This Blog's For You!

Last week I battled low energy, I admit. In the endless quagmire of too much to do, too little time, I re-shifted a lot of priorities in my life to make room for several new ventures. I view them all as wonderful opportunities gifted to me by a higher source. That being acknowledged, it did make me want to sit down and have a conversation with said higher source about what exactly I spiritually agreed to. I have not questioned a thing from my higher source. Not when it spoke to me and told me to become a life coach, change my career and quit my job, marry my beloved, or move across the country. I honored each request, sometimes puzzled by the implications it would have on my life (What do you mean I will have to go without a steady paycheck, higher source?). Each time, though, my fears were alleviated and my higher source provided me with more than I could have imagined. Now with this lingering sense of apprehension, I had to ask myself a difficult question: am I...(long pause)...imbalanced? One thing I am profoundly grateful for is my inner balancing beam. I am in tune with my mind and body and I can no longer get away with the painful task of waiting out a bad experience. If it does not feel right I want to know why and I want to self-correct. I left behind needless self suffering with my last wave of self-realization. To paraphrase what Victor Frankel so elegantly wrote in Man's Search For Meaning, we can always get through the how if we know the why. So in feeling this off-kilter bobbling within mind and body this week, I brought out the big guns of re-connecting to the source: Chi Kung, silent prayer, soothing music, journaling, self-coaching, meditation, and a small helping of Wayne Dyer. Usually I can get away with one or two as a means of re-shifting my energy, but this time I needed it all. Searching for some peace of mind in these places was like coming home again. Each silent action brought me closer to peace, revitalized my inspiration and renewed my will to go further than I had before. It also served as a reminder that my life is better served when I pay attention to that which brought me to this place- my connection to and communication with a power greater than myself. This blog's for you, higher source.

When you are feeling low on energy, what is your source of inspiration?

Balancing Act

It has been such a long time since my last post, it almost felt like I was never going to come back. Almost. Life has this way of sweeping you up, like a tornado, and dropping you off somewhere else, somewhere unrecognizable. Like a dream, reality can be familiar and strange, co-existing somewhere in between. Recently I've spent a lot of energy self coaching. I opened myself up in ways I never imagined I would- starting a new practice, changing careers, planning a wedding, joining a volunteer organization and pursuing further education. The result is too many to-do lists, moments of questioning my abilities, and a lot of emails. Ultimately, it has opened my boundaries to new possibilities. I am open and I am learning something new about the world every day. So much of my journey has been looking deep inside myself that the refreshing quest to find how best I can serve has been an exciting personal movement filled with anticipation. I wonder how much I can truly take on and how much I can let go. And I find myself re-evaluating my priorities and I know now, like I never did before, when I am not in balance. It is a new feeling, to be so sensitized to this knowledge of my inner self. To be constantly aware, to be able to correctly identify an emotion, to know my limits-it is a phenomenal discovery. The next step, the opportunity to self-correct, is what I look forward to exploring. It will not be easy, not now that I invited this into my life, to say no. It will not be easy, now that expectations are set, to gently lay them back down. Still, it is more difficult to be untrue to myself, and suffering through painful experiences for the sake of propriety is no longer an option. So, yes, I have been a long time gone. But I think about this journey often. And I feel a sweet relief knowing that I am finding my equilibrium simply through expressing my awareness of imbalance. And that is how it is done.

Puzzle

I have come to look at life as an "enlightened" logic game. Now, coming from me this is amusing, as I am known for my intuition and my heart, but logic? I do like puzzles though- all kinds of puzzles and life is certainly puzzling. More so than that, it is a series of moves, exchanges of energy, putting things in place in order to make room for something else. For instance, if you are working on a jigsaw puzzle, all the pieces are right in front of you but the picture can't be completed all at once without putting the other pieces together first. The picture is there and it is always beautiful and attainable, but it takes a piece at a time, just like your life. You can't force it and in time all the pieces match, but patience is the key. How beautiful could life be if we knew that our picture was already painted and our part was to have fun learning where everything goes, moving things here and there, experimenting, triumphant at times, failing at others, but always sure of a victorious outcome? This is how successful people think! We tend to think of the tortured soul who is uncomfortable with his own genius, but truly successful people already know that their picture is complete, so it doesn't matter where the pieces fall because it is going in it's rightful place. Take comfort in knowing your moves are a part of a bigger plan and believe that the journey of learning and discovery is what life is really all about. The ending will come, of that we can be sure. Everything else unfolds as it will, and we can either worry about what the picture will look like or just learn to love the picture as it unfolds effortlessly before our very eyes.

What If

I am sure I am not alone when I say that I anticipate the future. I continue to peak around every corner of my life, wondering "What is next?" Even if I am not deliberately doing it, the minute I close my eyes my mind wanders in spaces it can't do when I am engaging in the living, waking world. If I close my eyes and fall into a deep sleep, my dreams will make it clear where my subconscious wants to take me. I literally can not escape it. And yet, as part of my soul searching, I tend to take a different view these days of pesky thoughts. Instead of thinkging in circles or ignoring them altogether, I peel them away by layers. What do I feel? Why do I feel it? Confronting these thoughts and then exposing them for the angst- ridden pests that they are truly lets me know again and again that I can not be a crystal ball. I have no idea what tomorrow is going to bring or if tomorrow will even happen. Looking around for the next big thing is a sure sign that I am not in my right place. If I turned back the clock, I could easily say that today is and always has been the next big thing. Dealing with this simple revelation of relativity always brings me back to the moment and slows everything down. The anticipation of tomorrow always reminds me of what I do not have, what I am lacking and how I need to get there. Contrary to what most people believe, getting there is really only important if you know where you want to go. We can always have goals to reach, but what is really important is the feelings that we have when we reach them. If constantly getting somewhere only makes you want to be somewhere else, the journey may ultimately feel rather pointless. Anxiety over the future also brings a lot of negative emotions which translate directly into negative energy, and like attracts like, and so on and so forth. The more anticipation and anxiety build up, the harder it is for the things we want to find us in the fog of negative thinking. There is definitely a fight or flight instinct that kicks in to make this very difficult, as human beings, to not anticipte the dangers of the future. However, it is mindfulness of your thoughts that makes you uniquely human and it is in our power and control to shift your thoughts from surviving to thriving. Using your humanity to attract powerful thoughts by simply not giving in to primal instinct and knowing the difference between fear and anxiety- real threat versus perceived threat- will change your life. When you are in danger, you will be distinctly aware. But if you are basing your life on "what if" thoughts, you are only a danger to yourself.

Write Away...

I am sitting at my dining room table, enjoying a cup of coffee, and tapping away at my laptop. I have always envisioned this as my perfect moment- the life of a writer. Although I am not getting paid, so I cannot exactly say I am living the dream. Yet somehow, it all comes down to this moment. I think I expected my success to come in a pretty picture, usually involving glowing skin, happy smiles, and piles of money. And maybe that will happen one day, and I can certainly get carried away by the picture. But right now, as the words come to me, I quietly close my eyes, finding my way around the keyboard and let the thoughts flow through me. Success in its physical form is simply a transference of energy from the spiritual realm. Our psyche, happy and healthy, is the greatest success we can master. Feeling energy flow through my body, and coming up with something to say, something meaningful, creating words that have been strung together a million, trillion times, but not quite in this order, and somehow finding a new meaning, is success. Writing for the pure excitement of seeing what I am really thinking, instead of hiding away in my subconscious, is a great success. Feeling the keys as they jump up and down excitedly beneath my finger pads is truly a marvel. Being here, eyes closed, and imagining what the spelling mistakes will amount to, is also pretty amusing. I may not have sat down with any message, nothing bright and clear that will make a difference, but to me, being able to express myself in a coherent, linear form, rather than a mass of words and images in my head, is a huge success. I think today you should write something down too. Get in touch with your inner source of energy. See what you have to say to yourself. And just enjoy the moment, small as it is. And then someday, you can go back and read what you wrote and that moment will be encapsulated for all time.

Being Right Never Felt So Good

As a Virgo, I am going to stereotype myself and say that I fit into that class of people that really likes perfection. I am a stickler for getting the job done before deadline and under budget. And yet, I find myself wondering about the imperfections as of late: those times when the conversation does not go smoothly, the plans that fall through, or when my emotions get the better of me. I like to stay in control, and I always like to give myself a good mental beating when I lose my cool. And then I come back to the idea of imperfection and I wonder if it is really not about getting it "right" at all but to embrace me, my experiences, for exactly as they unfold before my eyes. Simple, yes. Easy? Nah. But that is exactly what started to happen- the proverbial light bulb in my head told me that my lesson was to find grace in losing, laughter when I am getting it all wrong, smiling when the balls I so nimbly juggle begin falling at my feet. And then when that thought sunk in, I felt liberated in a way that theoretical lessons will never do it for me- I started to want to fail. I looked for the opportunity to pat myself on the back when the cards were not in my favor, to feel deep gratitude when what once seemed like an obstacle I had to push down was a gate I simply unlocked and strolled through. And then as synchronicity always plays a part, I read something that just jumped off the page. We are not here, in this life, so that we never experience emotional pain or hurt or even anguish. We are here to overcome it, to even embrace it, and to become more spiritually aware because of it. When we come across someone who is giving us a good fight, we can feel gratitude toward this person as our teacher. And if we do not recognize the teacher, we will be sent an even stronger teacher with a more powerful version of the same lesson. For me, my recurring lesson is to continually re-create my vision of perfection. The conversation or the experience or the relationship will not always go smoothly, but if I can accept that which occurs without the doubt and residual feelings of failure, if I can see it each time as a small win on this journey we call life, than it will always, undoubtedly, without hesitation, be...perfect.

Accept the Unexpected

I am working on acceptance...not just accepting myself and the people in my life for exactly who they are (although that has been a journey unto itself) but accepting of the moment, whatever happens in that space of time. I am learning a lot about this, and frankly I've been a little surprised at what I am discovering for I had this idea that life is supposed to look like I imagined it. I kind of figured that with my new search for peace and purpose, life would be one big crispy potato chip (my apologies to those who enjoy chocolate covered sundae metaphors). The search for acceptance boils down to the here and now...whether things are going the way you would like is pretty much irrelevant to the source of your happiness. At least, that is what is being asked of our acceptance. Life will go this way and that, things are truly out of our control, and the times you can accept it, the times you can be like water and flow through the currents of life, are the times when true peace will be yours. Is this easy to do? Only when you have figured out that it's not so complicated after all, but that could take us a lifetime or one hundred lifetimes. The more we believe we can control the flow of life, the longer we hold on to the illusion that we do not have to "accept" anything, the harder the struggle to live in the here and now. While we live in an ever burgeoning world of complex technology that purports to simplify our existence, remember there is nothing more beautiful than silence, nothing more brilliant than the human body, nothing more satisfying than a moment that offers a glimpse of eternity. It may appear that things are not "going your way" though remember this is a tricky illusion. Once you accept that everything that happens can be and is your way, you will be ever closer to finding true acceptance, to claiming true happiness.

Today, I am going to accept all things that come my way, without judging the experiences as good or bad. How can you practice acceptance in your life?

Is It Now Yet?

I find myself chasing my thoughts into tomorrow instead of taking the moment in, with each breath. I used to be a past kind of girl- going over that which happened and then turning it over and over until I had either made sense of it, or uncovered more memories that complicated it even more. Over the past year, I have made great peace with my past, and rarely spend time anymore delving into it. I have learned that the past is simply a trap in which I fall, one in which I can not become the woman I intend to be because I am too focused on the girl I was. In thinking of the past, I find its only use is to understand it, so I can understand the reasons why I do things in the present. All in all, I tend to live with a great saying I heard once "the past is a different country..they do things differently there". Ironically, my mind now catapults me into the future-- the what ifs of life that can turn a perfectly great moment into a mind fluttering, thought provoking race to nowhere. Whereas I once had a handle on what my days would look like, and life no longer held any surprise, the past was a warm, if sometimes scalding, blanket of memories I could always snuggle up to, and one that held endless possibilities of discovery. Now my life has changed drastically and I have no idea what tomorrow is supposed to look like, and the uncertainty of the future has me questioning everything, and the pit in my stomach that was once regret has settled in as apprehension. In exploring these feelings within myself, I find even more evidence of how much our outside circumstances leave us vulnerable- like a garden that is exposed to the slightest change in temperature and moisture that means the difference between growth or death. The opportunity here is to, metaphorically, of course, find my own endless source of light and water. Left to the outside forces of life, I will always topple in the winds of change. Exposed to the harsh elements of things that do not go my way or words that pierce my heart, I fall into old habits of what ifs.

There are many techniques that can be incorporated for in the moment living. One that I have had a great breakthrough with lately is harnessing your power. I used to believe that if I wanted something to happen, I would have to share it with everyone, thereby getting my message to the universe. If you believe that your thoughts and words are really energy, then you can see how this might be a challenge as you are essentially giving it away. And if someone does not reciprocate your feelings, or if they do not share your desires, it can be very depleting. The universe is very good at listening, and I know now that if I channel my thoughts as intentions of pure energy, I can be very effective without losing one bit of my power. The need to share of ourselves can be a very human and beautiful thing, as long as we are sharing that which we hold in complete confidence and knowing. If we turn to others to hear their opinion or gain their approval (even on a subconscious level) we will be knocked down very easily. When we are certain and steadfast in our path, the potential to be in the moment is so incredibly powerful. If you are not worrying about the future, or what someone is going to say, or has said in the past, then it is so much easier to be present, and calm, and at peace.

Harness your power intentionally. Do not feel it is ever your obligation to confess your deepest desires and, by all means, if you want to share it, sing it loud and sing it proud. In reserving your desires for yourself, your mind becomes attached to the universal source, a quiet place of power that can only root you deeper into yourself and the divinity that is now.

Cleaning Out the Closet of My Mind

Ever since my last blog, I have felt the veil of confusion slip away. In its place is a wonderful reminder of awareness: that I can choose to participate in any reality I can imagine. We always have this awareness, but so often it is obscured by the fear and anxiety in our lives. It takes a lot of work and focus to come back to this place of calm and wonder, but we are, each and every one of us, quite resilient. In honor of this lesson, I decided to pack up my bags and move back home, and face my (hopefully) tiny visitor head on. If we were meant to meet, so be it. Somehow, I knew in my heart that the choice to confront my situation would be enough to overcome it. Wouldn't you know, I am visitor free since I moved back and whenever I feel anxiety that he (or she) will return, I gently move the negative thoughts out of my mind, like a cloud gently changing shape right before my eyes.
This newfound courage to call the bluff on my fears also meant I wanted to feel a part of my home again (instead of the castaway I had chosen to become. I took the opportunity to move furniture into new places and conquered some long overdue spring cleaning. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by the loss of my sanctuary, I am now excited to wake up in the morning and feel the new energy flow through my space. What a way to turn the situation around!
Awareness is the keystone in our lives, connecting parts that would otherwise not fit and making them a part of the whole. Always keep in the forefront of your mind that the more you focus on what you do not want, the likelier it will focus on you. In co-creating your reality, it is of infinite importance to concentrate and communicate to the universe only the message that you want heeded. Like a game of telephone, the words and meaning can quickly take you far from the place you intend to go. Be simple, be affirmative, and be specific with your requests.

Learning the hard way...

There are a lot of excellent resources that tell you why the loss of control takes us from the path of withdrawal to elation. Losing the sense of being in control (because it really is just a sensation) reveals what is behind the curtain of ourselves. As we know academically, and with some work, practically, the only thing we control is how we perceive our own experiences. What happens when the curtain of control comes down? Who are we in the times when the loss of control in our world starts a downward spiral? A recent chain of events showed me some very real evidence and, while it is probably my most personal post to date, I found it was the only way I could convey these thoughts around this subject. You see, I have been of the mind that I am on a very important self discovery journey in which I was going to let the illusion of control go, and I was going to reveal my true self. This has actually worked for a period of many months, where my mind over matter philosophy has prevailed in every way possible. I was asking the universe for whatever I wanted, and she was doing an excellent job of providing. The positivity was flowing and I was feeling like a guru: ecstatic, silent, non -judgmental and very powerful.



Things did not come crashing down right away, but became more of a gentle spiral in a direction in which I had not planned for my journey (control issues- check). At first, I was high off of my loss of control, abandoning all the conventional wisdom of security that had previously been holding me back. When the glow started to wear off, and the glow only wore off because I resumed listening to my old self, it got very dull indeed. How genuine had my transformation been, I asked myself, if I was going to have my old reactions to the new events in my life? My self judgment grew into more judgment that ultimately began to consume my thoughts. The more I gave myself a hard time the faster the spiral started to go. I could slow the spiral down but I could no longer seem to reverse the direction. All of a sudden, I could not seem to find my peaceful place even though the solution was so obvious. How could I find my isle of peace in this immense sea of judgment? The less things seemed to "go my way" the harder I was on myself, all to frighteningly reminding me of how hard I had worked myself in the past- and reversing all the work I had done to increase my consciousness and awareness over the past year. This self-punishing style had not served me well before, but I was somehow fighting the simple solution of self love and acceptance that I absolutely knew would serve me best. This conflict was silently rising within me. Then something happened that really showed me in a very physical way what was manifesting in my mind. I went on a road trip for 3 weeks, leaving my sanctuary of home to stay in a different city every two nights. While it was immensely fun, I uprooted myself in a very real way. While I was gone, my landlord was uprooting our apartment, breaking earth to build onto the home. When I returned , something felt different. My quiet sanctuary felt a little too quiet, and I felt like a stranger in my home for days. The excitement of the trip wore off, and the uncertainty of things I had left unsettled began unsettling my mind. Then one morning as I was cleaning off my kitchen counter, I came across trails of a visitor that was all too non-human. I lost my facade of calm and my inner conflict came tumbling out- I felt myself crumble inside and out, and I took it incredibly personal. I was not clean enough (which I know I am), I was irresponsible to leave (which I knew I was not), and I deserved this because... well...why did I deserve this? For a week, I cracked under the pressure of the unknown visitor, silently stalking me at night, so fearful of one another that our paths never crossed. I was no longer handling crises with aplomb that I had long ago established was "my thing". I am strong, and resolute, and now I was a mess because I have...and then I cannot say it because saying it out loud will confirm it. It will confirm my downward spiral, culminating in my worst nightmare coming true.

I send out kind, loving mental messages to my unwanted visitor. At first, I do not want to harm him (yes, it is a he) and think I will use my mind to create a boundary around my home. I think this may work, and I feel like I can have a win-win (so like me, a pleaser to the core)...me and my visitor getting what we both want (I assume a life in which I can resume walking through my house at night and my visitor gets to return to his hole in the ground). Coincidentally, I also inherit a human visitor the same morning and share with my friend my quandary and strategy (my friend is not phased by my other visitor and gives me my first clue that I may perhaps be taking this a little too hard). She then recounts a story of a Buddhist monastery that was having multiple visitors of a different breed, and how because they are Buddhist monks and deeply believe in reincarnation, they allow these multiple visitors of a different breed to coexist while they prayed and meditated for their safe and speedy departure. Well, she informs me that this does not work, not sure why, and they discover their monastery will be condemned if they do not refuse their visitors a "work permit". Deciding that should they be condemned, the building will just go to someone else who will have no issues of exterminating the problem, the Buddhists make the decision to deny access, with the reason that if they close down, they will not be able to help people who come to them, and that their overall purpose is enough to take more drastic measures. I have already decided halfway through this story that I am no match for a group of monks in meditation, and I go to Plan B, which is to take the least invasive action and hope my visitor will get the message. In conjunction with a little help from my friends at the hardware store, I tell my visitor that this place is no longer safe, and that he has to stay away for his own good. In these beginning stages, I am hoping and praying that it does not come to a showdown, but this game of cat and mouse weakens my resolve and sends me deeper into my spiral. By day 5 I have started to see that it is going to be me or the visitor, as I pack my bags and make even better friends with the men at the hardware store. You see, like the monks I realize that if I am condemned, I can be of no service to others. And then it hits me, it hits me hard and fast, that this visitor is an externalization of my own fears in my head, a living representation of my worst nightmare- a complete loss of control, loss of my sanctuary, and loss of peace of mind. The anxiety of the uknown is paralyzing me in a way I have never thought possible for this mover and shaker, my path unclear, my mind dark with possibilities. As I realize my unwanted mental visitors have manifested in my physical unwanted visitor, I begin to answer the question I always ask myself these days- where is the opportunity in this situation? (I am not lying- this was a very hard one to answer). If you ask this question, I believe you will find an answer worth discovering, and better to know now than repeat the lesson later. And this is really, really a lesson I do not want to have again. Even though I find it easier to fall back into my pattern of panic when things are not quite going my way, and I can assure you this is so far from my way I will need a GPS to get me back, I find the answer continues to be as simple as it always is: my physical world will follow wherever my mind takes it. Fear will beget fear, and if I am so lucky, peace will beget peace. As I am learning this lesson, I find that while my reactions have not really changed (life still gets the best of me despite my highest hopes) I remind myself that there is a lesson here. Even as I set the traps for my unwanted visitor, I must instill the same red flags for my unwanted thoughts- one will not do without the other. I will take this lesson with me: that while I have lost the illusion of control of my sanctuary, it is in my power to harness my thoughts and examine my perceived fears, which may, if I play my mental cards right, take care of my other visitor as well.

Today I ask: what unwanted thoughts may be creating an unwanted physical manifestation in your life?

Judgment Day

We have talked about change before, but it's really a topic that deserves some true exploration and one I can see musing about often (fair warning!). You see, change is something that intrinsically feels like it has to happen around us in order for our true selves to flourish. Even when we believe we are changing ourselves, we often change our habits (eating less) or engage in new ones (exercise more) in order to drive results. We change the action, and often times, the physical result does look different. But how does it make us feel? We can change the way we look and how we present ourselves to the world, but who are we on the day when that some one or some circumstance does not honor the change? Who are we when we look and feel our best, but we do not get the response we were hoping for? What do we do when we prepare for a big moment, only to fall short in other people's eyes? If the answer is not a whole hearted affirmation for our choice, then we are stagnant in our journey. It does not matter if we move forward, sideways or backwards, as long as we are moving. This is the change from the inside- the one that happens in our own lens of the world, the acceptance of ourselves and the realization that what other people think of us, even to the smallest degree, will always put an obstacle in our path. Removing obstacles is much easier than mining through the friends we have, paring down our activities and limiting our interaction with emotionally draining people or experiences. While all of these things can and will provide temporary relief to engage ourselves more fully in ourselves, they are just illusions of the change we need to fulfill within our true hearts. When the changes we make to the outside world affect how the outside world views us, it can influence how we feel about our own journey. But revolutionary metamorphasis occurs when we put on our blinders to the people around us- because we cannot and will never be able to control their reactions to us. We could always try and liken ourselves in each moment to tailor to the person or experience with which we are dealing (and how often we do!) but the truth is that this behavior is exhausting work and takes up too much of our energy! It also masks our true nature in a very skilled social dance that we have been practicing our whole lives. We often cage our identity in a very neat package and show that side to the world very strategically, but we all have our dark side of the moon. It is in bringing out that side to ourselves, for ourselves, and embrace the light and the dark of ourselves, that we no longer spend all the energy to hide our secret shame and guilt, or simply our uniqueness, our gifts, for fear of the judgment that tags along for the ride. The harshest judgment comes from that which we label upon ourselves, and that fear translates effortlessly into our existence, starkly mirroring back to us all that we fear in ourselves. Let your journey take you to those places that you have kept hidden and allow the full reveal, as you may find that this release is enough to be the change in yourself that has been deflected in the struggle to change others perceptions of you. Notice that which you judge in others, and see how harshly you are really judging yourself. No change is greater or more fulfilling than the one in which you remove the fear and judgment of ourselves from the equation. If you are full of acceptance, it will never matter if someone does not approve of your choices or tries to knock you off your path. When you realize that they too are on the journey of removing the lens of judgment from themselves, you will finally understand, to begin with, it was never about you at all.

Today I will consciously notice the lens of judgment I put on myself and others. What can you do today?

A New Paradigm

When life gets hard, really gut wrenching bad, we make a change, whatever change calls to us the loudest, whichever one is causing the most pain. It can be a career change, a new job, ending a relationship, or moving across the country- we have been engrained to our core to change the state of our circumstances rather than the state of our being.

It is written in the Constitution, and we have heard it repeated countless times, that we have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness...It has been hailed by so many our whole existence, that to question it, to dig deeper, feels distinctly un-patriotic. But it is time to dig a little deeper into this human right and see how it might be crippling our ability to change the paradigm of happiness that we have oft repeated. Happiness seems like the key word here but it is neatly hidden in a preposition, unable to stand alone to make a complete sentence. It is entirely dependent on the word pursuit, which actually creates its own mini-statement. The constitution gives us the right to pursue. One definition of pursuit is an effort to secure or obtain. Synonyms include : chase, hunt, search, preoccupation, inclination. It says we have the right to the pursuit, the chase, the catch 'em if we can philosophy of your average stalker. And everyday, we arm ourselves for the chase, the hunt, the search and more often than the constitution would probably like to admit, we come up empty handed.

We currently live in a culture of Do Have Be*, which basically states if I do something (work hard) I will have something (lots of money) I will be this way (happy). It is essentially the modern work ethic of our parents and grandparents and goes back to a very strong philosophy contained in the origins of our American legacy. It is the right to do anything you want and therefore, attain that which your work fairly rewards. It is a meritocracy based on doing as much as you can and ending up at the end with a pay day. We are basically trained to be terribly suspicious of anyone who has not worked up the ladder, and overly enchanted by the lore of the those who have "pulled themselves up by their bootstraps".

Now consider the Be Do Have paradigm which distinctly and irrevocably reverses the order: to (be) happy, to (do) that which you love, and (have) abundance. It is long documented that material abundance is much more enjoyable and worthwhile when we already have love and peace of mind. True abundance happens when we are living this principle of being in a state of happiness, and accepting that which comes our way because of our magnetism for life. The chances that we take when we expect to work hard to find happiness are too great. How much easier to just live in the state which you were previously pursuing, thus having already won at the game of life. If we are trying to work so hard to get the things we need to maybe find the feelings we imagine are there, we are playing an enormous game of chance with our lives.

So if you are going to work hard at something, work at this- find your peace of mind, your place of happiness, and learn to ignore your detractors, as well meaning as they prove to be. There will always be someone from the old school of thinking who will tell you that when you are in conflict you need to do something, change your circumstance, fill your time, work hard at a job, and pursue your happiness. It is these times of temptation to turn back to this old paradigm that is ill fitted to a new world to go deep inside yourself and tap your untold abundance. Remember it may feel easier to change your circumstances than your state of being, but circumstances are short lived and last only long enough to remind us again that it is we who need to change from the inside out, not the outside in.

*There are many references to the Be Do Have principle. I most recently read about it in Shortcut to a Miracle, in which it properly references the origins.

Rain in the Grass

It's been raining for weeks on end, and the weather has been a bit perplexing. I've been made aware of something called seasonal lag (or drag?) in which each month, which should normally correspond to the appropriate picture on a calendar (October = Multicolored Leaves and Pumpkins), is acting like a teenager who doesn't want to get out of bed. So it sounds something like June screaming, "Let me be May one more month, Mom (or Mother Earth, depending on your level of formality.) So, what does this mean to the rest of us? Depending on your makeup, some people (like me, ahem) tend to be lighter, more energetic, and just plain ecstatic when the sun is shining. But today, as one more person was expressing their distaste for the endless rain parade, they threw one last line in that completely caught me off guard. This instant of reframing went something like this- "I guess I will just have to get done what I normally would get done, like if I lived in a place that snows all winter - life would just have to move on." Aha! It occurred to me that it is so natural and acceptable to bow out of life due to severe weather conditions.

Rainy days usually give us a unilateral reason to feel unproductive, lazy, cozy, even gleeful that we get to stay indoors and read a good book instead of feeling pressure to "get something done" while the gardens get tended, the cars get washed and the earth is rehydrated. Constant, endless days of rain tend to lose their charm. Instead it says that the game is up, and whether you feel like it or not, life is going to have to move on as normal. One day of rain that feels like a warm blanket and chicken soup all of a sudden doesn't have the same comfort, the same residual feeling of "we are all in this together" that unifies us in a downpour. Suddenly, we are moving around, expected to do our work, all the while getting soaked in the process, and it's not always well received. Until, that is, someone makes such a starkly honest and simple statement such as the one above, and then it suddenly resets our expectations, and a renewed sense of mission is established. Yeah, it's raining, and yep, I am going to suit up, and be a part of the world today.

And since there is only so much of an excuse to be grumpy (it's raining, of course!) that second day out in the storm is a new beginning, a new way to see past the dark clouds, the ominous thunder, the endless drip, drip, drip on the windows. It will be sunny again, (unless I have any readers in Seattle- sorry, this blogs just not for you) because Annie told us it would come out tomorrow. But until it does, we will find a way to smile, to be grateful for the seasons, even if they are being unpredictable, because isn't that life? Life too is unpredictable and most of the time, we are Tiggers until life shows us a bit of darkness, and suddenly we turn on ourselves like a nimbus cloud. Like life, we can't always pick the weather. What we can choose is how we will frame our situation, whether we are going to let something that is outside of our control ruffle our feathers or if we will find our inner grace in a stormy world. I found it inspiring to reframe the rainy weather- what situation can you reframe?

Good Morning, My Name is Opportunity. How May I Direct Your Call?

Opportunity knocks, all the time! On our front doors, back doors, car doors ( you get the point.) It is knocking loudly, softly, and sometimes it leaves a note. The thing about opportunity is that we do not know it is Opportunity until we open the door (or window), invite him (or her) in, and have a nice, long chat. And even then, we don't know if it is really, really Opportunity until we invite our houseguest in for a while and see how we live together- do we like the same things, how do we share the bathroom in the morning, is Opportunity a meat-eater like me?

The way we tend to see it is this: Opportunity only looks like Opportunity once we've seen what she (or he) can do for us. Show me your Opportunity license, and I'll make a deal with you- this is how we bargain and shop around until we know exactly what kind of Opportunity we are getting. But here's the thing- the real kicker- is that we will never know Opportunity until we allow ourselves to unlock the doors of our souls and leave the window to our hearts open enough for new things and people and events to show us their truth. We will never know what opportunities really are because we do not have a crystal ball to tell us ahead of time that right now, this time, this opportunity is worth taking. When someone says, "Opportunity is around every corner!", this is what they mean- we never know the end result of any situation before it happens, and we can't put a qualifier on experiences to determine which opportunity will pay off. The real truth is that everything is an opportunity because until we are playing Monday morning quarterback, we won't really know how the game will be played. If we begin to see Opportunity as a friend, one that likes to play practical jokes on us from time to time, but a friend nonetheless, maybe we will start to see opportunity as he (or she) is meant to be seen. As a wrapped gift with something wonderful inside- a lesson we need to learn, a friend we need to meet, or a road that we need to take. It may not always be "the one" (if you've been paying attention, you know where this is going) but then again, how and when will you know? Your life is a long story and each time opportunity knocks and we invite him (or her) in, we add a page to it. Endings are nice but only a few of us ever read the last page first. Next time Opportunity comes calling, how will you answer?

Big Scary Change?

I've been thinking a lot about change...as a coach, this is obviously (or not?) a huge part of what has to occur in order to get closer to the life we want to create with our clients. Change is very polarizing, and like the band Rush, you either love it or hate it. I love change but does change show me any love back? In short, it does. The question I've really been debating is how big does a change in your life have to be to change your life? The answer: not very big. Small changes, slight deviations in our every day routine, can jolt us awake like an energy drink awaiting FDA approval. Our brains function on autopilot when we stick to routines, so that entire blocks of our days are blotted out of our memory- suddenly we are sitting in traffic on the way home, but forgot how we got in the car. We are literally on a different brain wave. When we switch it up just a little, our lives can take on a whole new sense of excitement. If you don't buy what I am selling, try it one day and see how you feel. Go to a new coffee shop, drive a little out of your way to take the scenic drive to work, leave the office 30 minutes earlier than normal- suddenly small changes turn into bigger changes. We get a rush from this new awareness that we are making choices instead of setting ourselves on autopilot, and then we begin to experiment with some more small changes and as we calibrate ourselves with these changes, it may turn out that a few little tweaks here and there make a whole big difference in our attitudes, relationships and overall drive. So, what small change are you going to make?

Fractions of Life

One of the things that completely fascinates me about life is the moments that we can trace back to the origin point, and know if not for that decision/experience/run-in, we would be living a completely different path. I used to say how my life was hinged on a brief encounter with a stranger, without which I would not live in my house, be engaged to my fiance, or in fact, have ever become a life coach. Maybe those things would have happened, if you are a fatalist, but that topic can wait for another day.

I once read this article about meditation, and to paraphrase it, the article said that meditation lengthens the time between thought and action. This has shaped my entire existence and inspires me every day. Finding a place of quiet thought, in whatever form your meditation comes in, can give you the space to find the moment you say yes, instead of no.

I am intrigued by the fragility of that fraction of a thought that could have tipped the scale between thinking we can not do something and then doing it anyway. Our lives are lived by those fractions of thoughts, and it is hard to believe that this is somehow random because it is those times that we struggle the most to act that we find the greatest rewards, the life changing experience that almost did not happen.

It is those moments of doubt that keep us encased in our world of safety and the times when we can overcome our fears that become legendary. For me, it's a brief encounter with a stranger. What is your moment?

First Day In The Life Coach

So...it is official. Enlighten Up jumps from my mind to the internet. I cannot wait to get started on my new workshop this week. It is a 4 series workshop that I developed for tapping into our greater awareness and setting up a plan to keep checking in with ourselves to be certain our daily lives begin to reflect our bigger purpose! I have three siblings attending which should be a really great experience or at least a very interesting one! I am so excited to get the website up and running and I am ready for all kinds of feedback. This is a short one but I will be back soon!