Haston Helping Hands

Dear Readers,

I am embarrassed to admit this, but there are times when I need a boost.

I think it would come as no shock that we all could, but when you are a motivational speaker and life coach sometimes that “boost” is a little hard to come by, especially since your goal is to raise others and advise them on how they can feel good about what they are doing and will do. Remember, my daily goal? “To inspire one person a day”

Some days are easier than others and today was not that day.  It was a tough day at work, and I was feeling frustrated, nothing terrible but definitely a difficult day, so I did a little self-care also known as retail therapy (within budget of course) and did some shopping.

I was trying on clothes and trying hard to decide, “Does this look sexy?” “Do I like it?” “Does it look good on me?”, and I must have been saying these things aloud because out of nowhere a very pretty woman who was nearby said, “Girl, you got it going on, curves, hips and you are just gorgeous, and that top looks amazing on you” I blushed a little and said, “Thank you, I appreciate you saying that. She smiled at me and then went back to her shopping and I went back to mine.

At the beginning of this post, I mentioned it was embarrassing to admit I needed that “kindness of a stranger” to reassure me about my own looks, why is that?

For two reasons.

1. I did a show about how you vital it is for us ALL to embrace how we look and love it and cherish it (not even three months ago)
2. My voice telling me that I am good enough, that I am sexy enough, that I am ENOUGH is not always enough.

I am working on that, but today, I was grateful for the stranger who cared enough to comment.

So on the off chance that you are having that day today, allow me to say to you, the following….

YOU ARE AWESOME! You are up to things in life that are hard and you are doing them every day and every day you get a little closer to that goal. I don’t know exactly what your goal is but I know you are getting there, bit by little bit. I got some advice a long time ago from the mother of my heart, the only mother I acknowledge and she said this,

I got some advice a long time ago from the mother of my heart, and she said has asked me this series of questions when I was stuck and not moving forward, which has been many times in my life.

“What do you want?

“What are you doing to get it?”

“How’s that working for you”

Three questions that help guide me in my daily life, so perhaps they will help you.

If you are having a rough time and feeling a little sorry for yourself, another piece advice (from Mom of course) is this, “You can have a pity party, just don’t stay there”

So whichever side of the spectrum you are on, you now have some tools and maybe even an action plan. Go follow that map you just drew and remember, you are doing WAY better than you think.

Think about it.

(This is a picture of me, very proud of my body)  I will be proud of my body tomorrow at 5 am (gulp) when I go swim to continue to show my love and self-care for my body. I post these pictures to help remind me of the evolution of love I have for my figure. I also post things in my blog, to make me accountable to the rest of you.

Dear Readers,

Back in January, I wrote a blog post asking the question: Are you addicted to technology?

In it, I talked about the last minute laissez-faire (laid back for the non French people) attitude pervasive in our society which leads us to cancel plans last minute.

For the curious, https://jenniferhastonsays.com/2017/01/26/are-you-addicted-to-technology/

Today, I am posing a different question.

What does your technology cost you? How much are you missing out on because you can’t or won’t put your phone down?

Perhaps a silly look you get from your daughter after she falls down the ninth time as she is learning to stand up and find her balance, bonus, she laughed at herself and then crawled over for a hug right after that. You might miss that your husband looked at you with a loving look after you said something because you were looking down at your phone. This has happened to me and to him, and the feeling you get when you realize that you looked lovingly at someone but they didn’t see it, you don’t really get that moment back. How about at a meeting at work, did you ask your coworker about their project, vacation or were you buried in your phone or laptop before the meeting started? (I was guilty of this today, but I am aware of it, so will strive to do better) – That’s all any of us can do.

As parents to a nine month old, alone time is so hard to come by and recently I said, we need to do something to protect it. We have actually instituted a no phone zone (we actually lock up our phones) at the dinner table so we can focus on family time and beginning as we mean to continue since we certainly want to teach her to connect and talk and laugh and play and listen.

I am going to be honest, It’s hard sometimes, and that realization in and of itself is scaring me enough to realize how important it is to share this idea and really work to revolutionize how we are interacting with each other as a culture and do our level best to focus on connecting in real life, not just on social media or via text.

I was having this discussion over dinner last week and again last night and neither of us had our phones out, “all we do is play on our phones and watch (insert your favourite streaming method here)” . I think that many of us are like that, and it’s okay in moderation but when was the last time you did an audit of your “phone use” ?

It might surprise you to learn how much time you spend on your phone. Do you check it 150 times a day? I found that hard to believe and then after doing an audit, I found I check it at least 50 times a day which seems excessive to me.

I can’t tell you what that looks like for you. Perhaps that means one night a week, you don’t use your devices between this hour and this hour, and maybe your goal is to actually be “bored”. There are studies that have pointed to great strides in creativity when someone gives their brain the space to “be bored”

Maybe you have the balance DOWN and don’t need a wake up call. But I know I need to be vigilant about this because it’s way too easy for me to pick up my phone and mindlessly scroll through the internet, I click on articles and say I will read that later. When was the last time you had a night without devices or you and your partner took a walk, yes it’s hot but do it anyway, or get in the car for a drive and look at the nature that surrounds us all that we don’t always appreciate.

When was the last time you had a night without your phone? How about the last time you didn’t watch Netflix? When was the last time you opted to put your phone down and not engage in battle an internet troll? How many times have you said, “one more episode?” and wound up watching three more?

Don’t get me wrong, I have my Facebook scrolling, Netflix intake just like everyone else, but much like my current eating plan of “I want a cookie so I will eat one cookie, in hopes that I will not want the entire package of cookies” I try to limit it, so I am spending more time with the three dimensional people and living and interacting with them and spending less time liking, commenting and digitally connecting.

How about you? What do you think your technology habit is costing you?

Think about it.

 

Dear Readers,

If you have been following me for a while, you will know that a few years ago my husband and I spent some time getting out of debt. For those that do not know, it is possible to live a life without debt. In this culture, we get sold a bill of goods that you must have debt to survive and thrive but it’s simply not true.

I digress, the reason I bring up the baby steps as a way to success is because while I was swimming my 12 laps in the pool this morning, I watched the Olympic level (to my untrained eye) swimmers in the 7 lanes next to me swim efficiently, kick, turn and come back to the other side and I marveled at their ability to do it so effortlessly, and found myself comparing my efforts to theirs.

Considering I am engaged in a true effort to stamp out unhealthy comparison (yep, there is such a thing as healthy comparison-long story short? It’s comparing yourself to your best possible self!) wherever I find it, this is frustrating but I stopped myself midstream (yes in the pool) and said, “hey, you have been swimming for exactly 3 months, of course you aren’t an expert, don’t be so hard on yourself.”

I then moved on with my workout but the thought lingered about how long I had been working out and “forming the habit” if you will. The truth is, I said I wanted to go to the gym once a week for almost 6 months before I actually did it, then I was having trouble coming up with motivation to actually go so there was a period of time there where I wasn’t going AT ALL, but I kept listing it as a goal. Then I got tired of it sitting there, taunting me.. “Yeah, you give all this advice, but do you take it? You talk about how taking care of your body is a key to having all around success, but you aren’t doing anything about it” Till finally, I said to myself, “ENOUGH”…. and two weeks ago, just got up early and started to do it. My reward? A Pepsi and a pop tart. It may seem like a contradiction in terms to work out and then eat fairly unhealthy food but stick with me. Right now, it’s a baby step to work out, eventually, I will move to fruit for breakfast.

The same concept applies to anything BIG you want to do. We paid off 40,000 in consumer debt (Lane Bryant, Target, VISA, My car, Student Loan, his car) and it took us three years and working 5 jobs between us to do it. It did NOT happen in a day. It took us THREE years, we also had to learn how to handle our money responsibly which took time as well. We didn’t start off by paying off debt, we learned how to budget first, we took stock of where our money was going and why we were spending 300.00 a month on restaurants.

Here is our debt free scream for the curious-

Now, many years later, it’s almost rote, we don’t even think about it. Let me amend that, we do THINK about it, but we don’t worry about it, we have a plan for our money, so why not for our fitness?

So, it stands to reason, baby steps worked there (astoundingly well, I should say) so with patience and time, and some pop tarts, we will likely see some pretty great strides on our health as well.

The picture above is a great image to think about it, it was my first night 5K and it sucked.. rocks everywhere and it turned out to be a 3K UGH, but the picture is of me accomplishing a goal (I kept going to make it a 5K) . I encourage you to do the same, take a picture when you are in the thick of things, so you can look back and say, look how far I have come.

Think About It.

 

Dear Readers,

We hear a lot about “overnight success” but the truth is what we hear about is the “win” not the toiling of blood, sweat, and tears to get there. I will go one further, no one talks about the hours spent, the advice taken and the path walked to get to the “yes” after a whole lot of  “no”.

This picture captures a “yes” that took five years to get.

I’ll go a step further, in this culture, we really highlight the success and tend to ignore or minimize how hard it was and is to reach said goal.

For example, one of my friends has been job searching and pretty discouraged in the pursuit, she went on dozens and dozens of interviews, all the while cobbling together a living with part-time work to keep the home fires burning. She could have given up after that 25th interview, but she didn’t. She got help and coaching and feedback and kept searching to find the right job and just recently (after a year of a LOT of “no” she got a “yes” .

Take another friend who worked in a pretty difficult job for 3 years, all the while auditioning and looking for her “dream job”- She found it and started it recently.

Take my friend who is pregnant after doctors told her it wasn’t possible. She had a miscarriage and a lot of false positives and now is deliriously happy to be pregnant.

Still another has toiled in her job with micro-managing bosses and difficult conditions and after a solid two years of dues paying, she has found an opportunity that would not have come to her otherwise.

I know lots of people who are in their “pursuit” right now and getting chased down with “no” but please, dear friend, don’t lose faith, keep going, go on one more interview, go to one more audition, make one more phone call, your “yes” is on its way, I can feel it!

My friend getting his PHD is really working hard, he is getting close to his goal and finding it a little hard to keep going so he hasn’t not found
his “yes” yet but it’s en route.

Another friend recently got laid off, no warning, just job over. She is smart, strong and capable so I KNOW whatever she does next will be AMAZING, but she doesn’t know yet what it is, AND she’s in pursuit of it.

I am pursuing another “yes” right now. It’s my health. After my daughter was born, I promised myself I would make working out a habit and be in pursuit of health, not just for me, but for my daughter as well. I want her to take care of her body the moment she knows what it is to walk and run.

So the clock is ticking and I have to do what’s hard. Like getting up early to swim, or not eating the cookie every time it’s offered. Why?

So in her life, when she is challenged by something, I can say,

“You are pursuing your yes right now, that means you are right on schedule with that “no”

I can’t think of a more important lesson to teach her than that.

Think About It.

 

 

Dear Readers,

When I hesitated to write this blog, I knew how important it was to actually write it.

Our church has been doing a series on “How to be Married” and all the ways in which we communicate and deal with conflict and confrontation.

Guess what? I am not as good at this marriage thing as I once thought. That is a pride swallowing thing to admit but it’s true.

I am writing this with my husband’s permission- See, as much as my blog is about my life, this post is about our marriage and understanding that it’s not perfect. I think it is easy to view it that way or have that be the goal or have others think we are.

 

This picture sure makes us look perfect, but I assure you, we are not.

But we are not, we both lose our tempers and don’t always say the right thing and often say the wrong thing.

As it turns out, I am not the best listener when it comes to listening to my husband. I consider myself to be a very good listener and excellent communicator so this stings and required I look at that and figure out why I do it, but more importantly stop doing it.

Way easier said than done, I can tell you.

On his side, he has a habit of saying “always” and “never” which doesn’t focus on the specific situation at hand, therefore making it harder to uncover what’s really making him mad. He is working on this, now that we have both identified pain points.

Something interesting has happened for us.

After having a few “up-tempo” discussions, things are starting to get better and while not “perfect” (never the goal) things are definitely moving in the right direction and we are communicating better than we were before and that is saying something.

I think this progress is owing to the fact that my husband and I love each other very much and work hard at our marriage and it is work. I will say it again, Marriage is work.

I find this method to be very helpful for important communication- Married or not- Check it out-

 

So, in summary, nobody’s relationship is perfect and in the war against comparison, I implore you not to strive to “appear” perfect, trust me, no one is. And if they tell you they are, I promise they are lying.

Think About It.

 

Dear Readers,

I am on a crusade to stop judgment and comparison.

Join me, won’t you?

It’s easy, all we have to do is stop judging ourselves and each other. Okay, it’s not easy but it is simple. Right now, I am working REALLY hard on the first part, but it came as a BIG surprise to me this week, that the second part is pretty hard as well.

If you are anything like me, you don’t MEAN to judge people, you are a good and kind person, (most of the time) you help people when they ask for it, you might even give cash when you have it to a homeless person and you aren’t an evil person, but it’s hard NOT to compare because when you think about how babies occur in the universe, it’s “how big was he/she when born?” “boy or girl” “tall or short” “fat or thin”- Is she crawling yet? “Is she walking yet?” I was thinking about all this when I set out to write this post today..

Stop comparing. Stop it, just stop. It’s a big goal and sometimes feels impossible but it’s not. I view it as vital and as a way to help my fellow mom or dad enjoy their child and not compare them to one another.

It’s instantaneous and insiduous. The second that you find yourself in a conversation with another parent who does “parenting” differently than you do, e.g. “bedtime, that seems a little “early/late” you start to feel it, it creeps up your spine and starts to trickle in to your brain and you start to wonder.. Well should I do/think/worry about our daughter because…. this other person just told me about what they do. No. If you take nothing else away from this post at least take this statement. Your child was born with an embedded timeline, they will do things on that timeline, so try not to compare or worry when you find out your child is not crawling yet, but the same aged child down the block is doing it and has been for a few days, relax, your child will get there.

Now don’t get me wrong, conversations about what you do and don’t do  as a parent or even as a wife and mother can be great, cleansing even.. just don’t let the conversation turn into a comparison marathon.

Today is great example, I got some advice from another mother about teething, I can’t wait to try what they suggested to try to help our little girl. Just a week or so, I would have avoided that conversation because I wouldn’t want to admit I need help and this is hard. But today, a simple question, “how is your day going?” led to, “I am actually pretty tired because this morning at 3am Vivienne woke up wailing because she is in pain or having a nightmare or we don’t know what, just not happy and not consolable. We are spoiled rotten because typically she sleeps through the night, but last night this was not the case.”

The other person asking was a mother and sympathized and said, I remember those days, tough on mom and baby- here’s what I do, try it and good luck. I sighed and said, “thank you”.. see it was that simple no judgment, no comparison, one mother helping another out. I instantly felt better, and not judged.

You don’t have to be a Mom or Dad to feel this by the way, I post a I do every Friday where I say, what my High Friday is.. and I always have a least one person say, ”
I can’t compete with that… and then I explain.. no comparison here, tell us what you are grateful or or excited about. I think we could stand to do that more every day and that’s exactly what I am working toward.

What can you do to help me in my crusade to STOP THE COMPARING?

Think About It…….

 

 

 

Dear Readers,

In the fast-paced, ultra connected world we live in, it can be really hard to slow down and actually connect with another person. (mental note to self: Tweet that)

I was actually having coffee with a dear friend of mine tonight and we were both talking about how difficult and yet how easy it is to reach out and connect with someone you care about and take the time to grow the friendship and keep the contact current.

Think about it, when was the last time you thought, I really miss ________, and called them rather than send them a text or post on their Facebook wall? That is a nice gesture, but it’s passive, and I think we can do better, in fact I think we should do better.

An interesting point about our discussion tonight, It was a post on facebook that led her to know about a friend being in her neck of the woods, and so she reached out and said, hey, since you are nearby, let’s get together. So the use of social media connection, helped a contact happen. The same thing with a few other friends who are in different time zones, a few are internationally based. It’s worth it though, because we are BOTH making the time.

I am not saying social media or even text messages are bad, I am saying they pale in comparison to a good old fashioned phone call. When was the last time you actually picked up the phone and called someone? I know a text is easier and much more convenient, and in fact, I texted to set up the coffee tonight,  and it took some back and forth to find a good time that worked for both of us, but we did. I think this is a good example of a symbiotic relationship of phone, social media connection and Voila! Contact!

I know that we can’t all drop what we are doing to have coffee every night, no kids would be raised, or work would get done, but is there a friendship you are neglecting or maybe need to nurture, who you keep cancelling on but keep rescheduling? Think about the friendship and make a determination, is it there a season, a reason, or a lifetime. Then take some action.

Think about it!

 

Dear Readers,

35 weeks ago I became a mother.

It’s exciting and difficult in equal parts. It’s an adventure to be sure and I learn something new about myself every day.

I have made some observations about some things that have changed about me and would like to share them with you, if you will allow me. Thanks!

1. Everything takes longer with a kiddo in tow. Trust me, if you say you will be 30 minutes bank on it being an hour.

2. I no longer “knee-jerk” apologize when accidents happen. Take Saturday, when dining my 8 month old daughter dumped an ice cold Pepsi on my lunch companion and a little on me.

I laughed, and it didn’t even occur to me to apologize, since it was an accident but it did occur to me that 8 months ago I would have knee jerk apologized, this time I just laughed and cleaned it up.

3. I don’t hang around if I am not having a good time. I am not rude about it, but I don’t stay.

4. My child is not following anyone’s timeline but her own. It’s a good reminder as we wait for her to crawl and talk. Especially when I proudly shared the news that my child rolled from her back to her stomach. The comment back was, “That’s late isn’t it?” said with a slight look of concern. I shot back, “That’s one way to look at it”- Of course, I thought of an even more biting response later, but that isn’t what I want. I want us to stop judging and making “well-meaning” remarks and just let parents revel in the milestones when they happen.

5. You truly stop worrying about that petty stuff that used to concern you and that you obssessed about and find yourself focusing on the things that really matter, like when my daughter smiles at me or making my husband laugh.

6. Our house is not organized but I don’t care. It’s clean and baby-proofed so when Vivienne does start to crawl and walk it will be without fear. Yes, I would like it to be shiny but that isn’t the season we are in at the moment.

What big takeaways do you have about a new role or relationship in your life. These are my takeaways, what are yours?

Think About It….

 

 

 

Dear Readers,

A friend of mine coined this term for things that upset us and make us feel like our world is ending, but really if we just hold on and WAIT, things do get better.

My therapist calls it cognitive dissonance. My pastor calls it extrapolation and in layman’s terms, it sounds like this, tell me if this is familiar.

You are low on money one day.

You say and think to yourself, we don’t have enough money.

You then say- We will NEVER have enough money.

Before you know it, you are in the throes of so much emotion and you have yourself convinced of this false statement and now you have emotional hiccups.

You start saying to yourself that this is true and there is no way out.

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, you let yourself believe what in a moment of difficulty, you decided was TRUE.

What’s the remedy?

If you find yourself spinning out of control emotionally, take a breath and refute the story you are telling yourself with truth.

1. We have enough money to pay bills.

2. We are spending less money and saving money right now.

3. This is not for always, this is for a short amount of time (a season if you will) and it is going to be worth it.

Keep telling yourself the truth, ask others around you to help you reinforce reality and breathe, this too shall pass.

Think about it.