Somewhere around the turn of the century, I began my search for a connection to a higher power. It became clear to me in the rooms of AA that connection was crucial if I wanted to leave behind the cycle of over drinking, trying to quit, failing to quit and over drinking again and again and again.
I had given up on religion as a teen. My parents were not churchgoers, but throughout my childhood and teen years, I attended many churches belonging to myriad denominations of the Christian religion with my friends. I lived in a small town where dozens of churches had buses that would pick you up on Sunday, or during the summer for camp programs, trips to the lake, volunteer work, and music programs of all kinds. While I enjoyed the social aspects of all of this, whenever it came to the preaching and Sunday school lessons, all of it made me feel less-than, unworthy, somehow second class. Not one of those churches ever spoke to me enough to make it stick, and I relegated religion to the category of “fine for other people, but not my thing.”
When I found Sue Monk Kidd’s memoir, The Dance of the Dissident Daughter, the subtitle read, “A Woman’s Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine.” My heart tripped over it’s feet and flopped around on the floor while I tried to find a seat in the bookstore and catch my breath. ‘Sacred Feminine’ resonated in the cells of my body like the Universe had opened it’s arms, pulled me into an embrace and said, “welcome home.”
My copy of Dance is more highlighted than not highlighted. For me, the words were like bathing in ancient wisdom steeped in ecstasy. I reveled in the author’s journey as she took me on my own. I held my breath as she named the patriarchally-imposed inequality that women suffered in the church, which I had so clearly sensed in my childhood. I cheered when she decided not to swallow it anymore. And I cried when she showed me how to forge a path and follow my own innate knowing about what is, and is not, spiritual and holy.
Her first work of fiction, The Secret Life of Bees, spent two and a half years on the best seller list and was every bit as uplifting, inspiring and hope-filled as Dance of the Dissident Daughter. Monk’s characters rise up to meet challenges and overcome fear to speak their truth. They reach inside themselves to overcome obstacles and live the life they choose to create.
The Invention of Wings is the story of Sarah Grimke, and Hetty, the slave who was gifted to Sarah as a handmaid on her eleventh birthday. “We follow their remarkable journeys over thirty five years, as both strive for a life of their own, dramatically shaping each other’s destinies and forming a complex relationship marked by guilt, defiance, estrangement and the uneasy ways of love.”
As much as I loved Secret Life of Bees, I loved Wings more. It is in my top three favorite fiction books of all time.
Sue Monk Kidd, The Book of Longings
Her newest novel, A Book of Longings, “relates an extraordinary story set in the first century about one woman’s struggle to realize the passion and potential inside her, while living in a time, and culture devised to silence her.”
It’s. Epic.
It’s inspiring, as are all of her tales. The characters are powerfully written, and my heart was beating in the heroine’s chest. I was enraged for her, enraptured, thrilled and terrified. The story transports the reader and gives her wings. It was a pure delight.
If you have not read Sue Monk Kidd’s work, I invite you to listen to the interview and explore her library of works. Then if they resonate for you like they do for so many, you can add them to your list of resources that uplift and inspire!
I follow Tosha Silver, author & astrologer. Recently I heard her say that during this time of Pluto transit, we are being forced to look at what hasn’t been looked at. Individually and collectively we must burn away what needs to burn. We are each facing our shadow. This country is facing it’s shadow. What no longer works must collapse during a Pluto transit.
Given what is happening right now in our country and our world, even those least inclined to astrology would have to say that seems pretty spot on. We can feel the energy of it!
Our world is in the midst of change. The change is a microscope, bringing our world into sharper focus so we can see what truly serves us, and what we need to release to create improved versions of ourselves and our world.
Awareness is the first step.
If we are going to give birth to more beautiful versions of ourselves and our world, then we must LOOK at what we have not been willing to look at. Now is the time to look. Now is the time to listen. Because to create our most beautiful life, our next more beautiful world, we want to take an accounting of what will grow with us, and what we must now burn away. If we refuse to look at the darkness within our lives (self-loathing, shame, masked emotions) or within the structures of our society (systemic racism), it will destroy us from within like a cancer.
Allow what needs to go go. Allow space for what you want to receive..
So many of my clients and friends are going through this right now! We are clearing out closets, emptying attics, and organizing garages. We are taking classes, hiring coaches, and deepening practices. We are getting rid of what no longer serves us, and weighs us down.
Our country is also taking a deeper look at what must collapse, or be burned away. The systemic racism, and militarized police forces that have emerged from it do not protect, nor serve us. It must now be removed so that we can ALL grow into our full potential.
To refuse to look at what needs to be looked at, to deny what we see, or to choose to resist the changes that will heal us, is about as beneficial as resisting labor pains.
We cannot give birth to ourselves anew if we resist the pain of giving birth.
The astrology is demanding rebirth.
Grow on!
What needs to go? What shadow have you been unwilling to look at? How ready do you feel to root it out to make space for something you desire? Are you in a space of personal reflection and change? Are you in a space of societal reflection and change? What obstacles might arise on your path of growth? What strategies will you use to overcome those obstacles? If you’ve been trying to make a change for awhile now, what will you try differently?
A butterfly’s transformation seems magical! They arrive in the world as a caterpillar, they gorge themselves, snuggle up in a warm blanket for a nap and – TA DA! – emerge as a lithe creature of grace and great beauty. Spectacular!
They make it look so easy. Many of us dream of transforming our lives so magically. If we could just go to sleep, then awake in the life we dream of living, spread our wings, and take flight without effort!
But how effortless is that transformation, really?
The chrysalis stage looks passive, as if the caterpillar falls asleep, then wakes up beautiful. But looks can be deceptive. The caterpillar doesn’t just grow wings and fly. The wing bits already exist inside the caterpillar’s body, and to reveal them, the caterpillar digests itself, releasing enzymes to dissolve all of its tissues.
For a time, inside the chrysalis, nothing exists except caterpillar soup, an untidy mess, mostly without organization or form. From this chaos, the Universe guides the cells to reorganize, until eventually the soft, wet butterfly is ready to awaken, and emerge into it’s new life.
Credit: pixabay
The chrysalis does not simply pop open to let the butterfly take flight. The weak, fragile creature inside is not strong enough to survive, let alone take flight. So, after surviving the complete destruction of what it previously was, the new butterfly must now struggle to gain strength and confidence in order to give birth to it’s true potential and fly.
Let the Butterfly Struggle
At this stage, when the butterfly is struggling to leave the outdated chrysalis behind, observers might be tempted to help the creature, in their excitement to observe what they know will be a wondrous beauty. But we need to trust the process. The process can be painfully slow sometimes, but to release it before it’s ready is to weaken the muscles it needs to develop if it’s ever going to take flight. The butterfly must struggle to release itself from the chrysalis in order to strengthen it’s wings and fulfill it’s potential.
We are all butterflies!
In order to live our fullest potential, we must intentionally dissolve the parts of ourselves that are outdated, or no longer beneficial, while integrating the wisdom we gained from them, in order to give birth to a more beautiful version of ourselves. This process takes courage and it takes faith.
In darkness I must un-become everything that I am so I may become what I am meant to be.
Without struggles to strengthen our wings (faith) we never gain confidence to fly. Butterflies who cannot fly are not living their potential, and die without having fulfilled it.
Let your children be butterflies!
We must let our kids struggle. If we bend over backwards to make sure they don’t fail, we’re not setting them up to succeed. If we take away their chance to struggle, they have no way to grow confident, and can become worried, anxious and self-doubtful. They may even attempt to find their own path, but when they see us jump in at the first sign of struggle, they get the message that even their parents don’t trust them, that struggle is “bad” and something to be avoided always, rather than a normal part of human life from which we learn and grow.
They see us not trust them to try. They see us not trust them to overcome adversity. They begin to see themselves as incapable. Letting them struggle is not harsh or cruel, it shows faith in the process. It empowers them and strengthens their confidence.
Knowing our parents will support us no matter what is comforting. Knowing we can succeed on our own and triumph over adversity is crucial. Wanting to protect our children from harm is normal! Choosing to protect them from struggle diminishes their chances of fulfilling their potential.
A parent’s job is not to prevent children from failing. A parent’s job is to be there for them when things don’t turn out as they had hoped, show them how to find the learning opportunity, and to use that wisdom to grow forward and inform future choices.
In Glennon Doyle’s new book, Untamed, she says, “I am here to keep becoming truer, more beautiful versions of myself again and again forever.”
This resonates so deeply for me!
In order to do this, we must trust the process of transformation. Everything we need to become our next more beautiful version is inside us now, like the caterpillar’s future wings.
Our job, like the caterpillar, is to dissolve the parts of ourselves, our community, our culture, that no longer serve us, reveal our individual and collective divine beauty, step into our full potential, and fucking fly.
Grow on!
What aspect of yourself have you been holding onto that no longer serves your wellbeing? How willing are you to allow that aspect to dissolve now? How will you transform that energy? What will you use that energy to manifest? What’s holding you back?
It’s no secret that I am a HUGE fan of Jill Lebeau MFT, spiritual psychotherapist, and author. Jill has now paired with Amit West, Heartpath Guide and Intuitive to create a podcast that will launch this summer!
I got excited as soon as I heard about it, and am SUPER excited now because they have pre-released two special episodes to help us navigate this time of rebalancing that we are all experiencing.
Jill and Amit invite us to tune in to raise our vibe, get inspired, and hear about the new way to live our greatest potential! They deliver spectacularly on all three promises.
After I listened to Grounding through the Groundlessness, I felt such inspiration, such enthusiasm for life, such hopefulness, such a tremendous upward shift in my vibration! I’m usually pretty high vibe anyway, but their podcast left me breathless and excited.
They invite us to rise up and use this time to create a better world within ourselves. As within, so without.
The thing I like MOST about this podcast, and I love all of it to bits, is the way they highlight the importance of a daily practice, to connect to our inner light, the Source of our strength and balance. When we feel out of balance, the counterbalance comes from cultivating a practice that steeps us in high vibe energy.
Clients ask me ALL the time, “What can I do to maintain my balance during upheaval?” And my answer is always the same. Practice daily.
I always maintain a list of fabulous fucking resources for my clients. When I find some great uplifting resource, I blog about it and add it to my list. This podcast is going right to the top of my list!
If you are struggling a bit right now, you need to hear this podcast. If you are struggling a LOT right now, you need to hear this podcast. If you are flying high and enjoying life right now, you need to hear this podcast!
I kept my post super short this week, so you have time to tune in to Jill and Amit, raise your vibe, get inspired, and hear about the new way to live your greatest potential!
Be present. We hear this term everywhere it seems, but what does it mean to “be present”? Why is it so important?
Being present seems like a simple concept. We are physically present wherever we stand. But we’re talking about being mentally and emotionally in the here and now. That’s a little trickier for most of us.
Humans spend a vast amount of our time reflecting on the past or wondering about the future. If we’re reveling in a wonderful memory, or excited about an upcoming occasion, then that tiny bit of time travel is beneficial, lifts our spirits, raises our vibration, and attracts MORE of the same kind of energy to us.
However, most of the time when we focus on the past, we focus on memories that bring guilt, regret, shame, or embarrassment. And often when we focus on our future, it’s the unknown we focus on which brings emotions like worry, anxiety, or doubt, which benefit no one. It drains our energy, lowers our vibration, and attracts MORE of the same kind of energy to us!
When we are focused fully in the present moment, we cannot simultaneously experience guilt, regret, shame, embarrassment, worry, anxiety, or doubt. Since all of these emotions are energy drains, it stands to reason that we have more energy when we are fully present. The gifts of being present are absence of negative emotions, and having more energy to spend on what’s important to you.
Now is powerful.
We cannot take action from the past, nor from the future. The only place we have to act is now. Clients often tell me they can’t seem to get anything done, but they come to realize that they are often not being present, and are therefore unavailable to take action. We lose a lot of time being in the past or future, instead of taking action in our powerful NOW.
So, how do we be here now?
Here’s a simple exercise that can easily guide you to the present moment when you find yourself wandering in time.
Take a deep cleansing breath. (Hell, take two or three, they’re FREE!) One at a time, take stock of your five basic senses. Sitting quietly, note just one or two things that you can sense with each.
Here are my examples for this moment in time:
Smell – I smell jasmine flowers and coffee. Taste – I taste toothpaste. Touch – I feel the chair beneath me, and the floor under my feet. Hearing – I hear a clock ticking. Sight – I see sunlight streaming in the window, and the dog lying in the sun.
Notice how the exercise immediately brings you into the now.
Whenever you catch yourself in your head living from the past or into the future in a way that is not beneficial, you can instantly improve how you feel by checking in with your five senses and being present in the moment.
Grow on!
How often are you in the present moment? What have you been missing while not being present? What will change for you when you are more present? What difference do you notice in your tension/stress levels before and after the above exercise?
To understand detachment more fully Tosha Silver is a master teacher, and my sensei! Her most recent book, It’s Not Your Money, is about
releasing our attachment to money, freeing ourselves of fear around finances, and offering everything, not just money, to a Higher Power (Source, God/Goddess, Universe, Divine, whatever Higher Power you know).
What is detachment?
Maybe it’s easier to start with the question, “What is attachment?” We can all relate to this one. We know what it is to be attached to something, to deeply desire a particular outcome. We want something. We go after it with gusto. We do not get the outcome we were expecting, and we feel like the Universe is holding out on us, or we got cheated out of our prize. If we are in a long term relationship that suddenly ends, we may feel angry or depressed because we expected a different ending to the story.
If we are attached to something we cling to it. We try to force the outcome we want because we WANT it, and think that we can only be happy if it turns out the way we have imagined it.
We can think of attachment as a clenched fist trying with desperation to hang on to something slippery. We might manage to hold on, but the energy it costs can drain us entirely. So then, we can think of detachment as the gentle opening of that clenched fist.
Detachment is the release that causes relief. It’s the art of allowing, the act of surrendering to faith in the Universe.
The more we are able to release our attachment to a particular outcome, the more opportunities become available for the Universe to flow abundance to us. This doesn’t mean we can’t have preferences. I’m talking about being able to hold your preference while releasing attachment to the outcome.
Let’s say Sally wants a career shift that allows her more flexible hours, better benefits, increased income, and the opportunity to work with some wonderful people. If she becomes focused on one particular position as the answer to her prayers, she might miss other opportunities that are a better fit. If she is looking only at one possible outcome, she might not recognize the perfect thing when it pops up because it doesn’t resemble what she’s looking for.
On the other hand, if she is open to receive what she wants without demanding that the Universe deliver it in one particular way, the Universe will deliver by amazing and miraculous methods.
The Universe knows what we truly desire and will do everything in its power to deliver that to us as long as we don’t hamstring it into producing only what our own human mind can conjure. The Universe has infinitely more ideas for how to give us what we want than we could possibly dream!
If we believe that our only source of money is our current job, then the Universe can only deliver money to us through our current job. If that paycheck goes away, it’s understandably going to produce some fear because we don’t currently believe in any other source of income.
If, on the other hand, we trust that the Universe has more sources of money than we can imagine, and we believe that the Universe (Divine Source, or God) will supply our every need, now we open ourselves to miracles. Now the Universe delivers support in myriad ways, large and small, expected and unexpected.
If you are determined that your next salary MUST be X dollars, you close yourself off to both higher paying jobs, and positions that offer less money now, but are the springboard to your dream job.
Often times we do not move forward into the infinite abundance that the Universe is flowing to us because we have anchored ourselves to something from the past. If we are weighed down with guilt or shame from our own actions or the actions of others, we cannot receive all the gifts the Universe is wanting to deliver. This situation is like casting ourselves as the cartoon dog tied to his dog house. We find that what we desire is right in front of us, and we could easily reach it if what’s behind us weren’t holding us back.
How do we detach?
Some things, like income, feel pretty important to hang on to. So how do we begin to loosen our grasp and release our fear of the unknown?
Take a deep breath! Breathing is always my starting point. Taking a deep breath grounds me in the present moment where I am free of any guilt or shame from the past, and free from any worries about the future. When I am present, the past and future do not exist. So I always encourage my clients to start with a deep grounding breath or three.
Often I feel my physical body release tension with just this one simple step, as if my entire physical structure had been HOLDING ON to whatever I am currently grasping for. Then I open my hands (sometimes subconsciously they are clenched closed) and I offer the whole thing to intuition.
Intuition comes from Source Energy (God, Goddess, Inner Being, Higher Self, whatever Divine Source to which you adhere or relate), so offering my desire to Divine Self releases my small self (ego) from trying to run the show.
Here’s an example from my life.
Last Friday after meditation I opened my eyes and felt a new, full-blown desire erupt in my heart. “I want a puppy!” I heard my heart say to me. Since it was flush on the heels of quieting my mind, I accepted it as wisdom from Source, and I ran with that desire along the well-worn path of “How do I make this happen?” I am, after all, a make-it-happen kinda girl. For about 24 hours I chased after my puppy. I did the research. I contacted my vet for costs on puppy shots. I looked into fees at spay clinics. I Googled dachshund breeder websites, and dachshund rescue sites. It may have been the initial sticker shock that put a hitch in my vibration.
Nine years ago I purchased the world’s most adorable dachshund for $400. BEST money I ever spent! Captain Boscoe P. Jenkins is the joy of our lives.
Little boys have doubled in price since then, and girls are higher still! Which makes complete sense. What hasn’t increased in price in the last nine years? Add to that the fact that I started trying to figure out how Boscoe’s precious life will be impacted and suddenly I got hooked into trying to figure out HOW I was going to get my puppy.
I felt slightly frustrated and a little irritable because I know exactly what I want – a female dachshund less than 6 months old with short hair who adds as much joy to our lives as Boscoe does, whom Boscoe adores, adopts as his own, and enjoys playing with. And I feel in my heart that she is moving toward us. But trying to figure out HOW to get her, and WHERE she will come from, and HOW to afford adoption fees, and all the rest felt like my whole body was grasping, contracting in, pressing down on my heart, depriving me of blood & oxygen, and stopping the flow of my puppy moving toward me.
Then I laughed so loud!
In my excitement, I had completely forgotten to offer my puppy to Divine Order. After all, if the Universe wants me to have her (and I firmly believe the Universe does), Divine has already chosen the perfect puppy for us and will deliver her in the exact right way. It’s NOT my job to figure out the details. So I took a deep grounding breath and offered the situation to Divine Source. I said something like, “Divine Mother, I have a deep longing to have the joy of another puppy in our home. I know You have selected exactly the right puppy for our family and will deliver her with ease at the exact right time. I release my need to make this happen in my own way, and trust You to handle everything.”
My body unclenched, and my heart opened, and instantly I felt the joy of getting a new puppy again instead of the dread of not knowing how to get her!
You could rightfully point out that I am still attached to the idea of a female. The reason for that is Boscoe’s preference. He gets along much better with girls than with boys. Then again, I guess if there is a boy puppy out there that is perfect for Boscoe’s playmate, God will certainly know how to find him!
Do I have my puppy yet? No. But that’s only because it’s not the perfect time. I feel relaxed and comfortable waiting for Source to deliver in whatever way is best, because if I keep grasping and grabbing and forcing MY timing and MY will, I’ll likely end up with someone else’s puppy! She won’t be the perfect puppy already lined up to be Boscoe’s little sister. Offering it hasn’t instantly delivered the manifestation.
The gift in offering is that I can focus on what I want – the joy of a new puppy – and not all the unknowns that may cause stress and dis-ease.
Ironically it is only when we stop grasping for what we want that it is able to flow to us. We’re no longer blocking it from coming with our contracted energy.
How many stories have we heard of women who desperately want a child, who try every possible option to get pregnant, and go through painful fertility procedures, who end up feeling heartbroken if all of that effort doesn’t give them their child. It’s usually when she gives up and moves her attention to something else that she finds herself suddenly a mother to someone else’s child, or unexpectedly and delightedly pregnant herself.
The Lord works in mysterious ways. Truth is stranger than fiction. That’s because Source (your intuition) is Infinite Intelligence. Our limited human minds can’t think up a fraction of the possibilities available to Divine imagination! And it baffles our minds and drains our energy when we try.
Faith is a muscle.
Like any muscle, faith requires strengthening to perform optimally. As you begin to practice, don’t offer the BIG question that you have been struggling with the most. Your faith might not be strong enough yet. If you try to offer the BIG question without practicing on small stuff first, you may naturally revert to old thought patterns and decide it’s not working and give up. Practice on the small stuff first.
Practice offering by letting go. Try letting go of a disagreement with someone. As you realize you are about to correct them or their behavior, surrender it to Divine and just let it go. Remember, their behavior is not your responsibility, so just give it back to Source. You may well feel a huge burden lifted as you release this need to tell them how to act.
Let go of the worry of not knowing something you want to know. If you have a question about something that you can’t currently find the answer for, offer that to Source. You can offer anything and feel the sweet feeling of relief for not being responsible to figure it out. Trust that your intuition will guide you when action is required, and until then, just chill!
Tosha’s books are full of myriad prayers of offering for virtually every situation, and stories of how letting go and having faith delivered the perfect answer to one who had been striving, then let go and offered it up to a higher power. I highly recommend all her books for building the faith muscle and uplifting the spirit.
Grow on!
How would it feel to just let go and have faith that whatever you are currently going through is going to turn our for your highest good, and you have zero responsibility for figuring out how that’s going to happen?
How much energy would that free up for you? What in your life are you currently struggling to maintain control over? What’s it costing to cling to that? What will it take to release your grasp just a little? What will change for you when you do?
Everyone is currently talking about the importance of a healthy immune system, and I could not agree MORE!
We’ve heard reminders about the importance of proper hydration, plenty of rest, washing our hands, eating healthy foods, – avoid crap food because if your body is already struggling with garbage and toxins, it has less strength to fight off viruses – drinking less alcohol, reducing smoking, washing our hands, staying active, taking probiotics, getting some sunshine every day, and then washing our hands again.
All of these things are GREAT to boost immunity, plus they help us feel healthier & more energized! One thing I have not heard mentioned in this torrent of common sense is to get engaged!
Human beings are energy systems.
We literally exist to flow energy. When our energy is not flowing it is stagnant, and our energy system feels depressed. Stuck energy causes physical dis-ease, and once we stop flowing energy, our Spirit disengages from our physical body and we have our ‘death’ experience. – According to Abraham, we never die. We are eternal beings and when we ‘die’ we still exist as non-physical energy that is 100% engaged in all the same subjects of interest we had while in physical form.
The only way to flow energy is to engage energy.
So get engaged! Find something that you are passionate about and focus on that. That’s what flows energy and sustains our Spirit. Boredom will kill us! Boredom stagnates our energy and energy needs to flow.
So besides following all of the wonderful common sense advice to eat right, get plenty of rest, and wash your hands repeatedly, get excited about your life! If we’re not feeling passionate about SOMETHING, we are an easy target for that energy transference known as ‘death’ that so many people fear.
If we are sleepwalking through life, going to work, surviving the mental clutter in our mind, emotionally drained, tolerating relationships, physically inactive, and spiritually unanchored, then we are NOT energetically engaged! Washing our hands a million times can’t boost our immune system enough to counteract this level of energy stagnation.
When we stop flowing energy in this physical body, when we stop being engaged in our current life, we are as likely to die in our sleep or in a freak accident as to be taken out by a viral pandemic.
More than one client this week has expressed a fear of dying, and anyone watching TV, or surfing the internet these days might resonate with that fear.
Fear of death might mean that we do not understand our eternal, infinite nature. But my intuition tells me that most people are afraid to die because there is something the heart longs to do that is yet undone. THAT is where passion lies! Focus on THAT because it will flow energy and feed your resilience, and expand your soul.
Many clients have told me they don’t know what THAT is for them, so they get discouraged. I say let that encourage you! If your fear of death is telling you there is MORE yet to be done, that your purpose is not yet fulfilled, then allow that knowing to fill you with HOPE! Not hope simply that death will not yet come for you, but hope that you have purpose and your purpose will again engage and flow energy through this life. And flowing energy is the purpose. Of all life.
So go get engaged! Find your passion and flow with it.
Flow on!
What do you enjoy? Find ways to incorporate it into your life as soon & as often as possible.
If you do not know what you enjoy, it’s very possible that until now, others have defined your life for you. If this is true for you, I encourage you not to be too hard on yourself, because it is true for MANY people. It’s quite common to let our parents, our spouse, our children, or our career define “who” we are. But when their version of who we ‘should be’ no longer inspires us, or when the outside influence goes away, we may not know what we truly want or where to flow our energy.
Try doing something differently than you normally do it. Do you enjoy that? Do it again! Not so much? Forget about that experiment and try something different.
Enjoy it? Keep it. Do it again. Not so much? Move on to experiment with a new experience.
The important thing is to get that energy flowing. You’ll figure it out as you go. You’ve GOT this.
Here are a few options to engage energy and get it flowing:
Physical activity to move or unstick physical energy. Journal to unstick mental/emotional energy & gain clarity. See a therapist to unstick old emotional energy. Hire a coach to help identify and remove energy blocks. Plan activities with friends or family to engage social energy. Reduce exposure to toxic people to move stuck energy. Be of service to others to engage social and spiritual energies. Take self-maintenance seriously to engage spiritual energy. Meditate or connect with nature to move spiritual energy. Read spiritually uplifting books or blogs. Clean home and office to move energy in your environment.
What’s YOUR favorite way to engage energy or get unstuck? Please share in the comments!
I hear clients ask, “What if they don’t DESERVE my love?!”
Choosing to feel love benefits YOU. Choosing negative emotions harms YOU.
It has nothing to do with what they deserve. What do you deserve? Which emotions do you want to feel? Because YOU are the only one feeling your emotions.
Hate, anger, disappointment, irritation, fear. These emotions create catabolic energy (and lead to the dark side!). Catabolic energy breaks down or destroys. Catabolic emotions weaken us physically, mentally and spiritually. These emotions drain our energy, leave us depleted, and have zero affect on the person we create the emotions about!
Unless we are creating these emotions about ourselves.
Then they have exponential destructive power in our lives. Creating catabolic emotions about ourselves and directing that catabolic energy at ourselves through a magnifying glass is the most energy draining, soul-destroying thing we can do!
So why not simply choose to LOVE, like and encourage yourself? Why not give yourself a break? Count yourself as learning and experimenting instead of failing. Simply allow yourself to be YOU in all your flawsomeness without beating yourself up for being human. Love creates anabolic energy. Anabolic energy creates and heals.
How can you know that catabolic destroys and anabolic creates?
Try this energy experiment:
Sit quietly a minute and empty your thoughts for an instant. Then, think that thought that you always think about yourself when you are beating yourself up – yep, the really mean one. Notice how that feels physically. Where and how do you feel it in your body?
Sit quietly a minute and empty your thoughts for an instant. Just breathe in and out deeply three times, returning to neutral. Then, think about the person you adore most in this world. Your child or grandchild, your dog or your lover. Whoever you MOST love with ease and great abundance. How does THAT energy feel in your body? Where does it vibrate?
That should demonstrate pretty clearly that catabolic energy drains and depletes us, and anabolic energy heals, uplifts, and connects us to others.
So why not choose love?
It feels yummy! It’s good for the body, mind and spirit. It’s GREAT for healing relationships. It adds joy wherever it bubbles out. So why not choose love?
Still back at “What if they don’t deserve my love?”
I hear this OFTEN from clients! That is a totally normal reaction. (Side note: If someone is hurting you, they do not deserve your love. But YOU deserve your love, so if someone is harming you, you’ll need enough self-love to walk away.)
How possible is it to impose your emotions on another?
Our emotions have zero affect on the person we are creating these emotions about! Our emotions can only effect us! Don’t believe me? Ever known anyone who was madly in love and pouring all of their energy, love, affection, and attention on someone who barely notices them? Right? That’s the theme of pretty much every romantic comedy ever made. You can’t make someone else feel what you feel. We each create and experience our own emotions.
So why choose to be angry at someone when YOU are the only one being harmed by the catabolic emotion you create? If YOU are the only one receiving benefit or detriment due to the emotions you create, why not choose anabolic, good-feeling emotions that build you up and create more opportunities in your life?
We all have jobs to get to every day, and some of us have second jobs. Some of us commute and that can be like a second job. I feel fortunate to live ten minutes from my office, so that’s not one of the things that sucks time out of my day, but believe me, there are myriad more because I run a thriving massage practice, I sell my landscape photography, and now am transitioning to empowerment coaching and finishing my grad work at iPEC.
People need time to buy groceries, plan meals, prepare foods, get car repairs, stop for gas, see the doctor, see their therapist, get to the gym, fit in some cardio or yoga, buy clothes, celebrate people they love, spend time with friends and family, keep our homes tidy, wash the cars, mow the lawn, prune bushes, rake leaves, develop professionally, develop personally, get plenty of rest, stay hydrated, the list is infinite! I can’t possibly name all the stuff we need to do.
Then there are people with kids! Children come with a whole other set of time sinks to drain their parents’ already busy schedules.
So if you keep hearing that meditation is a key foundation to living a better life, you will not be alone if your first thought is, “Who the fuck has time to meditate? I certainly don’t!” It seems like just one more thing that needs doing, right?
Abraham (Esther Hicks) says that saying you don’t have time to meditate is like saying you don’t have time to look for your car keys, so you’ll just walk from Phoenix to San Diego. That’s how essential meditation is! Sure, you can get where you’re going without it, but it’s going to take a WHOLE lot longer to get where you are wanting to go!
When you do a quick search online, it’s easy to find articles about people adopting a meditation practice to improve their lives. Here is a list of links you may find interesting if you’d like more information:
Rich, famous, successful people all over the world swear by meditation as a habit that has escalated their prosperity and well being in a meaningful way.
That may be fine for the rich and famous, after all they have more time on their hands than those of us working two jobs and raising kids without nannies, right? If we had the nanny, and the maid, and a personal shopper & chef, we would have time to meditate and improve our vibration, too! (Calibrating our own vibration to the vibration of our Source is the whole point of meditation.)
But what if making time to meditate every day gave us the power we needed to excel throughout the rest of our day? What if regular meditation allowed you to feel less stress? What if you could enjoy your life more by syncing up with Source energy on a daily basis? What would THAT be worth? More peace of mind. More financial security. Less stress and time-scarcity.
Would we make time to meditate if we received all these benefits?
That seems priceless! All it costs is minutes of our time each day, and a commitment to stick with it until we can see and feel the results for ourselves.
Now, I could go on and on, but I would rather have you take the next 3-10 minutes to sit and follow your breath.
It has come to my attention that marketing professional coaching is much, MUCH harder than marketing amazing massage therapy.
If I ask you for referrals to my massage practice, you can probably think of at least a dozen people who want one or who can benefit from it. If I ask you for referrals to my coaching practice, you probably know at least a half dozen, but how would you KNOW they need a coach?
In thirteen years of practicing massage, I never had to pay for advertising and I certainly never had to educate people about what it is that I do. People know what a massage is and many of us (me FIRST!) are addicted to the stress release, pleasure, comfort, relaxation and overall feeling of well-being that comes with massage. Many people are realizing that massage is an essential part of their health care budget, and include it as a regular part of their self-care.
If you have an amazing massage therapist and you hear someone say that their back hurts, or that they started running and have tight hamstrings, or that they suffer from tension headaches, you know from personal experience that massage is helpful, and you feel confident saying so and recommending your therapist. Massage therapy is pretty mainstream, so if you find yourself in need of massage, you feel comfortable asking friends for recommendations. But, who the fuck needs a life coach?
Maybe a better question to start with is,
What the fuck does a life coach do?
When my therapist first suggested that I would make a great life coach, my response to her was, “Is that a thing?” So I am never surprised when people haven’t a clue about what I do or who needs/wants professional coaching.
Coaches are NOT therapists, psychologists or counselors. If you are clinically depressed, please seek help from one of these professions. Coaches do not give advice or delve into the roots of your issues.
Coaches help you clearly see where you are, then help you map a path to where you want to go.
Humans sometimes struggle with getting to where we want to be. We might know what we want and just can’t quite figure out how to get there. Or maybe we KNOW the steps required to get us there, but we can’t quite motivate ourselves to take those steps. Sometimes we can’t even figure out WHAT the hell we want because we have so many thoughts cluttering our minds.
People may struggle with time scarcity and feel overwhelmed. We sometimes deal with financial scarcity that can create cycles of fear and worry. During transitions in our lives, we can sometimes feel unanchored, and unsure what course to chart next. If we have many paths before us, sometimes we can’t choose. And if we have any difficult emotions attached to the situations we are going through, that’s when things can get challenging.
It is immensely helpful in times like these to talk to someone who is not emotionally attached to your outcome, someone who can help clarify your thinking and help you find your way forward to where you want to be.
That’s what life coaches do. We help clients overcome obstacles to get from where they are to where they’d like to be.
How do we do that? By having conversations about values, goals, and habitual thoughts and behavior patterns. By looking at what influences their energy socially, physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, and environmentally. By discovering ways to increase energy in all those areas. By replacing fear with faith, which has a very different vibration and attracts very different energy into one’s life.
So, who the fuck needs a life coach?
People going through one of the struggles mentioned above. People who never have the energy to do what they love doing. People who want to reach their goals. People who want to manifest their dreams. People going through any kind of transition like changing careers or relationships, moving to a new city, or empty nesting. People struggling to reach their health goals. People who have lost their confidence or have low self-esteem. People who know they want MORE from their lives, but aren’t quite sure more of what.
Me. I need a life coach.
One of the BEST parts about my coaching school was that we constantly had peers coaching us for practice. I was practicing my coaching skills which was extremely valuable, but receiving coaching weekly had the added benefit of tremendous self-growth along with an increased understanding of what it feels like to receive the benefits of regular coaching. My mother looked at me like I was crazy when I told her I was still being coached regularly. “But you are a trained coach, why do you need one?”
GREAT question! There are a lot of ways in which I can and do coach myself all the time to change habitual thoughts from my past that do not serve my goals. But I also pay two professional coaches for regular sessions. I have an In the Flow coach who helps keep my energy and enthusiasm high, and I have a life coach to help me plan my goals, improve my relationships, and be the best version of me that I can be! I also follow a business coach on Facebook to pick up lots of hints and tips on how to grow my coaching practice.
So, who needs a life coach? Everyone NEEDS a life coach!
But, who can coaching help?
Coaching can ONLY help those who are willing to show up for themselves, and take the actions required to get out of their own way and get to where they want to go.
Here is the most important question:
Who the fuck is READY for a life coach?
If you know a truly amazing life coach, who do you refer to her for coaching?
Coaching is becoming more common, but when someone finds themselves needing a coach, they may not feel comfortable asking for recommendations. They may not think any of their friends know a life coach. It’s just not that main stream. I mean, really, is life coaching a thing?
PLEASE keep your ears open for key phrases like these:
I always feel so overwhelmed! I’m tired all the time. I have no energy. I want to change (something), but have no idea how! I have tried to change (something), but I always fail. My life doesn’t matter. I’ll never reach my goals. Is this all there is to life? I want more from my life, I just don’t know what. Why can’t I stick to my own healthy intentions? I have to do everything myself. I’m in a rut and I can’t get out. I want to complete (some large goal) but I have no idea where to start!
Anyone saying these things will benefit from coaching. If you regularly say these things, contact me for a chat!
When you hear phrases like these from friends, you will be helping us both by giving them my name and contact info.
I will be delighted to schedule a 30 minute session to see if coaching is a good fit for the challenges they’re facing. No obligation. No sales pitch. If it seems like coaching can help, I’ll tell them what I offer my clients. If I am not the right coach for them, I have an extensive network of other coaches with varying specialities that I am delighted to refer them to, and a LONG list of free resources that might be all they need to set them on the path to their dreams!
This is partially about building my practice, but it’s mostly about making sure people have the support they need to succeed in life!
That’s what I am passionate about! I want everyone to live the best possible version of themselves!
Grow on!
What will happen if you share this blog post? Who will you help? Who do you know who is currently facing life challenges? Who do you know who’s been struggling awhile to reach a goal? Who do you know who is in transition and could use some support? How many of the key phrases above have you used recently? What is your biggest goal? What steps are you currently taking to get there? What steps are you avoiding? Why? What’s holding you back?
