Simply Abundant Intuitive

“I attract avoidants” has almost become a mantra for anxious pursuers who are convinced they are only attracted to people who shun them. They believe relationships require a lot of effort, thus feeling a deeper connection to partners who reject them. If it comes easy, something must be wrong. This anxious pursuer is always focused on their partner, pushing, pulling and waiting for that “wake-up” moment that never comes. Let’s say you start dating someone who checks a lot of your boxes, but they rarely contact you so you do all the work. You create excuses to contact them, enticing them with sex or whatever carrot you think will prove irresistible. You live in the fantasy of feeling close to them, making the reality of rejection both painful and comfortable. The irony is that if they DO get close to you, you’ll distance yourself. This push/pull dance is a pattern, with fear of abandonment at its core. To break it you need to connect where it hurts, accessing those deep feelings you avoid like the plague. Inst

As much as we want life to be black and white so we can keep things neat and tidy, it’s not. That is your intellect trying to run the show. Everything is a shade of grey, especially when it comes to emotions. When you put your mind in charge of your emotional state, you make fear-based choices. There is no deep connection to yourself so you rely on rules rather than trusting yourself. Emotions are esoteric; they cannot be easily described or labeled because words are a mental construct. Stop trying to separate the black paint from the white when they are all swirled together. Let them mix, it’s ok! When it comes to emotional change there are no absolutes. You have to feel your way through, make mistakes, and keep on going. Needing a bunch of black and white rules means you don’t trust yourself. If you wait for a sign that it’s ok to step into your fear, you’ll be waiting a long time. It’s ok to live in the grey and not know how things will turn out. In fact it’s the only way to emotionally grow. When you fin

Your relationship with yourself is reflected in your relationships with others. If you didn’t receive much unconditional love as a kid, you do not know what it’s like to give yourself love and attention. And if you don’t give those to yourself, others won’t be able to give them to you because you teach people how to treat you. Disregard your own feelings and other people will follow your lead. You also can’t receive what doesn’t already exist inside you, so if you’re looking for someone to fill an internal void, it won’t work. You will continue to struggle with your relationships if you do not become emotionally available to yourself first. So how do you become more emotionally available to yourself? Start owning and valuing your own feelings. This will be uncomfortable because you’ve probably spent your life avoiding and/or discounting them. But if you don’t value your feelings, no one else will. You will continue looking for people who give you breadcrumbs of love and attention because it’s what’s familiar

BUT WHY? You think if you can just understand what happened in your relationship, you can manage your emotions and put things back together. You won’t have to deal with loss or disappointment because you will make it work. If you can just understand why you were cheated on, broken up with, or treated badly, you can become the person he/she needs you to be. The problem with “understanding” is it is mental in nature, and a way of avoiding your emotions. Instead of sacrificing yourself to be what the other person wants, look at the feelings you’re afraid to deal with. Let’s say you’re walking on eggshells in your marriage, never asking what’s wrong because you’re afraid your spouse will ask for a divorce. Then you learn he/she has cheated on you. You fight back tears in an effort to understand so you can save your marriage. You’re terrified of loss and think that if you can figure out what happened, you can fix things. But at what cost? If you alter your behavior to be someone you’re not, you’ve sacrificed your

Having trouble detaching from a toxic relationship that is over because you swear he or she was your best friend? You try “no contact” and focus on yourself, which is great until you hear from them and lose all the ground you gained. You get sucked back into the hope that he or she has become the person you believed they could be, you know the best friend you imagined them to be plus more (lover, partner, et al). You hold onto fantasies and expectations about the day they will finally wake up and get it. Does that happen? No, but you aren’t able to detach. It’s hard to commit to your own well-being when you can’t let go. No matter how many times this person has hurt you, you may still feel this “best friend” connection to them, which is a painful place to live; especially if they have moved on and are in a relationship with someone else. Don’t fight against your feelings—they are real and should be acknowledged—but look at what is actually happening. The more you see what’s true, the more clarity you’ll have

Do you want people to act a certain way, treat you a certain way or do things the way you want them done? Do you expect them to live up to your standards of what is acceptable, or who you think they should be? The problem with expectations is they lead to disappointment. So when someone inevitably lets you down, do you blame them or nag them until you get your way? Do you threaten to leave? What is your favorite flavor of ultimatum, and how far will you go to get your way? The root of these expectations and the need to have things your way is based in lack. If you were filled with love for yourself, it wouldn’t matter what other people did or didn’t do. The problem isn’t the person who doesn’t live up to your expectations—it’s your need for those expectations in the first place. If you are constantly irritated by what your partner eats and you nag him/her to make different choices, ask yourself why. What does it trigger inside of you and what meaning do you give it? Until you account for what drives you, you

In this episode of “Surviving to Thriving: Overcoming My Darkest Moment” I talk with Alyssa Aubrey, Founder and Director of Medicine Horse Ranch, an experiential learning center that incorporates horses into human development. Growing up, Alyssa was the daughter of an alcoholic father and co-dependent mother. At 8 years old she remembers a fight ensuing after the police brought home her drunk father. Unable to listen, she climbed out her bedroom window and ran as fast as she could, stopping short at a horse ranch where a Palomino greeted her at the fence. Alyssa felt something pull her to the horse so she hopped on. It carried her around all night leaving her with an overwhelming feeling that she was safe, she wasn’t alone and she would survive the storms of her life. Years later when Alyssa lost her boyfriend in a freak accident, she would draw from that strength. Today Alyssa incorporates horses into her leadership development programs where her curriculum has earned her the AIA Meritus Award. She is also

For many people, fear motivates their decision-making; particularly the fear of loss. They think choosing this way will somehow circumvent struggle, but it just entrenches them further. Coming from fear always costs more than coming from happiness, peace or love. So why do you do it? Emotional baggage creates a negative perspective from which you view your choices. You falsely believe making a decision from this fear-based state will somehow save you. It won’t. If you’re in a dysfunctional relationship and want to leave because you’re unhappy, fear may keep you stuck in it. Letting go of that relationship could mean your partner finds someone new while you remain alone. Or you fear your partner is the best you’ll have and no one will come close. You make your decision to stay based on the fearful stories you tell yourself, but this means more painful struggle, not less. You will continually find yourself faced with the same problems you’re trying to escape unless you sit with your feelings, connect with your

We all have stories we tell ourselves about who we are and how life should be, even if those stories are subconscious. To keep those stories alive, you expect everything outside of you to cooperate. If your story is that you’re creative, can’t sit still and need a lot of variety, you may expect your jobs and relationships to adjust to your changing whims. And when they don’t cooperate, you cling even tighter to your story and push against reality. This results in struggle: when reality doesn’t match your story and you choose to believe your story (mostly unconsciously). Struggle is painful, but it’s also painful to give up the struggle because you’ve done it for so long; it feels safe and familiar. A common story is “I’m alone, nobody wants me, I’m not good enough.” Then what happens is your actions support it so you keep creating your single status. Dating is a struggle because it goes against your “I’m alone” story. Instead of choosing reality (there are available people out there and you can have a relati

Do you live your life based on rules, promises and agreements you made as a kid? Maybe you think things need to be a certain way, but you’re not sure why. Promises can influence many areas of your life without you even realizing it. It could be something as simple as why you don’t like broccoli. Maybe your dad hated it so you thought there was something wrong with it. To please your dad, you decided not to like broccoli either. Years later you still don’t eat broccoli because you think you don’t like it, but you haven’t tasted it since you were a kid. The problem with these unspoken rules and promises is they have NOTHING to do with what you actually want. They are like a bunch of road signs that push you in a certain direction, keeping you from experiencing life. If you grew up with parents in a dysfunctional relationship, you may have equated marriage with yelling and pain. As an adult, you might have trouble with long-term relationships without knowing why. You don’t realize your younger self made a promi

How do you react when someone says they have upset you? Perhaps they took something personally that you didn’t intend. Do you get defensive or accuse them of overreacting? Or do you actually listen to how they feel? When in a defensive state, all you hear is blame and shame for what you have done, believing you’re the bad guy. To prove you did nothing wrong, you invalidate them by saying they are being overly sensitive. It’s hard to take responsibility for causing pain so you want to make it their problem, not yours. Listening with empathy instead of defending your position or shaming them for how they feel is the difference between validating and invalidating communication. Let’s say you text someone a snarky comment that hurts their feelings. You didn’t mean to upset them (it was a joke!), but you did. First, acknowledge they are hurt and allow them to feel that way without judgment. You can say you didn’t mean to upset them, and you’re sorry it had an impact—even if you don’t understand their feelings. Co

It’s hard to speak your true feelings. When asked, you may talk about what is happening externally: you’re stressed from work, worried about your relationship or upset about something a friend said. But those aren’t your deeper feelings; those are actually reactions. To understand what’s really going on, you have to dig beyond those surface emotions. Waiting for the situation to change or resolve itself may help temporarily, but it will resurface because you’re not getting to the root. This pattern of waiting for the external to change rather than dealing with the underlying emotions is learned… so of course it can be unlearned. And it takes a willingness to sit with discomfort. If you are angry that your partner ignores you while telling him/her about your day, dig below the anger. Why does it make you angry? What does it trigger inside? Maybe you’ll find a fear of rejection or abandonment. Connecting with those underlying feelings and sharing them with your partner is the road to emotional freedom. Or you

People tend to confuse feeling your feelings with ruminating. Rehashing the same story over and over is not processing your feelings—that’s ruminating. It’s a way of staying focused on stories and the meaning you give them. It’s also a way of avoiding your deeper feelings. You think you’re “processing,” but you’re really just marinating in your juices. Sitting with your feelings WITHOUT attaching stories is a different experience. When you ruminate, you need to solve a problem and often need something from someone else to come to a resolution. When you feel your feelings, there is a peaceful end; a feeling of calm. You don’t need anything external. Feeling your feelings is hard and people will perform all sorts of acrobatics to avoid doing it. But when you go around in circles with the same problem and rehash old stories, you don’t make any movement. Instead of feeling resolved, you’re frustrated. You are in a constant state of reaction where you remain stuck. Connecting with your deeper emotions will get yo

Do you constantly feel disrespected by your partner, friends, colleagues, etc.? Do you think they are the mean ones and you are the poor one who is made to suffer? Well, what if they were just following your lead? Everything you say or don’t say; do or don’t do teaches people how to treat you. If you say you won’t tolerate liars, why do you look the other way or make an excuse for someone lying to you? When you cross your own boundaries you give other people permission to do the same. Also, when you accept behavior but get angry about it, the other person picks up on that. Let’s say you buy lunch for co-workers because you want them to invite you to their after-work happy hours. Even if it’s not conscious, they may feel they’re being manipulated by your inauthentic gesture, so they continue not inviting you. You feel used and label them as mean but you’re the one not respecting yourself. Seeking validation by putting up with bad behavior will never lead to a positive sense of well-being. You’re putting your

Rules are important for safety and for functioning in society, but you probably have a laundry list of rules you aren’t even aware of; ones that don’t serve you. If you spent today noticing all the rules in your life, you may be surprised by how much they operate your existence. Rules feel safe; they provide a road map. Maybe you’re afraid if you don’t follow them, all hell will break loose and you’ll feel utterly out of control. Rules create a limited way of life because you miss out on the joy of experiencing and allowing. Maybe you only eat organic produce, or have to be in bed by 9pm every night, or need to wait for someone to smile at you before you smile back, or only date someone of the same race. Preferences are fine, but these can easily become stringent guidelines you follow without questioning them, which can keep your world small and controlled. They become a crutch when you don’t trust yourself or your choices. When you allow life and live in the present moment, you take action from your heart r

In this episode of “Surviving to Thriving: Overcoming My Darkest Moment” I talk with author, podcaster and intimate photographer Jen Rozenbaum. After a miscarriage and life-threatening ectopic pregnancy, Jen needed to direct her energy into something creative, so she picked up a camera and taught herself photography. When a client asked for a boudoir photo, Jen really connected with it, and later learned that many women who seek out intimate photos are suffering from infertility or other issues around femininity. These sessions were healing, both for Jen and her clients. And she didn’t know it at the time, but it was all practice for her real darkest moment… a breast cancer diagnosis in 2017. Something she found, ironically, while noticing a shadow on her self-portrait. Going through surgery and chemo wasn’t the darkest part of her journey, however; it was post-treatment. Jen didn’t trust life and mourned the person she was prior to cancer. She wasn’t that person anymore. There was a lot of shame associated

Do you put up with complicated relationships? “It’s Complicated” as a relationship status is a bit of a cultural joke because it rings true so often, but does it have to be that way? Is it fun to feel frustrated and misunderstood? Or put forth a lot of effort and feel the other person isn’t pulling their weight? Then why choose to have those people in your life? This isn’t just about intimate relationships; it can extend to friends and family as well. Perhaps you believe some relationships are inherently complicated and it’s just something to live with. If you’re in a relationship with someone who is married, it may “work” for both of you, but you label it as complicated. You figure that’s just how these relationships go and convince yourself it’s ok, but you’re not truly happy. When you believe it’s something you need to accept and deal with, you absolve yourself of the responsibility for choosing to be there. It also serves as a cover for avoiding your deeper emotions. If that’s the way things are, no need

Do you struggle with where you are in life, wishing you were somewhere else? Maybe you think there is something wrong with where you are and you want to change it… NOW. But if you try to change without accepting where you are, you’ll stay stuck. You don’t have to like where you are, but you have to surrender to the fact that you don’t make the money you want or you aren’t in the relationship you want or you don’t have the job you want. Where you are is the result of many small decisions, so if you chose the path to get here, you can choose a different one to get out. You create what you wake up to every day. It's easy to complain about what you don’t like, but there is no power in that. You’ll never get where you want to go and will be left with a sense of longing. If you hate your job, accept that fact. Stop fighting against it or wishing it were different. Maybe it’s the best option for you right now. Again, you don’t have to like it to accept it. The pain you’re in is driven by your resistance to it, so s

Feelings are messy. They cause disagreements, fights, problems, etc. You think it’s easier to just compartmentalize, ignore or numb them… but can you? Imagine for a moment that you set aside your uncomfortable feelings. Then what? If you go along to get along, will life be rosy? If you cease to have an opinion and agree with whatever anyone says, will everyone be happier? You may think it’s easier to acquiesce, but it comes at a great cost to you. When you shove your feelings aside, you disconnect from part of yourself. You teach yourself that your feelings don’t have value. If you were invalidated as a kid, believing your feelings were wrong, you might develop a pattern of masking them because it’s easier. But feelings don’t vanish because you want them to, no matter how much you push them down. Denying them for the sake of others builds anger and contributes to your existing pile of negative emotions. Your feelings will make other people unhappy at times, and that’s ok. You don’t have control over those pe

When people give lip service to “I’m sorry,” it loses its meaning. In fact, some people put a lot of weight on it. For the words to mean something, they need to come with ownership and self-responsibility. Prodding someone doesn’t feel good, and neither does someone wanting an apology from you that you don’t feel inclined to give. You can’t force a meaningful apology out of someone, so if you’re trying to do this, ask yourself why. This happens a lot with breakups. If you’re devastated over the end of your relationship, you may want your ex to acknowledge your pain and say they are sorry for what they’ve done to you. You believe this will give you a sense of closure, but you’re putting an awful lot of importance on words that may be empty, which won’t make you feel any better. Sorry is meaningless without self-responsibility and you can’t force someone to own the wrong you feel they’ve done (especially if they feel differently). Instead, look for where you can take responsibility in the situation and why you