Masks Off: Inner Freedom For People-Pleasers and Perfectionists

It is often said that pain in life is inevitable, but suffering is optional.  Do you even notice when you are suffering? Do you find yourself complaining or feeling like a victim? Do you tell yourself stories that keep you perpetuating the cycle of suffering? Kim and Tia talk about how we can free ourselves if we can look at our experiences and ask ourselves is this happening to me or for me?...

Is pressure serving you in your life or is it hindering your day-to-day well-being? Do you feel pressure to be perfect? Do you feel pressure to meet unrealistic expectations from yourself and others? Is there an unrealistic expectation of what it means to be successful? If you answered yes to any of these questions you are not alone. Culture has put a lot of pressure on us and then we just add fue...

Do you ever feel like you have lost your voice and you just don’t feel like you are yourself? Do you ever feel like you have lost yourself and that you are not living the life that you want and desire? How often we get caught up in our roles, our patterns and living our day to day without really being authentic to who we are. Debra shares her journey and how she reclaimed her true self and how she...

How many times have you been in a rut or a difficult time in your life and felt like you would never see the light at the end of the tunnel? Do you abandon self-care during these times and therefore end up feeling even more depleted? The most important thing we can do for ourselves is to take care of ourselves even if it is sprinkled throughout the day. A few minutes of breathing or stretching or...

Without even realizing it we are living out patterns or roles. These roles and patterns become our masks. We don’t consciously do this. We fall into these patterns in childhood often to protect ourselves. As this happens and we create more and more patterns we lose our true self. As we awaken and become more aware of our patterns we can step into a new dance and create a new way of living life. It...

How easy is it for you to play in your life? Do you cringe at the thought of playing? Or, do you think to yourself “I am too busy to play.” Whether you enjoy playing and incorporate play in your life or whether you avoid playing with a ten foot pole, Jen Zash has much to say about the benefit and need for cultivating play in our lives. She talks about looking at life with childlike wonder. As we b...

Imagine being caught in a rip tide. What is the first thing that you are told to do if you get caught in a rip tide? Do you flow against it or ride with it? We can apply this same advice when it comes to the challenges in our lives. It is more beneficial to flow with the challenges rather than resist. When we let go of resistance and move into acceptance we have more peace. While it is difficult t...

When you find yourself in a difficult space and having a really hard time, is it easy or difficult for you to reach out and ask for support? Do you feel afraid to be vulnerable and ask another just to listen and hold space for you? In this episode, Kim and Tia talk about how truly important it is to recognize first that healing takes time and there are many layers to healing, but also that it is s...

Most of us have developed coping strategies throughout our lives because we did not know how to deal with pain in a healthy and effective way. So many times when we are triggered by someone or something we resort to our coping strategies. This is not always a bad thing as these strategies served an important purpose- to protect us in some way. As we grow and evolve we do want to learn how to go in...

In the previous episode, Kim and Tia talked about how we navigate the “storms” in our lives. Often times, there are lessons to learn from these storms. One of those lessons is learning that we cannot calm the storm and we can only calm ourselves. Sometimes though, it is very difficult to calm ourselves while we are in the middle of a storm. We may expect ourselves to handle things differently than...

How do you respond when you feel that you are in the midst of a “storm”? Do you try and control everything around you or do you take one step at a time? Do you try and control people, places and things, or do you focus on what you can control? What can you actually control? The only thing in life that we really have control over is ourselves and how we respond to outside factors. Sometimes the sto...

Do you feel that your relationships with others whether it be a boss, significant other, children, friends etc… are healthy? Do you show up as real and authentic in these relationships? Or, do you wear a relationship mask? To hear more about what it looks like to wear a relationship mask, how we develop a relationship mask, and often lock ourselves in a cage of the relationship mask, listen in. Li...

Do you ever find yourself in one of those head spaces where you feel like you are in a total fog? Do you feel like you are flying circles in an airplane that won’t seem to land. Or perhaps you feel like one of those pinball machines and you are bouncing all over the place. Sometimes it can feel like life is just coming at us. Maybe we have many things that we are trying to juggle and on top of all...

Do you ever feel like you are stuck in looping thoughts or a pattern or behaviour that never goes away? Are you stuck in depression, anxiety, or addictive behavior? Do you find yourself in a situation where you feel stuck or trapped? Perhaps you are trapped in particular roles or expectations. Maybe you feel like a victim. If you answered yes to any of these questions, listen in as Kim and Tia dis...

One of the hallmark symptoms of co-dependency is enmeshment and caretaking. The truth is that we are only responsible to take care of ourselves and those that truly cannot take care of themselves. What we often do that may get us in trouble is to take care of people that should be taking care of themselves. When we do this we take away their own inner power to know what it feels like to take care...

If you try to avoid pain, you are not alone. We are wired to move away from pain and move toward pleasure. The issue is that as we move away from pain, we often avoid it or push it down and run from it. That can create a whole host of issues in our lives including anxiety, depression and addictions as well as unhealthy relationships. In this interview with Janet, she speaks about how we can face o...

Do you find it easy or difficult to hold a boundary with others. Do you get so stuck in your position that you build a wall between you and the other or do you cave easily because you are afraid of upsetting the other. Boundaries are difficult and can nurture a relationship or it can hurt relationships. It is also important to realize that boundaries can be fluid and can change if we live in the m...

Are you in resistance to the “as is'' especially if that reality is painful? Do you move away from pain and continually seek out pleasure? Our minds are wired to avoid pain and move toward pleasure but the problem arises when we resist pain. This is a problem because when we resist pain we cause more suffering in our lives. We can not know joy without knowing sadness and we can not know freedom wi...

This episode is an amazing and deep conversation with Diana. She shares many insights and wisdom and one in particular is how and why as children we make a choice to be loved instead of being real. She dives in deep and explains what that means from her lens and why she believes we develop and create masks. Diana shares and explains how people can begin to heal and thus peel back the masks that th...

When you make decisions in your life, do you make them only from your head or only from your heart, or do you balance the two? Do you make impulsive decisions or with a sense of urgency? Are you coming from fear when you make decisions and do you find yourself in a more difficult situation as a result? When we make decisions from lack or scarcity, we will often rush or jump into situations and as...

What type of conflict avoider are you? Do you fight when you are in conflict with another and do you blame and deflect taking responsibility because you don’t want to be honest with yourself? Or, are you a person who flees and just runs from the conflict because you fear being attacked by the other? Either way is not healthy communication and is problematic for relationships. While it can be smart...

Are you afraid of choosing courage over comfort?  Do you hold back from speaking up or setting a boundary because it is easier to be quiet and stay comfortable? Do you avoid taking risks because it is too scary to step outside your comfort zone? If you answered yes to any of these questions take a listen as Kim and Tia talk about balancing between taking risks to avoid dealing with an issue a...

So Excited!!!!! Our first guest episode is with Intuitive Coach Deborah Hanlon. In this episode we talk about roles and expectations that we place upon ourselves or continue to keep ourselves attached to and how it can feel like we live in a box. Listen in to get three key takeaways. · What is one simple and natural reminder of the natural flow of life?(@ ~13 min) · What is one powerful question t...

Do you struggle to make decisions in your life? Do you make pros and cons lists when making a big life decision? Do you overthink things or do you tend to lean in and listen to your intuition? When we are in a practice of being in the moment and we tune in to our bodies and our hearts there is a sense of knowing that the decision or decisions that you make are right for you. If you vacillate back...

In this episode Kim and Tia talk about their new online course, True North. One of the main intentions for this course is to teach how to take teachings and wisdom and actually build a tool box so that we can integrate the wisdom. It is one thing to know something and it is another to actually put it into practice and have it be useful. One of the tools that Kim and Tia will be teaching is how to...