by Janelle Legge | Dec 24, 2014 | Relationships
Christmas and the holiday season can be a mixed time of year, when we most need to feel more self empowered and less vulnerable. It’s a time to wind down, step back from our work and express love and gratitude to the people that really matter in our lives. It can also be intense, bringing old wounds and past disappointments to the surface.
3 Self Empowerment Steps To Having More Love in Your Life
Step 1 – If you’re being triggered emotionally by something someone that you care about has said or done, ask yourself “Do I want more love in my life, or do I always want to be right?”.
There are always multiple sides to any situation or disagreement. When we’re stuck in our ego, which is our self-protection default setting, we become rigid and fixed in our thinking and then up go the walls. We’re right and they are wrong! Then nothing gets in, especially love. Studies in molecular biology show that holding grudges actually hurts you on a cellular level. It not only hurts you physically, it also keeps you stuck, feeling disempowered and like a victim. Remember that you get to choose how you respond to things.
Step 2 – Give others permission to be exactly who they are and take responsibility for your own emotional needs and care.
This involves letting go of your expectations for how others should be or how they should respond. Boundaries give you strategies. If you’re clear on your boundaries and values, which is one of the key responsibilities of being an adult, then you’re able to look after yourself in your relationships. Clear boundaries give you a relational roadmap, and the psychological space to not be attached to or caught up in other people’s reactions, behaviours and dramas. When you know how to get your own needs met in a healthy and safe way – and give others permission to be who they are – life becomes less stressful, more loving and abundant.
Step 3 – Say the word “love” regularly, to yourself and to the people you deeply care for and appreciate.
Tell others that you love them. Love is an incredibly powerful word. Have you noticed when you say the word “love” out loud it actually activates your heart centre and softens your feelings? It’s healing, powerful and feels good. It also helps to pull you back into your heart-centre – which is grounding and empowering.

by Janelle Legge | Nov 17, 2014 | Mindfulness for Success
In The Talent Code, Daniel Coyle talks about how greatness is grown. It all starts with a success mindset where you choose greatness (it’s a choice that you make) and commit to repetitive practice to make it happen.
Here’s the brain science reason why.
It’s by increasing the myelin levels and layers in your brain and around your nerve fibres, through what Coyle terms deep practice, that your natural talents and learned skills go from fledgling or average, to uber elite mastership level.
Each time you practice something you’re growing myelin. That’s what brings you the high-level skills set and expertise that leads to success, and personal fulfilment.
So how do you sustain your success mindset and motivation levels to keep going with deep practice in a world of constant flux and distraction, or when you’re just not in the mood?
Knowing your purpose and mission, having a strong core self and positive self image, are your greatest advantages to going the distance.
by Janelle Legge | Mar 22, 2014 | Relationships
Do your personal boundaries need some love and attention? Clear boundaries are essential to getting your needs met and being able to create a life that you love.
When you’re not clear on your boundaries then you don’t draw a line in the sand that lets other people know what’s ok and what’s not ok for you. Instead, you’re too focused on pleasing everyone else.
Unclear boundaries leave you feeling frustrated and disappointed with your relationships and life, and vulnerable to other people’s power plays.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
3 Most Common Causes Of Weak Boundaries
1. You have a deep need to be loved and liked
This is one of the most common wounds for women. If you have this core need then you were taught from an early age that the easiest way to get love and approval was to be a good girl and put other’s needs before your own.
These experiences shape your subconscious beliefs around how to get love and approval. When this is one of your primary subconscious default programs, you find yourself automatically putting other people’s wants and needs above your own.
2. You’re fearful of conflict
Our ability and comfort levels for dealing, or not dealing with, conflict are shaped during childhood. If you’re afraid of conflict you may have grown up around reactive hot-heads, or passive-aggressive-avoidant communication styles. You made a decision to avoid conflict at all costs because you experienced first-hand the pain and negative outcomes that come with these styles of relating.
But there’s a cost to this. You don’t have a voice and you don’t put your own ideas forward because you’re afraid to rock the boat, or set limits with others, in case they disagree or get angry with you.
3. Your Self-esteem and Self-worth are based on other people’s opinions
This is one of the most debilitating and damaging subconscious beliefs women can struggle with. It leads to the ‘false self’ syndrome and keeps your authentic Self undeveloped and fragile. If you’re constantly scanning your external environment for feedback and validation so you can feel ok about yourself and of value, then it’s difficult to create the boundaries that come with a strong core self.
This leaves you vulnerable because the minute you encounter rejection, criticism or a lack of validation, your self-esteem falls in a heap.
If you don’t know who you are, what you want, and what you stand for – the essential building blocks of boundary setting – you’re leaving yourself vulnerable to other people’s agendas.
If you’re wanting stronger boundaries and can relate to 1 or maybe all 3 of these areas, then that’s good news. Because now you can make new choices. Pick one thing that you can start focusing on from today to strengthen your boundaries. If this feels too hard to do on your own, find a professional who can help you identify your boundary blind spots and change them so you can have the life and relationships you deserve.
Janelle Legge is a Psychotherapist, Leadership, Mindfulness and Wellbeing Consultant and Coach who specialises in Relationships, Career Success, Work-Life Integration and Wellbeing. Janelle has a limited number of spaces available each month for in person consults in Sydney. For enquiries including fees and scheduling, click here and Janelle will be happy to answer all your questions. You do not need a referral from your Doctor to book an appointment with Janelle.
Janelle also works with clients around the world via Skype. To book a skype session with Janelle click here.
by Janelle Legge | Dec 4, 2013 | Mindfulness for Success
When you can’t change a situation your challenge, and opportunity for self empowerment and growth, lies in looking at how you can change your thinking. It’s shifting your focus to what you can influence and releasing what you can’t.
It’s about opening up new possibilities and ways of responding. Replacing limbic brain knee jerk reactions and feelings of disempowerment with better insight, strategy, and awareness.
The key to this is deciding to not waste time and energy on people or situations you cannot directly influence. Choosing instead to focus on the areas where you do have influence. Stephen Covey writes about this in his book The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. He calls this focusing on the Circle of Influence. And when you apply this principle your focus becomes clear and proactive. You’re instantly re-empowered.
Success oriented people focus their efforts on what they can influence. They also know it’s what keeps them energized, proactive and optimistic, regardless of what life throws at them.
Start focusing on your circles of influence and watch how it changes your life and results in profound ways.
by Janelle Legge | Nov 7, 2013 | Group Dynamics
For a long time now I’ve held the view that it’s what’s NOT being said or seen in a group that is the most interesting and zesty part. It’s what can potentially offer the biggest opportunity for transformation and change for everyone involved.
Recently I attended a workshop that left me with mixed feelings and lots of post-event reflections. Yes, the content was interesting but there were some real disconnects going on between the financial investment required to attend and what was actually being delivered. This led me to view the experience very much through a commercial lens of sales and marketing strategies and group dynamics.
The opportunity to fully immerse myself in the actual material was lost as my fascination and annoyance grew in response to what was really going on.
So why didn’t anyone else seem to notice what was going on at the time, or if they did, why wasn’t it talked about?
Group dynamics ARE powerful. When groups are run well, they accelerate and catapult our growth and learning.
Groups have the potential to be powerfully transformative.
When they aren’t run well, they also provide learning experiences, but more of the annoying kind. One of the gifts from the latter type of group experience is the wake-up call they provide. They snap us out of a collective trance, or rose-tinted admiration fest.
Groups bring up family of origin dynamics and the feelings associated with these. When we join a group, subconsciously we experience the group leader as ‘Mum’ or ‘Dad’ in some shape or form. We also slide back into roles we played in our families growing up.
If a group is projecting idealized versions of ‘Mum’ or ‘Dad’ onto the leader, then no one wants to upset or criticize ‘Mum’ or ‘Dad’ – even when obvious flaws start to appear.
It’s as if everyone is under a magical spell – and we are really. It feels good when we think someone is amazing and has special value to offer. It offers us a sense of safety and certainty in uncertain times. We like to feel intimacy, acceptance and connection with others, it’s one of the great things about being in groups.
But when what needs to be talked about isn’t, invisible fields grow and become ‘pink elephants in the room’ that aren’t being acknowledged.
The tension and discomfort that this creates is usually picked up most intensely by the person(s) seeing and thinking about things in a different way to everyone else. This can feel lonely if that person happens to be you.
It takes courage to speak out and break a group spell. Raising what’s being avoided and left unsaid often evokes strong reactions. I’ve experienced this and if you have too then you know it takes internal fortitude, belief in yourself, and risking being not liked by ‘the group’.
Not always though.
Talking about what’s being avoided can come as a collective relief and release, enabling others to see and think about these invisible fields too. You might even make some new friends in the process.
Have you ever dared to break a group spell?