Episode #47: Don’t Cut Your Lifeline

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The people, habits, tools or behaviors that fuel your body, mind and spirit are responsible for how you grow as a woman?

Today we are going to discuss our “Life Umbilical Cord”.

The life lines that make you feel loved, supported and cared for, that fuel your body with energy and strength.

The people that teach you to become smarter and more wise. These are the life lines of our self care.

The only way to truly feel your best and contribute your best is to solidify these life lines of self care.

I want to talk about not cutting our lifelines. Hopefully, you looked at the title of this post and got excited, and you thought, “What lifeline? I would never cut my own lifeline. That would be crazy.”

This whole idea came up when I was sitting, doing a yoga practice and I was meditating a little bit at the end of it, and I was just kind of feeling my belly, because as a lot of you might know, I’m pregnant with my first baby boy, little Lucca Giuseppe LaFata. And I was thinking about Luca, as I was sitting there and just feeling the ground beneath me and thinking about this little baby growing in my body and how his life line is that umbilical cord, right?

He’s relying on me to keep him alive. Everything that I do, everything that I eat or drink, all of the stress I have, the energy that my body is vibrating, the relaxation that I’m having. Any kind of temperature changes…

I’m thinking this little guy is reliant on me. I am in control of how he feels and how he’s being nurtured and how he’s growing, and I just thought, Wow. What a responsibility. What a gift to be able to give that to someone and think about it in a way where I just want to do my best job.

I know that there’s a lot of moms out there that listen to my podcast and maybe women that want to be moms one day.

Even though I knew I wanted to be a mom, up until 37, I decided I was going to wait, because I didn’t necessarily want that role yet. But I knew one day I wanted this role.

But I didn’t realize what a responsibility it would feel like. I started thinking about that responsibility for all of us women but now that our own  lifeline is more so just reliant on us, we’re no longer little babies.  Even growing up in high school and college and all through the years as a young professional, I think that we still have a little bit of a lifeline from our parents or our teachers or people that are supporting us and mentoring us.

I believe we get to a point in our life where we then choose the lifeline that we know is going to keep us living and thriving at our best.

But how long has it been since you really thought about your lifeline?

I think about it as the life umbilical cord, because I want to bring the conversation to us as women. There’s those of us that have carried children, those who want to carry children, and those who are never going to carry children, but we’re carry ourselves, right? We’re carrying ourselves through life, and this is not an easy job. It’s not any easier, right? It’s even more difficult when we get to adulthood, and now, responsible for ourselves? Nobody else is responsible for us.

As much as you want to think that your parents are responsible, they aren’t. You are responsible, and you’re going to take ownership of that.

I want you to think, “What are my lifelines?”

What is helping you have that optimal survival and growth for your life?

When I started thinking about that in my own life, I realized, Wow. There’s three different big veins that go into me.

If you think about the umbilical cord, there’s veins coming in, artery going out for that little baby. But we have multiple veins coming in that keep us alive and thriving, and then we’ve got an artery that goes out, which is our performance.

It’s how we’re delivering and serving the world. That’s how we’re showing up. It’s how we feel. It’s how we are continuously being present and giving and serving.

If you think about that, I think one of our biggest lifelines is really what makes us feel loved and supported and cared for. That’s a huge lifeline right there. Another one is what makes us feel fully energized and strong.

What are we getting from our lifeline that fuels our energy and our strength? And then that third lifeline is that what teaches us to become smarter and wiser in the world.

Mentioning those three things, you just think about your parents. You just think about your teachers, the people that helped you grow up and survive in the world. When I think of those things, I think, My mom, she really made me feel loved and supported and cared for. My teachers and my coaches, they really helped me become smarter and wiser.

I think about my body, my energy and fuel. My mom was always behind vegetables and making pintos from scratch, and she did a lot of stuff that really kept us grounded and healthy.

We drank a lot of a whole milk because grandparents owned a dairy farm. So I had all these tools. I was an athlete, so I was encouraged to play sports. My trainers or coaches kept me strong and motivated to get better.

I immediately think about my past, and then I bring it back to the present. I want you to think about your present and think about the lifelines, those three big lifelines. The support, love, energy, strength, mentorship, growth, and the wisdom that you’re getting.

Think about them as big veins coming into your life, into your body, into your mind, into your spirit. That is what allows you to output everything you are, everything you do, everything you create, everything you feel.

If you don’t feel like you’re putting out your best, if you don’t feel like you’re putting out quality relationships, love, and energy, and you don’t have all that you need to feel like your best and to do your best, then I don’t believe it’s your fault. I just believe that maybe it’s been so long since you looked at your lifelines, and you looked at what was coming in.

Think about what is coming in, and that is ultimately up to you. So you got to take ownership of that. Take ownership and responsibility for the fact that there isn’t enough coming in to fuel you. If those lifelines are shredded or punctured, think about it.

Most people don’t have mentorship. They’re not working on the growth and getting the wisdom that allow them to really thrive. Maybe that lifeline is punctured and it’s bleeding out. Maybe it’s severed completely, and it’s not even reaching you.

For me, to be personally honest, and I think you’ve heard me share this before: When I got out of college and joined the workforce, became a personal trainer,  stopped really learning and developing my mind. I was so burnt from college. I went right from undergrad to grad school. When I finished, I was like, Don’t even put a book in front of me. I don’t care. I don’t want to read it.  All I had was a great mentor at work. My boss really taught me a lot about being a better trainer, being a great coach, and that was really good. I didn’t completely cut that lifeline, but it was bleeding out, because I wasn’t improving myself and my mind as much as I could.

I wasn’t reading and developing and creating more wisdom for myself. It took me another five years until I picked up another book. It was a book by John Maxwell, and it was about dreaming again.  He wrote this book to really help people uncover if they would accomplish those dreams, because there are certain types of people  that dream and then people that go for that dream.

When I read that book, I thought, Wow, I haven’t really been pursuing the dreams I had. I’ve just been hoping and wishing they would come true. That lifeline was bleeding out and my energy was too. I had some energy habits, but that lifeline was frayed. It was on the breaking point of being broken completely, and that’s why I had no energy. That’s why I had no enthusiasm for my career, and I felt like I was being drained by everybody, and I wasn’t excited to get up for work and teach a class. I was so bummed out and depressed.

I started cutting my lifeline slowly, because I started cutting my self-care. I started cutting the energy habits and the habits that really made me that powerful, strong, successful trainer that I had been for so long, because I was forgetting about the self-care while I was pursuing my career. But guess what suffered? Both me and my career.

Think about your own life in this way and think about those lifelines. You know what? I even think about the support and the love and the care that I get, that lifeline that I reach for now in my adult life. I’m like, “Yeah, I got my husband. I’ve got my siblings and my parents, my friendships.”

I want you to grab a piece of paper. I want you to grab a pen, and I want you to write down these three massive lifelines.

 

Where you’re getting your support, your love, your care?

Where are you getting your mentorship for your growth and your wisdom? Where are you getting those energy habits?

What are you using to thrive with your body? With your energy and your fuel?

 

I have so many of those now in my life, those lifelines. That lifeline for my energy and strength is powerful. That lifeline is solid. I think there’s a steel bar around that vein. It’s never going to get severed unless I completely fall off the rails, which I hope won’t happen.

But think about you.

How solid are those lifelines for you? And if you wrote down all the habits that you have and the practices that you have that keep that lifeline for your strength and energy really solid, then you’re good.  If that lifeline for your growth and your ongoing wisdom, you’re becoming smarter and you’re becoming more wise, because you’re making better decisions, and you have good perspective.

You don’t have this guilt, and you don’t live with this regret, and you don’t have this ongoing, negative self-talk going on, because that’s the stuff that starts to happen when you sever that lifeline – you stop listening to the people that can help you and can inspire you and give you new perspectives.

I hope that this blog is a part of that lifeline, because for me, I’ve had mentors like Brendon Burchard and even Darren Hardy. I listen to him every morning with his Darren Daily. He sends me a text message;  It’s for people that are also trying to build successful businesses and be entrepreneurs and be leaders.

It’s important that you have a lifeline for that if that’s a goal for you – If you’re trying to build a business, or you’re trying to be a leader or inspiring person for your family, you should be listening to Darren Daily for sure. You should be listening to Brendon Burchard. You should listening to Robin Sharma. You should be listening to success talks and whatnot. These are my lifelines, . I don’t sever them. My husband, biggest mentor for me. I don’t sever listening to him, even though sometimes I’m like, Please stop!

In your life you can choose what habits, what people, what places, what self-care you’re going to add and keep in your life, so that these lifelines are solid.

This is my whole objective and goal for you today, is to share this idea with you and get you thinking and get you writing. If you don’t journal, this is a great day to start, and I want you to have those three categories, and I want you to start writing down the different people, habits, tools, and behaviors that feed your mind, your body and your spirit  So that you can give your best.

You can reach your greatest potential.

It is so clear to me more than ever, as a woman who’s pregnant with her first baby, and I know it’s getting my mind all thinking deeply about life and about that circle that we go through as women and as human beings.

Now, I’m taking care of another life, and it’s reminding me that it’s even more important now to take care of mine.

How can I be the best wife, mother, leader for my team, entrepreneur and leader and motivator for you if I am not taking care of myself? If I sever any of my lifelines, I am weakened. I am not as capable of putting out all the energy, all the love, all the confidence, all the content that I am doing now.

I’m reading a couple of books on childbirth and yoga before childbirth. You guys are going to laugh at me, but it reminds me again about the importance of our own personal self-care. Even when children come into the picture, even when a new job starts, even when we’re looking for that raise, even when we get married and we start a relationship that throws us off-kilter – all of a sudden, we’re trying to adjust.

How do I take care of myself and also be a wife?

No matter what change happens in your life, do not let it be an excuse for you to sever your lifeline. The lines that keep you feeling fully alive. Your mind, your body and your spirit alive, so that you’re living your best life.

I hope that this reached you, this touched you, this inspired you to do some journaling and some thinking on this.

If you’re ready for all the tools and the habits and the behaviors that I’ve been practicing for years and have put into a formula over a four-week course called the Sexy Confident Woman Formula, I highly encourage you to reach out to me and learn more about that. It’s my mission, and I call it Mission Unstoppable, because every woman in the world can be unstoppable. She can go for what she wants. She can achieve what she wants. She can feel as good as she wants.

But it takes that practice of bringing those lifelines back into our body. I want you to think about a movie or think about something. Just boom. Just attaching and entering your soul, and saying, “You are now getting that lifeline, getting that blood and oxygen.”

You’re infusing yourself again with what you need to be your best.

 

Join the PIONEERS in Mission Unstoppable, where we re-attach all the life lines that allow us to live our best life.