SEO marketing is the practice of optimizing your website to align with the standards and algorithms employed by major search engines like Google. Achieving high rankings in organic search results can significantly increase website traffic without the costs associated with paid advertising. This increased visibility can drive more organic traffic to your site, boosting your business’s visibility and revenue. In this article, we’ll break down SEO marketing, explain why it’s essential, and guide you step-by-step on how to master it.
I was once a frustrated entrepreneur, grappling with marketers who didn’t listen or deliver results. My experience with SEO was fraught with wasted time and money on strategies that felt robotic and confusing. Determined to find a solution, I decided to learn SEO from the ground up, bridging the gap between creative vision and digital strategy.
Through this journey, I transformed my pain points into a superpower: helping purpose-driven entrepreneurs shine online. My approach is results-driven, personalized, and rooted in empathy. I understand the importance of staying true to who you are while achieving digital success. My coaching background and entrepreneurial pivots have equipped me to provide the clarity of vision you need to balance authenticity with effective SEO strategies.
Having experienced firsthand the importance of digital marketing and SEO for business success, my commitment is to elevate your SEO from good to great. My goal is to make SEO both effective and aligned with your unique objectives, ensuring it feels human and impactful.
SEO marketing is a vital aspect of digital marketing that focuses on optimizing your website to improve its visibility on search engine results pages (SERPs). The goal is to drive organic search traffic by ensuring your site appears prominently when users search for relevant keywords, including effective meta descriptions. This involves a combination of keyword research, high-quality content creation, local seo, search engine marketing, paid search, technical optimizations, and an seo marketing strategy to enhance seo marketing efforts. Additionally, improving page speed is crucial for enhancing user experience and optimizing for search engines.
Effective SEO not only increases your online visibility but also attracts potential customers and keeps you ahead of the competition. With 83% of the global market share, Google is the dominant search engine, making it crucial to align your international seo efforts with Google’s search engine algorithms and guidelines.
Off-page SEO is another critical component, focusing on activities outside your website to improve its ranking. Acquiring backlinks from other sites is essential for enhancing domain authority and improving search engine rankings.
Whether you’re a business or an individual, SEO marketing is essential for enhancing your digital presence.
SEO has come a long way since its inception in the 1990s. Initially, it was plagued by tactics like keyword stuffing and link farms, which aimed to manipulate search engine rankings without providing real value to users. However, the rise of Google in the 2000s shifted the focus towards link building as a critical ranking factor.
Today, SEO is a sophisticated discipline driven by artificial intelligence and complex algorithms. These advancements have made SEO more effective and user-centric, emphasizing high-quality content and user experience over simple keyword tactics. Understanding this evolution is key to mastering modern SEO strategies.
Understanding how web and search engines operate is essential for success in SEO and adhering to search engine guidelines. This knowledge is crucial for achieving optimal search result outcomes through keyword search and understanding the search query. Search engines analyze Google searches like Google use a three-step process: crawling, indexing, and ranking on the search engine results page.
Search engines rely on structured data and algorithms to categorize and rank content effectively.
Crawling involves search engine crawlers, also known as spiders or bots, discovering new and updated content by following links on web pages. Once content is discovered, it’s indexed, meaning it’s stored in the search engine’s database if deemed high-quality and relevant.
Ranking is the final step, where search engines use algorithms to determine the order to rank web pages in search results based on hundreds of factors. This process ensures that users receive the most relevant and high-quality information in response to their search queries. Understanding these steps is the foundation of effective search engine optimization (SEO).
Crawling is the process by which search engines discover new and updated content. Web crawlers, also known as spiders or bots, follow links on web pages to find new content. This is essential for generating search results, as search engine crawling is needed to continuously explore the web to stay updated. The indexing process then determines if the crawled content will be stored in the search engine’s database for ranking purposes.
Proper crawling and indexing are critical for SEO success because they ensure that search engines can find, retrieve, and rank your web pages. Using an XML sitemap can help search engines understand your site structure and improve indexing.
Identifying and resolving indexing issues is crucial to ensure your content is visible in search results.
Ranking is determined by search engine algorithms that assess hundreds of factors to deliver relevant search results. These factors include the relevance and quality of content, the number and quality of backlinks, and the overall user experience. Internal links help navigate the website and distribute authority between pages, which is also a crucial ranking factor.
Maintaining a website with too many broken links can signal poor maintenance to search engines, negatively affecting rankings. Understanding and optimizing these ranking factors is key to improving your search engine rankings and driving organic search traffic.
SEO marketing consists of three main components: on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO. Each plays a unique role in enhancing your website’s visibility and performance on search engines. On-page SEO focuses on optimizing individual web pages, including content and HTML source code. Off-page SEO involves activities outside your website, such as backlink building and social media marketing. Technical SEO deals with the backend and server-side optimizations to ensure search engines can properly crawl and index your site.
Optimizing website content is crucial as part of SEO marketing strategies, as it significantly enhances visibility and effectiveness in local SEO efforts.
A comprehensive SEO strategy incorporates all three components, ensuring that your site is technically sound, content-rich, and well-promoted across the web. Let’s dive deeper into each of these core components.
On-page SEO involves optimizing the content and structure of your individual web pages to improve search engine rankings and user experience. This includes using relevant keywords, creating high-quality content, and ensuring that your website is user-friendly. Effective on-page SEO enhances the interactions between search engines and users by ensuring that the content is relevant and meets the searcher’s intent.
Types of relevant content that should be optimized include home pages, about pages, blogs, articles, and index pages. Each should contain unique, authoritative information that builds trust with both search engines and users. Consistent quality and a well-structured layout contribute significantly to building this trust and improving search engine rankings.
Off-page SEO focuses on actions taken outside of your website to impact your trustworthiness and authority. The primary driver of off-page SEO is backlinks—links from other reputable sites to your own. These backlinks enhance your domain authority. As a result, they can greatly improve your search engine rankings. Acquiring links from reputable sites is crucial for enhancing your site’s authority and search rankings.
Additionally, acquiring backlinks from other sites is essential for boosting your domain authority and improving search engine rankings.
A strong link-building strategy involves acquiring authoritative backlinks by pitching to relevant news outlets or creating useful content that others want to link to. Social media sites can also play a role in off-page SEO by increasing clicks and the chances of gaining backlinks when your posts are shared.
Technical SEO focuses on the backend elements of a website to ensure optimal crawling and indexing by search engines. This includes improving site speed, mobile optimization, and website security. Fast-loading pages enhance user experience and boost rankings, with best practices including compressing images, enabling browser caching, and using a content delivery network (CDN). Page speed can significantly reduce bounce rates and improve rankings, linking it to effective website architecture and overall SEO strategies.
Mobile optimization is also crucial, as 58% of searches come from mobile devices. The mobile version of a site is primarily used for ranking in Google’s mobile-first indexing.
Additionally, using an SSL certificate to encrypt user data improves website security and can positively impact rankings.
Local SEO is a crucial aspect of search engine optimization that focuses on optimizing your website to rank higher in search engine results for location-based searches. If you have a physical location, local SEO can help you attract nearby customers and increase your online visibility.
To get started with local SEO, conduct keyword research to identify relevant location-based keywords that your potential customers are using. For instance, if you own a bakery in New York, you might target keywords like “best bakery in New York” or “New York bakery near me.” Creating high-quality content that incorporates these keywords can significantly improve your chances of appearing in local search results.
Another essential step is to claim and optimize your Google My Business listing. This free tool allows you to manage how your business appears on Google Search and Maps. Ensure your listing is complete with accurate information, including your address, phone number, and business hours. Encourage satisfied customers to leave positive reviews, as these can boost your credibility and rankings.
Building external links from other local websites can also enhance your local SEO efforts. Reach out to local blogs, news outlets, and business directories to get your site mentioned and linked. By implementing a robust local SEO strategy, you can increase your website traffic, drive more foot traffic to your physical location, and ultimately boost your sales and revenue.
An effective SEO strategy aims to boost organic traffic and improve search engine rankings. It involves:
Optimizing websites for search engine traffic by implementing effective SEO practices is essential. Proper configuration, relevant content, and understanding user intent can lead to higher rankings on search engine results pages, ultimately driving more qualified visitors to your website.
Setting modest yet ambitious objectives is crucial for tracking progress and ensuring long-term success.
SEO is not a one-time effort but requires ongoing optimization and adaptation to stay ahead of competitors and search engine updates. Consistent refinement of your strategy helps avoid wasting time and money on underperforming paid ads content.
Keyword research is the foundation of any effective SEO strategy. To conduct keyword research targeting the wrong keywords can lead to low traffic and poor conversions. Analyzing competitors’ SEO strategies and the keywords they target can provide valuable insights for your own keyword selection. Tools like Google Keyword Planner, Ahrefs, and Ubersuggest can help identify high-traffic keywords and assess their competitiveness.
It is crucial to align your keyword research with the standards and algorithms of major search engines to ensure better visibility and authority in search results.
When selecting keywords, consider both their popularity and ranking difficulty. Starting with easier keywords helps build authority before targeting more competitive terms. Additionally, using non-product related keywords for standalone blog posts can increase your site’s authority.
Creating high-quality content that satisfies user intent is critical for SEO success. By the 2010s, the focus in SEO shifted towards creating valuable content that serves user needs rather than just optimizing for keywords. A well-optimized page enhances its potential for ranking. It also effectively keeps visitors engaged.
Content should be updated regularly to maintain relevance and effectiveness in SEO strategies. Tools like Google Search Console can provide insights into search queries that lead users to your site, aiding in content optimization.
Link building is an essential part of SEO that involves acquiring high-quality backlinks to enhance your website’s authority. Turning broken internal links into SEO opportunities can contribute to link-building efforts. A strong link-building strategy should focus on acquiring authoritative backlinks by pitching to relevant news outlets or creating useful content.
Internal linking is also crucial as it helps distribute authority between relevant pages and improves navigation. Understanding how to connect different pieces of content can significantly boost your SEO efforts.
Social media marketing is a powerful digital marketing strategy that involves using social media platforms to promote your business, products, or services. While it may not be directly related to search engine optimization, it can have a significant indirect impact on your SEO efforts.
Social media platforms can drive substantial traffic to your website, increasing its visibility and authority in search engine results. When your content is shared and engaged with on social media, it signals to search engines that your website is valuable and relevant. This can positively influence your search engine rankings.
Additionally, social media can be a valuable tool for building high-quality backlinks. When your content is shared on social media, it increases the chances of other websites linking to it. These backlinks are crucial for improving your website’s authority and search engine rankings.
To effectively use social media marketing, create high-quality content that resonates with your target audience. Engage with your followers by responding to comments and messages, and use relevant hashtags to increase your visibility. By leveraging social media marketing, you can enhance your online presence, drive more traffic to your website, and ultimately boost your sales and revenue.
Measuring and analyzing your SEO performance is crucial for understanding progress and refining your strategy. Key performance indicators (KPIs) for SEO include metrics that indicate progress towards your SEO goals, such as organic search traffic, search engine rankings, and website engagement.
According to Search Engine Land, estimates on the earnings of SEO specialists can vary based on factors such as location and experience, providing industry standards that can guide your expectations.
Ongoing monitoring and adjustments are necessary to maintain SEO rankings and optimize efforts. Tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console are invaluable for tracking and analyzing SEO performance.
Google Analytics is a powerful tool that allows businesses to track and analyze their website traffic and user engagement. Understanding how Google Analytics functions can help marketers make data-driven decisions to enhance their SEO strategies. Tracking metrics like page views and session duration provides insights into the effectiveness of SEO efforts.
Custom dashboards can be set up to track specific data relevant to SEO performance, optimizing website layouts and content to improve user experience and engagement.
Google Search Console (GSC) is a free tool provided by Google that helps monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot a website’s presence in Google Search results. It allows you to see which queries bring users to your site, how many impressions you get, your click-through rate (CTR), and your average position in search results. You can also submit sitemaps and individual URLs for crawling to speed up the indexing process.
GSC helps identify and resolve indexing issues, mobile usability problems, and Core Web Vitals that affect ranking. It tracks your website’s backlink profile, showing who is linking to you and which pages are most linked.
Using GSC in tandem with Google Analytics provides a comprehensive view of your SEO performance.
SEO tools are indispensable for businesses looking to optimize their websites for search engines. These tools can help you conduct keyword research, analyze website traffic, identify technical SEO issues, and track your search engine rankings.
Google Analytics is one of the most powerful tools available, allowing you to track and analyze your website traffic and user engagement. By understanding how visitors interact with your site, you can make data-driven decisions to enhance your SEO strategy. For instance, tracking metrics like page views and session duration can provide insights into the effectiveness of your content and website layout.
Google Search Console is another essential tool that helps you monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot your website’s presence in Google Search results. It provides valuable data on which queries bring users to your site, your click-through rate (CTR), and your average position in search results. You can also use it to submit sitemaps and individual URLs for crawling, speeding up the indexing process.
Other popular SEO tools like Ahrefs and SEMrush offer comprehensive features for keyword research, backlink analysis, and competitor tracking. These tools can help you identify high-traffic keywords, analyze your backlink profile, and monitor your competitors’ SEO strategies.
By leveraging these SEO tools, you can gain valuable insights into your website’s performance, identify areas for improvement, and make informed decisions to optimize your SEO strategy. This will ultimately help you improve your search engine rankings, drive more traffic to your website, and boost your sales and revenue.
As we move into the future, the landscape of SEO marketing continues to evolve with emerging trends and technologies. AI-driven algorithms, like Google Multitask Unified Model (MUM) and AI-chatbot Google Bard (Gemini), are transforming how search engines understand context and user intent. These advancements enable more accurate and relevant search results, making SEO more effective and user-centric.
Voice search is another trend gaining momentum, with significant growth expected in its usage for information retrieval and online purchases. Millennials are currently the most active internet users of voice assistants, highlighting the need for brands to adapt their SEO strategies to accommodate longer, conversational voice queries that align with search intent.
Additionally, search features play a critical role in addressing user habits for quick answers, particularly in the context of zero-click searches. By optimizing content with these search features, publishers can enhance their visibility and authority without requiring users to navigate away from the search results page.
By prioritizing structured data and optimizing for voice search, businesses can stay ahead in the ever-changing SEO landscape. Mastering SEO marketing is about more than just climbing the search engine rankings; it’s about creating a digital presence that resonates with your audience and drives meaningful engagement through content marketing. We’ve journeyed through the intricate world of SEO, from understanding its core components to exploring advanced strategies and future trends. Your success in this digital arena hinges on continuous learning and adaptation.
Now that you’re equipped with the knowledge and tools to enhance your SEO efforts, it’s time to take action. Remember, SEO is not a one-time task but an ongoing journey of optimization and growth. Embrace the power of search engine optimization to elevate your online presence, connect with your audience, and achieve your business goals. Let the bots align with your unique brand of genius!
What began as a struggle to be seen online has transformed into a calling to help others achieve the same visibility and truly SHINE. Learning SEO gave me the power to amplify my message, and now, it’s a tool I use to elevate the voices of others who care deeply about their work. Whether you’re a coach, creative, or conscious entrepreneur, your message matters. I’ve been in your shoes, and as an seo expert, I know how to build strategies that reflect your heart and your hustle.
I’m not just here to get you to rank—I’m here to help you rise with integrity, clarity, and confidence in your digital presence. Because SEO isn’t just about traffic; it’s about trust. And that’s something I’m proud to help you earn.
Now you know (and don't have to fear) that SEO marketing is a multifaceted discipline that requires a deep understanding of search engines, strategic planning, and continuous optimization. By mastering the core components of on-page, off-page, and technical SEO, you can enhance your website’s visibility and drive organic traffic. Developing an effective SEO strategy involves thorough keyword research, high-quality content creation, and robust link-building techniques. No one finds success alone, and it's always ok to ask for help...you just need to know who to trust. My journey through life and this space has made me one of those people so feel free to reach out.
As you embark on your SEO journey, remember that success is not instantaneous but a result of sustained efforts and adaptation to new trends. By leveraging tools like Google Analytics and Google Search Console, you can measure your performance and make data-driven decisions. Embrace the future of SEO with AI and voice search, and stay committed to building a trustworthy and engaging online presence.
SEO, or search engine optimization, is all about optimizing your website to rank higher in search engine results, making it easier for your target audience to find you. SEO stands for 'search engine optimization' and is a crucial process in digital marketing for improving website visibility and organic search rankings. By getting on that coveted first page of Google, you’re likely to attract more visitors and boost your online presence.
The main goal of SEO marketing is to boost your website's visibility on search engines, helping you attract more organic traffic and improve your rankings. Essentially, it’s all about getting noticed!
Search engines determine rankings by using algorithms that evaluate numerous factors like content relevance, quality, backlinks, and user experience. So, focusing on these aspects can help improve your ranking.
The three main types of SEO you should know about are on-page SEO, off-page SEO, and technical SEO, each targeting different elements to boost your website's visibility. Focusing on all three can significantly improve your search engine rankings!
Keyword research is super important because it helps you attract the right audience, boosts your conversions, and ensures your content aligns with what people are actually searching for.
Wendy
There is one sentence that when it is said, makes my cheeks flush and my ears burn:
“It’s just who I am.”
Even though I have published hundreds of blogs with The Optimists Journal, I have taken many breaks—when life calls for a more introspective place, or when I feel a period of learning and expansion that needs to happen on my own. The latter has been the case with my latest hiatus from publishing, but the grounded feeling of happiness I have as I return to it now feels unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. The things I have learned about myself, my direction and what I want to offer to the world have shaped me in ways I couldn’t have foreseen. I’m more present, more at ease, and more inspired than ever. And if I had decided at any point along the way that the person I was then was “just who I am”, I shudder to think about the consequences that would have on my mind, body, spirit and sense of connection I find today with others in the world.
I realize now that I definitely didn’t have this feeling at 23, the age my second born turned today. But at 50—this place I’m affectionately calling half-life—I can see the high points, rocky points in the roads, moments of intense joy and gut-wrenching pain along the path of my life with clarity because of the evolution of perspective that writing brings. This journey has been a profound exercise in personal development, allowing me to grow and understand myself in ways I never imagined.
For much of life, we’re told that our identity is fixed—that who we are is defined by our experiences, our past, or even our mistakes. But the longer I live, the more I realize that we are not who we are; we are simply where we are in this moment.
This realization aligns with the concept of quantum thinking, which involves holding multiple opposing thoughts simultaneously to discern the appropriate one to act upon.
I’ve learned a great unlock in this process, if you are standing at a downturn in the road and you feel fear creeping in, is to get curious about the possibilities about where you can go from here.
So many of the labels we carry—whether self-imposed or given to us by others—are just markers of a specific place in time, not the full picture of who we are becoming. And yet, we often cling to them as if they define us forever. *I’m just an anxious person.**I’m not good at relationships.*I’m not the type to take risks. These statements aren’t truths; they are simply reflections of where we’ve been standing.
I believe in the power of connection and learning through story—our lives are made up of them. But I also know how dangerous it is to get stuck in a story. It can begin to shape our reality, to limit what we allow ourselves to become. Some of the mistaken identities I’ve had over the years - shy, oversensitive, not focused, unloving, not cut out for this…the list could go on and on. I’m glad I didn’t stick with any of those labels, even though the process of releasing them too time and effort. Self actualization is a gift I will never take for granted.
One of the most powerful realizations I’ve had over the past few years is how limitless the human experience really is. If quantum mechanics and principles at the quantum level tell us anything, it’s that change is always possible—we are never as fixed or as stuck as we think we are.
There is a concept in physics that suggests reality is made up of infinite possibilities, all existing at once, waiting for us to observe and step into them. If we apply that idea to our own lives, it means that at any given moment, we have a choice: to continue reinforcing an old story or to step into a new one.
The words we speak, the beliefs we hold, the places we give our energy to—these are all shaping the reality we live in. And if we shift our perspective, even slightly, we start to see that there is so much more available to us than we ever imagined.
Self-awareness is the cornerstone of personal growth and transformation. It allows us to gain a deeper understanding of ourselves—our thoughts, emotions, and actions. When we cultivate self-awareness, we open the door to self-acceptance, self-compassion, and self-forgiveness, which are essential for leading a fulfilling life.
In my own journey, I’ve found that self-awareness has been a guiding light. It has helped me recognize my strengths and weaknesses, understand my values and motivations, and make informed decisions that align with my goals and aspirations. This deeper understanding of myself has not only led to personal growth but also professional success.
Moreover, self-awareness has enhanced my emotional intelligence, enabling me to navigate complex social situations and build stronger, more meaningful relationships. By embracing self-awareness, I’ve been able to break free from limiting beliefs and preconceived notions that once held me back. It has unlocked my experience of ever expanding potential, allowing me to experience life with a fresh perspective and a renewed sense of purpose.
I’ve seen firsthand how powerful this shift can be. The concept of 'appropriate thought' is crucial here, as it involves challenging preconceived beliefs and biases to navigate complex truths. Recently I had the blessing to visit Homeboy Industries. On the tour that morning with my dear friend Mollie, I witnessed people who, if they defined themselves by their worst day, would not have been the amazing people touring and telling their stories of human resilience, the mountains they have climbed and the amazing things they realized about themselves in the world during their ascent. Here they were, rewriting their stories, stepping into a completely new version of themselves, choosing to believe in something greater because of the depth of their spirits and the power of love, authenticity and real human connection.
They weren’t trapped by their past. They were standing in a different place than they had before.
It made me think—how many of us are unknowingly keeping ourselves stuck simply because we believe we are? How often do we let one experience, one chapter, one challenge define us, rather than seeing it as just another step on the path?
Discovering our true purpose is a journey of self-discovery that requires us to explore our passions, values, and strengths. It’s not just about what we do, but also about who we are and how we contribute to the world. When we align our actions and goals with our purpose, we experience a sense of direction, motivation, and fulfillment that is unparalleled.
In my own life, finding my true purpose has been a transformative experience. It has helped me overcome uncertainty and self-doubt, and has unlocked the experience of ever expanding potential for personal growth and professional success. Living a life of purpose has brought me a greater sense of well-being, happiness, and deep fulfillment.
Our purpose is a guiding star that helps us navigate the complexities of life. It gives us the strength to persevere through challenges and the clarity to make decisions that align with our values. By embracing our purpose, we can experience a deeper connection with ourselves and the world around us.
Change and uncertainty are inevitable aspects of life. They require us to adapt and evolve in order to thrive. By embracing change and uncertainty, we can develop a growth mindset that allows us to approach challenges with curiosity and openness.
In my own journey, I’ve learned to reframe obstacles as opportunities for growth and learning. This mindset has helped me develop resilience and perseverance, enabling me to navigate the ups and downs of life with grace. Embracing change and uncertainty has also required me to let go of limiting beliefs and preconceived notions, and to be open to new experiences and perspectives.
By doing so, I’ve unlocked my full potential for personal growth and professional success. I’ve experienced a greater sense of well-being and fulfillment, and have been able to approach life with a fresh perspective. Embracing change and uncertainty has been a powerful catalyst for my personal and professional development.
Life isn’t meant to be a single, linear narrative. It’s a mosaic—a collection of moments, lessons, detours, and growth. Each piece matters, but no single one defines the whole.
As I reflect on turning 50, on what it means to be at half-life, I find deep gratitude in the ability to zoom out and appreciate the fullness of it all—the heartbreaks and triumphs, the seasons of solitude and expansion, the parts where I felt lost and the moments where I finally found my footing again. These experiences have provided valuable insights into the complexities of life and personal growth.
The lesson in all of it? You are not one experience, one moment, or one version of yourself. You are a dynamic, ever-evolving being with limitless potential.
So, the next time you catch yourself saying, “This is just who I am,” I invite you to pause. Instead, try asking:
“What if this is just where I am?”
And then, with curiosity, start exploring where you could go next.
Well-being is a holistic concept that encompasses our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual health. By cultivating well-being, we can experience a greater sense of overall well-being, happiness, and fulfillment.
In my own life, prioritizing well-being has been essential for my personal growth, parenting and professional success. It has shown me how to prioritize self-care, participate in activities that bring me joy and fulfillment, and cultivate positive relationships. How we value well-being is also closely linked to our sense of purpose and meaning, requiring us to align our actions and goals with our values and aspirations.
By prioritizing well-being, I’ve developed a greater sense of resilience and perseverance. It has unlocked my ever expanding potential and allowed me to experience life with a deeper sense of fulfillment. Cultivating well-being has been a transformative journey, one that has enriched my life in countless ways.
This is just the beginning of a new chapter for The Optimist Journal, as a production of Be Better Media, as these have been different creations of where I have been and what I have learned on the path of life. Who I am will always be an act of becoming, and in acknowledging that, I am free to be authentic and of service. What I have discovered about what this looks like, you will find on both my Coaching site and Marketing site . I’m excited to share more in the weeks to come. And as always, If this post resonated with you, let me know—I’d love to hear your thoughts and where you find yourself on your own remarkable path.
If you're curious about where you might be headed next, let’s explore that together.
In the each and every blog, I am going to suggest a Book of the Week or Song of the Week because of the value and healing I have found in lyrics and written words.
My pick for this week is: Cherished Belonging by Fr. Gregory Boyle (Founder of Homeboy Industries...keep your tissue nearby)
Wendy
There are a million reasons why people find it difficult to be themselves. Between codependency, people pleasing, FOMO, FOPO, traumatic experiences and relationships, getting to the essence of our being and feeling free enough to express ourselves is life’s greatest challenge and gift. Being that it’s almost the 4th of July and post that tragic Presidential debate, it is more enticing for me to focus on the freedom that lies within each of us when we learn to be more authentically ourselves and hope that our healing and autonomy create a groundswell for our country. I’m excited to start sharing a vision I’ve been working on for some time now that aligns with my nature as a mother and healer, my two favorite hats I’ve loved wearing in this life.
I’ve lived in many homes over my lifetime and I’d venture to guess there will be more. Home is a feeling, not a place for me, so the reason I am where I am right now is because of the feeling I got when I walked into this space for the first time. It was warm and inviting and safe; a place where I could hang my ‘Cultivate Calm’ sign and Maya Angelou quotes on the walls and start to find my way back to myself again. Built in 1937, it’s a happy house that is meant to be shared and nothing feels better than doing that with my kids, family and friends.
Beyond my life at home, guiding four kids through some of the most heart opening events and stories, as well as some amazing mothers and daughters that have become chosen family. I have gravitated to so many healing modalities from body and energy work to narrative therapy and yoga, each of them has played and built deep connections with healers that I believe are making the world better one session at a time. On these tables and in their classes, I have established deep trust and friendship with so many talented and loving humans.
I’m excited to blend what I’ve learned from them, as well as my training in The Emotion Code and Somatic Coaching work to help others unlock their own self healing and find the freedom that comes with our fullest expression of self. My creativity, wisdom and practitioner knowledge are finding a home of their own this summer, blending ancestral knowledge and healing practices to help elevate the path for young women and athletes. The first events of this vision will come to fruition this summer.
Stay tuned. I'm excited to reveal more information in the coming weeks about how you can get involved.
With optimism,
Wendy
March 19, 2023
I don’t remember the exact date, but it was a Friday afternoon in 2014. Clear blue skies, volleyball practice had been canceled for some reason I can’t remember, and our family was on the beach. There were four kids running around in the sand with nowhere else to be. I remember thinking that life didn’t get better than this. Simple is good and noticing that is even better.
Within two years, everything about those kinds of moments changed. Nearly 20 years of a relationship crumbled and left me digging deeper to figure out why. Disconnection, not just between two people, or even within a nuclear family…disconnection that goes back generations, to times when we thought toughing it out and keeping a stiff upper lip was the way to survive. I wasn’t around then, and toughness and grit to get through hard things definitely serve a purpose, but the disconnection that takes place over time because we turn away instead of looking within severs the root of our families.
Generational healing may sound heavy or complicated but what I’ve found is that it’s about finding our way back to a simple feeling, like that one I had on the beach. It's a work in progress, not a destination...but figuring things out for ourselves about why we are the way we are, and the kind of ripple effect we are capable of can feel really good. Our ability to connect with ourselves and not wiggle out of it or turn away when the things we encounter get uncomfortable, or distract ourselves with outside noise from the things that matter most. Our ability to be present, sit quietly, and take in our own thoughts, hopes and dreams and connect them with our goals and plans for our lives.
Only when we restore connection with ourselves can we peel back the layers and make peace with past traumas in our family lines.
In this unfolding and unlearning of the old ways that we thought were keeping us safe, we start to understand our inherent worth, strength, and the agency we have in our lives. We begin to love ourselves more, criticize ourselves less, and form interdependent rather than codependent relationships that create families and communities where everyone is able to work from their strengths. We stop minimizing each other, talking about what could go wrong and start looking how to make things right. Right isn’t perfect, it’s just a little bit better and more connected every day. No shame in the mistakes, just opportunities to learn and help each other navigate things more smoothly the next time.
What happens if we turn away from healing?
I’ve heard it said that addiction is the opposite of connection. Addiction will always push away love and, according to Native American wisdom, makes its mark for seven generations to come. It leaves fractured homes and dinner tables, violates safety and dignity, and creates disparity in any home it lives. Eventually, whether that home splits apart or stays together, without connection, the home is broken and the patterns that come from that create paths that destroy our health and relationships. This pain is expressed on every level from deep within the cells in our bodies and dysregulated nervous systems. If left unresolved, it cycles over and over again, cutting its path over generations of families that no matter how much they love each other, they still cause each other too much pain.
At this point, if you know me, and have been listening to my thoughts for a while, you are looking for the good news. Where is the optimism and opportunity? The answer to that lies in the agency that is within every single human to persevere, to look at themselves and see what’s working and what could be different to be better. I have always believed it was there for anyone, and now the stories that are flowing through my podcast are bringing the living, breathing, examples of human resilience that reinforce my belief that healing is always possible.
How does it happen? It happens when we stop talking about other people and start talking to ourselves. It happens when we start to understand and practice the tools that connect us with our physical, mental and spiritual being. There are no silver bullets, no biohacks, but there can be a graceful pattern of trial and error while we discover what works for us. Sometimes it takes ignoring what other people think and discovering what works for you. It’s a journey of reconnection through unlearning the habits of control and survival. Then we discover how to be present in our bodies and minds and know that when we let go of the expectation of what ‘should’ be, we become grounded and calm knowing that through whatever will be, we will be ok. And from this new calm we find grounded energy that flows.
What are these tools that help us connect? Yoga, breath work, prayer, meditation, journaling, whole foods, daily movement, music, animals, nature, grounding, talk therapy, physical therapy, chiropractic care, energy healing, acupuncture, social interaction, alone time, hydration, supplementation, fasting…the list goes on. I’m sure you could add some of your own. I don’t list all of these things to overwhelm you, but find hope that there are so many little acts to love ourselves that help connect us to our true selves. Figuring out your personal alchemy is fun, and it doesn’t look like anyone else’s.
Generational learning is what we are after here at Be Better Media where one of my goals is to begin to reverse engineer the process of the generational healing we need by creating space for people to be heard and connect with their purpose. Gigantic visions are made up of little consistent steps everyday, but you don’t have to take them all by yourself. Come find me on What I Meant to Say to hear stories of other people committed to being better one day at a time. These conversations have created more moments in the sun for me and helped create more opportunities for health, healing and ability to go with the flow in life by learning more about the human experience and what we are capable of. Keep following along…better is coming with the connections we make with each other everyday.
Happy 21st Birthday Luke, thank you for teaching me how to stress less and love more. So proud of you everyday.
With optimism,
Wendy
