treat yourself to a peaceful nature walk, or sit quietly in a darkened room. A quick nap can do wonders to calm an overwhelmed mind and nerves. Throughout each day, allow for short periods of downtime. Regular breaks of just 5 minutes each can make a profound difference.

Create Self-Care Rituals — As a sensitive person, you likely lead a rich inner life. Honor it by nourishing it. Meditation, music, art, yoga, salt baths, and mind-body therapies are all wonderful tools to help you nourish your creative, intuitive soul.

Get Enough Sleep – Because sensitive people take in more information, more deeply, they need more sleep than people who are not highly sensitive. This means a daily minimum of 8 hours of sleep, preferably 9. If you have trouble sleeping, be sure to create a soothing bedtime ritual. Eliminate stimulants, and forgo electronics at least 1-2 hours before bed. Know that by just closing your eyes, you will help to calm and replenish your nervous system.

Take steps to honor your sensitivity. It’s a divine gift. And it’s a gift our world needs now.

In Courage,

Marian

To schedule a FREE 30 Minute Call, where I’ll help you get clear on your best strategy to honor your sensitivity, and give you a tool to turn it into a superpower, click here.

Overcome Procrastination

April 28, 2017 by Marian Buck-Murray Leave a Comment

Now Or Later Signpost Shows Delay Deadlines And Urgency

Procrastination makes easy things hard, hard things harder. ~ Mason Cooley

Procrastination just doesn’t feel good. Period. Right now, just think about something you’re avoiding doing. How does it feel when you think about what you’re not doing. If you’re like most of us, thinking about what you’re not doing, but should be doing, can trigger feelings of guilt, anxiety, and lots of self-judgement. Problem is, when you get mired all those negative feelings, it’s difficult to get anything done!

What’s important is getting clear about the reason why you’re procrastinating in the first place. Is it because you’re afraid of the outcome? Or that it’s too hard? Too complicated? Are you afraid of making a mistake? Are you afraid that you won’t succeed? Or that you will succeed?

Most times, fear and uncertainty are underlying ingredients of procrastination. We avoid what we don’t know, what feels uncomfortable or scary.

So get clear. Get clear about what you’re avoiding doing. Get clear about the feelings that get triggered because you are procrastinating. And, get clear about the feelings you are trying to avoid by procrastinating.

Here are some suggestions to help you move forward:

Focus on the benefits of doing the thing you’re avoiding. What would happen if you did it? How good would you feel? What else could you do as a result of taking this first step? Set your imagination free and imagine all of the good-feeling benefits you’ll experience once you take action.

Start Small. – One reason we procrastinate is that we tend to look at the subject of our procrastination as if it’s a great big scary monster. It looks too hard, too complicated, too overwhelming, too impossible to tackle. So, to counter this tendency, look instead at the one small step you can take in the direction you’ve been avoiding. One small step, and then another and another, keeps you moving forward. That’s all it takes.

Enrich Your Environment — Sometimes we procrastinate because we dread the experience of the task we’re avoiding. For example, you might dread paying the bills, doing your taxes, writing a report, doing household chores, etc. To make these tasks more enjoyable, enrich your environment with music or an interesting podcast, a special drink or treat, and even some aromatherapy. Or, take your work to a café, or a cooperative work-space. And be sure to get as comfortable as possible. Enrich your environment, and you’ll enrich your experience and your chances for success. You might even enjoy yourself!

Let Go of Resistance — When we resist a specific action or activity, we’re vulnerable to making it feel far more difficult than it really is. By moving forward in non-resistance, we accept ourchallenges without making them harder. Not everything feels pleasurable. Some things feel uncomfortable and even painful. When we let go of resisting the unpleasantness of an action, we’re more equipped to handle it.

Increase Your Knowledge — We often avoid what we don’t know how to do. So, if there’s something you’d like to do, but are avoiding, increase your knowledge about it. Find out what you need to know to move towards desired goal. Oftentimes, just the activity of researching your goal will peak your interest, and inspire you to take action. ( Be sure, however, to avoid overly researching your goal, since this can lead to even more procrastination.)

Release Fear – Fear is probably one of the biggest underlying factors of procrastination. If fear is an issue for you, first get clear about the fear you feel when it comes to your procrastination. Once you’re clear about your fear, you can use EFT Tapping, Heart Breath, or deep breathing to help it release. Contact me for more information on using EFT Tapping and the Heart Breath.

Click Here for a complimentary tapping audio to help you overcome procrastination.

In Courage,

Marian