What Did You Do With Jill?Jill Whalen's healthy lifestyle transformation                                               

[Jill’s Note: If you prefer to listen rather than read, please scroll to the bottom of this post for the audio version.]

In a recent popular post I talked about how keeping our mouth shut when others seem to do or say things that bother us, can go a long way towards strengthening our relationships with them.

While this practice has been very helpful to me (when I remember) I can’t help but wonder…

Why am I’m bothered by them in the first place?

Read the rest of this entry »

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What if I told you that you’ve been lied to your entire life?

Not just you, but everyone.

And what if this lie was making you (and the rest of the world) feel miserable?

Would you want to know the truth?

Read the rest of this entry »

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Let’s face it, there are lots of jerky people out there. Many of them are part of our family. Some of them are our friends and colleagues. Heck, sometimes even we are the jerk!

But here’s the thing–when we are not the one being jerky, then it has nothing to do with us.

Regardless of what they are saying or doing.

Jerks are jerks, because they are jerks. Read the rest of this entry »

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As you may have guessed from the name of my blog (What Did You Do With Jill?) I have changed. A lot. At this point (over 3 years into my personal transformation) I barely remember the old me. Still, every now and then I will think or say something about myself that isn’t really true anymore. Old habits die hard, I guess.

Or do they? Read the rest of this entry »

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You know the old saying “Mind your own business”? More and more I believe this is the key to a happy life. Heck, it probably should be the slogan for all of humanity!

While I don’t talk a whole lot and try to mind my own business, I can’t tell you how many times a day I say “Just keep your mouth shut”…to myself!

It wasn’t always this way. Read the rest of this entry »

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I enjoy games as much as the next guy. Especially challenging and fun ones. For instance, this game of life we’re all playing. But some of the “games within the game” that I see all around me seem so unnecessary, and in many ways–hurtful.

Sometimes it even feels like I’m back in high school. Read the rest of this entry »

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Everyone makes mistakes. Some are big and some are small. But one way or another, we f*ck up. A lot. And we do it in a variety of ways.

Every. Single. One. Of. Us.

That means you. That means me. That means your spouse. That means your friends. That means the police. That means politicians. That means doctors, lawyers, butchers, bakers and candlestick makers. (Hate when my candlesticks get messed up! 🙂 ). Read the rest of this entry »

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Have you ever noticed how so much of our day is spent being up in arms about something? (Usually lots of things.)

A friend or lover or stranger says or does something and immediately we jump to the conclusion that it was mean. Or hurtful. Or bad. Or rude. We spend hours, days and weeks (and sadly even years) ruminating on and discussing how awful certain people in our lives are. “How could do they do that?” “How could they say that?” “What is wrong with them?”

And when we’re not bashing those close to us, we branch out to those we don’t even know but just happen to see in the distance. They dress funny. They look funny. They smell funny. They laugh funny. They’re obviously not like us, so quite frankly, they must be just plain weird.

And let’s not forget those who have different political views. Or religious ones. Or a different skin color. Or tattoos. (They’re the worst! 😉 ) We want to keep them out of our lives and sometimes even out of our country.

When we really stop to think about it–and I encourage you to do so for yourself–much of our time here on Earth seems to involve conflict of one sort or another. Our minds always seem ready to spring into action at the tiniest of perceived injustices.

But why? Why do we fight so much? Read the rest of this entry »

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I was recently at a seminar about mental wellbeing facilitated by Dr. Bill Pettit and his wife, Dr. Linda Pettit. They are a psychiatrist and psychologist with many decades of clinical experience. What makes them and this seminar interesting, however, was rather than focusing on the mental illnesses and diagnoses of what’s wrong, they are more interested in the opposite. That is, the innate wellbeing inside each of their patients. From the schizophrenic to the bipolar, to the average couple having marital problems, this pair of Docs (paradox!) are able to see right past all of that. They zero in on the natural mental health that resides deep within their patients (and all of us). Read the rest of this entry »

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Why is it so hard for us to be our true authentic self?

My guess is fear.

It seems that our authenticity gets “beaten” out of us when we’re little. Between getting teased as kids for being our wacky selves and our parents berating us to “act like everyone else,” slowly but surely we start to create a public persona that’s considered socially acceptable. We believe if the rest of the world knew how crazy, weird, dumb, silly or whatever we are deep inside, that there’s no way in hell they could like us–let alone love us. Read the rest of this entry »

Warning…this post contains bad language!

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Which would you prefer: feeling good or feeling bad?

I’m guessing most of you would say feeling good. And yet…

…so often when confronted with “negative” situations, we hold onto bad feelings a whole lot longer than necessary.

While we go through many emotions throughout our day, the negative ones can seem so “normal” that we don’t even notice them. However, I’ve found the more I make a point to observe my thoughts, the more aware I am of when they are in turmoil. Read the rest of this entry »

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This past Sunday (May 1, 2016) marked 3 years since I began my transformational journey. What started as a simple decision to lose weight, has culminated in a whole new me–both physically and mentally.

Here’s a recap: Read the rest of this entry »

Unless we live alone in a cave with no access to the outside world, we’re always having some sort of relationship with others. These range from casual “smile at you in the street” relationships, to those we have with co-workers, close friends, family, partners, etc.  As adults, we develop a particular way of dealing with each of these types of relationships based on who we believe we are, as well who we perceive others to be. In other words, we deal with people based on beliefs and perceptions that we make up in our heads. Read the rest of this entry »

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How’s life treating you these days?

Is it fun? Is it peaceful?

Or is it tedious and hard?

If you answered the latter, what’s making life such a struggle for you? Read the rest of this entry »

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Last summer someone close to me acted in a manner that based on my values and belief system, I deemed as wrong and unnecessary. For an entire evening as well as throughout the night, my thoughts about the situation were out of control. I woke up the next day and my head felt like it was about to explode. My understanding of how life works had me telling myself “It’s just thought,” but it did nothing to ease the pain I was in. While unsuccessfully trying to distract myself via my iPad, I received an email that was a summary of a talk called “Trusting Others and A Course in Miracles” given by Marianne Williamson. The topic of trust didn’t seem related to my situation, but I clicked over to read it anyway. Read the rest of this entry »

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For many, a natural consequence of life is to (unofficially) keep score in relationships. For instance, “I called him last time, so it’s his turn to call this time.” “He paid last time, so I’ll pay this time.” “I said “I love you, so now it’s her turn.” But when the score starts getting out of whack, people often freak out and may even start to think and feel like they’re being taken advantage of. Certainly if a relationship is sooooo one-sided in all respects it may be time to re-evaluate it. But in most relationships, this isn’t the case.

Much of the time the uneven score can be chalked up to a simple misunderstanding: Read the rest of this entry »

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When I hear of people who no longer trust others because they were “burned before,” it makes me sad.

As I see it, there are two ways of looking at trust:

The first is to see people as untrustworthy until proven otherwise, and the second is the opposite–to see people as trustworthy until proven otherwise.

Only a one-word difference, but with huge implications. Read the rest of this entry »

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It’s becoming clearer to me that much of–if not all–our suffering is caused by our desire to control ourselves, our surroundings and others. Yet in reality, it’s impossible. Read the rest of this entry »

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[Jill’s Note: I wrote a version of this post in a Facebook Group for budding coaches last summer and was reminded of it yesterday as I was listening to the classic Og Mandino’s “The World’s Greatest Salesman – Scroll #4.” Apparently my last blog post on approaching people with love instead of judgment reminded my sister of Scroll #2 in that book which is why I was listening to it in the first place. Great minds think alike as I could relate to much of what Mandino says as it relates to business. He’s a little more “Go get ’em tiger” than I ever was, but his overall message was very similar to how I ran my business for over 18 years. Mandino’s Scroll #4 starts out:

“I am nature’s greatest miracle. Since the beginning of time, never has there been another with my mind, my heart, my eyes, my hands, my hair, my mouth. None that came before, none that live today, and none that come tomorrow can walk and talk and move and think exactly like me.”

To me, this notion has always been the key to business success as you’ll see from my post below written long before I ever heard of Og Mandino! – Jill ] Read the rest of this entry »

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Now that I’m often observing my thoughts, I’ve noticed some that surprise me.  For instance, I never thought of myself as judgmental, yet some of my thoughts tell me otherwise. Read the rest of this entry »