The Key is Kindness 🗝

Hi everyone! We are so sorry!!! We have just discovered the emails we thought were going out over the last 2 weeks have not been.

Also, moving forward, we will NOT be offering the daily fenix emails — just the weekly one. We are adding another 2 emails every week — one for Spiritual manifestation on Mondays and one for self healing on Wednesdays. And Fenix’ weekly emails on Saturdays. We do share Fenix daily on Instagram and TikTok! If you need your daily fix xoxoxo.

We love you. Thanks so much for hanging in with us!!!!!! As you know I have a busy counseling and coaching practice and Eric is a full-time singer/songwriter — so we’re just doing our best to share Fenix with you all as best we can. We make lots of mistakes and it’s messy sometimes — but we adore getting to share him and we couldn’t be more grateful for all your love and support.

You are family. Come visit us in Ojai.

Fenix, Zoe and Eric xoxoxo

I know you think I make you happy cause of my cute prancing. But my key to happiness is kindness. The reason people fall in love with me, is cause I tickle their kindness bone.

Special needs animals have been put on the planet to show us all that EXTRA kindness and caring MAKES US HAPPIER!

But it’s not just kindness to others, it’s also kindness to yourself. That’s often where you humans fall down. You’re great at being kind to me, but you’ve got a ways to go when it comes to being kind and compassionate to yourself.

So are you with me?! Let’s focus in on kindness this week, and make ourselves, and the world around us, a happy happy place.

Love 🐾 #YourHappyCoach, Fenix xoxo

I know, I know. It’s hard to focus on yourself. It’s hard to truly give time and focus to taking better care of yourself.

But if you want to be happier, healthier and even wealthier, consider that it’s time to learn how to truly be kind and compassionate to yourself.

New scientific research in the area of Self-Compassion in the last 20 years, has prompted us to rethink Psychology, and how we motivate ourselves to grow and change. [1]

We used to think that Self-Criticism was helpful for change and overcoming bad habits. But now we know that Self-Compassion is the key if you want to change and overcome your bad habits. [2]

And it can feel counter intuitive. It might take work to rewire your inner muscles from Self-Criticism and Judgment to Self-Compassion and Kindness, but the science is clear. If you want to evolve and do better, you’ve got to be kinder to yourself, particularly when you fall, fail and feel down.

Let’s look at a relatable example to really understand how this works.

Consider that you want to change: you want to go to the gym and workout more, maybe at least 3 times a week. But despite your best intentions, you only went twice this week. And you can’t help but feel terrible and like a failure about it.

If your child wanted to learn to do something more, would you be terrible and treat them like a failure?! No! Of course not. So isn’t it wild that we are naturally kinda mean and punishing to ourselves when we don’t meet our goals or fall down in anyway.

It’s no small thing to rewire neurologically from unconsciously criticising and punishing ourselves, to being kind and compassionate, but it’s possible!!!

Explore the guide below to help you truly live a kinder (to yourself) and happier life.

Use this step-by-step guide to rewire your unconscious reaction to your own performance in life. It will feel a little clinical at first, but over time this practice helps us instinctively be kind, caring and supportive to ourselves. And that self-compassion is PROVEN to be the missing like to growth and positive change.

1. Find one area of your life, where you give yourself a hard time. It could be about your body image, about a promotion or aspect of your career, the amount you’ve been drinking or eating ice-cream, or the way you procrastinate. Don’t think too hard. Just let the first thing that pops into your mind be what you choose.
2. Let yourself remember a recent disappointment or down moment in this area of your life over the last few months or year. Find a specific moment in time when you really felt down on yourself because of this one area of your life. Ok let yourself really be aware of how you felt TOWARDS yourself in that moment. Was the energy soft, uplifting and supportive?! NO! Probably not. Let yourself be aware if you felt hard, critical, punishing, impatient, maybe even mean or cruel towards yourself.
3. Now as you’re aware and filled with how you FEEL sometimes, be aware of the judgment you have of yourself. When you’re feeling this way, what do you label yourself as? Is it weak? Pathetic? Stupid?
4. Now let yourself remember one of the very earliest memories you have, of ever feeling this judgment. It might be in a very different area of your life. But again just trust whatever pops into your consciousness. When is one of the earliest memories you have of being judged or feeling this judgment. [It might seem very unrelated. That’s ok. Neurologically it’s ALL connected. Just trust whatever memory ‘POPS’ first into your mind.]
5. It might be when you didn’t clean your room when you were young and you got in trouble, or you hurt a sibling, or you didn’t get the best grades or the prize or trophy you wanted. Or you stole something and felt really, really bad about it. No matter what the moment is, just let yourself see how small, and innocent and that you were really just doing your best. Let yourself feel as much kindness and compassion and sweetness and softness as you possibly can to your Little Younger Self.
6. Now, you have an opportunity to forgive and release yourself from a stuck pattern of judgment and criticism. In your imagination, see Little You standing in front of you at that early age. Let yourself see how bad you felt about what was going on. And now let yourself in the same moment feel deep overflowing compassion for your Little Self. [We neurologically rewire ourselves if we can feel SIMULTANEOUSLY that bad feeling, and ALSO compassion and kindness and caring. It might feel a little confusing at first. But close your eyes and imagine your Little Self is standing in front of you feeling terrible about what happened. And you’re also there feeling compassion and so sorry for them.]
7. Now use this statement of Self-Forgiveness to further rewire this pattern of judgment and criticism. You can say this out-loud or inwardly: “I forgive myself for judging myself as … [whatever your judgment was].” Repeat that statement 10 times. You might also see other times in your life that you want to forgive. Just keep feeling as much compassion as you can, and keep saying that statement.
8. Great Job! You’ve just begun to rewire your unconscious response to yourself. Do this process whenever you feel REALLY BAD about yourself. Go through the same questions. And watch your attitude and treatment of yourself get gradually better and more loving and so much more powerful and supportive of your success and greatness.

I know. We’re really diving deep recently.

I just know that I was given Fenix as my dog, as a way to support the planet with these much deeper principles of compassion and forgiveness. It’s no coincidence that Fenix NATURALLY inspires compassion and courage. I just know that he is here to help the world find more Self-Love, and I feel called to support the world on this journey too, however I can.

Self-Love is an ongoing, never-ending adventure.

I have overcome and released many judgments from my life. But there are always more.

When I first started doing this healing work of Self-Love and Self-Compassion (about 15 years ago) my biggest challenge was how I felt about my body. I had an eating disorder at the time, and was in very destructive patterns. After just a few months of doing this process with how I felt about my body, and my over-eating, I was able to forgive some of the deep judgments I created when I was so young and so impressionable. I am now my ideal weight without ever trying or dieting. But more importantly I LOVE myself and my beautiful body. And I find it easy to treat myself with health, vitality and kindness.

The current situation in my life that is my opportunity for healing and compassion is how I relax and enjoy my life. I was a workaholic up until about 5 years ago. So while I am now actually very relaxed and enjoy play and travel and hobbies and downtime. I’m still aware that after giving myself permission to relax or really have play or downtime, that I find myself feeling bad about it. And I feel myself unconsciously starting to push and punish myself to do something more productive or meaningful. And so I’ve been spending lots of time with the Little Zoe that learned to work hard and be impressive to keep her Mum happy when she was very little. I’ve been forgiving myself for judging myself as anything less than perfect, pure and precious to me.

I hope this adventure of Self-Love and Self-Compassion is supporting you in every area of your life. It can be hard at first to see how it helps us be happier and more abundant. This work can feel very subtle and incremental. But I do encourage you to keep going. And to pay attention to the little wins, the little self-kindnesses and the little self-celebrations!

I love you. So much.

Thanks for being here.

Zoë 🤗