calculatedchaosofthemind

When I lived in LA for just about 6 years, I struggled on and off financially.

I recall listening to a podcast when an ad popped up to encourage listeners to sign up for Tony Robbins coaching. I recall the ad touching on a lot of what I was feeling and identifying with, so naturally I assumed I was meant to hear that ad and I was meant to call that number. Alas, I connected with someone professional, positive, and lovely right away. It wasn’t long before I was paired up with a coach named Gregg, and the two of us worked together for quite some time. (I didn’t have the funds for this investment by the way, and I look forward to sharing more on this another time, but I will forever be grateful that I still went ahead and paid for this coaching program.) Well, I could share a lot about my meaningful experience receiving coaching from Gregg, but one thing in particular stands out this morning as I sit down to type up yet another blog post on a whim. He would always say or write “create a beautiful day”. CREATE a beautiful day. Not “you go HAVE yourself a beautiful day” but CREATE it! We create the day we want to have. We create the life we want to have. It is not given to us! We are indeed in control of this!

Netflix aired a fascinating documentary series called How to Get Rich and one of the episodes is titled Design Your Rich Life. DESIGN the life you want! A life filled with abundance! Create! Design! We are in control of this!

I’d love to share more about my personal reflections, connections, and takeaways from watching these episodes, but for right now, the point of sharing this was to draw a parallel between how Gregg was very intentional about his language by using “create a beautiful day” instead of the usual “have a beautiful day” and I feel that has always stuck with me because I do see and appreciate the power of language. (I actually studied linguistics at Uni. That was my major!!!) I was literally pushing Bryson out into the world, and naturally I kept repeating to Adrian “I can’t do this, I can’t do this” and then I was actually able to switch that to “I can do this, I can do this”. Fun fact – Adrian had been coaching me with a particular Crossfit movement called the clean & jerk for so long, and he was VERY insistent on my language surrounding this. (Fun fact ~ initially, we apparently both used Crossfit workout banter to get closer to each other… Adrian offering his help with my workouts and specific movements and my incessant questioning about these workouts to spend more time with him at the gym.) I often turned to him after I couldn’t lift the barbell weight he applied and whined “I can’t do this”, and I think I was even clever enough to add “I can’t do this, but don’t worry, I am okay that I can’t do this.” Anyone that knows Adrian knows that he didn’t let me stop there because he believed in me especially when I couldn’t believe in myself. He’s also quite stubborn. *How you do one thing is how you do everything* I COULD lift that barbell weight and I COULD push Bryson out into this world. Quite a comparison to make, but seriously! Language helps! I had to at least start with telling myself I could do it, and then trust myself enough to know I would do it. I smile thinking about how proud I was to make that shift all on my own especially in the middle of some pretty intense contractions. I didn’t need Adrian to give me “the look”. I shifted the language all on my own. I changed “I can’t do this” to “I can do this” all on my own. I had essentially been practicing in the gym all the months leading up to that moment. In this case, I do not mean practicing childbirth at the gym although that does make me smile and laugh to myself right now. I was physically fit and I am sure that helped a lot. So many wall balls the morning of his birth, wow! Perhaps one of those childbirth classes that we skipped could have been helpful?! Ah well… I mean that I was practicing shifting my language to actually serve me than work against me. I take calls with new families who are interested in tutoring with me reminding myself “I can do this” and taking a deep breath before calling. I have a sign hanging directly in front of me, above the door frame, that reads “Note to Self. You Got This.” Thank you, Adrian. Perhaps the key, I am realizing now, is to suggest everyone finds themself an Adrian hahahahaha – wow, the song “Cheerleader” just popped into my mind. The lyrics to that song are quite interesting… But, I really do feel that having my biggest fan, cheerleader, support system, etc, etc of Adrian has been a game-changer for my personal growth. Anyway!!! Did you follow all of that?! I definitely didn’t! Scrolling back now to see where I was going with all of that…

🙂

Hmm…

Yes!

A simple tweak of some language, especially language we use daily. What an impact that can have on our day-to-day life.

Create a beautiful day instead of have a beautiful day.

CREATE! DESIGN!

This is in our control!

Thank you, Gregg!!!

I feel very fortunate to have had some incredible mentors in my life thus far. Between coaching and therapy and business seminars, I spent a good chunk of my 20’s investing in my personal and professional self. I can already picture the dedication in my book one day “you know who you are, and I only hope you know how great of an impact you have had on my life and the lives of those around me” (ripple effect)… I actually have given this quite a bit of thought recently, as I toy back and forth with whether I would feel the need to list names of individuals who have made that BIG impact on me. Not only because that list would be quite sizable even if I try to hit the highlights. But, I don’t think so because those particular individuals aren’t be in a position to expect their names on a dedication – meaning, they are not seeking the validation of “oh yes, we were apart of Isabelle Harris’ growth and development and she clearly wrote that for everyone to know as she should” – they know they helped me, and that is enough – that they know it. I think about my teaching reading and writing. The number of students I have had the privilege to work with over the years. I haven’t taught them expecting anything in return – expecting a grand gesture of showing their appreciation for my time, compassion, and expertise. I do what I do because I genuinely want to help and I love it. The same for my many mentors. I believe that we are all are trying to make the world a better place and pay it forward one individual at a time.

The concept of validation is an interesting one to me.

I have been seeking validation since I was a very young girl.

More to come on that…

I am in a far better place with all of that right now!

Interesting is a nonword in my opinion, and I have been saying this over and over to Adrian for a few days now. I do love the word – don’t get me wrong, but I also feel it’s a crutch when I quite simply don’t know exactly what I am trying to express or how I feel on a matter, so I respond with a smooth “interesting”. I feel like I could write a lot about this right now, but I am going to choose to move along… I could also write a lot about dipthongs. Now dipthongs are VERY interesting! More to come! =)

I am also thinking back to how Carol Dweck starts her most updated edition of Mindset that I am currently rereading. She made an initial note that her grammar and mechanics might not have been as monitored as she would have liked, or something like that… Like a heads up to the readers – I cared more about the content I produced for you all to read than if I grammatically perfected every sentence. Very cool Mrs. Dweck! I really enjoyed that ‘heads up’ and I’d like to borrow that idea from time to time, as I do have a slight tendency to fixate on my polished writing or lack thereof.

This is for me!

I write on this ‘public’ platform now, and I share the link from time to time, but at the end of the day – all of this writing and sharing and such is all for me. I am not coming into these writing sessions with anyone else in mind or to please or impress anyone. Although, I will admit that I LOVE the moments when I find out I have posted and Adrian has had the chance to read what I wrote within 10 minutes or so of posting. I feel like this is such an innocent thing to be so utterly pleased about, but I feel just really great, for lack of better wording, when I find this out. Even if all I receive is a “it was good”. Gosh, I so love this man!!!

Pausing soon…

When I first came to sit down and write, I played an acoustic hit playlist and the song “Starting Over” came on first… interesting… I wondered for a very brief moment what that might be signifying…

I switched over to a different playlist without lyrics, as I struggle to focus on writing words when I am listening to words. Kudos to those who can READ and listen to music with lyrics at the same time! WOW! Also, so funny, as I kid you not… as I am literally typing this out – the song I am currently listening to has LYRICS! I am hearing them! Were all the previous songs lyric-free?! Or was I just so in the zone I didn’t even notice the songs pop up with lyrics?! Woah!!! That’s cool. Ha! Very cool! Chuckling to myself right now…

A couple of additional thoughts before I close for now…

As I was typing away, I wrote the following notes below in hopes that I would come back to them later… So, instead, I will save these ‘notes’ for another writing session –

• I had less than $50 in my bank account when I moved to LA. Luckily, I was journaling during this time, and I came across this journal entry of mine not too long ago… Between my year in Korea and getting moved to LA for my new job with Lindamood-Bell, I went several months without working and alas I had a whopping $4 in my checkings account when I got the call that Lindamood-Bell wanted to offer me a full-time, salaried position as the Associate Center Direction of their Westwood office. They were not only flying me over there, but they sent money to help with all of my moving expenses, and put me up in a hotel for 2 weeks until I found a place to live… Now THAT is interesting!!! Wow, pause, appreciate that. That actually reminds me of all the times I found myself at my moms home thinking to myself and maybe outwardly “yet again, another year has passed, and I am home alone for the holidays…” focusing on what I DIDN’T have versus everything in my life I DID have *PERSPECTIVE* – FLASH FORWARD – I moved in with Adrian into this house he bought us, got married, had a kid, and we’re about to have our 2nd kid together in April, and we only went on our first date in May of 2022!!! Needless to say, there was no need to worry, no need to compare myself to others, no need to stress, no reason to not TRUST LIFE!!! Remember, trust life, Izzy!

I realize now that I will just save the following notes I jotted down to come back to another time… I feel super official by writing this… KEEP READING FUTURE POSTS & YOU’LL SEE…

With love,

Izzy

♥️