Help Me Be Me

Love shouldn’t hurt. It shouldn’t feel like it’s your lifeline – that you will fall into a million pieces if someone else chooses to break up. This kind of chemical bond is similar to that we universally associate with High School romance: hormones are high and we reach sometimes addiction-level chemical intoxication. But that’s not how it should feel when you pass the hormonal bump. Like such an intensely devastating and all-consuming obsession. Past the initial courtship stage, love shouldn’t be tied to NEED and it shouldn’t be able to command your mood and focus. So if you experience it this way, and it causes you to do things that betray yourself and put your needs aside those of another. If you find yourself all-consumed by the actions or thoughts of another to the degree that it controls your happiness – this is an episode for you. It’s about the particular reasons that this kind of attachment happens to you, that you might not be able to see are operating – or know are optional. To you it probably just feels like “you” and who you are, not some other powerful unseen force. Because most people who operate like this think of it as a measure of how MUCH they love, or their ability as a person to bend and adapt. Not so. This is an unhealthy form of attachment that can be tweaked once understood. This is an episode to educate more than anything because awareness is the first step to change. So listen to this with the goal of simply taking it in. I WANT TO HELP YOU begin the process of the kind of loving that can be done from a safe and balanced distance. From a comfortable place inside yourself, that protects you always. It’s a way of being that allows you to create healthy boundaries, and choose mates who are capable of loving you, and more importantly – makes you capable of receiving it. Because truly we teach others how they should love us, by how we love ourselves. If you are not protecting your needs and giving yourself care and gentle loving attention, then you’re also telling others not to. With that, here are the three parts! Part 1 is the what, Part 2 is the why, Part 3 are some steps to take now. Help Me Be Me takes hundreds of hours to create. If you get anything out of this show or it brings value to your life, please consider a monthly donation – even something as small as a cup of coffee helps immensely. To donate visit HelpMeBeMe.com Thanks! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi lovies! This is a Power Up to do with a friend, your hubby, or just solo with a pen and paper. Caveat: This leans more heavily into the self-help genre than most of my podcasts, but despite that – it’s super fun and more importantly, it’s beneficial to your quality of life! I think so much of personal growth is getting over that hump of “OMG this is stupid” and just doing it anyway even though you sound like a cliché. So with that – I want to offer you a Gratitude Practice that’s best done with a friend or significant other. A way to look at your growth and foster what you want more of moving forward. Enjoy! xox Help Me Be Me takes hundreds of hours to create. If you get anything out of this show or it brings value to your life, please consider a monthly donation – even something as small as a cup of coffee helps immensely. To donate visit HelpMeBeMe.com or Patreon.com/SarahMayB Thanks! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi there! This is the second half of episode 70, about bettering your outward-facing self to get more of what you want and deserve. This one is all about how to ask for a raise and ways to set up the most successful outcome when negotiating your worth. This episode is structured differently than past episodes. Part 1 is about grooming and creating more value in yourself as a professional, plus ways of showing others that value. Part 2 is about how to ask for a raise in the most hard to argue with and amicable way possible – how to make it easy for a boss to give you what you want vs unintentionally souring the position you have. Part 3 is about how to go into a new job interview – the best way to present yourself and also dictate your value to the perception of another. How to ask for what you want and create the right image. I believe you are capable and perfect for anything you choose to do with all your heart. If it is not in the cards – find a new pathway – a side entry or a different avenue that rewards that part of yourself. And check where the motivation is coming from. If you’re doing something because you want to tell others you’re doing that thing, it’s not the right reason. If you’re doing it because it comes naturally – and feels right – or it is something you love passionately, then you’ll do it anyway. Follow your inclinations. Listen to what fits or flows. Don’t listen to anyone who tells you that you shouldn’t do something. They are saying that for their own reasons – usually fear, or deep unhappiness. This life comes down to YOU and what YOU decide you want to do during this part of it. No one else makes that call but you. Help Me Be Me takes hundreds of hours to create. If you get anything out of this show or it brings value to your life, please consider a monthly donation – even something as small as a cup of coffee helps immensely. To donate visit HelpMeBeMe.com or Patreon.com/SarahMayB Thanks! x Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi peeps! It is moi, Sarah May. This is Part 1 of a two part episode. Part 2 will be solely focused on how to ask for a raise and how to tell someone your value when you apply for a new job. This is for anyone who is insecure or has a hard time with confidence at work or socially. Maybe you are introverted or sensitive, so this prevents you from speaking up or saying what you think. Or maybe when you do assert yourself it hurts to hear what people say back to you that’s critical. Maybe you feel intimidated by those around you and they use tactics to make you feel worse. Because in an unseen but felt way, your life overall is guided by this theme of fear, low self-confidence, low self-worth: instead of an upward climb, it’s a torturous plateau full of mental battles and fearful anticipations. And you want to do the things that everyone else does – like speak up with confidence, demand a raise, let go of what other people think, have faith in the value of your own opinions, and be a boss. It’s just that pesky inner voice that seems to get in the way. Help Me Be Me takes hundreds hours of create. If you get any value out of the work I do or it helps your life, please consider a monthly donation. Even something as small as a cup of coffee helps this show exist. To donate visit HelpMeBeMe.com or Patreon.com/sarahmayb Thanks! xo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Heads up, this is recorded on my iPhone, so forgive me, it’s not the best quality – it’s a post-yoga reflection that I just had to record for you as soon as it came to mind, so I hope you enjoy it. It’s a short meditation to do as we enter this new year full of awesome potential. A way to check in with your thoughts and reorganize them so that you can better your trajectory, see what you’re holding onto that’s not serving you, what’s playing on a loop in your head, and what has manifested in your life that you might want to tweak. Much love and have a happy new year! Xo Smile loves. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I know the holidays are just a few days away– which can bring up a ton of uncomfortable feelings especially if you have not-so-loving-family members. This is for anyone who has family, or anyone in their life who is meant to be nice to them and instead has chosen to close off and be mean. This could be your significant other’s family or your own family, like for example – your parent married into a new family and you feel excluded by them. So this is for anyone who has a significant other with a family who doesn’t accept or acknowledge you. Or maybe they constantly divide you and your spouse. Maybe this isn’t your significant other – maybe it’s a friend or your family – like if a parent remarried, or your family has dysfunctional ways of relating to you. This is for a friend who wrote to me – hang in there. I know this ain’t easy and it takes the strongest person to manage it. If you are helped by this podcast and find value in it, consider making a monthly donation - even an amount as small as a cup of coffee. Visit HelpMeBeMe.com or find my page on Patreon. xo! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

It’s no shocker that working all night and all day with a million different deadlines can lead even the most inspired and motivated individuals to burnout and depression. Careers and schools often demand it, and it becomes the norm – hopefully for only a short time in your life, but regardless – it’s dangerous for your body and soul and can take a toll on the future-you and your success as a professional AND happy individual. So this is for people who are in creative fields, schools, or professions that require they go hard for extended periods of time – causing them to burnout mentally and motivationally. I have some information to empower you to make better decisions, plus some tools to help you if you’re already stuck in an overworked depression. And ways to temper the stress and anxiety of intense deadlines and assignments moving forward. I know there’s a lot written on this subject but I will offer you a more practical set of solutions so that you can actually implement them starting NOW and not in six months, when “things calm down.” This one is for my new friend in the Netherlands – Nathalie. xo There are three parts – the what, the why, the how – the tools. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Are you guided by a belief that something is wrong with you? That you’re not good enough, and that you are fooling everyone – pretending you’re like them, but soon enough they’re going to realize you’re not talented, cool or smart. Maybe you constantly strive to build the life of someone worthy, but always seem to feel just as worthless as before: you’re never thin enough, you’re not as successful as you’d like to be, or maybe you’re living a life that you know you don’t want but you’re too afraid to do anything about it because it’s going to show the world that you’re a weak and shameful loser. So it’s better to just stay safe, and protected in the lie. Even though you feel suffocated and stifled by this life. Well if this sounds like you then you’re in good company – this is a universal human trait: to feel that we’re not good enough. And that’s because so much of the self is defined by things we learn from others. The brain we use to drive and make money is also the brain that computes risk based on a very specific structure we’ve built via our life experiences. So it’s natural to have grown up with a set of beliefs that are – to say the least – not in favor of your confidence and self-love. So if this sounds like you I hope to offer you some relief in the form of understanding, plus a few tools to manage the affects. As usual there are 3 parts: the what, the why, and the how: the tools. This one is for Guy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

We all want to be nice and caring people – because it feels good. It rewards us. However we are human and sometimes it can be a challenge to stay in that mindset, especially if people are deliberately cruel and hateful. Anger and hate become a natural reaction – or to simply shutdown and ignore. For the same is true of fearing those who hate: when you don’t understand someone and their beliefs betray everything you hold sacred, it’s a feeling that can touch every nerve inside you and incite the same thing – inside you. A hate and intolerance for their beliefs. It’s tough to be willing to understand others, especially when they express hate, brutality or intolerance. Like looking into the face of someone filled to the brim with fire and toxic sludge, spitting at you – it can offend every sense you have to witness such a thing. And worse, it can infect you and bring you down. There are lots of toxic people out there, and the natural reaction is to stay as far away from them as possible. But when it comes to people you love, you work with, or you can’t shut out of your life – this is a set of tools to help you understand them and better relate to them. In the face of intolerance, the self-protective instinct is to run away – to shut down to them and soothe the hurt, lest this hurt you anymore. But this is only a temporary fix to manage the situation. There is a state you can graduate to – PAST this point of managing and shutting off – one comparable to enlightenment: compassion. It’s challenging but also freeing, and it can be a powerful solution when it comes to someone you care about or must deal with in your life – for example a loved one or family member. I hope you enjoy! xo For more of my writing head to TeaspoonOfHappy.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is for anyone stuck in a place of self-hate and inaction. Someone in a shitty place in life, depressed and hopeless: hating on themselves, where they are, and at a loss for where to go from here. Maybe you have people in your life who love and encourage you and you hate that you’re bringing them down – yet you can’t figure out why your life just sucks so much when others get to be happy. You feel it is unfair for both of you. However – if you suffer severe depression, it’s probably not for you. I know that chronic depression is one of the hardest things to battle. And for some, it’s paralyzing – like worse than death. It’s like being a human zombie. I am terrified of depression – it’s the worst kind of pain. So if you suffer that, you might not like this post – because it assumes that you have some power in the situation. If you are a sufferer who is incapacitated by your depression, this is not for you. I feel for you, and when I have enough to offer you, I will create an episode just for you. There are three parts. The what, the why and the how. Let’s do this! xo Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices