A safe harbor where beliefs are respected and kindness prevails.

Springtime – Creating the New You!

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Dieting concept. Young Woman choosing between Fruits and SweetsJust as the earth moves through cycles of spring, summer, autumn, and winter, we too are meant to move through these same cycles.

We are a system within the earth’s systems. We are interdependent upon the cycles of the earth, and we ourselves are a system of interdependent systems.

It is fascinating to look upon life itself from the expansiveness of the universe all the way down to the cellular level, as one grand interdependent system of life.

These cycles of birth, growth, slowing down, and transcendence are found everywhere we look. You will find these cycles in bacteria, viruses, in the soil, in plants, reptiles, animals, and in us. It is the cycle of life, the cycle of energy, the cycle of consciousness.

In the earth’s cycle, Spring is a time of birth, or even rebirth. For there to be a birth there should have been a time of transition, death, or rest. This transition period is important to allow for healing. A time to go dormant. The cycle of life is not about a steady climb up, but instead about a gentle wave of growth and maturity.

During this season, our bodies are meant to rest more. Just think of the shorter days and less sunlight. We actually feel the need to rest more in our bodies.

Ah, but not long after our rest, we awake with a new sense of purpose. It is Spring, and we see all the possibilities of the time ahead. We feel inspired to do more. The days are getting longer, our energy seems to increase, and we are ready to take on more challenges.

So are you ready to take on those new challenges? Have you given any thought to what you desire your life to be? How about your health and wellness? You didn’t forget about getting healthier did you?

When it comes to health and fitness, just like any other aspect of your life, we need to clear out the old habits, mind-set, eating behaviors, and inactivity that have stopped us in the past from transforming our lives. Then we need to give ourselves the gift of a new lifestyle of health and wellness.

We must die to the old unhealthy lifestyle and transcend, or rise, into a new healthy, happy, lifestyle.

Believe it or not, that’s all it takes. It’s no different from a smoker who after twenty years decides, “I don’t smoke any more.” The smoker quits just like that. All the other smokers in the world say, “How the heck did that person just quit so effortlessly?”

Well, it is a matter of who the person now believes himself/herself to be. This person changed how they saw themselves. They no longer know themselves as a smoker, even though they smoked for twenty years.

They got rid of the old lifestyle, and replaced it with a new one. They transcended the old and rose to the new.

This is how all change in life happens. It can happen overnight or take a slower path. It is completely up to the individual to believe they are this new, transcended state of being.

It is springtime folks. It is nature’s time to begin to express its full potential once more after its rest. So, too, it is our time to express our full potential. It is a time for growth – spiritually, mentally and physically. It is time to transcend your old ways of lack, fear, unworthiness, doubt, and procrastination and rebirth yourself as a new person who lives a life of health, happiness, and wellness.

Just as the tiny seed already knows it is a giant Redwood, you already know, deep within, you are meant to be a healthy, happy, well person. Most importantly you will find within yourself the blueprint to be this amazing person.

Clear out all your old thoughts of unworthiness, fear, and doubt. Create a new way of thinking. Who do you want to be? Decide what that looks like, and begin to know yourself as that person and only that person. Do not look back on the old self. Only see yourself as the new life. Follow what your intuition tells you to do. At first, this can be challenging because you’re not used to doing this. However, the more you trust and believe your intuition, the more you will create the new you.

You must now begin to believe in yourself. Nurture your spirit, mind and body, and you will become that which you desire.

I wish for all of you Vibrant Health!

 

Cleaning Your Social Media House, It’s A Spring Forward

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Fotolia_55911346_Subscription_Monthly_MHave you ever wondered why some people can just Spring forward with ease, go through their things each year and purge, while others have a more difficult time. Maybe you are one of those people who can easily adapt and shift to new things, or maybe its hard for you to move forward and let go.

Making room for new things in our lives is so important; it is much like a breath of fresh air on a cool spring morning. It allows us to think clearly, create new ideas, and connect with ourselves and others. I know for me it’s a bit of a process although I find that the quicker I move through, the better I feel and the more creative I become.

With that being said; there is some major yet subtle shifting going on in marketing and social media this year. Platforms that were once the rage are loosing ground and making room for fresh, new ideas. It is very important to evaluate and understand when its time to clean out, change up and work with new ideas in your business. Sometimes where we feel most comfortable is not the best fit for profitability or ROI in your business. Understand that by shifting, cleaning out the old and making room for the new is where growth flourishes in all aspects of our life.

Social Media platforms that worked last year won’t necessisarly work for you in the same capacity. I’m not saying to stop working any of them, what I am saying is take a look at what was not working or the best fit  for your business last year and know that there are many changes going on constantly in all of the platforms. Look for the trends and the new offerings that may be advantageous this year.

A few suggestions to consider:

1. Clean house on your Social media platforms (Freshen up your look)

2. Keep yourself open to trying new platforms (Mobile is HUGE)

3. Spring into videos! Try micro video apps like Vine and Instagram’s video sharing.

4.  Identifying which content will result in maximum engagement on which networks.

5. Connecting with people on a more personal level. (Understand that serving others, serves you)

I believe 2014 is the year of great shift and change and that by clearing out now, knowing that the platform you choose to use for your business matters, stepping out of your comfort zone and being open to the flux and change as we maneuver through the year will provide unlimited growth for you and your business.

Shedding Old Clothes

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Fotolia_34553939_Subscription_Monthly_MI remember when I was in fifth grade.  One day before lunch ended, I opened the door to my classroom and found that the room was empty.  I was surprised.  This was the first time ever that I was in the room by myself.  With nobody else around, it was pleasantly calm and quiet.

I walked over to my teacher’s desk and took a good look.  After all, it was the only place in the entire room I hadn’t really had the opportunity to inspect, until now.  I looked inside the drawer and found her grade book.  It was right on top.  I opened it where it was paper clipped and saw all of our names with the lineup of test grades next to them.  I looked for my name, and saw my grades, A, A-, B+, A+, A-, A … For a test we had taken just the day before, I saw, “B-“ next to my name.  B minus?  What???  That wouldn’t do.

I quickly looked for a pencil on her desk.  My mind raced.  “Would I erase it?  Would I cross it out?  No, that would be too obvious.”  I decided to put a tiny mark on it to change the minus sign to a plus sign.  It now read “B+.”  My face was hot and my body was tingling as I quickly put the book away.  I never got caught for that, nor did I confess, but it didn’t matter.  I was on edge about it for a long time.  I tortured myself about being stupid, being a liar and a fake, and, therefore, non-deserving of anything good in life, ever.

For decades I hid my dark and troubled spots. I was extremely hard on myself. I was a pro at chastising myself, which almost landed me in my grave.  Do you remember the character “Pig-Pen” from the Charlie Brown comic strip?  That was me: pretending that everything was okay and normal even though there was soot all around me.

In my healing journey, rather than beat myself up, I flipped a switch by honoring what I did to survive.  I came to understand that by pretending my non-preferred experiences and my responses to them didn’t exist, I kept them firmly in place.  I learned that by honoring what happened and describing my experiences without judging them allowed me to transform then release them.

To Clean = to rid of impurities; to purify.

When it came to changing that grade way back when, I came to understand that by getting good grades, I received praise and love I didn’t feel otherwise.  I also felt that if my performance slipped, I wouldn’t receive praise and love.  I doubt that my parents would have withheld their love, yet at the time I couldn’t risk even the thought of getting negative attention because I couldn’t face the humiliation.

I also came to understand that my perfectionist nature (which I’d be willing to bet I was born with) went into overdrive once I was sexually violated as a little girl.  And finally, I understood that my constant self-chastising represented my fervent desire to be a good person.

In contemplating the glorious cycles of nature, springtime pulsates with the idea of renewal – of making a fresh start.  When it comes to spring cleaning, I love the idea of ridding my closet of old clothes.  The old clothes I speak of are not those I wear.  For me it’s more about transforming non-preferred experiences so that I can shed old thoughts and ideas that no longer serve me, therefore creating space for the new and wonderful stuff I desire.

By stripping away the action itself (changing the grade) and seeking out the positive wish underneath (the desire for praise and love), I purified that experience.  I was able to give my fifth grader what she so desperately needed – praise and love.

Here is the formula I use for shedding old clothes.  Ask yourself:

What happened?  What did you do or say that was non-preferred?  What was your positive wish underneath your original response? It will typically be that you wanted understanding, acknowledgement, and/or love.

Now, replay the event in your mind, but instead, act or respond in a way that gives you the understanding you seek.  If the event involved someone else, imagine the other person giving you what you are asking for (in the form of your positive wish).  See and feel yourself receiving the understanding, acknowledgement, and/or love that you needed at the time.

Be creative. Understand that your subconscious mind doesn’t know whether something is occurring physically or virtually, the feeling is what it records.  As you replace the old hurts with acknowledgment, understanding and love, you allow them to transform, thus lovingly shedding your old clothes to don new ones.

Experiences will continue to emerge from the shadows to receive light and transformation, and you will know how to do it.  You have the ability to appreciate each moment rather than thinking that you need to fix everything in order to be deserving.  May you come to understand that you are lovable anyway; that you are free to heal, to laugh, to love, and to express yourself, soot and all.

 

 

Clear The Clutter

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 –  What Is Holding You Back?

Fotolia_35647855_Subscription_Monthly_MAs humans, it is in our nature to experience clarity, calmness and spaciousness all the time. The problem is we’ve forgotten how. It’s my hope that we (re) discover and (re) claim the journey. I know I do, and I am pretty sure you want to remember what life can be like when it sparkles like a diamond inside and out. Yes??? Yes!

Well, let’s put on our amazing designer rubber gloves, roll up our sleeves, get our bright bucket and get to it! Shall we?

Behind the mess that is your stress and your clutter, there is an infinitely spacious clean place one might call stillness, or joy. This is our natural state of being, but we hardly know it because most of us are caught in a tangle of social expectations, family expectations, people pleasing, illness, worry, fear, negative beliefs, material attachments, and endless mechanical “doing.” We go to work under extreme stress, come home to stress, and then start the stress cycle all over again every day. And … it scares the heck out of us; I know it once did me. So how do you break up the clutter inside and out and clean it up for good?

1. Realize clutter comes in many forms.

There’s the obvious physical stuff, of course: the junk that spills out of the closets and the piles that we wade through every day just to get out the door. It’s the stuff we don’t use, love, or need. The stuff that doesn’t have a permanent home or we can’t seem to put away on a regular basis. But there is also the more invisible clutter that gooks up our lives, the result of our unconscious and conscious human behaviors, for example.

~There’s mental chatter, the resident ego barking orders to assure its eternal comfort and safety, the endless loop tapes we play in our mind like “I should,” “I can’t,” “I couldn’t,” “I shouldn’t.”

~There is emotional charge we hold, like when our buttons get pressed, or we have a grudge, or we’re still mad at something that happened a while ago. There is the endless litany of judgments, doom and gloom catastrophizing, the fears that have us going to hell in a hand basket …”any day now.” Wow … that shocked me.

~There’s feeling small, powerless, insignificant, and unworthy and the feeling that I am not good enough.

So what do these patterns have in common? Yes, none of them feel good. None of them are attractive or inspiring. They’re real downers. They prevent us from living in present time with joy and spaciousness; they prevent us from seeing through the clutter of life to new beginnings.

Ask yourself, what are some of the “faces” you put on? When you do this, be honest to the core. You are not in judgment. There is no right or wrong. Let it go and watch what happens. Most importantly, remember you are doing this clutter picking up only for you and no one else. Laughter goes a long way when you are clutter busting.

2. Recognize the symptoms of clearing the clutter

~There are many ways that the body, mind and spirit process old stuff that rises to the surface as we clear. This is how the ego copes with the idea of letting go and having to feel “those feelings.”

~Prepare yourself. Don’t allow judgments to lead you off your mission.  Remember: This is the “clutter part” of your mind talking, not the real you! The first step is to try not to give in to all that chatter and noise.

– Celebrate in knowing that when you are clutter clearing, it changes you from the inside out and then from the outside in. You know how you feel when you have cleaned out from underneath your bed, you actually sleep better at night. There are studies related to having a better night’s sleep when we don’t have negative energy underneath us.

So, a few great questions to ask yourself during this process are: “How am I feeling right this minute? How’s my breathing? Am I feeling calmer now than I did before I began clearing the clutter, or am I feeling more jangled and agitated?

A good practice to remember is, do nothing. Just allow. You are not in self judgment; you’re in the spaciousness of self discovery.

3. Resolve that everything needs a place. There are obvious reasons for giving everything a home, of course. Having a place for everything helps us keep things in order and find them again. It helps us get to the car in the morning without tripping over physical and emotional clutter.

~Giving things a home helps us know when we have too much stuff. For example, finding zero space in the bookcase to jam another paperback, or zero coat hangers to hang the new outfit we just bought on sale gives us instant feedback that something has to give or something has to go.

~Housing things properly holds us accountable and keeps us out of the chaos of clutter. But there is more going on here than the obvious. Giving an object that we use and love a dedicated space recognizes its purpose and honors its value to us.

~Creating space for our inner energies and essence needs a dedicated space too. This may be an area of your life you have neglected for a long time. You may have to sweep a few cobwebs out and clean the glass to see clearly. The best way to manage spacious self time is to dedicate a place and time each day for at least 15 minutes and work your way up. You will become your best helper if you follow this as a clearing practice.

Try this on for size: look around and notice if there is something that has not yet been put away. How does this make you feel? How does your body feel, how does your inner self feel? Now, go and find a place for those items that need a home.

After you’ve completed this, ask yourself: How hard was that really? What does it feel like to consciously place this thing where it belongs? How does the room feel now? And, of course … how does your energy, your emotions, feel inside?

As human beings we affect our surroundings all the time: – our homes, our neighbor’s homes, our workplaces, where we shop – in ways you can’t even begin to know. Remember, anything you do every day, no matter how small, gets the energy moving in your spacious life, inside and out. Though there’s no predicting what amazing wonders you’ll discover in the process, one thing I can say is that the more you clear the clutter, the easier, juicier, and more fun it is to live in spaciousness.

Clearing the clutter indicates that all emotional patterns, joyful and otherwise, deeply influence the spaces we inhabit. Negative thoughts and stressful lifestyles create an energetic residue, and depending on how much emotional charge they carry, they can literally “stick” around for years. Happiness, too, leaves its own abundant joys and yumminess.

In the weeks and months to come, notice if your sense of ease, peace, or joy has any effect on your home, a friend, a colleague, or even a loved one. Notice how your state of being affects the world around you, and how the world, in turn, mirrors you back to you. Don’t forget our clearing energies are contagious and we own what frequencies we put out into the world. Always remember to stop and feel as part of your ongoing lifelong spaciousness of clearing.

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