Part II: Being Ok With Being Alone. Big Question Inside!

In this episode, I delve into the journey of embracing solitude and finding contentment within ourselves. I share personal experiences and insights into the transformative power of authentic living. Exploring the struggles and triumphs of self-appreciation, I discuss its impact on relationships and overall happiness.

I invite listeners to join me on this path of self-discovery, offering a warm invitation to reignite passion for life. The episode emphasizes the importance of self-love and the opportunity to rediscover one's true self. For those interested in further exploration, life coaching is available.

If my message resonates with you, if you've ever questioned your relationship with yourself, connect with my on my website. Let's embark on a journey towards authenticity and meaningful connections together.

Kristi Falany Coaching.com
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Transcript

Kristi: 0:01

Hi, I am Kristi Ballard-Falany. I am a certified life coach who found herself at 42, freshly divorced, kids off to college, and, having never dated in my adult life, I was starting in the middle. If you haven't yet hit start on your middle time in life, let's do it together. Let the journey begin. Hello, hello, my friends, I hope that you are having an amazing day today. So last week, on the podcast, I had shared with you some information about how spending time with yourself can actually be of some quality time, how spending time with yourself can be truly beneficial. It can be life-changing, and learning how to be alone with yourself is probably not probably, I would say is the best gift that you can give yourself. I truly believe that there are so many benefits that come out of being okay with being alone, and so I had mentioned to you that I was going to break the episodes up into two parts. So if you have not yet heard last week's podcast, I would encourage you to hit pause on this one and go back and listen to that one first, because I really think that listening to both of these together, and in the order in which they were recorded, I think, would be of great benefit to you, so let's dive into it today. Okay, so last week was all about the benefits of being alone, all the ways that it can be good for you to be okay with being alone, but even though, yes, being okay with being alone is a good thing, I also know that it can sometimes be hard, so let's jump back into some of the benefits of being okay with being alone, or learning to be alone with yourself. It can help you to cultivate inner peace and contentment. It can help you to foster freedom, independence, autonomy, knowing yourself in and out, and being able to voice the things that you like and go after the things that you like and that you want more of in your life. It is also amazing with the health of the relationships that you have with other people. It helps you to stop having expectations on other people. It helps you to fulfill your own needs, so that you're not looking to other people to fulfill those needs, and it helps you to really decide what it is that you are okay with having in your life. It'll help you to decide the things that you are quote unquote you to decide the things that you are quote unquote willing to put up with in your life, and so all of these things can be amazing, things that can help you to cultivate a relationship with yourself, which, in turn, is going to help you to be okay with spending time alone with yourself, with spending time alone with yourself. And so, as a coach for women, my deepest desire is that every woman truly knows herself deeply to the core and loves that person that she discovers inside of her and who loves who she is, so that she can love others more deeply and so that others can see love and joy in the light that she is shining.

Kristi: 4:35

So I'm going to ask you a question today, and for some of you there may be a simple answer, and for some of you it might be harder to answer, because when I think about this question for myself and how it applies to me, I can honestly say that it was very easy for me to answer this question a long time ago, and it's easy for me to answer it today, but the answer has changed. It has changed from what it was just 10 years ago. So are you ready for the question? Here it is. I want you to think about this Do you like who you are being when you are alone? Because I can tell you, 10 years ago, hands down, the answer for me was no, and the reason that that answer was no was because I actually had what I thought was a secret life, and you can do that when you're alone. You can live one way when no one is watching and another when they are. But are you really keeping that secret? I know that as I look back, I really don't think that I was doing a good job at keeping it a secret, especially from the people who I am truly the closest with, and, of course, it was no secret to the people that I spent the most time with, because, in fact, they probably thought that they were keeping the same secret and if we're doing it together, they thought the secret was safe with me, right? So here's what I'm actually talking about.

Kristi: 6:27

When I didn't feel safe with being by myself, when I felt lonely and when I thought that I was always going to be stuck in lonely, I often numbed the lonely. I often numbed the feelings of failure as a mom, not being good enough as a wife, feeling stuck in a profession that I was no longer happy in and, just overall, never feeling that I ever liked who I was and having the thought that no one else did either. So here's what that numbing looked like for me Overdrinking a lot, often overeating, and then trying to out-exercise the overeating, wasting time watching or streaming shows along with overeating and over drinking, and oftentimes the shows that I was watching were not at all in alignment with the values that I wanted for myself and the values that looked like from the outside that I was portraying. I'm talking about shows with way too much violence, shows that were depicting immorality and I was letting it slide. Shows that depicted inappropriate relationships, shows that, basically, if you ask my grandmother, she would say are just pure trash.

Kristi: 8:15

And inevitably, night after night, I would wake up the next morning feeling shame, feeling guilty and, a lot of times, just feeling hungover. So I'll ask you again. So I'll ask you again do you like who you are being when you're alone? Here's what I want you to know. You cannot reap all of the benefits that I mentioned to you last week in the podcast and at the top of this podcast. You cannot reap all of those benefits the self-discovery, the independence, the autonomy, the inner peace, the contentment, the connection that you want with the other people that you have, that you love in your life. You cannot experience all of the benefits of those things when they are constantly being canceled out by shame and by guilt. But you guys, I promise you you do not have to live this double life. You don't have to live as if you're trying to keep a secret of being one way in your public life and then being another when you are alone. In fact, living that way can be downright exhausting.

Kristi: 9:43

In the past 10 years, there have been a string of breakthroughs for me, thank the Lord. For me, thank the Lord. And all of these breakthroughs have gotten me to where I am at this point in my life, the point of making conscious decisions. The biggest one was that I was just sick and tired of feeling like crap all the time, both physically and about myself. I was tired of beating myself up with that shame and that guilt. I was physically tired and actually started having health issues because of it. I was tired of believing that certain things just weren't for me, like joy and peace and contentment, because the things that I was choosing in my secret life versus consciously choosing the things that I truly wanted in my life. And I can honestly tell you that, yes, you have choices, you guys yes, you have choices. You guys, this is coming from someone who has a long line of alcoholism, someone who comes from a line of drug abuse, of mental diagnoses, of overeating, of body shaming in her family all of these things and I want to tell you there are choices.

Kristi: 11:14

As I mentioned, over the last 10 years, I have personally experienced a number of breakthroughs Mentally preparing myself for an inevitable divorce happened with the help of a therapist. Slowing way down on my drinking with the help of a life coach. In fact, becoming a runner, accepting my body, accepting atopic dermatitis, learning how to live in abundancy versus scarcity, dealing with childhood trauma, changing careers at the age of 49, becoming a business owner, discovering how to be happy in a second marriage, discovering me all of the results that have come of listening to my own inner intuition, believing in what I believe is possible and betting on my own will, my own skills and my own tenacity to follow my heart. All of this, all of these things have been accomplished through life coaching and that is how I know that life coaching works. These are the exact type of things that I help my clients with Believing in themselves, my clients with believing in themselves, creating the courage and confidence to live a life that they love, to stop feeling like life is too chaotic that they need a couple of drinks to take the edge off every night, decompressing the stress in their own marriages, stopping having that secret life that made them feel so awful about who they were being when they were alone.

Kristi: 13:10

I promise you alone feels so much sweeter when guilt and shame are no longer part of the equation. So what about you? Are you ready to bring that secret life out into the light? Ephesians 5, 8 through 9 says so. Live as people of light, for this light within you produces only what is good and right and true. So are you ready to start liking who you are, whether it be that you are alone or in a community with others? If you're ready to see how coaching can help you, I am inviting you to book your free Rediscover. You call.

Kristi: 14:01

Inside that call, we can talk about any of the things that I discussed here on this podcast we can talk about. If you are living that secret life and you're ready to bring it out into the light, we can talk about anything that you have on your mind and that you want to see if coaching can be of benefit to you, want to see if coaching can be of benefit to you. So remember that I said at the beginning of the podcast my mission is that every woman truly know and like who she is and how she shows up for herself and how she shows up in the world. If you share my mission, please go back to the beginning of the podcast and leave me a review. Also, be sure to share this with someone that you know who needs to hear this message. This message may be the most loving thing that they will receive today. May be the most loving thing that they will receive today.

Kristi: 15:09

So, you guys, if you have questions about this podcast or if you are ready to book your Rediscover, you call. Please reach out to me on my website, christiefellanycoachingcom. I'll leave you the link inside the show notes. You can also connect with me either on Facebook or Instagram, and those links will be inside the show notes as well. I know that what I shared with you today may feel like a little bit of a heavy topic and I totally understand, but again, I truly believe that the breakthroughs that I have experienced are readily available to you and they are just waiting for you to answer the call you guys. I look forward to hearing from you and I will talk to you soon. Who is your life coach? I would love the opportunity to work with you as you are rediscovering the woman you were meant to be. Visit christyballardfelainicom for more information on how we can work together to ignite that passionate, enthusiastic woman who may have been tucked away for some time. Let's start in the middle together. Thank you.