Tara Sophia Mohr | wise living

Your playing big isn’t defined on the world’s terms. It isn’t necessarily owning an empire or making millions. You know what playing big means for you. It’s following that inspiration that is in your heart. Seeing it through. It is getting out there – visible. It is your voice, your vision, your unique contribution, flowing forth, no longer shrunken down, stopped up inside you, or compromised.

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Playing Big Registration Closes Tomorrow.

Click here to get your spot.
 
A short video about my secret agenda with Playing Big. Click here to watch.
 
Last week’s free Information and Q&A Call about Playing Big. Click here to listen.

So, how do you know…if it’s your irrational inner critic talking? Or if you are just being realistic? We started a discussion on that topic last week, here.
 
I’m continuing that conversation with this post.
 
Here are seven common characteristics of how our inner critics sound. Usually, all of these qualities aren’t in operation at once, but a least a couple of them are. Recognize your inner critic here?
 
1. This voice critiques us harshly. If you hear a voice saying things you would never say to another person, it’s the inner critic.
 
2. If you feel out of control of this voice, more like you hear it than you create it, like it invades your thinking rather than reflecting your real thoughts, it’s the inner critic.
 
3. The inner critic repeats itself. If you are plagued by the same thoughts over and over, not really thinking but rather hearing a broken record, it’s the inner critic.
 
4. If you hear a thought you know is irrational or untrue, but the thought won’t leave you, it’s the inner critic.
 
5. The inner critic also attacks us for hosting the thoughts it just put in our heads! After it criticizes, or plays out the worst case scenario, it follows up with lines like these “Get a grip, get some perspective.”
or “Don’t be so insecure, other people are confident and relaxed…just look over at Joe….”
 
6. Though the inner critic seeks to sabotage you, it makes arguments about what’s in your best interest – what is realistic, effective, what will protect you from harm, what will ensure the best outcome. The inner critic tricks us by framing its argument in terms of what’s best for us.
 
7. The inner critic may take inspiration from people in your life who played the role of outer critic. It adapts and expands on their behavior and often exists as a version of their voices inside your head. Listen for echoes of a parent, a sibling, a boss, or the voice of societal institutions or major cultural forces such as your religion, company, or country.
 
Why is it important to know these qualities? Because when you are clear on what your critic sounds like, you can identify yours when it speaks up – and separate yourself from it’s voice. You then have a choice: do I want to take direction from this irrational, fearful part of me – or not?
 

Want to learn more about my women’s leadership program, Playing Big?

Click here to join us live TODAY at noon PST for a free informational and Q&A call about the program! If you can’t make it, no problem. Sign up anyway and you’ll be emailed the recording!
 
Love,
 
Tara
 

Jen Louden, Michele Lisenbury Christensen, Marianne Elliott and me at Jen’s writing retreat in Taos this summer. Photo by Christa Gallopoulos.
 
One of my dear friends and mentors is Jen Louden. I started reading her books when I was about 14, and my copy of her best-seller The Women’s Comfort Book is so well-loved that it no longer even has the cover on it. It’s sort of like the dear teddy bear with only one eye still sewed in…
 
Jen and Michele Lisenbury Christensen recently created a program called Teach Now, that helps teachers – or teachers-to-be – teach more skillfully and step up and start teaching! Now.
 
I have taken Teach Now twice and feel it’s one of the most transformational educational experiences I had. If you want to teach, or if you want to teach more confidently and effectively, this a fabulous resource.
 
In this video (below), Jen and I talk about Teach Now and Playing Big. Let me say, this is an *informal video.* Imperfect, informal, and, still worth sharing. Enjoy! (If you are reading in email, click here to view the video)
 

 
To check out more about Teach Now, click HERE. Registration ends this Wednesday at midnight!
 

 
To check out Playing Big, click HERE. Registration closes early next week. Thinking about Playing Big but want to learn more? Sign up here for a free information and Q&A call about the program – you can attend live or listen to the recording!

 
Oh, and BAY AREA FOLKS: I’m speaking tonight in San Rafael, along with Dan Millman and Barbara Waxman for a Stanford University / Next Generation Scholars. Great event for a wonderful cause. Come on over!
Love & Hugs,
 
Tara

There’s something about my life that has really surprised me.
 
I had so much of what we all want every girl to have: I had a supportive family. I grew up hearing lots of praise and loving acknowledgement of my gifts. I had access to a great higher education.
 
So wouldn’t you think, that with all that, I’d grow into a woman who found it totally natural to play big? That I’d come away from all of that with a natural confidence? With courage to follow my heart?
 
That wasn’t what happened. In some ways, I excelled – got prestigious degrees and did well in my career in the nonprofit sector. But on the inside, I had given up a lot. I lost my creativity – writing, theater, and dance. Self-doubt and self-judgement gnashed everyone of those passions to pieces. I had rationalized my way out of my childhood dreams and took a safe path.
 
Turns out, I’m not the only one. I’m one of millions of brilliant women who has so much to share with the world and has the intelligence, vision and gifts to make a huge difference – but who has some trouble really believing that herself.
 
And if we don’t believe it, we don’t play big. We don’t think we deserve to be at the table.
 
I’ve spent the last few years in the trenches: finding my own path to playing bigger, working with hundreds of women to help them find theirs, and learning everything I could get my hands on about what helps women lead and become empowered.
 
I learned a lot from the many hours of sitting in my coaching office, across from brilliant women who longed to play bigger. When I coach, sitting there with someone who I so want to see soar and whose self-limiting stories are staring both of us right in the face, that’s when the rubber hits the road. You have to figure out what is going to change the pattern – what really helps women play bigger.
 

Here’s some of what I learned:

 
1. For most talented women, playing big doesn’t come naturally. It just doesn’t.
 
2. There are a few big ideas that make a huge difference. It makes a huge different to understand that we are hard-wired for fear – to avoid any possible emotional risk – to learn to manage the conflict between the safety instinct and the self-actualization longing. It makes a huge difference to realize, nope, that wasn’t your brain talking, that was your inner critic talking – and inner critics make up lies. It makes a huge difference to know that you do have a calling, and that no one has to think it “makes sense” – not even you. You just need to respect what has been planted in you. All of those philosophical shifts make a huge difference.
 
3. But I’ve also learned, we need more than ideas, practices and tools. As important on my journey as those ideas were, having a coach to call, or a supportive group of women to meet up with, were just as important. Having someone who held me accountable when the old ways reared their had was critical. It was in community that the concepts became real to me.
 

One Day…

One day a few years out in the future, you and I will make a pact. We’ll decide to make sure every girl in the world learns the basic ideas and tools she needs to play big in her adolescence. Fourteen year-olds around the world will learn about callings and their inner critic and their own value. It will become as rudimentary and as universal as seventh grade math.
 
But first, we have to staff up the faculty. We have to fill ourselves up with tales to tell of our own journeys to playing bigger. We have to walk an uncharted path. Because never before have women had so much power to play big. Now it is our time to do it.
 
That is why I do this work, and why I write the words you read here every week. It is why I created Playing Big, a six month journey for women who want to play bigger. Registration for Playing Big is now open. For the next 24 hours, I’ll be adding a gift – a signed poetry book, inscribed to you. I hope you’ll join me for the journey. Visit here to learn more and join the circle.
 
Love,
 
Tara

How do I know if it’s my inner critic talking, or if I’m just being realistic?
 
This is a really important question: how do I know if it’s just my inner critic telling me I can’t do something, I’m not good enough, I’m bound to fail, I’m not ready? How do I know it’s not the voice of reason?
 
Meet Claire.
 
Claire was a client of mine who dreamed of being an entrepreneur. For over two decades she worked in senior roles in various retail companies, knowing that her passion lay with a vision to start her own.
 
Her inner critic regularly chattered in her head about how she didn’t have what it took to be successful, and that pursuing the dream would be financially irresponsible toward her family. Her musings about this possibility had, for many years, sounded like this:
 
“I would love to start a retail business, I would love the independence and challenge. I feel like its what I am meant to do…But I don’t have what that takes. People who start businesses need much more experience, and a broader skill set. I don’t have the access to capital either. And doing this would be irresponsible to my family. I would be putting them in great financial risk.”
 
How do we know if this is her inner critic talking or if she’s making a good assessment of the situation? Clearly, everyone doesn’t have the skills to start a successful retail business – and there is such a thing as rationally evaluating our deficits and capacity. But we can recognize this voice as the inner critic in Claire by a few clues:
 
• It is making a definite pronouncement, with very little evidence to back it up. It’s interested in “the way things are” (this is always a red flag!).
• It’s undertaking a premature evaluation of the question “Is it possible, or not?” rather than wondering, “What could be possible?” or, even better? “How can I make this possible?”
• It’s stuck, repetitive. No real action is inspired by it. Real thinking always inspires some kind of forward movement.
• The energy behind the mental chatter is one of self- critique rather than self-care.
• The intention is shutting down forward movement, rather than opening up problem solving.
 
Here’s how thinking on the same topic could go, without the inner critic:
 
“I would love to start a retail business, I would love the independence and challenge. I feel like its what I am meant to do…I don’t know if I have what is needed. Hmmm…I wonder how I could find out what is needed and see how that fits with where I am. I wonder how I could start acquiring what I need. I’ll do x to learn more about that this week…feels exciting! And, I’m really committed to supporting my family financially. I wonder how I can do this and maintain that support. That’s important to me and I really don’t want to give it up.”
 
You can hear the different feeling-sense in the second example. In the second example you can hear curiosity, investigation, creativity and generative thinking.
 
Isn’t it interesting how the second line of thought is actually much more rational? There is an interest in real information gathering. There is a focus on the topic itself- not on ego stuff about one’s own worth or merit. The second way of thinking rapidly leads to action, because no mental junk is standing in the way of the path forward.
 
You can recognize your critic by how it speaks to you. It’s it making grand proclamations about reality or about the worst-case scenarios? It is repeating the same thing over and over again? That’s the critic. Good, realistic, sound thinking examines the situation with a light heart and a focus on solutions. Feel the difference?
 
HEY: Bay Area Peeps: I’ll be doing a live event on Discovering and Pursuing Your Calling with author Dan Millman and coach Barbara Waxman. Next Tuesday night! Details and sign up HERE.
Love,
 
Tara

“Beginning in 2006, players at the US Open were allowed to challenge judges on a limited number of questionable calls, thanks to video replay. When a player challenged a call, the video supported the player’s view 30% of the time. This held true whether player male and female. So, all players had a strong incentive to challenge calls: 30% of the time they got back a point that they had otherwise lost. You’d think every player would make sue of the right to challenge. But…female athletes, women engaged in one of the most important competitions of their professional lives, challenged calls half as often as men did.”

-From the very good book Getting to 50/50: How Working Couples Can Have It All by Sharing It All by Sharon Meers and Joanna Strober
 
Imagine these women tennis players, some of the best in the world. They have fought hard for their dreams. They have sacrificed a lot, and endured a lot in the service of those dreams.
 
And yet, this little thing that was so closely tied to a point – probably one of the “easiest” things they could do to dramatically transform their careers, they didn’t do.
 
Male players in the US Open challenged a total of 73 calls. Women challenged only 28.
 
Maybe they, more than the men, assumed that the authority figure – the judge – must have got it right. Maybe they suspected the judges were wrong, but then that flash of concern was overridden by self-doubt. Maybe they felt it would come across as rude or arrogant to question the call, and they wisely reasoned it wouldn’t be good for them to question it. Maybe they felt afraid of posing a challenge and being publicly wrong.
 
We don’t know why they didn’t do it, but of course, something in us knows exactly why they didn’t do it. We’ve been there too.
 
One of the parts of the US Open story that fascinates me the most is this: the players’ challenges, whether they were male or female, were right only 30% of the time!
 
On the one hand, this is a huge number – for every three challenges the players posed, one would earn them a point. One of three would significantly benefit their careers, making challenging an important strategy.
 
But on the other hand, 70% of the time, the challenges they posed turned out to be wrong. The judges’ original calls were right – a little more than 2/3 of the time.
 
For me, this begs the question: Would I be willing to pose public challenges to authority, to the status quo – knowing that about 2/3 of the time, I wouldn’t “win the point”? That 2/3 of the time, my challenges won’t matter to the immediate outcome, or that I’ll be deemed wrong? Publicly wrong? Am I willing to do that because 1/3 of the time, the alternative perspective that I bring forth will change the future?
 
Are you willing to challenge the call? The company’s direction at work? The assumptions your industry has always operated on? The investment you’ve been assured is very safe and secure? The decisions of your school board, or your government?
 
I don’t play sports where there are judges. I don’t work in a hierarchical environment. I don’t have a lot of formal authority figures in my life. But when I think of challenging the calls of authority figures, I think of moments like these…
 
Recently, I was in the doctors office. The doctor said: here’s the plan – we are going to do A, B, and C. A, B, and C were all very unpleasant, painful, and time-consuming, while at the same time not really addressing the underlying physical problem I was dealing with. As the doctor was rushing around to get out the big sharp instrument to do painful thing number 1, I questioned the call. I questioned the plan. I said that I would really like to avoid coming back three times for three painful procedures, and asked how else we could approach the problem. Within three minutes, we had altered the plan. We agreed that thing A needed to happen, but that if we did thing A a little bit differently, I could avoid painful procedures B and C entirely.
 
This still has me shaking my head in amazement: that because in a split second moment, I listened to my instincts and raised a little challenge, I am not going through two very painful, invasive, unnecessary experiences.
 
And then I think of the calls I haven’t questioned – the times when something in the pit of my stomach was saying, “Um…this is problematic…this is off course…this is not right” but when I didn’t trust myself. I kept my mouth shut. There are some experiences in my life where not listening to that gut instinct to challenge the call has cost me a lot.
 
When I was about twenty, I spent a few months in therapy with a therapist who ultimately came on to me, in the middle of one of our sessions. As in, lunging across the room came on to me. Needless to say, traumatic. (I bolted out of the office and yes, I reported it.) But I think of the first few times he said something subtly odd or manipulative in one our sessions. Each time, there was that little twinge in my stomach – an instinct to challenge what this authority figure was saying, how he was approaching the “therapy.” But I ignored that instinct.
 
What calls have you questioned, and what instincts to question authority are you stuffing down – not listening to? What would it take for you to start questioning the calls more frequently, more naturally, more freely? Some of the time, our challenges will miss the mark – they won’t be heard, or they’ll be “wrong” – like the tennis players’ were. But some of the time, our challenges will shift the course of something that matters.
 
p.s. Playing Big registration opens next week! Click here to learn more about the journey I’ve created to support you in playing bigger.
 
Love,
 
Tara

I always feel so honored when other bloggers host me for interviews at their sites. Their warmth and thoughtful questions always bring out something new in me.
 
This week, I was privileged to be part of three such conversations.
 
At Joy Holland’s blog, we talk about “gentle power,” how I created 10 Rules for Brilliant Women, and she asks me a profound question that stops me in my tracks: “What is the source of your power?” Plus, book giveaway at her site!
 
At Heidi Oran’s blog, I am in very good company as part of her weeklong “Women Who Inspire” series, with Christy Turlington, Tiny Buddha’s Lori Deschene, Spirit Junkie author Gabrielle Bernstein and Goddess Leonie Dawson. We talk about how to re-light the spark of your own authentic self, and what to do if you are feeling stuck about the whole life purpose thing.
 
At Tanya Geisler’s blog, today I’m her featured guest for her fabulous series, “Thing-Finding Thursday.” We talk about what I think my “thing” is…what helped me start doing it, and my three favorite questions.
 
And…there is a lovely new free new e-book out today, The Inspired Way. I’m honored to be the closing writer in this collection of 22 creative women writing about what helps them live an inspired life.
 
I invite you to check out these conversations and the remarkable women who hosted them. They each have tons of goodness to offer at their sites.
 
Love, hugs and thank you for reading,
 
Tara
 
Registration opens next week Playing Big, my six-month leadership program for women who want to play bigger. I’m so excited I kinda can’t stand it. Click here to learn more and get access to the early bird registration discount.

Hello!
 
First post of 2012!
 
I don’t feel it every year, but this year, I feel full of a sense of possibility and energy because of the new year. I feel that new movement is possible, that change is a ocean wave to leap right into.
 
I was not in the mood to do any kind of resolutions this year. I really wasn’t even feeling like I wanted to any goal-setting or intention setting. Instead, I wanted to get to the heart of the matter. If I was going to do sit down and do some journalling or visioning about the year ahead, I wanted it to really be helpful – to yield new information about what I wanted – new insights about what was emerging in me – and I wanted it to get to the core of what really matters.
 
I didn’t want one more to-do-list. Sometimes our intentions for the new year turn into just that: a kind of macro to-do list, with all the big projects we aim to get done. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s just limited. There is a lot more to discover and craft about the year ahead than the list of projects our conscious minds would like to get done. There are messages from the heart. There are whispers from the soul. There are new colors to live in and there is new inner music to walk with. How do we get at those things?
 
In thinking about that, I wrote 12 questions for myself – 12 writing prompts for crafting your 2012. I wrote these asking myself, “what questions will help me discover something new about myself?” and “what questions will help me get to the heart of the matter?” The prompts are HERE, along with some instructions about how to use them.
 
Last but not least, I’m very excited about the new year because the new session of Playing Big, my creative baby and revolutionary (yes, it is!) leadership program for women is starting up in just a few weeks. This is a program for you if you want to do your work in a bigger way – more voice, more reach, more impact – and you know it…you are still playing small. You can sign up HERE to get more details and access to an early bird discount. Registration opens next week!
 
Wherever these first days of 2012 find you – emotionally, spiritually, physically – I send love and wishes for a year of blessings. Thank you for reading in 2011, and for joining me on this journey in 2012.
 
Love,
 
Tara

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
“You know, they straightened out the Mississippi River in places, to make room for hourse and livable acreage. Occasionally the river floods these places. “Floods” is the word they use, but in fact it is not flooding; it is remembering. Remembering where it used to be. All water has a perfect memory and is forever trying to get back to where it was. ― Toni Morrison
 
Beautiful. Resonant. And True.
 
What “river” in you got straightened out somewhere along the way in life – changed from it’s natural form to accommodate practical realities or other people’s agendas?
 
How is the river’s yearning to go back it’s original shape manifesting in your life right now?
 
Have you been calling it a flooding – a random and dangerous event? And what happens if you recognize it as a remembering?
 
I invite you to share your thoughts in the comments below.
 
About this photo: Brenda Walker took first place in the Division II nature and landscapes category of the 2010 U.S. Army Digital Photography Contest with “Morning Serenity,” the above of East Fork Indian Creek River.
***
 
I also want to tell you about a special opportunity coming up. Amy Kessel is a life coach I deeply admire and respect. I think good life coaching is hard to come by – and she offers it. After doing a session with her, I called her coaching “a remarkable tapestry of courage, intuition and love.” I often turn to her when I’m stuck, and our conversations always help me make a shift. In January, she’s beginning a six-session small group coaching circle. I highly recommend her. You can learn more about her group coaching HERE.
 
***
 
And I leave you with one more goodie: This video, a 4-year old girl’s rant about “pinked up” marketing to girls, is worth a watch.
 
Love,
 
Tara

There are a lot of ideas out there about how to approach planning for the new year. Pick a word for the year, or a theme. Set goals. Do a vision board.
 
But if you were to ask me, “What one thing could I do to set myself up for a joyful, vibrant, fulfilling 2012?” it would be this: identify your core nutrients.
 
You know about the physical core nutrients you need: Vitamin A, Vitamin B, Vitamin D, and so on. You need some calcium and some iron. You need your Omega-3s.
 
Consider that you also have some emotional and spiritual core nutrients – things that are absolutely essential to your emotional and spiritual health. To your feeling good. To your feeling alive. To your feeling like yourself.
 
While we all have the same physical core nutrients, we each have a different set of emotional and spiritual core nutrients. We’ve each got to figure out what our core nutrients are.
 
Here’s how to do that:
 
Step 1: Think back on the experiences that made you feel most alive, most in flow, most like you were just fully yourself. Write down one or two of these experiences. It’s okay if you have to go back 20 years to find an experience that made you feel this way. It might be directing the high school theater production or babysitting a child you adored or climbing a mountain. Whatever shows up is fine.
 
Step 2: Now ask yourself, what were some of the elements that made that experience so fulfilling? For example, if your experience was “climbing a mountain” – you might realize it was a few things: the challenge, plus being in nature, plus the feeling of being in a community with your fellow climbers that for you, made this experience so satisfying.
 
Step 3: Next, ask yourself: what core nutrients was I getting through this experience? What things was I being fed through this – things that are vital to my spirit’s health and wellbeing? Maybe you discover that yes, nature is one of your core nutrients. Maybe you discover that novelty – seeing things you’ve never seen before – is a core nutrient for you.
 
Step 4: Develop a list of 5 core nutrients. Thinking back on different fulfilling experiences in your life, identify 5 core nutrients. Core nutrients are always qualities – not activities. “Surfing” isn’t a core nutrient, but “connecting with water” or “being in my body” might be. Pay attention to what experiences felt the most vital, alive, in flow – not just what was pleasurable or what made your ego feel good.
 
Step 5: Now, here’s the fun part. Look at your 2012 in light of your 5 core nutrients. What will you do in 2012 to make sure you are getting your daily dose of each one? How will you shift routines and priorities to make sure you get your minimum requirement of these ingredients that are essential to your wellbeing? How creative can you get in finding them *in* your job, or *in* your parenting? How brave can you get in making time for them outside of those things?
 
Tell me about your core nutrients below!
 
Love,
 
Tara
 
**Special thanks to the Coaches Training Institute, whose curriculum on values is the basis for my core nutrients framework.
 
In other news, registration for the next session of Playing Big, my leadership program for women who want to change the world for the better, opens in a few weeks! The program begins in January 2012.
 
The Playing Big course is for you if:
* You want to be more effective and have a greater impact in changing the world
* You feel a calling or a creative inspiration – but you aren’t moving forward with it as powerfully as you could
* You are held back by self-doubt, fear, or procrastination
* You suspect it would be a whole lot more fun to play bigger. (YOU ARE RIGHT.)
 
This is my core program: an in-depth, six month process, where I teach the tools that have been most powerful for me and for my women clients in our own journeys to playing bigger in the world.
 
If you’d like to be on the advance list for updates about Playing Big, sign up here. You’ll receive updates on course details, be the first to know when registration opens, and have access to the early registration discount. Click here to sign up.
 
***
My book, Your Other Names: Poems for Wise Living is here, and I’m delighted to share that its a top 50 Poetry Best Seller at Amazon.com.
 
Life gets hectic. In the midst of busy days, too many emails, family and work pressures, we get caught up in the whirlwind. We get lost from ourselves. We all need ways to return, to find center again, to tap into a sense of peace. That’s what my new book, Your Other Names, provides: short readings that provide a pathway back to gratitude and peace. Click here to learn more about it.