Are You the Hero, Damsel, or Evil Stepmother?

How are you, beautiful? My wish for you today is to welcome in the darkness with stillness and curiosity, while also holding space for hope and light. As my dear friend and astrologer says (I’m paraphrasing) “may you welcome in the yin and yang, the duality of life.” The duality of the knowledge in the dying and rebirth of the light within you. After all, it’s only after we let things go that we can let in the new. Speaking of letting go and letting in, I feel called to share a little story with you.

Are you the Hero, The Damsel, or The Evil Stepmother?

When my kids were little, I was a bit of an exhausted perfectionistic doormat-y mommy. Who tried to do it all. Who tried to create a life for my kids where they learned, thrived, and were properly bathed and socialized… I called my mom everyday, to learn things from how to mash potatoes and even plant something in the ground.

But, as if all that wasn’t enough…

Something always followed me around, from the time I was a teen through the next two decades of my life. A sinking pit in my stomach. Every time there was a movement, I would jump. Every time I got in the car and looked in my rearview mirror. Every time I was on the sidewalk and someone walked towards me, that sinking sensation in my stomach would happen, and I would move to the side and apologize for my double-wide (stroller.)

YEA, it’s like I was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop. I was waiting to be “found out”. I was at-the-ready to apologize for whatever came up, whatever I did, just to make sure everyone had the best experience. It’s like I was constantly feeling that I was doing something wrong. In reality, I was overhelping and people pleasing to exhaustion.

But I thought, all this time: I am a Helper, after all! That’s my superpower. I’m the best Robin that Batman ever saw!

So, what was the problem?

When my life fell apart in all its kaleidoscope of colors, being the helper and the sidekick didn’t work. I had to work on myself and my mess.

And that’s when it happened.

I realized I was not meant to live my life as Robin.

HONEST EDIT > (I did try living my life as a damsel in distress and also as my own evil stepmother, those didn’t work either, fyi)

After a fractal journey of learning through pain points, ( < welcome to the hero’s fractal journey and my logo) I realized that…

To live authentically,

while having the most joy, and

no longer “waiting for the other shoe to drop”…

I had to let go of living in the shadow and embrace standing in my own Heroic light.

I had to embrace being someone who doesn’t get pits in their stomach. Who doesn’t apologize for taking up space.

So, I had to ask myself this question all the time. And now I’m asking it of you (in each little situation you get into…) Are You the Hero, the Damsel, or the Evil Stepmother?

AND, if you notice you’re NOT the hero, here’s your #JoyChallenge!

Hero Step >> Believe You are Equally Worthy

I had to believe that I am just as worthy as everyone else of living life as The Hero. Having this belief was the first step to claiming my Heroic Joy.

Now, I walk alongside women through the process of believing and owning their worth. Of feeling they are just as divine and as much as a gift to our world as Mother Theresa.

How do I do this? I hold space to reflect your unique brilliance. I walk you through Three Frameworks: Emotional Intelligence, Self-Leadership, and Co-active Coaching for fulfillment and balance. I provide the questions. Because I know, beautiful {{ subscriber.first_name }}, you have the answers inside.

So, are you ready to Embrace your Hero?

Here are two steps you can do any day, beautiful 💃 💃

Share how you are Embracing your own Inner Hero in the My Joyfully Ever After Facebook group!
Chat with me about your journey and see if support is what you need to unleash your inner Hero (FYI I have only 2 OPENINGS left in January)

💝 💝 💝 What a better present to give YOU and YOUR LIFE than one of empowered Joy, amIright? 💝 💝 💝

sending you love, light, and worthiness to light a thousand galaxies,

heidi esther

*What does this phrase mean, anyway? According to grammarist.com… The phrase wait for the other shoe to drop became popular at the turn of the twentieth century, and originated in New York tenements. Tenements were usually poorly constructed, crowded apartment buildings. A resident could certainly hear his upstairs neighbor dropping his shoes on the floor as he took them off at night–first one, then the other.

PS Let us know how you embrace the Hero! Pop over to my Joyfully Ever After Facebook Group!

PPS Are you ready to stop waiting to be the Hero of your life? Book a Joy Discovery chat here.

HONESTLY, it’s pretty much impossible to live a life that brings you Joy if you are always treating yourself not as equally brilliant as everyone else. So, if you want more joy, then give yourself permission to be the Hero of your day! And, if that’s too hard, try being the hero of your morning, first. Rooting for you 💕 💕

Never Grateful

Does the prospect of practicing gratitude annoy you? Gratitude used to bother the crap outta me, to be honest. A voice in my head was like “so what? it’s not like gratitude puts the food on the table, drives the kids around, or helps me deal with my ex.” Right?

ahhhhh, therein lies the secret sauce of gratitude.

ahhh! read on for the sauce!

(mom-guilt) Your Journey to Freedom Starts today

How can you live Guilt Free? Here’s your DIY Cheat sheet! 👇 💃 🥰

Know you are just as worthy as everyone else.
Soften The Inner Critic
Take care of yourself first for once, dammit!
Relax / Journal / talk out alternate solutions.
Learn about and embrace your power that is your value center
Ask for help without feeling bad.
Figure out what your values are!
Practice setting boundaries that honor your values.
RESULT?
Avoid proven long-term guilt consequences

So, that’s the secret sauce.

If you are ready for some targeted lessons that will eradicate this guilt, I have something else.

Guilt-FREE Life! Course

What is it? Seven Bite-sized, empowering Lessons on how to get rid of guilt. Specifically made for busy working women, mommas, and helping professionals. One email a week, delivered straight to your inbox, for seven weeks. Each short video lesson building upon the last. Each lesson gives you the tools to understand and find peace from the guilt-monster. Each lesson is small enough to fit in the busiest of lives!

⭐️ PLUS! One powerful, comprehensive, playful, yet-not-overwhelming workbook to accompany you on your journey.

⭐️ PLUS! Portal to access all the lessons at once if you want to binge them!

And…bonuses!

BONUS! One 45-minute Laser-focused Joy Session to help you with any sticking points, valued at $150!
BONUS! 7-day 💯% money-back guarantee!

NO time? No Problem! If you can read these messages, you have time for the course!

So, really, how much would you pay for a guilt-free life? If you knew you’d never feel that pang again?

My migraine-ridden overworked soul would have paid thousands of dollars…

But you’re in luck 🙂

Click to start your guilt-free journey!

(mom-guilt) Imagine your Guilt-Free life!

Really, I want you to imagine a guilt-free life. Yes, this is the first step!

Visualize pulling out that guilt-thread from your brain and heart and putting it in a museum. Or better yet, JAIL!

What would you feel like? What would your life look like? What would you feel free to do if you couldn’t feel any more guilt? Do you feel that tingly wide-eyed excitement of a kid looking at a giant piece of chocolate ganache cake, fork at the ready?

Write down how you could take a long lunch, or get a guilt-free massage while the kids are at school… Write down the dream. Seriously!

This is the first step of untangling your life from your guilt. Are you ready for the next step? The keys are waiting for you! 🔑

Your Journey to Freedom Starts Here >

(mom-guilt) Guilt-Busting 101

So, you’re trying to do it all, take care of it all, and you got this guilt that you want to go away, you now know it’s because it’s a feeling created from a thought you have.

What’s the solution?

Root out and change the guilty thought.

There are left-brain and right-brain thought patterns we’ve learned from family, society, community, then reinforced ourselves, that keep us in this guilt loop. That keep us stuck in a mucky old fishbowl of someone else’s needs.

That keep us from walking our true, scary, brave, more joyful path. That keep us from reveling in our own Joyfully Ever After Ocean.

On average, us humans think 60,000-80,000 thoughts a day. And only 5% of them are conscious!

👉 Here’s a link to a workbook on Core Beliefs that can help you bring some of those unhelpful, unconscious thoughts to the surface. (best done with a therapist if you’re new to core beliefs!)

Another answer that’s more fun?

Imagine your Guilt-Free life 🌈 >

(mom-guilt) Welcome in your new teacher, guilt

Guilt is an emotion. It’s neither good nor bad. In your body, feelings are chemical reactions that we’ve evolved to feel based on what we are thinking.

YES! It’s our thoughts (we have 60,000-80,000 per day, fyi) that trigger our emotions, not what is happening.

Here’s an example:

Say you got married on a beach. It was picture-perfect, clear skies, turquoise water, a soft kiss of wind keeping all the bugs at bay. You embraced, toasted with your best man and maid of honor, spent your honeymoon there…

When you thought of that beach, you’d be flooded with all the good feels, right?

What if, on the same beach, you didn’t get married. What if, at this paradise point, you were playing in the water. You were pulled under by the undertow, and almost drowned?

And, whenever you thought of that beach, or any beach, you’d be flooded with an entirely different set of feelings – fear, helplessness, exhaustion?

Guilt is the same way. Now we know that it’s our thoughts – that we don’t even notice – that trigger its unwelcome arrival.

Here’s what you gotta do to replace those thoughts, and become guilt-free.

READ ON TO Guilt-Busting 101 >

If you’re still reading this, try clapping your hands together 10 times. Each time you high-five yourself – or someone else – it releases a feel-good hormone called dopamine. Ahhh. Now, where were we?

(mom-guilt) Hi beautiful. Yes, Nothing’s wrong with you

Hey you! Woman who Takes Care of the World, Helper-Extraordinaire! First, and I want you to hear this CLEARLY!

You’re not doing anything wrong when guilt strikes. It just feels like it. Here are some facts…

You are Loved. Creative. Hella-Resilient. Whole. As a human being, not as a human doing. How do I know? Because that’s how I felt once I got rid of all the gunk hanging in my way of seeing myself clearly. And I witness women all the time, remembering this truth. Knowing this.

Here’s some guilt facts that will appease your left brain, about that pesky guilt…

So, you know what’s crazy about the kind of guilt that comes from wanting to make everyone happy and feeling that conflict, because you feel like doing something different?

Fact: in psychology, this feeling some people call it “mom-guilt” is actually not grounded in reality. It comes from your noggin.

Say whaaaaa?

Okay, so, say I robbed the chocolate bank, because I was desperate for 72% dark, and I couldn’t find it anywhere. When I got home and took a bite, it wouldn’t taste as smooth, bitter, and rich as normal. Why? Not because it wasn’t delish, but because it was laced with guilt. Moral Guilt. My internal standards of integrity would be going bonkers. Then, I’d likely bring the chocolate back, apologize, and serve my sentence in chocolate-making jail.

But the guilt that we experience IS NOT the same as Mom Guilt. It’s called Moral Guilt.

Mom-Guilt doesn’t have anyone to apologize to. Why? Because on the outside, we’re doing all the things and taking care of all the things. Doing 💯 x 10! On the outside, it looks like we love people and they love us. We haven’t done anything wrong in the eyes of anyone else.

Mom-Guilt comes from how we’re talking to ourselves about what’s going on.

PSST! Want something to do that reminds you of all the love you have to give? Hold your hands together. Why? One, it’s fun to see which fingers go first. Second, it will remind you that you, beautiful soul, are also your own best friend, and deserve love from yourself. Time to stop being your own mean girl.

So, here’s the real down low >

(mom-guilt) It’s hard to make everyone happy

And can you make everyone happy? Or, should you? Follow this series to freedom from everyone’s most-hated house-guest, guilt (or mom-guilt)

A quick story

I stared at my Christmas to do list in my minivan, my brow furrowed so strongly it could direct a current. I paid my sitter for four hours. How much can I get done in one afternoon? What’s the most efficient path? When will they start noticing that all the meals are only semi-homemade, or pick ups? Will all that sodium affect their blood pressure when they’re older?

Then, it hit me.

A visual distortion covering my left eye. Like looking through a kaleidoscope, but an evil kind. My stomach sank, like it got punched. Breathing went shallow. My heart started pounding.

Another timer goes off in my head. I have 30 minutes to get home before it hit.

A cold sweat covered my body as I drove as safely and fast as possible back home, with only half my normal vision.

Nothing’s getting done. Things aren’t going to get done.

The tension grew; I felt I’d been punched in the stomach a second time.

I arrived home, thanked my neighbor for watching the kids and kept her there, drank so much water until I thought I’d puke, took my migraine meds that never worked, and settled in for 24 hours of non-productivity, saturated in an all-too-familiar feeling,

Guilt.

That Feeling

Do you feel that – that striving to not disappoint anyone, and then WHAM, outta nowhere, you just can’t fulfill the obligation? And you feel just awful? Or you know that your time would be better spent (sleeping, self-care, whatever that means).

Or maybe you say yes, but you know you said it because (you are the friend who can be counted on, you want to be the good mom, the worthy daughter?) and part of you *knows* that you’re gonna pay the price in some way? Like get sick or stay up too late and mess the rest of your week?

What can you do? How can you get rid of that nagging feeling? Or can you?

Yes, you can! First, if you’re still here, take a deep breath in, and a deep breath out. Try doing this three times – with the exhale longer than the inhale.

And guess what? Here’s something crazy-but-true about that guilt that we experience.

Go here next >

You are Worthy of Joy ( Joy Challenge inside)

Yea, yea. Everyone and their mother are out there saying You are Worthy of Joy. You “get it” that you are a special unicorn, somewhere in there. Sometimes out there. But, do you feel it?

BUT, How can you always tap into feeling great about yourself and why does it matter? Join me to feel into Worthiness, the first step of the Goldfish Self-Leadership System. A System to get your Cape 🦸‍♀️ – a proven framework to go from from not thinking a lot about yourself, to loving then believing in yourself and saving your joyful day, every day.

can you feel the love (tonight)? Let’s do it!

Losing money, teeth + hope

What can you do when life hands you a snowball of challenges and all hope seems lost? Read the story or Click here to learn directly about which of the 5 Lies you might be living.

I sat at the kitchen table, staring at my screen in disbelief. My fingers froze above the keys. I couldn’t exhale.

3, 473

There were 3,473 transactions in my online store in three days. The first three days I took off in months.

I had my store set up to notify me of any transactions. Every one of them had slipped by like a swarm of bees, just waltzing in my front door.

I clicked in my store. Just over a hundred were successful. And they were all under the same name.

I pulled back from the table. Negative money thoughts swarming around in my head, stinging me. Money thoughts I’ve been working on for a couple of years now. To rid myself of a tsunami of unhelpful core beliefs I’ve ingested along my journey. About women and money. Creatives and money. Entrepreneurs and money.

I cried. And took deep belly breaths. Then walked. Looked at the tree tops to remind myself that the Universe is abundant even when the life stings. And then sat down with my top support member of my business – my unphased wife – and researched.

Card attacks. When online stores don’t have premium fraud protection tools set up, like Google’s recaptcha, they fall victim to people trying out stolen cards.*

One week later.

I sat next to my daughter, staring at my phone, wondering what was the best set up to take action shots of my son.

It’s his Senior Year. Captain of the Soccer Team. It’s the cross-town rivalry game. He’s gonna ask his girlfriend to Homecoming after the game – posterboard, flowers, and all. He just got his braces off. He’s sooo shiny.

The game stopped.

I looked up, wondering what’s going on. The group of alpha-soccer moms starts yelling at me, pointing to the field.

I look to see where my son is. He’s not laying dismembered on the field. Well, that’s good. I then see him, on his knees, next to his soccer bench, arms in the air.

“Hey Jonathan’s mom! I think your son just got his teeth knocked out!” yelled one.

I looked closer, and could see people looking at the field, like people would look for a lost earring. Wait. What? Did they say teeth – plural?

Six hours later, it is almost 1am. I open the front door for my codine-laden son. His two front teeth reinserted and stabilized with braces – again.

But we won’t know for weeks if he will keep them.

I don’t sleep, jolting into action every time I hear a noise.

I take off more work – to take care of my son, my sleep. My sanity.

One week later

I have upgraded the security in my online store. Refunded all but 17 transactions in my account. I will lose a few hundred dollars. Could have been financial ruin. I am abundantly grateful.

I worked through my grief and hopes over my son’s senior year. The image of myself that was entangled with it. Replaced it with looser and healthier thoughts. Kinda like getting rid of a tattoo and replacing it with a Post-It note.

My son is disappointed but not crushed. Or he’s repressing. Either way, I let him know I’m here for him when he gets sad.

I lean fully back into my work. Everything seems either pointless or infuriating. I’m not looking forward to my days; feeling my work doesn’t matter. I share my story; I connect; get amazing feedback. But noone is taking action.

I make myself take smaller steps, even though it feels I’m stuck in tar.

One week later

I am laying down on a cushioned massage table, in the center of a small room with dark wooden furniture. Rocking Chairs, end table, dresser, vanity. Kinda like if a collegiate art student was staying at Grandma’s house.

I am helping a new friend get her certification in Quantum Healing Hypnosis Therapy. Think energy healing meets past and future life visualizations.

Though I don’t know if it will help, I remain open and curious. I tell my wife all the time. “If you stomp into a forest yelling that there are no animals there, you will be proven right. But if you walk in quiet and listen, you don’t know what will happen.”

I learn I have some male Lion energy in me. I feel I have been displaced many times, and yet I thrive.

For some reason, this takes all the energy I have left. I am exhausted.

I give myself permission to sleep in; I sit under trees. I still get up to take tiny steps forward. Three days later, a large roar in my head wakes me up in the morning.

Enough is enough.

Resounds in my brain. A large flow of energy – anger – bubbles up from the inside, like I’m a volcano erupting.

Your Joyfully Ever After

I sit down with my morning coffee. I draw a circle on a piece of paper, and section it off in wedges. The circle in the middle is where I am at.

I separate myself from my situation, like I’m an observer.

I walk myself around to different perspectives of my situation. Every perspective has a title. “Puddle Momma” is one “Jealous Wife” is another. It’s a tool in Co-Active Coaching that I love. I call is Surveying. Embodying different perspectives of the same situation to process it.

I combine it with The Emotional Scale – an Emotional Intelligence tool – to rate the feeling where each title is at.

I go from Hopeless Puddle-Momma to Compassionate Co-pilot in one sitting. I pick an affirmation to embody the Co-Pilot. “I give myself grace.” I have agreed to lay down the Judgement and Listen like Switzerland to what is really going on.

I continue to stay open. Enjoy each day. My steps get lighter. I open myself to other healing tools – tapping, Gratitude, breathwork, friends.

I can feel the sun on my face again, no longer resentful for its heat.

The Lies

Just as I create joy amidst challenge, I walk alongside Women who Take Care of the World to empower them to find their authentic footing and create Their very own Joy – amidst the stress and struggle of modern day life.

If you are ready to ditch the crap feelings and create more joy – book a chat with me here.

Want a DIY solution? See the 5 LIES that might be keeping you from living your most joyful life – download the Lies + Truth here.

I don’t have books for sale any more on my website…AND you can still purchase it on Amazon!