“Be yourself–not your idea of what you think somebody else’s idea of yourself should be.” –Henry David Thoreau

The start of a new year means a “do over” for most of us, a fresh start, kick the old year out of our lives and welcome the new one with open arms. Yay, you made it!

Now comes the question, “resolutions, goals, intentions, or what?” Let me answer this one for you, how about showing up every day as the REAL you? The true one, the authentic person that I want to see. That the world needs right now.

A little scary, yep.

Easy?

Hell no, it’s a journey that requires you to step up, step away, run away, worry, fear, judge yourself, judge others, exhaust yourself and then surrender.

But you surrender to who you really are and how that makes you feel.

Ask yourself these two questions when you feel yourself running for the safety of agreement with someone or something;

“Is this how I really want to present myself to the world?”

“Does my soul feel happy with this choice?”

That’s how you start showing up as the real you by looking at your choices, your answers and how you judge someone or something and deciding if it rings true to YOUR values and beliefs.

So start this year by standing in your truth and make your beautiful mark on the world. I’m standing right beside you holding your hand and encouraging you onward. And I promise, your year will be better for it!

Peace and Love,

Zen Chick

 

(Spoiler alert-yes this is about the election but not who won or didn’t, so please read on)

Like a lot of you, I watched part of the elections returns, sitting in awe as I listened to the calls of what state went to whom. My state (NC) very much a battleground state was too close to call as were many and what kept catching my attention was not the closeness of the poll numbers but the segregation of the votes themselves.

As I listened to the African American vote, the Latino vote, the White educated male, the White educated female then I heard the White uneducated male and female. WHAT? And then they started breaking down the rural, urban and city vote. Okay I can understand that one but the education one really pissed me off.

We live in a country right now that is trying to heal its wounds, work on the division that has been long standing and shore up for what is to come. Why do we need to add more divisions in our thinking?

So who am I? 

I fit the “white, uneducated (without a college degree) rural female” category so does that mean I’m less informed, unable to understand all I need to know about selecting our next President? Or does that make my vote less worthy?

I have my own business (24 years and counting), have worked in upper management in corporate America, was a teen Mom, was a single Mom raising my two girls, live on a farm now (22 years and counting) and love this country I live in.

Why do I need to be one more group to be divided and counted?

I long to hear the pollsters say, “The majority of the vote was made by Americans.”  It has such a resounding ring to it, all inclusive and to the point. Maybe after such a disappointing run for those pollsters, they might consider doing just that. (not likely but it sounds good.)

So please, I beg of all of you for the sake of coming together, for the sake of building an America we all want (even if we are uncomfortable in our new direction) let’s stop breaking down our demographics, look at your neighbor and know that your common thread is that you are both Americans.

Please share this post with anyone in your corner of America that needs to be reminded, we are all the same….. Americans!

Peace and Love to you all. 

“A dream doesn’t die because it has no truth. It dies because you fail to nurture it.”
~Susie Clevenger

From a life you want to live.

A relationship you want to pursue.

A friendship you crave.

A dream you want to achieve.

A business you want to start.

A wound you need to heal.

A home that needs decluttering.

What’s really stopping you?

There’s a lot of emotions/reasons tied to each of these scenarios, some may be valid, others may not.

What’s the common denominator?

FEAR! (but you knew that already, didn’t you) Keep reading it gets better.

Fear in decluttering my home? Come on now, isn’t that stretching it?

Overwhelm may be the root cause of you not decluttering your home but fear also lends a hand. You may fear that you will “lose” the memories if you get rid of something or if you do start to let go of things, then what? What else will you be left to deal with in your life?

So fear can be a factor in that example but let’s stretch those emotional muscles just a little more and see the REAL common denominator in all of these scenarios. 

Can you guess what it is?

Fear is the “go to” emotion when it comes to what is holding you back but I want to take you into uncharted territory now.

Ready?

Nurturing is the REAL common denominator not fear. 

Want to live a life you love – nurture the desire for that life. Let it grow and fan the flame.

Want to have the relationship/partner/friend in your life – look around, reach out, find that person and nurture. We think if we want the partner or friend it should just happen, right? Nope, you have to cultivate and nurture it just like a garden for it to grow.

That dream you have or business you want to start – you have to nurture the seed of that thought and keep nurturing it, plucking fear out every time it rises up like a weed.

The wound you need to heal or the house you want to declutter – nurture yourself through the process. Baby steps are so much easier and less fearful than large leaps.

Surprised?

Fear is the reason we always reach for in these situations but when you turn it around and look at it through the eyes of nurturing it changes the whole thought process. It really puts the responsibility back on you by taking fear out of the equation.

Will fear still be around? Absolutely! But when it appears turn the fear thing around and approach from the nurturing side and see how different it looks.

Giving up because of fear is easy, working from a place of nurturing is working from your heart and soul.

Step out, nurture yourself and what you want in your life. I promise it will make a wonderful difference for you and everyone around you.

   

photo credit: tug via photopin (license)

“Want to bring out the best in people? Ask them how they want to feel”

~Truthbomb/Danielle LaPorte

The word “fearless” can conjure images of bungee jumping, extreme biking or snow boarding off impossible mountains. Sounds scary and fun but that’s not where I’m going with this wonderful word.

Let me show you how I see the word fearless, fear+less=less fear.

As one of my core desire feelings (or CDFs), having less fear in my life means less worry. Worry for me is a revolving hamster wheel and I’m the hamster. I want to get off that damn wheel but my ever cycling thoughts keep me glued to it until FEAR shows up.

Fear then delivers his famous, hated monologue, “what if or you can’t or think of what will happen if you do that?”

This monologue is what will stop me in my tracks causing me to question everything that I know to be right and dead on. Then fear sits and waits, oh so patiently, for me to circle back around and question everything again.

Fear is a very tricky fellow indeed!

Fearless lives at the top of my CDFs. Asking myself everyday what I can do to feel fearless keeps me off the hamster wheel of thoughts and even if I get there I can quickly find my way back off.

Here are some of the ways I feel fearless every day:

• I write it out every day, my worry or fear, putting it down on paper. My journal is The Desire Map Day Planner which helps me focus on gratitude, how to live out my CDFs in all areas of my life, what’s working and what’s not. At the end of every week I evaluate how it has stacked up based on how I want to feel.
• Redirecting my thoughts is how I get back off the hamster wheel, a mantra of “I want to feel fearless” may sound simple but it works.
• Pushing through the worry or fear by going ahead and doing whatever it is that is causing the issue. If I’m thinking too much about making a decision or phone call or whatever I’m blocking, just pushing through and doing it works every time.

Feeling fearless allows me to push that worry away, makes me really focus on why I’m feeling that fear. Then I can make a decision based on my intuition instead of the fear itself.

Fear does have a purpose from time to time but when it blocks things that you want to do or keeps you going down the rabbit hole of worry then fear+less comes into play.

Finding out how to feel fearless every day has helped me to break some old cycles and habits. It has opened up different ways of thinking and ways to be indifferent about things that don’t need my attention.

My core desire feelings are my guideposts, my trail markers to how I want to live my life based on how I want to feel every day.

What are my other core desire feelings you may wonder?

They are, light, soul joy, playful and freedom.

Ready to find your core desire feelings and change the way you feel in your life? Join me for The Desire Map Workshop (click here) and together we will discover how you want to feel in your life everyday.

photo credit: First Tattoo via photopin (license)

“Jump into the middle of things, get your hands dirty, fall flat on your face,

and then reach for the stars”~Ben Stein

You are sitting in front of your computer logged into Facebook looking at your friends’ updates.

“Oh look, this one is going on this great trip, this one has the perfect home life (hubby with 2 kids) and this one owns her own business and works at home in her PJs.”

*Sigh*

“And another friend is in a perfect relationship where they don’t ever have a disagreement.” Seriously?

It looks like everyone except you is truly living their perfect lives where things are always rainbows and unicorns. (*sigh*)

WAKE UP!!

Life and that’s a life that is truly lived, involves getting dirty and sometimes it’s hip deep dirt, the sort of muck that requires waders.

Getting dirty means you will know true happiness by experiencing true sadness and true forgiveness by experiencing over the top anger. You will know the highest of the highs and the darkest lows. You will know true peace by facing total upheaval. Pure joy in the smallest things and quiet calm in the sound of your breath.  

You have to be willing to get down, get dirty and deal with what life offers to truly LIVE your life. 

We crave the calm, the easy, the flow of life that is drifting along. We set sail and revel in that control of our destiny, enjoying a few rapids along the way. But when we come upon some “dangerous waters ahead” signs, we start looking at everyone else’s lives and only see what we want to see which is peaceful and perfect.

When you see that perfect life lived out by someone close to you, what you don’t see is the struggle it may take to keep that “perfect show” going. In other words, what is going on behind the scenes may be so intense that even the Great Oz couldn’t keep it going.

Life is suppose to be dirty, messy, sad, intense and all of the things that you wish sometimes you didn’t have to deal with but you do. And to truly live it, to get the very best out of it, you have to stick your hand in Pandora’s box and grabble with some snakes.

Digging a little deeper to find and live the true meaning of your life is so much better than skimming the surface and living it superficially.

Life is suppose to be dirty, so buy yourself a nice pair of waders and quit spending your time looking at everyone’s lives on Facebook. Pull on those waders, dig your heels in the muck and reach for the stars!

 

photo credit: rogerwshaw via photopin cc