Gratitude for my Mentors

Gratitude for my Mentors

I want to speak to the power of having gratitude for good Mentors in your life.  The impact of a good mentor can be a real game-changer for the trajectory of the path you take.

Today, I’m going to speak to five lessons I learned from five mentors who’ve given me some amazing gifts. I’m hoping that these gifts, these lessons, will inspire you to identify your mentors, and to think of ways you too can be a mentor for the people in your life. Also, to keep looking and learning from new mentors along the way. We are never too old for learning from people. 

1.  You can do anything you put your mind to

This lesson came from my grandmother.  We were really close growing up. She had a gift for always seeing the good in people, and I have her to thank for seeing the good in me – even when I made mistakes – and I made some pretty big ones while growing up. Even through the mistakes, she loved me the best anyway. And she always saw the good.

I was able to have a lot of sleepovers at her house. They were my favorite thing in the whole world. I would help her around the house and the yard. I think I learned how to run an efficient home from her example, her home was a work of art. And so was her yard and her cooking.

When I was helping her, whether in the kitchen or the yard, she’d ask me to see if I could fix her vacuum, or program her VCR or un-budge the fireplace flue,  little things, so I would help her and dive in. I didn’t want to disappoint her, so I’d do my best. And then she’d say, “Danielle, you know, you can do anything you put your mind to. I can’t say that about everyone, but I can say that about you.” I really took this compliment to heart. 

It turns out she was mostly right. The only thing I have not been able to totally figure out, that I’ve really put my mind to, believe me, is geometry. Everything else I’ve really put effort and energy and worked at; I’ve been able to figure out. I operate from this little bedrock belief that I can figure things out.  I think of my grandma often when I hit a roadblock in figuring things out.  Because I can hear her saying that compliment in my inner ear. 

2.  Work is a beautiful thing

I have my parents to thank for this one: my mom, who worked full-time as a single mom and supported us as kids.  My dad, who worked two jobs and kept our houses maintained and functioning after his day job and on weekends.  My stepmom, who worked full-time also.  She worked long hours as a nurse, then she moved into a corporate job with a long commute. 

My dad, when I was a little girl, would come home from work, change his clothes, and get busy on some sort of project. whether it was fixing something in the house, fixing up a broken car or motor home, or building something from scratch.  He’s a talented handyman. He would talk about how he loved the feeling of satisfaction that came from building things, fixing things, looking back on it and feeling proud.

I remember one Saturday in particular; we spent the whole day building a fence. It was hard work. I held up the lodge polls, I helped my dad hold the barb-wire tight while he hammered it in place, and it took all day. I wanted to do other things. I did not want to stand in the hot sun and do it, but I didn’t say anything to my dad. I just helped him.  He needed the help, and I was the person available. 

 When we finished, we were gathering up all the tools, walking back and forth to the garage, and I was so glad to be done.  My dad pulled me aside and asked me to come here – come look at the fence, just look at what we have done today. Just take it in.  I remember him saying, “now that’s a good fence! We did a good job. That fence isn’t going anywhere for a long time.” As I stood there with him, and looked at the fence, I felt so satisfied. I knew he was right. And just having him ask me stand beside him for a moment and look at our work, it really sank in. 

I have so much gratitude for my mentors, my parents, that they taught me this. I think that the belief that a hard day’s work is worth the feeling of satisfaction you receive, that belief has served me well. 

3.  False Pleasure isn’t worth it

I have my mentor, Brooke Castillo to thank for this one. Brooke is my life coach.  She is a master life coach and teacher.  She teaches this term called buffering.  I think of it in terms of buffering – anything I use as a buffer to distract me from leaning into uncomfortable emotions. Before I learned this concept from her, I didn’t realize I was using anxiety, distraction and food as buffers.

I used to think that food and baking was the answer to all the world’s problems, my problems, my children’s problems. That when I felt terrible, or anxious, or like something needed fixing, the answer was to either bake – or go out to eat – or have a treat. 

It’s taken a lot of Work, reprogramming my brain and building new blueprints about food, to work through some better beliefs that serve me more effectively. 

I think a lot of us go through life thinking that we should be able to eat whatever we want whenever we want and get frustrated with our bodies when they gain weight. I think many of us make food the most important thing in our lives. I don’t think that it’s all bad, but it can get in our way.  I’ve learned it just isn’t the most important thing. 

It just isn’t. I understand why we think it is. I still give high priority to being thoughtful about food and making sure I’m in touch with my reasons for why it’s important, but I’ve learned it isn’t the most important thing.

It’s just fuel for our bodies. Food is neutral. It’s not the be all and end all of my existence. It’s lovely and wonderful, but at the end of the day, it’s just fuel. Food isn’t the answer for when I’m feeling terrible. 

I’ve learned that false pleasure isn’t worth it. Tuning out on social media isn’t worth it when there’s a deadline I need to pay attention to. It’s fine and okay to have fun, to get some fun out of life – but if I’m over indulging in the fun, and there’s a net negative accumulation of negative results from fun-seeking, then it’s time to re-assess. 

When I did my training and certification program through The Life Coach School, I learned that I was a little out of balance in some areas in my life. And I was blaming difficult circumstances to justify my behavior. My mentor, Brooke taught me how to evaluate what I was creating for myself in my life. And I learned to stop using food or social media as the answer for uncomfortable emotions. 

4. Don’t take anything personally

This one comes from the book, “The Four Agreements,” by Don Miguel Ruize. I have to say, I’m not perfect at living by this lesson, but I love it and I think of it often. I do my best. Whatever happens around us, whatever happens to us, don’t take it personally. Whatever people say or do, or don’t say or don’t do, don’t take it personally. And this includes God, by the way. 

When I was in college the first time around, one of my professors made the comment, “you’ll need to work harder than so-and-so, she’s better at sight-reading than you are Danielle…” I took that comment personally and made up a big story in my mind of how I must not be as talented as so-and-so.  No. That didn’t serve me well to take that personally, and it was completely false.  It wasn’t even true. 

How many of us do this? We take things other people say about us personally. 

When we do so, we are agreeing with them, with their assessment of us. Or we are making up what they think that they are meaning.  If someone off the street walks up to you and were to say, “you’re so stupid.” If you take it personally, you are agreeing with them on some level. 

It doesn't serve me to think that way

But if we don’t take it personally, we are immune to what other people think of us, and making it mean that there’s something wrong with us. 

When my college professor told me, I would need to work harder, instead of taking it personally, I could have chosen to think, “okay. I see where I have some gaps in my skillset. Time to get to work on those areas.”  But instead, I took it personally and made it mean I must be lacking. 

Even if that’s true, it doesn’t serve me to think that way. That I must be lacking.  It doesn’t move me forward. We need to take these things as reasons to grow. 

And so, there’s really no upside to taking things personally. And I still learn this and see this over and over as I get older – the more I see this to be true. 

I see some of us taking our trials that life gives us, personally. We make our hardships mean that life is being hard on us and that it’s not fair.  If we’re thinking that life isn’t fair, we’re taking life personally. 

Life’s hardships aren’t personal. They just are. They’re neutral. 

It’s so refreshing. It’s so relieving to know that I don’t have to take anything personally. 

5.  As a woman thinketh, so is she

You might recognize this statement…

Jesus said, “as a man thinketh, so is he.” This teaching has really messed with my brain over the years, until recently, and by recently, I want to say until about two years ago. I think I get what he was getting at. Jesus is one of my very favorite mentors. I’m constantly learning from him. 

And so, here’s my take on that teaching. I think our thoughts quite literally create our reality. Psychologists and brain researchers assert that humans have anywhere between forty to sixty thousand thoughts a day. That’s a lot of thoughts!

And if I were to take this teaching seriously, ‘as a man thinketh, so is he,’ does that mean that I’m a bad person when I have a bad thought? 

No. That’s not what he’s saying. I think we have a lot of choice in what we attach to our truth as our thinking. In fact, our ability to choose our thoughts is one of our most amazing capabilities as humans. So, what we choose to think will create our reality. We’ve already been creating our reality our whole entire lives, whether we know it or not, and most of us aren’t aware.   But as we become more aware, we realize that we don’t want to operate from all of the default thinking. 

I'm learning 

I’m learning that I don’t have to learn how to create my reality from my default thinking. I can choose to think whatever I want to think about myself. 

I can think that I AM smart enough, and that when I hit a roadblock, I have what it takes to figure it out. 

We can create the reality that we actually want. But we’ll have to get really good at changing the way we’re thinking if our reality isn’t quite what we’d like it to be. We’ll have to practice new ways of thinking, and then step into the energy of those new thoughts.

That’s what I think that is what Jesus was saying when he said, “as a woman thinketh, so is she.” 

That concludes my 5 lessons from my mentors

These are things that I continue to think about and that continue to affect me in the best of ways. I hope you’ve enjoyed learning them here today, thank you for letting me share them with you. 

Last of all, I want to speak to the importance of seeking good mentors in your life. And bringing them to the forefront of your mind. It doesn’t have to be people you know – I don’t know Don Miguel Ruiz – I’ve never met him in real life – but I feel a connection with him through his book and through his teachings, they resonate with me – and so I feel like if I were to meet him in real life, we’d have a lot to talk about. 

Same with Jesus. Although, I have to say, I do feel like I know Him the more I try to get to know Him. 

How about you? Who are your mentors? Who are you grateful to in your life that has taught you some valuable lessons – are you aware of them and have you thought about this before?

My invitation to you...

I want to invite you to take some time this week, if this exercise resonates with you, I invite you to journal about some of the favorite lessons you’ve learned from some of your favorite people. 

I’ve found that the more I do this, the more I am able to access a deep sense of gratitude for those who’ve gone before me and passed on their gifts of wisdom to me. This is a really beautiful energy to operate from, the energy of gratitude. 

And then, to take it even a step further, who are you being a mentor to?  Decide on purpose that you want to be that type of person that other people look up to.   

 I’m really grateful for those mentors in my life. I’m grateful they took the time to share with me their wisdom, their gifts, their compliments, their teachings, and their insights. 

I’m really grateful you are here with me, listening in on this podcast, sharing this space with me here. Join the newsletter here. Don't miss out on the extra stuff I send out each week. 

Take care my friends.  Have a beautiful week.