3 Steps to Cultivate a Mindset that has Your Back
My supportive mindset had my back and truly saved my wedding day from being a disaster.
Journey back with me to late September 2017. It’s 12 days before my wedding. We’ve been planning, it’s going great, and today I’m just happily riding my bike down East Washington in Madison, WI on the way to my 9-5. I do this 5 minute ride every morning and notice a branch hanging off the sidewalk and sticking out into the bike lane up ahead. I move to avoid it and kick it out of the way as I pass.
The next thing I know, I’m coming to face first on the asphalt & I can tell that something quite bad has happened. I try calling my housemate who I had just seen in the kitchen moments before. No answer. I tried calling my soon-to-be spouse who was still asleep. No answer. Suddenly I knew I just needed to get home. I somehow managed to lock up my busted bike, and shuffled the quarter mile home. As I approached my house, I ran into my housemate who was leaving and his immediately horrified look confirmed my suspicions. It was bad.
He told me to sit on the couch while he went to wake up Mitchell. When Mitchell got up, they both just kept telling me not to look in the mirror while they scurried around to get ready. I started dissociating a bit and the next thing I know we’re at an urgent care, I’m in a wheelchair, and they are telling us to go to the ER immediately.
It turns I’ve gotten a pretty bad concussion, broke my front tooth, and have road rash covering half my face.
And in case you forgot… it’s 12 days before my wedding.
However, when I say, my mindset literally never even entertained the thought that this accident would have any negative impact on my wedding day, I truly mean it. I believed with 100% certainty (aka I KNEW), that this would not have a negative impact in any way whatsoever at all.
It’s wild, because in some sort of “Spirit knows no time” kind of way, I actually internalized the idea that nothing could ruin my wedding day when I was maybe 10 years old. I’d somehow decided to use a sharpie to “paint my nails” and it was a mess. But for whatever weird reason, my 10 year old brain gave me the message: “It’ll go away. It’s not like it’ll be around to ruin your wedding day! Nothing could ruin that!” And for whatever other weird reason, that stuck in my brain.
But then fast-forward to the few days after my accident and everyone around me said things like: “Aren’t you going to cancel? I would totally cancel!” and “OMG the pictures!” I rested in the truth that I would obviously heal in time. Nothing could ruin my wedding day. Like, obviously without question.
This wasn’t from a toxic positivity place of denial. I literally knew that God would give me the exact wedding I was meant to have, and I knew in my soul that my face and brain would be fine. The undeniable truth that nothing could ruin that day felt as true as the fact that you are reading this right now.
And you know what? Because of my concussion, the dental work to fix my broken teeth, and the necessary healing, I was able to rest and be off work from my corporate job the whole time, while still being paid. I got back those hours at home to oscillate between resting and working on wedding things. There is absolutely no way our wedding would have flowed like it did if I had been working full time in the two weeks leading up to it. No way. And, in true Allison fashion, every photo I took during the healing journey (including the one below from the day it happened when we went back to collect my bike) has me giving a thumbs up. I was unbothered without even realizing it.
September 26, 2017, 12 days before the wedding
Going back that afternoon with Mitchell to get my busted up bike that I’d somehow managed to lock up. Mouth too swollen to open, full on neck brace, but still giving a thumbs-up.
October 8, 2017
12 days later at our wedding before our creek-side ceremony among the trees in our favorite park with our friends and family.
So, how did I cultivate a mindset like this? And how can you do the same? Let’s dive in!
This is my 3 step framework to cultivate a mindset that has your back.
1. Come to terms with yourself & find peace
Whew. Kicking off with a biggie! LOL. Unfortunately though, this is where we need to start. If there are places in your life that feel out of alignment, especially in a big enough way that they are causing stickiness in your life, you need to find peace with them. If there are things you need to say, things you want to change, things it’s time to release... this is where you start.
As an example, if I’m coaching a client and helping them embrace the belief that they deserve to share their message on social media, but internally they don’t actually believe they are worthy... it’s not going to work. We need to start by addressing why they don’t feel worthy and how we can shift that. Maybe it’s connected to how smart or creative they perceive themself to be. Maybe it’s connected to feeling like it’s shameful to bring attention to yourself. Maybe they do believe in what they want to share, but actually have underlying fear and that is what’s blocking them.
And, to share another story of Allison being an odd child, I remember gaining awareness of this principle at a very young age, maybe 8 years old. I was laying awake extremely anxious about something that had happened at school that day. I felt guilty, ashamed, and way out of alignment. And in what may have been my first Divine download, my young brain wisely deduced: “If I just make sure I can always look myself in the mirror and feel at peace in my brain... then life is okay.”
So, if you don’t feel okay looking yourself in the mirror, that’s where we begin.
2. Start noticing what you say to yourself
Once you’re feeling at peace with yourself, start noticing how you speak to yourself. I love when I see someone catch their own self-talk going negative. You’ll propose an idea for example and they’ll immediately say: “That is way too hard. I could never do that.” But then, something magical happens with magnificently self-aware humans. They catch themselves and say: “Oh wait, is there some fear here? Is it true for certain that I can’t do things that feel challenging?” They analyze their thoughts and get curious. “Way too hard” isn’t met as a truth, but rather inspected with curiosity.
Maybe at first you have a very basic awareness: “My thoughts felt supportive” or “My thoughts made me feel worse about it.” From there, you can go a little deeper. Why did your thoughts feel the way they felt? What words or phrases were you telling yourself internally? Is this something you’d say to someone else? Is it something you’d say to a child?
3. Actively put things in your life that feel supportive
Remember the example above about my client struggling to actually believe they are worthy of posting on social? They are going to continue struggling until they make that shift. If they are always putting themselves last, letting other people be right, or not standing up for themselves, they just reinforce this narrative to themselves and others. Let’s imagine that client and I are doing some coaching. It might go something like this:
Allison: What is different about you currently and the version of you that you believe deserves to post on social media?
Client: That version is just smarter and better. She’s cooler and has her life more together.
Allison: Looking at her day-to-day life versus your current day-to-day life, how can you tell hers is “more together”?
Client: She definitely has more of a plan, and isn’t so last minute with everything. There isn’t all this stress about what is happening and when, she just easily moves through her day and is so glamorous and inspired.
Allison: That sounds so dreamy! How can we bring more of that into your life? What is a small shift you could make to feel like you have it “more together”?
Client: I suppose I could spend a little time looking at my calendar for the next week so I know what is coming. Then maybe I could give myself some deadlines and have more of a schedule for when I want to do things.
Allison: How do you imagine it would impact your week to look at your calendar and maybe add some deadlines for yourself?
Client: That would feel great! I bet I’d feel a little less behind and rushed all the time. There’d actually be designated time for things, instead of just dropping the ball.
Allison: Amazing! It sounds like that weekly calendar check & scheduling ritual could be really supportive! You also mentioned that this other version feels smarter, better, and cooler than you. Does that still feel true?
Client: Hmmm, I don’t know that it feels as true. It just feels like she is more efficient with her time, but I imagine as I am more efficient by adopting this new ritual, I’ll also feel pretty smart and on the ball. I think I feel some guilt around being inefficient with my time, so I perceive that version as “better”.
Allison: That totally makes sense. What a keen observation about yourself. Would you like to do some tapping or Reiki to release that guilt?
In this example, this client identified what was making them feel unworthy/less than (not having their life “together”), and described that as tangible things that can be adjusted (looking at the calendar). They were able to tune into that little shift they could make to start stepping toward this ideal version. This client even took their self-awareness a level deeper by identifying inner guilt that they have been failing. This allows for deep level healing and transformation to occur.
So what would you say, on a scale of 0 (super critical) to 5 (super supportive), where would you rate your mindset? Drop me a DM on IG to tell me what you thought about this blog!
