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Lessons in thriving through the year-Jo Tucker-emotional resilience, healing, thriving, trauma

Lessons on Thriving through a Tough Year

This year has been a tough one with many lessons on life, transformation and thriving. In short, it has been a BIG FEELING year.

I was recently filling out a questionnaire about myself for a new coach I’m working with (because coaches need coaches too!). While I do make it a practice to take sacred pause often, there is potency in answering a list of questions that I don’t often ask myself. The process allows me a moment to claim my current state fully and reflect on how I might’ve answered it a few mere months or years ago. 

Here are a few answers that shook me in a big way.

What is my greatest fear? I don’t have any. I am filled to the very brim with trust that whatever it is that I want and desire in life, truly, will come to pass. That whatever comes my way in the form of challenges, setbacks, and blocks, I am beyond capable of holding myself through and thriving.

What am I most proud of? A few years ago, this question might have made me cringe. I maybe would have written some things that I’ve heard reflected back to me, and I most certainly would have caged them in some sort of passive-aggressive “I did this but doesn’t everyone I’m not special and I didn’t do it alone” kinda BS. Not now, and never again. I am infinitely proud of everything I have created in my life and the part I’ve played in creating and receiving it all. Of the things that have come easy and the things that I’ve suffered for. I am unabashedly proud of the woman I am– I am in deep, profound veneration of her and I really do enjoy screaming it from the rooftops and asking people to join the party and it Feels. So. Liberating.

What do you have to have in your life, so that you can feel at ease and fully be you? This was an exceptionally powerful realization. This last year has been heart-wrenching and exhausting on every level. I have experienced excruciating pain and suffering in the form of anxiety attacks, overwhelmed and a flare up in my chronic disease. And in all of this, I have had myself. In the eye of the storm, I have given myself the gift of healing presence. In all the awful, the strength and resilience I have carefully cultivated over time was my rock and I lay down on it, every night. I called in support and love, which showed up in huge and magical ways that I am eternally grateful for, but at the end of the day in those dark hours of the soul, it was me who had to show up.

Everything else in my life is a BONUS. Cuddles, crystals, conversations… even fresh vegetables. ALL a bonus. I have to have me. She’s the one who can heal me, the one who can ask for help, the one who can carry me through. And after years of seeking strength from without, doubting my capacity to love, to heal, to be accepted, to find peace… I have found it within.

I may shake wildly, but I will never collapse.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

This is what I want for every woman. Not to be an island because we must, but to be sovereign in ourselves to thrive no matter the conditions.

And if this kind of strength calls to you, let’s connect on a call to start your healing process.

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Conflict Series #3: The New Paradigm of Conflict Resolution-Jo Tucker-survival, instincts, values, trauma

Conflict Series #3: The New Paradigm of Conflict Resolution

The New Paradigm of Conflict Resolution is the final part in a three-part series on Conflict. If you missed #1 and 2, hop on over and check it out. Click here for #1 and here for #2!

When we’re in conflict with loved ones, even if we’re the most resourceful and skillful mother f-er around, we’re still going to hit conflicts that trigger us SO DEEPLY that we cannot find our centre.

As human beings, we have some serious survival instincts. When we’re in situations that make us feel as if our identity (i.e. values) is being threatened, our physiology kicks up a whole host of reactions that direct us to fight, flight or freeze. When we’re in any one of these states, it’s very hard to be our best selves. So, we have to find a way to calm ourselves and bring ourselves out of a survival state.

*Note: If this is due to real trauma, the trauma must be healed before we can expect ourselves to move through this process.*

There is one remedy that I recommend to all my clients, and it’s a truth that I’ve learned again and again: a return to breath, followed by a heavy dose of empathy.

First, find your breath. Stay with it until you feel your heartbeat and muscles return to normal.

And then ask yourself: What if the person you’re in conflict with is experiencing the same fear as you?

Yup, I said it. And what if I were to tell you that this is generally true in 85% of cases– because sometimes someone is just an asshole.

If we return to the first blog in this series, I told you that conflict generally comes from one thing: fear. Fear that one of our needs is not being met: love + connection, safety, and significance.

What if the person who is making your life hell on earth at work is also simply afraid because they are insecure in their own position, so they must belittle you to feel powerful? When you share your dreams with someone you love and they react in criticism, perhaps this is more about wanting to keep you safe than cut down your dreams. A friends’ disagreement on your stance on Black Lives Matter is simply a fear of looking at their own responsibility in their daily choices.

None of this excuses bad actions, but it does provide a space for open vulnerability + compassion.

We have to recognize that the old paradigm of conflict management goes one of two ways: sooth and ignore, or aggressively over-power the other person to assert one’s strength and therefore UNFUCKWITHABILITY, thereby keeping oneself safe and intact.

This isn’t a wrong way to be, it’s just generally unskilled. It lacks in open-heartedness. Vulnerability. Perspective. Curiousity. Self-reflection. But damn, it’s effective in its own way (READ: ruining intimacy and relationships, shaming and blaming others into submission)

And so, when we’re confronted with these emotionally charged moments, choose the new paradigm that is rooted in love. Choose empathy even when it feels hard. This simple shift in thinking can offer so much healing.

Does this jive with you? I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.

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