6 Key Practices to Unlock a Better Life

We each have so much personal power to change our lives.
Unfortunately, we don't get taught how.
In the next six pages, I'll share with you the six key practices that will
unlock the better life that we all wish to be living.
Imagine if you no longer needed everything to go your way to feel
satisfied. If you no longer needed others to be a certain way to feel
fulfilled or loved. If you no longer needed the world to be in order for
you to feel inner peace. If you no longer needed external validation to
feel good enough.
If that's what you want, read on. I don't do superficial - if you want a
better life, you need to be prepared to go deep and to do the real inner
work.
If you're ready to improve your relationships, optimize your well-being,
cultivate inner peace, be a better leader and thrive overall, read on. And
when we do this work, we naturally heal the planet and make the world
a better place, too. It's magical stuff! Glad you're here!
THE 6 KEY PRACTICES TO
UNLOCK A BETTER LIFE
Copyright 2020 Deb Blum All Rights Reserved. DebBlum.com

SHADOW INTEGRATION
Reclaiming, healing, accepting and
loving the disowned parts of
ourselves AND acknowledging our
shared humanity
INTERNAL ORIENTATION
Connecting back to ourselves so we
can be the source of the love,
acceptance and validation that we
have always looked for "out there"
CONNECTION
Creating enough internal safety to
create authentic, vulnerable,
mutually respectful and nourishing
relationships
DECONSTRUCTION
of the limiting and false beliefs and
stories we hold onto about
ourselves, others and life
Unlocking a Better Life
6 KEY PRACTICES
FEEL TO HEAL
One of the most important things
we can do is to get in touch with our
sensations in our body and our
feelings.
ACCEPT YOUR HUMANNESS
So many of us reject that which is
just part of being a human - our
impulses, survival instincts, and even
just normal development.

As babies and very young children,
our parents' love and acceptance
was critical for our survival. We
needed them to care for us, hold us,
love us and keep us safe. When they
disapproved of us or our behavior,
we learned very quickly what not to
do and what to do instead. This was
the smartest most resourceful thing
we could do for our survival.
We needed their approval,
acceptance, love and validation (to
feel attached). At a deep and primal
level, our survival was connected to
their love. This continued over the
years we lived at home with our
parents. Though there were times
when our autonomy mattered more
to us (toddlers and teens), we were
programmed in a deep way to look
outside of ourselves for approval and
acceptance.
In that process, we abandoned
ourselves and our own inner voice.
We believed that what others said
about us was true. And most of it
was rooted in their own baggage. It's
time to orient away from getting our
needs met "out there" and begin to
look "in here."
Turn inward. Re-connect to yourself.
Every family (and their extended
family, friend groups, community,
religious institutions, political
affiliations, etc.) comes with a set of
belief systems. Society as a whole
has a set of belief systems. Those
belief systems get imprinted upon us
and very rarely do we ever challenge
them.
Many of those belief systems cause
us to stay stuck, unhappy, feeling
unworthy, not good enough,
pressured and on and on.
These beliefs can be as simple as
"watching TV is not a good way to
connect with your kids" to "men aren't
nurturing" to "teens are difficult" to
"women are too emotional." Those
are just four of millions of beliefs that
we may hold that are not serving (or
are actually hurting) us.
As we begin to turn inward, we gain
more self-awareness. We don't
always like what we see in there. It's
a time to be gentle and curious. As
we meet ourselves with more
curiosity, we can start to deconstruct
some of these limiting and false
beliefs and consciously CHOOSE new
ones that are life-enhancing.
INTERNAL ORIENTATION
DECONSTRUCTION

As a child, when we experience
something painful (physically,
emotionally or psychologically) and
we have no one there to process it
with us, it can be too much for us to
handle.
Our survival brain is very resourceful
and wise and does whatever it can to
protect us. One important strategy is
to cut us off from fully feeling our
feelings and sensations in our bodies.
These are our coping strategies and
defense mechanisms that we play out
as patterns in our present day lives.
They often come up as triggers.
In order to heal, we need to be willing
to feel our feelings (not just talk about
them and analyze them) and to drop
from our heads into our bodies.
Once we know that this is needed, we
can set the intention to notice what
we're feeling in our bodies
(sensations) and what we are feeling
in our hearts (feelings/emotions).
Rather than trying to change, resist, or
stop feeling them, we can simply
notice them and stay with them for
just a moment longer than we would
typically. You can take it as slow as
you need and want. A mantra you can
use: all feelings are welcome
So many of us reject that which is part
of being a human - our impulses,
survival instincts, and even just normal
development. Two examples of the
human condition are as follows:
Triggers: everyone gets triggered
and yet we act as if that's not true.
Our triggers are baked into our
survival brain and are precisely why
the human species still exists. If we
would be more open about our
triggers, we would be able to feel less
shame and feel more empowered to
use them as a pathway to heal that
which has been triggered within us.
Lying: there is a natural impulse
within each of us to lie when we feel
we are in trouble. There are many
reasons but the two primary ones are
(1) self-preservation and (2) we don't
want to lose the connection with the
other. When we can acknowledge this
as a normal human impulse, we can
shine a light on it, understand it and
consciously CHOOSE to tell the truth.
Instead, what we do is criticize, judge
and shame others and ourselves.
The self-loving thing we can do is to
shine a light on our shadows and
come to love ALL parts of ourselves.
FEEL TO HEAL
ACCEPT YOUR HUMANNESS

Remember we talked about how our
parents' love and approval was so
important to us? Well, another thing
happened to us as we learned to
stop doing the things that put our
parents' love at risk. We learned that
there are "acceptable" and
"unacceptable" parts of us.
Each time we got a message when
we were younger that we weren’t
enough, were too much, or that our
behavior was unacceptable, we
splintered off that part of ourself. We
became dis-integrated. We judged
ourselves harshly and told ourselves
to stop doing x or to stop being y.
As an adult, we suffer from the pain
of all of those pieces of ourselves
having been banished into the
shadows. Some deep part of us
knows that we’re missing those
pieces – and that deep part aches for
us to be whole and integrated. Those
missing pieces leave us feeling empty
and broken. Not knowing who we are.
The self-love journey is really the path
of integration. The integration of all
parts of ourselves – the so called
good, bad, and ugly.
Integration=Wholeness=Aliveness
We are all wired for connection. So in
order to really feel joy, fulfillment and
love, we need to be in relationships
with other humans. Relationships
often get challenging when they are
built on a foundation where people
are unconsciously seeking and
grasping to get their needs met by
the other person.
As we deepen our self-love practice,
we begin to notice that (a) we don't
need other people in the same ways
as we used to, (b) we know how to
meet many of our own needs, (c)
people begin to gravitate to us and
love us more than we ever felt loved
in the past, and (d) we have new skills
to develop more mutually fulfilling,
respectful and nourishing
relationships.
When we have a solid, flexible and
resilient sense of self, connection
happens naturally.
The more we love ourselves, the more
others love us. Was it was always our
own lack of self-love that was
holding us back from getting what
we want in our lives? That it's always
been here, available to us.
We just needed to turn inward first.
SHADOW INTEGRATION CONNECTION

Self-care
Kind self-talk
Checking in with "how do I feel" and
"what do I need?"
Self-compassion
Slowing down
Paying attention to body sensations
Getting support from others
Saying no
Intentional breathing
Cutting yourself & others slack
Laughter and play
Be true to yourself
Asking for what you need
Moving your body
Pushing hard when you need rest
Comparison to others
Self-criticism
Ruminating
Worrying about the future
Gossiping
Should-ing
Isolating yourself
Saying yes when you mean no
Believing all of your thoughts
People pleasing
Self-sacrificing
Doubting yourself
Allowing your fear to take over
Self-medicating
If you'd like to dive deeper into this Self-Love Journey, please explore my membership group - Self-Love
Basecamp.
To learn more about me, visit my website: https://www.debblum.com/ or to check out my membership
group, visit: http://selfloveheals.com.
Learning to love ourselves and live our best lives does not happen as a result of an online course, workshops
or reading books alone. It's a journey and that's what the Self-Love Basecamp is all about!
D A Y - T O - D A Y W A Y S T O L I V E A
B E T T E R L I F E B Y B E I N G M O R E Y O U
DO MORE OF THIS AND LESS OF THIS
Much love,

6 Key Practices to Unlock a Better Life

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