A couple more days to happy crazy town!

Well, it’s Tuesday already…two more days until I embark on a road trip to partake in the second of three very long, but fabulous, weekends of training.  It really is a bit crazy but I’m so happy to be there it doesn’t matter.  Mind you I pretty much collapse into bed but that’s okay; I have to get up early anyway!  Crazy town?  Perhaps but I can’t wait to get there.

No kidding…as long is it, you know what? In addition to being really excited about getting to hone the skills I already have and learn some new ones – I’m really excited to see the people who are going to be there.

There are some amazing – no freaking amazing people in this group.  I’ve gotten to know a few of them much better because of the way the studies are set up in between the 3-day weekends.

I can’t wait to give some of them a BIG hug.

Truly, for me half of the joy of deciding to sign up with iPEC (the school I’m training with) is finding all these people who kind of think just like me!   Holy crap they ARE out there!

I know I’ve said it before in other posts but us humans are not meant to go it alone in this life.  We are meant to make connections, learn from each other and offer that hand up when we can.  I don’t think alone is our natural state.

Don’t get me wrong.  I am very comfortable being just with myself and to be honest, sometimes I need it.  But to FEEL alone, well that is another story.  That is loneliness.  And that hurts.

It hurts more I think to feel alone in sea of people who you think care about you too.  Not being able to express your ideas, thoughts or what your soul’s light is shining is really painful and frustrating.  No one wants to feel judged because of who they are deep inside – so we keep it hidden or we feel like we are banging our heads against a wall.

Finding people who I can easily be understood by and who ‘get’ me was like unlocking a treasure box…it feels like coming home. I get what people mean now by the idea of finding your tribe.  Your tribe is people who, while not walking your path, parallel it enough that there is connection, understanding and shared excitement and joy about the same sorts of things. (tweet this)

You know what I mean?

So, I’m looking forward to seeing all of them again, learning and laughing and the occasionally teary session. Some powerful stuff coaching and we all go through it together.

Have you found some of your tribe?

 

 

 

 

ps. If YOU want to become part of MY tribe too (and I hope you do!) you can start by getting my monthly newsletter in your inbox.  Just register your email here and you’re good to go. Yay!

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Confidence is Cultivated

So I have this lovely friend named Lynn Brown.  She’s pretty motivating and motivated and I have long enjoyed her videos and confidence in doing them.

In fact, more than once she’s made me get a bit of an excitement to doing my own videos.

Then I let my ‘stuff’ get in the way and I let that go.  I can admit I’ve got some video hang-ups!  I’m not looking my best, what if I flub it up, what if people don’t like what I say, what if I don’t make sense?  Goodness, what if people point and laugh! I know, I know…how would I even know if they did that right?

You know FEAR…it’s creative if nothing else.  And it was keeping me playing small…way smaller than I want to be playing!

You know confidence is the killer of fear and we need to cultivate our own.  How do you increase confidence?  By facing our fear, on purpose and with love and grace.

Well, Lynn issued a challenge the other day to step outside that ol’ comfort zone and beef up your own confidence by doing something that scares you a little today which for me was exactly that…a video.  Here is the link to her message that lit a fire under my butt.  Maybe it was her words, maybe it was the sunshine and maybe it all just came together on a perfect day for it…but I heard her loud and clear.

I loved her video…shared it and thought about it as I avoided the whole thing by taking Charlie for a nice hike in the sunshine.

While I was out and about I had some aha moments.  When I got home I kicked my FEAR to the curb and just did it.  By the time I figured out how to use my laptop camera I was actually kind of excited to respond to Lynn.  Here is it!  I really had to work to push that publish button on YouTube let me tell you.  Of course Lynn was super supportive and gave me some wonderful cheers after for just going for it.

You know the beauty of stomping fear is the terrific feeling you get afterwards when you realize you are even more amazing than you thought.  That you have stepped into your own light and truth and it’s freaking amazing.  So, I’m stomping a little harder by sharing my video here with you too.  Trust me my little voice is saying ‘be careful’ and ‘oh no, don’t do that!’

Please let me know what you think either here or in comments on my YouTube site.

So, what are YOU going to do to step up and build your own confidence?

Many blessings!

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The Key to Happiness

Simply put, the key to happiness is to stop looking for the freaking key to happiness.

The fact is, the doors have never been locked up in the first place.  There is nothing to wait for.  You can open the doors to that sort of life anytime you choose.

Maybe you have lofty goal and plans.  So do I.  Trust me, if you could see the vision of my life that is taking shape right now, I know  a lot of you would wonder at my sense of reality and sanity.

That’s okay.  I get it. I’m dreaming really big these days and not everyone is ready for that.  I think I’ll just let them wonder until they see me taking strides and steps and moving closer and closer.  After all, showing is far more believable than telling right?

Still, I’m really happy today too.  I’m not going to sit around waiting on something to ‘let’ me be happy.  Or for some magical goal to get crossed off, or threshold to be crossed or please…certainly not for the proverbial knight in shining armor to come ’round and save the day.

Seriously.  Why wait?  There really isn’t anything you need to wait for!  I’ve discovered that happiness isn’t a destination anyway.  It’s not something you can go out and get.  And you can never use it all up.

There is only one thing you have to do to find your own happiness.  Choose it.

Allow yourself to decide that you are already happy.  Be grateful for all the blessings you have in your life and love your people right here today.

It’s always been within you, waiting for you to let it loose and choose to jump in with both feet.

If you want to be happy, then be happy.

Start by smiling.  Too many of us don’t smile because we wonder what others will think.  You know what they will think?  Wow, she’s such a happy person.  And then they will wonder how they to can be happy just like you; and maybe, just maybe they will start smiling too.

Then look what you did.  You are a carrier of the happiness virus and you are spreading it all over the freakin place.

I’m not sure when humanity got everything so bloody mixed up.  We all say we want to feel happy and joy and love.  Yet, we hesitate, we worry about reactions and we push down those feelings so they don’t get out of hand.  That makes no sense.  We celebrate and admire those who are postitive people that make life joyous, yet we are hesitant to allow ourselves to do the same.

Don’t you find it weird we all seem to think that negative emotions like sadness, anger and frustrations are okay to be talked about and seem to be more socially accepted?  And a lot of the time we feel the need to keep our happiness and joyful feelings ‘under control’ or dampened?  Like we don’t want to bother anyone with them?

Okay so it’s your turn.  I’d love to hear your take on why that is in the comments below.

 

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How Deeply Do You Let Go?

Many of my regular readers know that a few years ago I was in a car accident and suffered some injuries from that which left me in quite a state.

What many people don’t realize is that despite creating a lot healing in my body and mind,   I am still usually managing my life in a state of pain.  Now this ebbs and flows with how bad it actually is and for the most part I don’t allow it to impede too much of my life.

It does affect me more than I let on…but I’ve learned to be so grateful for what I can do and let the rest of it go.  I also don’t like to focus my energy on this aspect of my life and so don’t often bring it up.  I do so today because it’s part of the message and needs to be said to make the rest of this make sense.

What doctors and people don’t tell you about constant pain, even when you can get up and out to do things; is how exhausting it is.  Truly, it wears you out even when you feel like your handling it.  It’s just how it is.  I drop faster than I used to and it’s much harder to gather up my energy to push through.  I can and do, but at the same time I will not send myself into a tailspin because it’s also a much longer recovery.

What I have discovered is I have had to walk away from some people in my life who refuse to ‘hear’ what I’m telling them in any sort of compassionate way.

Well, to be honest, the first year of my accident really showed me who was in my life to stay and who were – what’s the phrase - fair-weather friends?

A lot of people dropped away when I couldn’t “do” for them anymore.  It hurt for a while, but now I realize that this might have been a gift.  Seeing the true colors of people also showed me who would be standing by me when I was in real need.  The colors on those folks are simply beautiful.

However, these days it’s not so black and white or colored.  Self-care is a big issue for me because I have BIG, crazy and passionate dreams to fill and that means sometimes I need to take a time out and or limit things.  I am aware I can’t do it all, at least not all the time.

In fact, I think we all do, I’m just really aware of how fast I can drop to burned out.  I can’t afford that anymore.  I learned the hard way that it’s far, FAR better for me to take a day of rest and quiet me-time than it is to push too hard and end up in worse pain that keeps me from doing anything other than basic survival for days.

If I didn’t tell people I need to recoup or why I have these limits, I would totally get the confusion.  But I have a couple of people in my life I’m letting go of because they refuse to accept it and refuse to show any understanding or compassion.  I’ve realized the ‘stuff’ they want to do with me isn’t about our friendship or spending time together. I’m simply a person to fill a space.

I refuse to be made to feel guilty, manipulated or shamed into doing something that will cause me grief and put a hold on my life, simply because of someone else’s desires. Clearly this does work for them some of the time with some of the people, but I gotta say,  it’s not cool to treat anyone like that.

I kid you not when I tell you I’ve been called ‘party-pooper’ and it’s been suggested I’m not ‘fun’ (all in front of a crowd!).  I’ve agreed to meet and do one activity and then been harassed and annoyed by repeated attempts to force the issue to do something else I’ve made clear I do not want to do.  Seriously?  Do those tricks work?

The favorite one is the tricky start off question.  You know…so what are you doing this Saturday?  If I said nothing in particular, they act like there is no reason you can’t come with to an event or do them a favor.  What they fail to realize is I don’t need a reason or excuse.  ‘No thanks’ works just fine.

There is one person who actually gets ticked off when they don’t get what they want.  I guess they aren’t used to someone saying no to them because of the way they ‘ask’ for favors.  Interestingly enough, they are never able to return the favor.  I also rarely hear from this one person until the moment they want one of these favors.

And the gossip and complaining! Oh don’t even get me started on that.  I can only take so much of that on any good day.  That alone is exhausting don’t you think?

And all that is perfectly okay.  It does sort of seem that we are not sharing the same head space.  I don’t want play those games and have the kind of energy floating around.

I know that this kind of stuff isn’t what I want around me.  I dislike these forms of manipulation, but more importantly I’ve realized how lacking in compassion these relationships are.  Don’t get me wrong, I think these folks are really nice people at heart, but as I said, we aren’t in the same mindset about what life is for.

I would rather cultivate relationships that are based on mutual passions, compassion and kindnesses.  Wouldn’t you?

So yes, I’m letting go of these relationships.   Some completely, some just in a very diminished sense.  And it feels good.  It frees up space and time in my life for those who have similar mindsets to come fill.

Not every relationship is meant to be a life-long one.  I really do believe that some people come into our lives to bring lessons.  Once that lesson is learned we need to move on.

The point is, I am a lot more aware of what I will and won’t tolerate in my life and boy, does that ever make things clear!  I have also learned that things cannot drag us down if we stop holding onto them.

So I ask you.  What are you tolerating in your life that you can let go of?

 

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It’s beautifully MESSY and that is good enough for me

Life and love…they are messy!  And that is one of the things that makes them so amazingly beautiful and so frustratingly difficult.

You know what else I know?  Far too often we are killing ourselves with stress over things that don’t really matter and are already good enough.

I had to learn the hard way that sometimes ‘good enough’ is perfectly good.

Early on I got taught this lesson by my first true love – my boy Jackson.  He was a golden retriever who I was blessed with when he was 12 weeks old and I am still so grateful for all the lessons he taught me in his far too short life.   Honestly, he must have been the easiest puppy to raise ever (as I later learned with my next boy lol). He was completely house trained by 4 months old without any problems at all.  Nice right? 

Real love is perfect!

I was used to a certain routine in the morning before I ever brought a puppy into my house.  I used to not leave the house without my hair done and at least a bit of mascara and lip gloss.  Clothes were ironed and fur-free.  Heels..loved ‘em!  I thought I needed to look like I had it together you know?

Enter a puppy who needs to go outside to pee at 4am.  Or even the same puppy at 7am on a Saturday.  You see where I’m going right? 

I started to have clothes for dog walking and re-kindled my love affair with hats and rainboots.  There was no time to prep and primp to walk a puppy.  He couldn’t wait around and I had to adjust.  Totally worth it and you know what? I learned to relax about appearances.  The neighbours I saw could have cared less how I looked; I mean, have you SEEN a golden puppy?  And let me tell you with all sorts of unbiased opinion that Jackson was the cutest of the cute!

Later on, I had my next big lesson around letting go of worrying about things being perfect.  After my car accident, my injuries made day-to-day life pretty difficult.  I couldn’t do many things and certainly not up to my usual standards.  And when I say couldn’t, I mean could not physically or mentally – not just that it was hard. 

So I either learned to adapt or I spent my life miserable. 

A great example to explain this  is around food.  I mean, I had to eat.  Big full meals were not in my scope at all.  Good enough meant throwing vegetables into the crock pot for soup and letting the crock pot do the work.  I might have soup to eat for 2 or 3 days but it was healthy and manageable.  Back in the day I’d have to make dinner rolls or fresh bread and salad too.  Maybe even fancy up the soup.  That wasn’t going to happen at that time.  Heck…some days making a bowl of cereal was all I could manage and ended up being ‘good enough’ for that day.

Good enough became what I strove for.  Fabulous, wonderful and certainly perfection were not in my mind at all anymore.  I wasn’t trying to impress anyone, I was simply trying not to lose my sense of being enough and to be able to keep getting better instead of getting stuck.

Good enough also meant I let others do things to help, even though they may not do it my way.  For example, my boyfriend may have done a load of laundry for me and I learned that it was good enough that I had clean clothes, even if they weren’t folded the way I prefer…or at all lol.

Good enough also works into being grateful for what we already have.  I think we get so caught up these days in having the latest, greatest, biggest or smallest thing that we forget that what we already have is pretty great.  The day I realized that I not only found a great deal of peace within, but stepped out of that race.  My iPhone is old sure, but it works just fine and I see no reason to spend hundreds of dollars for a newer one.  Drives my techie friends crazy!  I simply tell them that if it doesn’t serve a purpose or create beauty I have no use for it in my life. 

We also need to stop beating ourselves up when we don’t achieve what we want right out of the box.  Life is about attempting, growing and learning. It’s not about only ever being perfect or making people think you are.  You are more than good enough right now and right here.  Your failures are attempts and for this moment that is also good enough.  You learn from new experiences even when they are not what you expected and that is fabulously good enough.

I think we need to let go of wasting so much energy on perfection and embrace good enough for some things.  Life doesn’t care about perfection after all.  Life isn’t perfect.  But when you let go of the need to make it so, you learn that it is actually pretty freakin beautiful in all its messy wonderfulness. 

Think about it…good enough by its own definition is (shockingly) good enough!

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