“When I am present in the moment, I miss nothing! I surrender the entire plan to the all-knowing Universe now. My only plan is to enjoy the unfolding, to be present, and savor each moment. Each and every moment is a gift to be opened in amazement! Even in the airports. Even on the airplane. Waiting in line for the ferry. All of it is a rich, delicious experience of which I intend to savor every beautiful, satisfying, vibe-raising moment. I fucking LOVE travel!”
We cannot BE present in the moment on vacation, if we have not practiced being present before vacation.
So how do we “be” present?
My favorite exercise to bring myself into the present moment is super simple!
Name three or more things that you sense – right now – with each of your five physical senses.
Name three things I see right now. Name three things I hear right now. Name three things I smell right now. Name three things I can taste right now. Name three things I can touch right now.
Example from the moment I am writing this: I see books, my computer, my dog. I hear the clock tick, the wind chimes tinkle, the tippy tapping on my keyboard. I smell coffee, ham cooking, and the dog’s blanket. I taste coffee, hints of toothpaste, the memory of ham. I feel the floor beneath my feet, the couch supporting my back, Boscoe’s soft fur.
Boom! Here and now. At least for this moment.
How does ‘being present’ release anxiety?
Anxiety is feeling worried about the future. We cannot be in the present and the future at the same time, so when we bring ourselves into the present moment any time we feel anxious, the anxiety releases automatically.
Being present also releases us from guilt because guilt is a feeling of regret about the past. We only feel guilt when reliving a past moment in our minds. Again, by playing with the exercise above, we can come back to the present, and the guilt cannot exist in present moment.
Cool, huh?!
When we can be present with ourselves, we open to our intuition, to Universal guidance. How could we ever miss anything that is meant for us? We can’t! We will be guided to the right place and people, at the exact right time.
Grow on!
What’s happening in your present moment? What happens if you try the exercise when you feel anxious about something?
When we struggle, we sometimes forget to reach for the tools that help us most. Example: We plan to go to yoga after work, but we have a challenging day and decide to sit on the couch and eat junk food instead of doing the yoga thing. Very NORMAL human behavior. But how helpful is it?
Yoga helps us relax and release stress. It raises our vibration. Eating on the couch actually depresses our energy (sugar and wheat do that, as do other types of junk foods). Our energy goes to an even lower vibration if we decide to beat ourselves up for eating the junk food instead of going to yoga.
All of my blog posts – EVERY tool that I offer, every growth-inducing question I pose – are designed to help YOU identify what raises your vibe.
Vibe-Raising Tools
FIND them. Make a list of ones that work for you. Use them every day, but especially when you don’t want to!
Spiritual Sandbox
I know I have recommended this one before, but it raised my vibration so HIGH this morning, I decided maybe someone needed the reminder that Jill Lebeau and Amit West have a podcast that will blow your mind and open your heart.
In order to create it, we gotta WANT it and we gotta PRACTICE it.
We gotta go after it like our happiness depends on it, cause guess what?
We practice fear a LOT! Every day, if we pay attention to the news or social media in an unfiltered way, we are constantly bombarded with messages of what we should fear. We should fear those at the border, those whose skin tone or faith is different, those who have a different political viewpoint. We should fear the virus. We should fear the vaccine. We should fear black, blue, white, and brown.
Murder bees. Global warming. Government. Lack of government. Scam artists. Certain neighborhoods or grocery stores. Corporations. Small business. Drug addicts. For-profit health care. Insurance companies. IRS. The list of what media tells us we should fear is very long and perpetually invasive. So human beings are constantly practicing fear.
Is it any wonder that so many of us experience anxiety? We are looking for danger at every step, or planning how to avoid it, or keep our kids from harm. We pass our fears to them in the hopes of keeping them vigilant and safe, but what they learn is not to trust themselves or their world. Anxious, fear-filled adults raise anxious, fearful kids.
My point here is that many people practice fear daily. Our fear and anxiety muscles are usually strong and over-developed. We can build our happiness muscle in exactly the same way; by repetitively exposing ourselves to messages that allow us to experience a feeling of joy or hopefulness.
Happiness takes practice – every day!
Different things make different people happy, so there is no cookie-cutter path to happiness. No one can tell you to do XYZ, and you’ll find happiness. Each of us gets to curate our own set of tools that raises our vibration. Having many tools at our disposal is helpful because we are such fluid creatures with constantly changing tastes and desires.
Each of us creates our own unique path to happiness, but many of the tools that have worked for others before us, can also work for us. So I keep a long list of these tools at my fingertips, so I have options and don’t ever get bored using the same happiness tool every day. Sometimes I like to listen to Abraham recordings on YouTube. Other times, grabbing an inspirational book off my shelf is just right. For many people staying active is essential to a happy vibration. It’s totally cool to look at what lifts others and try it for ourselves, so I like to share the link to my toolbox. If one of the tools works for you, save it in YOUR spiritual toolbox and savor it often. If it doesn’t ring your bells, let it go.
The thing is – whatever it is – we gotta find the things that LIFT us, and we gotta use them daily to counteract the years and decades of practiced fear. Limiting the input of fear by digesting less media is great, but nothing is going to build momentum for a happier life like practicing happiness daily, and each of us gets to choose our own recipe for happiness according to our own tastes.
A New Tool to Use or Not
One of the things I’ve enjoyed daily for several years now is repeating Tosha Silver’s Abundance Prayer. It always lifts my vibe, and finances have become much more abundant since I began practicing it regularly! Recently I recorded the Abundance Prayer so that I could listen to it frequently. One of my readers asked me to share, and since I love to help you raise your vibe, here it is.
If you currently feel that you don’t have time for your own happiness, or that focussing on your own happiness makes you selfish, it’s possible that some coaching could help! Contact me HERE to schedule a FREE coaching session and walk away with at least one actionable step to move you toward your goal.
If you don’t make time to create happiness in your life, who will?
Grow on!
Make a quick list of five to ten things that you love doing. Check out my toolbox to see if any of my tools inspire you. Get out your calendar and schedule time to focus on raising your vibration.
Fear is a learned behavior, and one that humans practice ceaselessly. The more we practice fear, the more anxious, insecure, and fearful we feel. The more anxious, insecure, and fearful we feel, the more willing we are to buy whatever makes us feel safer, or more secure. The more anxious, insecure, and fearful we feel, the more willing we are to give up pieces of our freedom to feel safer, or more secure.
Can we ever be truly free when living in fear? Feel free to disagree, but I don’t think so.
The good news is that fear is a learned behavior!
If we learned it, we can unlearn it. We learned fear through repetition of fear-filled, worrisome thoughts. We can learn faith, and feel more calm, through repetition of calming thoughts that build faith – not religious faith, but faith in yourself. Faith that no matter what else happens, at least you can control your own energy, your own response to circumstances.
Now, there is no blog post anywhere that will move you from fear to faith, because like fear, faith requires daily practice over time. That practice will take many different forms for different people, but one of the best ways I have observed is practicing affirmations.
Create or adopt positive statements you believe and repeat them frequently when it feels good to do so. If the affirmation does not feel good when you say it, it’s not the right affirmation for your situation.
Affirmations are a simple tool that help millions of people feel better.
Guidelines for selecting or creating affirmations that work:
It must feel true. Keep it simple. Repeat it frequently – as often as you remember it and it feels good. Write it down and read it frequently. You may notice that I like to put my on pretty photos because the photos also help raise my vibe, but sticky notes around the house can be equally effective!
When you become aware that you are experiencing doubt, or fearful thoughts, take a deep breath, and remind yourself that nothing has gone wrong, your mind has simply reverted to the old practice and that’s to be expected! With more practice of positive-feeling affirmations, the fear and anxiety visit less and less frequently.
Freeing our minds from fear will take more than one tool, more than just affirmations. But affirmations feel good, they’re free, and it’s a really easy first step for lots of people.
Grow on!
What affirmation will help you move from where you are to where you would love to be? Here is a short list of links to long lists of affirmations to get you started:
Having a positive attitude does not mean never having a bad day.
I experience shitty feeling emotions like every other human being, despite the fact that my innate compass always points to the bright side.
I am allowed (like all humans) to experience and express anger, frustration, sadness, disappointment, and all the rest of the messy, uncomfortable emotions that are part of the human experience.
Having a positive attitude does NOT mean I never get down. Having a positive attitude means I never have to STAY down.
Sometimes it takes longer than others to pick myself up after being down, but my positive attitude ALWAYS gets me back up again.
Maintaining my sunny outlook also does NOT mean pretending to be happy about anything. It means looking for the opportunity in every situation.
When I experience challenging emotions, I look for an opportunity to learn. What’s causing that emotion? What about that situation felt challenging, angering, or frustrating? What about the situation worked well? How can I use what worked well as a foundation to build something more satisfying?
I’m looking for a path that leads my vibration upward.
That part takes intention. If my intention is to find a path that raises my vibe, I make the effort and I find better-feeling thoughts. Without the intention to move higher on the vibrational scale, it’s SUPER easy to spiral downward with thoughts like, “Why didn’t that turn out like I wanted? These things never turn out for me. What a disaster. I should have known it would fail. Why even bother?” Without a concrete intention to reach higher vibrations, the current (more challenging) vibration naturally attracts more thoughts of the same vibe.
Recently one of my clients was delighted to give herself permission to create a story about everything working out for the best, to replace the worry-filled story she had been creating about everything that could possibly go wrong. It takes the exact same amount of time and energy to imagine wonderful things as it does to worry, and the results are incredibly different!
The following week she reported back that her physical symptoms of anxiety had decreased just by focussing on the better feeling outcome – even though the actual “outcome” of her current situation had not yet been reached.
When I catch myself in the cycle of worry, I remind myself right away that since nothing has yet unfolded, anything is yet possible. I try to release the story of worry by reminding myself that anything can happen – including the best possible outcome. Sometimes I even journal about the best possible outcome in as much detail as I can imagine. It feels good when I write it out, and if I start to worry again, I use it to remind myself that anything is still possible!
Grow on!
What story are you currently telling yourself? What do you worry about on the regular? What will change for you when you change the story you are creating in your mind? What story would you rather believe? Try writing out the best case scenario and see how it feels when you read it back to yourself!
The last six months have been challenging for all of us.
COVID 19 Quarantine Trapped indoors by smoky skies and raging fires Travel restrictions Canceled vacations Weddings postponed or socially distanced Reduced financial resources People we know sick, or dying Increasing tech stress ‘Homeschooling’ our kids The utter LACK of hugs in this world!
Not to mention any personal challenges your may be facing like sick pets, vehicle breakdowns, relationships ending, or health issues – other than pandemic viruses – that force you to expose yourself to situations that could allow you to come in contact with the virus.
Normally, I am a beacon of buoyant energy. One of my superpowers is seeing the opportunities in the challenges, knowing there IS purpose to the apparent madness, and keeping my balance despite what’s going on in the world or my life.
However recently I have been feeling the heaviness of it all. “Golden Fucking Opportunities” (GFOs) for growth have been raining down around me. I have a travel addiction. Travel opportunities feed my soul. So far this year we have canceled nights in Monterey, Yosemite, and Burney Falls, and weeks in Colorado and Arches National Park. It helped me to know that I am NOT the only one who had to cancel travel plans. I am not alone in this. We are all canceling plans, and adjusting to our own set of GFOs. But then I found out that we have to postpone our trip to Hawaii (booked since February) and don’t have any way to know when we will get to go. It hit me like a ton of bricks.
Suddenly it was ALL just too fucking much. Hawaii had been my carrot through all the other challenges, so when they took that from me too, I hit the wall.
Royal Kona Sunset
In the past
In the past when I hit a wall emotionally, my world would go black and I would crawl under my blankets for days or weeks. I would beat myself up telling myself I didn’t deserve fun, travel, happiness, or even love. I would open the dark umbrella thought of “who cares?!” which lead me repeatedly to eat damaging foods, stop working out, and to thinking even more emotionally draining thoughts! In the past I would lie there wondering WHY I felt so shitty, and why the world hated me and was being so mean to me.
And who could blame me? Given that set of circumstances, anyone could want to react that way.
waterfalls at Plitvicka Jezera National Park
But now I know better.
Therapy and coaching have helped me discover how energy draining that old behavior is, how depleting, stress-inducing and disease causing.
So last week when I hit the wall, I asked myself, “Cyndi, what do you need to feel better right NOW?”
1- Knowing what I need has made a huge difference in my life. 2- Allowing myself to do what I need is THEE difference in my life.
Ever since I learned that what I was doing was NOT working for me, I have been on a quest to become aware of what DOES work for me.
Some of the things I have learned are: Having something to look forward to is CRUCIAL to my state of mind. Talking to my coach ALWAYS lifts my energy exponentially. Getting a massage ALWAYS releases stress.
Rather than spiral into darkness like I would have in the past: 1 – I texted my fabulous coach, Jill Lebeau, and moved up my session. 2 – I scheduled a massage for my day off. 3 – I decided that I would schedule some travel or go stark raving mad.
Korcula Island, Croatia ~ Google image
Despite travel restrictions and the great inability to determine what the fuck the pandemic or politics will bring next, I have been planning my next trip to Croatia for almost a year now. I couldn’t know when it might happen, I was just having fun dreaming of all the places we will visit when it DOES happen. I’ve been watching ticket prices for months and they have been pretty steadily priced around $1,300. That’s less than the last time we flew to Europe, but I was convinced I could get a better price than that!
Monday morning I decided that I didn’t care WHAT bargain rate I might get later. I knew without doubt that if I had airline tickets for my dream vacation in hand, I would feel buoyant again, and all my challenges would morph back into opportunities. I decided that I would just PAY the $1,300 fare. We have been saving for this trip, so we already had enough saved for the two tickets.
It would be worth paying full price just to feel better!
The instant I had that thought, my spirit lightened immensely!
Dubrovnik ~ 2017
I pulled up searches of all my favorite airlines, checked different cities to fly into, tried different hubs to fly through, looking for the best deal available and the most AMAZING thing happened. I found a fare on a reputable airline, with reasonable travel times for less than $800 round trip for each of us. YES! I checked all the details a second time, then booked the tickets.
Then I had a dance party in my living room.
I was SO right! My energy popped back up like a cork I had been holding under water. Suddenly my energy was vibrant and flowing. At my coaching session, instead of my coach helping me out of a dark place where I had gotten stuck (as would have happened in the past), I was telling her about the miraculous return of my energy, and increased capacity to support others through the MANY golden fucking opportunities that are happening all around us! I knew without a doubt what my soul needed to shine, and I didn’t hesitate to give it to myself. Some might think it selfish, but that bit of self-care was crucial to my emotional wellbeing, and paid off tenfold!
Go me!
Dubrovnik, Croatia
My coach wisely pointed out that deciding to spend the full price because I deserved to feel better embodied an abundance mindset, and that vibration of abundance allowed me to attract the super low fare on a high-quality airline.
Fuck. Yes.
And now, I feel INCREDIBLE, nearly invincible! I am manifesting what I truly desire by trusting my KNOWING about what I need, and allowing that to outweigh the financial consideration. I feel far more able to focus on my life and my clients.
Did all my challenges/opportunities just go away? Hell no!
But the things that frustrated the crap outta me a couple days ago seem like nothing more than minor irritants now. They seem far more like opportunities than challenges.
And burdens that had felt unbearable – the unexpected death of a beloved pet, a best friend facing months of chemotherapy – became at least manageable, and I am able to remember that, in time, even these burdens will reveal gifts for us.
Am I saying that if you are struggling with GFOs you should plan a trip to Croatia? Maybe. If that’s what turns YOU on. Heavens no, if you don’t enjoy travel.
What I am saying is that when the world seems to be crumbling around us it’s extremely beneficial to know what it is YOU need.
Then allow yourself that. ALL of that.
a room i dream of renting in Dubrovnik…
Grow on!
What works for you? What person, place, thing lifts your spirits no matter what? How can you allow yourself more of that? What’s holding you back from allowing more of that in your life? What will change for you when you allow yourself more of what feeds your soul?
I’m a BIG fan of Esther Hicks and her play with Abraham and all the Knowing they bring forth for us! Here is their ten-part recipe for joy, merged with my own photographs.
Are you moving toward a goal that you KNOW will make you happy when you reach it? That’s AWESOME! Are you feeling happy about it NOW as you move toward it?
Some people will answer yes, and some will answer no. For the yes’s, they are almost guaranteed a happy outcome when they reach their goal, because they are happy before they reach their goal.
For the no’s, even if they are a hundred percent sure that goal is going to make them happy, their chances are much lower than their counterparts for actually reaching happiness. Why? Because the path to happiness is never miserable. An unhappy journey cannot lead to happily-ever-after.
Happiness is worth NOT waiting for!
We CAN, and do, get to happily-ever-after through challenges, hardships, and opportunities for growth, but those are not the same as unhappy.
It is never the challenge or the hardship that makes us unhappy, it’s our perspective. There are people in the most challenging circumstances, or who come through the most traumatic situations, who are able to have cheerful dispositions and positive states of mind. If we want to feel happy when we reach our goal, then we gotta find ways to feel happy on our journey toward that goal.
The best way to do that is to feel happy (or at least not miserable) about the steps you are taking in the creation of that goal. Another way to do that is to just look around for things that already make you happy.
Instead of just driving to work in the morning, look for flowers that are your favorite color, or trees backlit by the sun, or smiling faces walking by. Whatever it is that already brings you joy or happiness, look for that. Let it be your intention to see the things that lift your spirit. Find ways to incorporate fun and laughter into your life.
Allow small, simple pleasures to bring you happiness as often as possible! Seriously – take your joy where you find it!
Bitmojis!
No grown woman should love Bitmojis as much as I do. But I do! I love the darn things! Don’t know what a Bitmoji is?
Bitmoji has created a FUN way to express yourself in text messages, and I send them ALL THE TIME! Every time I text my potato self to someone, I smile.
If you use text messages and you don’t have Bitmoji, I highly recommend it for the smiles of fun it adds to texting!
Find small things that make big smiles.
Allow the Universe to surprise and delight you daily. Being happy along the journey is the best way to assure a happy-ever-after destination!
Grow on!
What small pleasures do you allow to delight you? Share them in the comments! I would love to know.
A word on practicing happiness ~
I absolutely advocate practicing happiness daily!
But I do NOT mean that we’re not supposed to experience other emotions!ALL of our feelings are for feeling! Anger, sadness, grief, joy, ecstasy, frustration, hope, the full range of human emotions is our guidance system. We want to allow them, process them & move through them. If you need help with that, coaching can help. Schedule a little chat with me by clicking this link.
I’ve been experiencing a little depression in my energy lately. Why? Cause I’m fucking human!
Like most of the rest of the world, we had to cancel vacation plans this year. I was supposed to be writing to you today from a hotel room. We planned a road trip with our wiener dog, Boscoe, to visit family in Colorado, then a couple of National Parks in Utah on the way home.
Google Images: Arches National Park
I hadn’t realized how much I was looking forward to it! I kind of used it like a carrot to get through the first part of quarantine. I told myself, “Come September, I’ll be on the road with my camera at National Parks, visiting family and friends enjoying the scenery and sunshine!”
It never dawned on my positive thinking that come September we wouldn’t have controlled the spread of the pandemic yet, like every other country in the world has done. It’s almost time for the “second wave” and the United States hasn’t ridden out the first wave!
For over a week after canceling our plans, I found myself unable or unwilling to focus on coaching classes, workshop preparations, marketing promotions, house work, or anything.
I let it all go and just kinda vegged, simply letting the lethargy unfold. I filled my days surfing Booking.com, dreaming of a trip to Croatia sometime post-pandemic. I searched flights for a full seven days before feeling satisfied that I knew where to get the best deal and which days to fly. Then I turned my attention to accommodations and sightseeing. You should SEE the amazing places you can rent in Croatia!
Booking.com image
I had a blast planning that trip. NO idea when we’ll get to go, but I do know where we are going!
So why didn’t I just coach myself back into a better feeling place?
Because I needed to feel that disappointment for a minute. I wasn’t READY yet to get back to feeling good. I wanted to feel better, but without pretending that my disappointment wasn’t real, or didn’t happen. Of course it happened! Challenges come up in life. It’s an integral part of the human experience.
I didn’t feel the need to rail against it, or beat myself up for not feeling my best. I just needed some time to process. Some people might call that indulgent. I call it taking mental health days.
Practicing happiness daily does NOT mean that I suddenly have a magical life without challenges, full of rainbows and unicorns. It means that when life gets me down, I know it’s part of the process, and I know that I have the tools to get myself back on track.
At a pace of my own choosing.
Grow on!
What emotions are you feeling right now? Which ones do you need time to process? When are you giving yourself the space to do that?
The
first time I read a book by Esther Hicks was in February of 2010. The
book was Ask
and it is Given,
and it resonated with me completely. I immediately began trying
to increase my vibration, create an even more positive attitude, and
manifest my riches. And when I say riches, I specifically mean
a water view home.
My
deepest desire is to have a home that looks out over the water.
Water calms me, energizes me, and uplifts my spirit. In those
first fledgling years learning about the law of attraction, I poured
immense energy into telling the universe that I want a water view
home. Even when my lottery numbers didn’t hit, I kept feeling
excited about the next draw, always certain that my big win was just
around the corner. One time in particular, I must have really had my
hopes up because when my numbers didn’t hit, my positivity balloon
burst.
I
fell into a depression, and railed at the universe for not giving me
my truest desire. I couldn’t understand why my water view home
eluded me! It was around that time that I heard Esther say
something to the effect of “ it’s not the manifestation you want,
it’s the way the manifestation makes you feel.” So I sat
down to journal about how I was going to feel when I did manifest my
water view home.
Happy,
calm, uplifted, joyful, connected to Spirit.
This was the manifestation I wanted. These emotions were what I truly desired, and I thought that I could get them through living in a home with a water view. So I started looking for ways to manifest the emotions of happy, calm, uplifted, joyful, and connected to Spirit.
I live close enough to the Napa River to walk there in 15 minutes. I live close enough to a small park that overlooks the Carquinez Bridge to walk there in 10 minutes. One of the things I started doing each day was walking to one of these places, sometimes both. I began referring to the little park as “my patio” so I could say that this was the view from “my patio.”
My
walks allow me to feel happy, calm, uplifted, joyful, connected to
Spirit, vibrant, healthy, and active. Plus I get to see the water
every day! Bonus!
Something
else I started doing was to manifest one or more waterview homes
every time we go on vacation. When we travel anywhere, I pay a
little extra, and then for a week or more, I get to savor my coffee
each morning looking out on the water I love. I get to infuse
myself with the essence of sunlight sparkling on water. I
relish the rich colors of sunrise and the deep beauty of sunsets.
I charge my batteries with the current produced by thrashing waves,
or roaring waterfalls. And I carry that energy with me each and
every day and let it buoy my positivity.
I
still buy lottery tickets and I fully expect to win a fortune each
time because it’s fun to think about all the fun I’ll have.
But in the mean time, I’m already manifesting what I truly desire!
Grow
on!
What
is it that you want more than anything?
What
emotion will you feel when you have manifested it?
How
can you create that emotion now?
Make a short list of people, places, or things that bring you that emotion already.
How can you bring more of those into your life daily?
