Posted on by Coach Bash

Day 7: Investing In Myself

Back in 2016, I became a certified life coach under my dead-name. That certification has since expired so I’ve decided to spend the money necessary to get re-certified. Like getting baptized after coming out, this is a necessary step for me to move forward in my life. I finalized my enrollment in an accredited course this morning before clocking in at my day job. I feel excited.

It’s like going back to school, only this time I’m going as my full self. That’s important.

I’ve also started a travel agency. This is HUGE because my wife and I both love to travel and this will allow us to increase our bottom line. If I do this correctly, I’ll have the freedom to work from wherever I am. This will be hard work but it will also be work that I can be proud of.

It feels good to be on my way toward a career instead of just rotting away at a job. Thank you for letting me share my journey with you.

I love you.

~Bash

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Posted on by Coach Bash

Day 6: Setting The Atmosphere

Yesterday I took some “me time”. I called my parents. They’re not affirming so I was dead-named and misgendered. My therapist thinks I should severe ties with them. I’m still battling that. It’s likely because of learned behavior. I’m a recovering codependent and I wonder how this will change as I work the steps.

Today, I’m purging some of my belongings and reorganizing. This journey toward minimalism is a bit tougher than I expected but it’s beautiful nonetheless. Having more open space just helps. I’m able to think more clearly and it’s easier to find everything.

I’m a few minutes, I’m going to get up, shower, and get dressed for a day of cleaning and purging. Hopefully a lot of calories will be burned. Hopefully I’ll learn a few more things about myself.

Wish me luck.

I love you.

~Bash

Posted on by Coach Bash

Love on YOU.

I’ve mastered many things in my life but self love ain’t among them. For most of my life I learned to be a chameleon for my own safety and the real me got lost in the process.

Now that I’m at a place in my life where I can live out loud, I sometimes struggle with being kind to ME. Working on my manuscript has brought me face to face with my need for some good loving from myself. That can be tough but I’ve decided to be intentional about it.

To start, I’ve dusted off my dreams and interests. I’ve made some needed investments in those things that bring me joy like dystopian novels, strong coffee, time alone, motivational lectures, etc. It’s necessary.

Why?

Those of us who are called to bring light into darkness and speak truth to power must first learn to heal ourselves. We must learn to accept ourselves. We must be comfortable with loving on ourselves. We must do this in the face of the many years of programming which told us that who we are is evil and disgusting in the eyes of the creator. We must do this even when relatives and friends walk away. We must do this so that those whose lives we are called to touch can be impacted positively because our service will come from a place of healing and not a place of bitterness.

Love on yourself. It’s okay.

Love on yourself. It’s necessary.

Love on yourself until you understand that you are worthy of unconditional love just because you exist.

I love you.

-Bash

Posted on by Coach Bash

Relax….

For my day job, I’m currently working in sales. I do this to make sure that my bills get paid while I pursue purpose, Today was not my best day in sales but it’s one in which I learned a valuable lesson about how counterproductive stress can be.

For context, I’ll go ahead and say that I’m in my 3rd week on the sales floor for this position. During my 1st week, I was stressed out and didn’t believe I could close anyone so…. I didn’t. 🤷🏾‍♂️

In week 2, I closed one person. I immediately started stressing out about not having more because the people who had been in my training class were way ahead of me. I started to beat myself up for not performing to the same level as everyone else. At best, this was counterproductive. At worst, it was anxiety inducing. On Friday, I had a conversation with my manager and he told me what I already knew. I was being WAY too hard on myself. I had a head knowledge of this but I was not sure how to control the stress of it all. I spent the weekend thinking about this and figuring out how I was going to be on top of my game on Monday morning.

The answer I found was simple. I remembered the words wise people I’ve known over the years and the uniform message that worrying does not fix anything. If anything, worrying will cause you to be worse off because the energy you could be placing on doing your best in every moment, is being channeled in a negative direction.

But how to apply that in the workplace?

Take every project, task, call, etc, one at a time.

I did this today and what could have been a day in which I closed 0 interactions, I was able to put points on the board by taking the job one sales call at a time. It was almost time to get off, I was exhausted & I didn’t want to be in the office anymore. I wanted to spend the rest of my shift killing time (something that is tempting for sales folks to do) but I chose, instead, to make a few more calls and give each call 100%.

The 1st caller was not interested. Nobody picked up on the 2nd. The 3rd call was one that I closed. I didn’t do anything special I the interaction. I just put forth the effort and decided that I was going to deal with each interaction with a mindset of doing the best that Bash could do. This eliminated stress because I was only focused on what I had control over. I couldn’t force the people I was interacting with to be nice to me. I couldn’t force them to be interested in what I was offering. I could, however, show up in the interaction with my game face on and exhibit excellence in my behaviors.

It wasn’t a great day for numbers but it was a great day for my confidence.

Thanks for stopping by,

~Bash ♥️