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Move Past the Loss of a Friendship with Dr. Sharon Livingston PhD
Quote of the Day: “…I have been taken with the I Am, which means that I Am everything. I am me, I am part of my community, I am part of the universe. And there is more to life than me and I am all of it.”
Guest of the Day: Dr. Sharon Livingston PhD is a psychologist, an author, and a personal coach who works for companies, such a Nabisco, Mattel, and AT&T. She is also co-founder of the International Coach Certification Alliance (ICCA). And the president at The Livingston Group for Emotional Marketing, as well as the author of Get Lost, Girlfriend!: How I Found Myself When My Best Friend Dumped Me.
Passion: What happens when a best friend is lost? This concept brought Sharon’s passion for fiction-writing to light, converging her education as a mental health professional with her talent for writing and passion for helping people. She is in the midst of writing a series: The Novel Approach to Every Day Life.
Challenges: A challenge for Sharon was the feeling that writing the story about getting dumped by her best friend was a betrayal to her friend. Sharon would get nervous thinking about what her friend would do if she saw her in public: would she snub her, attack her, apologize? Sharon says, “It was scary.”
Learned About Self: She says, “…one of the things that I learned was that I had the strength to be just with myself. I didn’t go run out and try to hangout with this person and that person…I stayed with myself. And I started asking myself things, like: ‘Hey, you in the mirror, what would you like to do today? You have a day off, what would YOU like to do?’” (Listen to the episode for examples of all the things Sharon did on her own for the first time.)
Suggested Resources:
- Get Lost, Girlfriend!: How I Found Myself When My Best Friend Dumped Me by Dr. Sharon Livingston PhD
- The Success Principles by Jack Canfield
- Find a specialized personal coach
To get weight lifted off your shoulders…
Envision: Expect to feel free, to find your passion, to find fulfillment. Expect a twisted path. Sharon provides us with an exercise: “…if you could picture a door, and on this door it says: ‘My most positive future self.’ And in your mind’s eye, imagine the door and open it up and walk through, and see what you see, listen to the sounds you hear, and get a real sense of it. Notice where you find yourself, and then take a walk up a path. And there she is. There’s the most positive future Lynette.”
Explore: Be introspective and speak to your future self, ask them how they got where they did. Start with the most positive dream, amplify it, draw it, feel it in all kinds of ways, and then analyze what it will take to get there. Discover the temporary goals that will lead to the big ones.
Execute: First, imagine a goal, see yourself at the top of the mountain, and take steps back down the mountain that show you how you got to the top. Describe each step in detail. Go backwards because it’s easier to figure out how you go somewhere when you know you made it there. Starting at the bottom of the hill and facing a rough climb can be overwhelming.
Advice to Listeners: “My final thought is that every single person is lovable, and sometimes it takes a while to recognize it. There is a quote: ‘What other people think of you is none of your business.’ I love that.” Sharon adds, “And when change happens, you go into this, like, river of uncertainty, so if you were in this one situation and something happens to disrupt it, you’re in this ball of chaos…but the beauty of that, before you get to the other side, is that it’s full of possibilities. It’s full of possibilities.”
Motivational Go-Do!
Go for a walk and consider who you want to be five years from now. If you could be anything at all, what would it be? Allow yourself imagination and joy, and see what pops up? Then travel backwards and see how you got there.
How Motivate Me! Ultimate Support System can rally around Dr. Sharon Livingston:
Cell Phone: 603.505.5000 (call or text)
And, as always, on the Facebook page: Motivate Me! The Ultimate Support System
CLICK HERE to listen to Sharon’s interview.
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