personal growth – Intuitive Balance Coaching

Release Your Fear, Free Your Mind: A Jedi Mind Trick to Turn Your Thoughts Around

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Let’s get real for a moment…there is a LOT of really scary shit going on in the world right now. No matter how much you try to avoid the news, or social media, or your doomsday neighbor, you can’t really tune out of what’s happening around us. Whether it be the myriad natural disasters occurring across the world, this crazy dude that wants to blow up the Universe, the largest security breach in American history, or whatever else is eking its way into your personal reality, let’s face it…it’s tough not to be afraid. I had a client ask me yesterday how it was possible to be so joyful in the midst of all of this chaos. Well, I don’t know if I have the answer for that, but I can certainly share my own process of staying sane.

Yoda (who in my book is the MAN and should run for president) said that “Fear is the path of the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Smart fella if you ask me. When we allow these fearful occurrences to dictate the contents of our mind, we start a downward spiraling process that is difficult to turn around. One fearful thought leads to another which leads to another. This energy shows up in the way we interact with the world, sparking more of the same in those that we encounter. YOU are the only person who can stop that fear in its tracks, and I’m hoping this little trick will help you do just that.

Our response to fear is natural, but that doesn’t mean that we have to give it control. When I notice myself getting sucked into the drama playing out on my TV or the fear being perpetuated on my Facebook feed, I take a moment first just to acknowledge it. “Shit, Jillian…you are freaking out right now! Time to shut this crap down!” I try to be compassionate with myself about it, rather than judgmental. After all…it IS scary when so many unknowns are catapulting towards you. I turn off whatever media is on or gently extract myself from the conversation at hand. I sit quietly and take a few deep breaths. I repeat out loud to myself, “The only thing I have is this moment, and in this moment I am here, I am safe and I am happy.” I try to remember that my fear will only draw more fear to me, and so being afraid is counterproductive. The best way to combat fear is joy and love, and so I begin to remind myself of all of the things in my life at this very moment that I have to be joyful about…positive relationships, my goofy children, a job that I love, my breath, my yoga practice, my favorite tree in my back yard, my dogs, my spiritual connection with my higher power, etc. I come back to my breath and typically, I notice an immediate difference. My breathing is softer, calmer and more even. I feel more centered and safe. I am reminded of the multiple reasons I have to choose to be happy rather than bind myself in fear.

So why does this work? I believe it’s because we are creating space between the trigger and the response. Rather than allowing that first negative or fearful thought to spiral out of control, we are giving it the acknowledgement that it needs and setting a new course towards a more positive orientation. The first few times you try it, it might feel fruitless, but, as with all things, practice makes perfect. Try, try and try again, and hopefully sometime very soon, you will find yourself moving into calmer waters quicker than you thought possible.

We are all in charge of the energy we give to fear, because that energy starts a ripple throughout the entire Universe that must reverberate back to us. Even taking baby steps to try to release your fear makes a huge impact on the collective whole of humankind. You are a powerful being…use that power for love, kindness and good. May the force be with you. (Yes, said that, I did. Mmm.)

To learn more about life coaching and how to start the process of turning your negative thoughts around, visit my website at http://www.jillianarenacyi.com

Open to Grace

In Yoga Teacher Training, we are taught that opening up to grace is an integral part of our practice. It’s that moment in a yoga class where your teacher is instructing you to settle into the space around you, let go of thoughts, worries and to-do lists that might be sabotaging your relaxation, and let yourself become present and aware so that you can receive your yoga practice. In a dimly lit studio, sprawled out on your mat, with no disturbances other than the gentle sound of you and your neighbors breathing, soft music playing in the background of your thoughts, this can be a relatively easy and safe space to do just that…to completely let go. After all, that’s why you are there in the first place, right? What happens, though, when you’re not on your mat? Opening to grace feels a lot more difficult to do when you are in the throes of your day to day activities, children arguing in the background, a pile of bills arriving in the mail, stacks of paperwork to get through at the office, a lawn to mow, and the mountain of laundry spilling out of your clothes hamper staring at you every time you enter your room. However, these are the times when opening to grace is absolutely the most important.

Grace is defined by dictionary.com as “simple elegance or refinement of movement”, but to me, it is so much more than that. It is a willingness to surrender to the truth that we are each going through exactly the things that will help us to become the best versions of ourselves, even (especially) in the moments where it feels completely the opposite. It is the ability to find strength in our struggles and to participate fully and completely in all aspects of our lives, good, bad, scary, exciting, or otherwise. It is the knowledge that our perception of what is happening in our lives is so much more important than the situations themselves, because the situations are impermanent. It is the power to stand strong through the storms, holding firm to the knowledge that calmer waters are ahead of us and that there is an important lesson for our soul within each and every moment. How amazing would it feel to bring the same peace, calm and quiet that you find on your mat, or out in nature, or in your bath (or whatever it is that you do to connect to this space) into the daily situations that are a natural part of life? Well, you can, which is pretty good news.

Take a minute to inventory what’s going on in your life that’s stressing you out or causing worry or fear. Write it all down. Read it back to yourself without any judgement. Instead, maybe you can find a little curiosity. What is your soul trying to help you to learn by these difficult situations? For most of us, our difficulties often become repeating patterns, causing us to feel like something is wrong with us or that we are just destined to always have this particular issue in our lives, but this couldn’t be farther from the truth. These moments that challenge us are opportunities for us to get know ourselves better. For example, if you are somebody who is constantly struggling financially and worried about how to pay the bills, this might be your soul telling you that your job is not in alignment with what you really want. It may also be an indication that you have some limiting beliefs around money that need to be acknowledged and explored so that prosperous energy feels welcome to flow into your life. If you find yourself struggling with relationship after relationship, perhaps it is your soul trying to urge you to look in a different place, or to learn to love yourself first so that you can openly receive true love back. Maybe it is an indication that you subconsciously don’t feel worthy of love and so you are inadvertently pushing it away.

Remember, we attract the energy that we put out…like attracts like. Therefore, it’s not what we WISH we believed or what we WANT to believe, but the actual beliefs stored deep, down within us, that are shaping our realities. It can be scary to dig down and unearth them, but consider for a moment, a diamond. My dear friend and colleague, Amy Lombardo, put this in such great perspective for me. Diamonds are formed way down in the Earth’s mantle (about 100 miles deep), and start as chunks of coal. It takes a tremendous amount of heat and pressure to create this sparkly gem, but once the work has occurred, the diamond is pushed to the surface naturally for all to enjoy. Your thoughts are like these diamonds. YOU have that same sparkly gem deep within in you, just waiting to be exposed to the heat so that it can emerge and shine brightly out to the world. When you can accept that knowledge and open to grace, knowing that you have a deep well of untapped potential within you and the power to change your reality, the world opens back to you. Your sparkly gems are naturally pushed to the surface and the Universe responds by shining back.

Where in this very moment can you open yourself to grace? Where can you replace fear with curiosity, and hopefully learn something about yourself through the process? Start right now. The more that you practice this the easier it becomes. Opening to grace is not something that needs to be confined to your yoga mat. It is accessible in each and every moment to help you come back to center, find your calm and elevate yourself towards all of the possibility just waiting to be discovered within you!

If you need some help unearthing your spark, please visit my website HERE to learn more about transitional life coaching and my 12-week program, Ascend to New Heights.

Ripping Off the Band-aid

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Jim Morrison…you’ve got to love him. Not only was he excruciatingly gorgeous with a voice and stage presence that could melt the polar ice caps, but he said some pretty brilliant shit as well. We may never know if it was the many hits of acid speaking or if it really was his Indian spirit guide, but whatever the source of his words, they were undeniably insightful and still hold impact and validity today. How many times have you caught yourself gripped in the ruthless hands of fear?

We live in a society that is largely ruled by fear. From the time that we are born we are conditioned to be afraid of things. Some of it is necessary to our survival, such as not touching the stove or sticking a fork in the electrical socket, but many of the other things that we are taught to be afraid of can thwart our growth in so many ways. We are taught largely to listen to others which causes fear of our own inner voice. We are taught to follow the norms of society which can lead us to fear the decision to carve out our own authentic paths and follow our dreams. We are taught to compare ourselves to others, which births the fear of never being enough within ourselves. We are taught to fear being without material possessions, which causes feelings of greed within us. We are taught to fear the things/people/places which we do not fully understand, which can prevent us from educating ourselves about the different cultures, religions, races, sexual orientations and physical landscapes that surround us in this amazingly diverse world. In short, our fear begins to shape us from our initial breaths on this Earth and continues to shape shift as we experience the world. But what if we could change that? What if we could look closely at our fears…stare them straight in the face, stand up boldly and move bravely into them? What is the worst that would actually happen?

Take a moment to think back on all of the things you have been afraid of in your life and write them down. We’re going to use them in a minute. Yeah, I know, it’s a big list, right? When I think back on my fears what I notice is a progression. When I was in my early 20’s I had been through some terrible relationships (I mean like surrrrrrrrrrriously, abusively bad) and I swore I was done dating. Then I met Josh. I was terrified of him because I knew I really liked him. Then he asked me to marry him and I became afraid of that. What if it didn’t work out? Then we got married and decided to get pregnant…new biggest fear as my belly expanded and my whole world threatened to change. Eight and a half months pregnant, we found our first home, closing ten days prior to the birth of our son…#freakingout. Here comes Jacob…motherhood became the thing I feared the most because I had no idea how to do it. Then Josh lost his job. New mortgage, new baby, no job…does it get more terrifying? I swore we were doomed…until Josh decided to start his own business (which of course scared the crap out of us both as well). Suddenly, another baby was on the way. Jocelyn was born and I quit my job to stay at home with them…this became the scariest decision of my life, but I did it anyway. This progression continued on and on, presenting me with new fears along the way, until finally one day, I realized that it wasn’t the situations themselves that were terrifying me, but my reaction to them. I started to look back at this long laundry list of fear I had been carrying around with me and realized that as each new fear had arisen and I had moved through it, the fear for that particular event had dissipated and morphed into a new fear. It dawned on me that there will always be things to be afraid of, but it is up to me whether or not I let the fear have control. I have a choice in each situation to square up against my fear and challenge it, and so do you.

I am happy to report that moving through my personal fear has led me to a 10-year (this July) marriage to my best friend and the most amazing guy I know, 2 kick-ass little kids who challenge me to grow, expand and be a better person each day, a beautiful home that is my sanctuary, my husband and I each owning our own business and the fortitude to keep moving through fear as it shows up. That’s important to acknowledge by the way…I still get afraid. All the time actually. Life isn’t always sunshine and butterflies. My husband and I argue, my kids can act like little shits, my home needs repairs and our businesses fluctuate through good and bad times (and the bad times can be REALLY scary), but we keep on keeping on anyway, moving forward with the knowledge that this too shall pass and that we can look our fears in the face and move on anyway.

So where does fear show up for you? Go back to your list. If you didn’t write it, do it now. Take a close look at all of these places that fear has popped up in your life from as early as you can think of. First off, see if you notice any patterns. Are your fears largely based around one particular area? Money? Relationships? Your Career? Self-esteem? Now, notice any of these situations where you faced your fear and moved forward anyway? What was the outcome? If you haven’t had the opportunity to face any of these fears, guess what today is? That’s right, your opportunity. You don’t have to dive in headfirst, but think of a way that you can start to move into your fear slowly. If your fear is primarily surrounding relationships, maybe today is the day you finally make that online dating profile (don’t worry…you don’t have to go live until tomorrow). If your self-esteem is taking the hit, maybe today is the day to buy the dress you’ve always wanted, even though your head screams that you’re not feminine enough to pull it off. Tomorrow, rock it. Each day take baby steps to move into your fear. You will likely find that the further you go, the less powerful it becomes.

Interested in life coaching with me? Visit my website HERE, or join me on FACEBOOK to keep up with classes and events I have coming up. Learn about my 12-week coaching program, “Ascend to New Heights” by watching THIS VIDEO INTERVIEW

The Importance of Getting To Know (and Love) Your Inner Dork!

I was born an extremely strange child. That’s me up above in the background, pulling on my eyelids with martian bobbles on my head. That’s my sister up front, looking marginally annoyed and confused by whatever I am doing and my existence in general. I have evoked this response from her, and many others, since my first breaths on this Earth, and I have a funny feeling I may continue to do so until my last.

When I was little, being weird and silly worked for me. It was a great way to ease tension, get myself out of trouble (my mother ALWAYS broke), distract myself from boredom and use my imagination in creative ways. We had a giant dress-up box in my basement and whenever it was raining and I couldn’t play outside and peel acorns for -the squirrels, down to the basement I would go. I would spend some time finding the perfect outfit, march back up the stairs (sometimes at my own risk depending on my threads), head into whatever room my family member, house guests, friends or door-to-door salesman were in and just stand there…until somebody noticed and burst out laughing.

I continued this behavior throughout high school, not assumed “most likely to succeed” or “best dressed”, but certainly nailing “funniest girl” when it came time for my peers to vote for our senior yearbook. I could handle that. Funny was my thang. I never felt weird or judged for being a goon. It just came naturally and, even when others scoffed at it or thought me obnoxious, I did my thing and tried not to worry about it.

In short, I was a big dork. However, life hasn’t always been a series of silly moments for me. I went through a very dark time, much like most people I know. As I got a little older, life threw a rather quick succession of shitty events my way, and somewhere in the midst of it all, I lost my spark. Being silly and goofy became that thing that other people who weren’t going through drama did. It seemed like a waste of time and an act of immaturity. I began relying on substances and things outside of myself to help me hold on to that feeling of joy and freedom that being myself had previously allowed me to have. I gave half-ass smiles when I knew it was appropriate and made self-deprecating cracks once in a while just to keep up my shtick, but inside I felt very broken and unhappy. Slowly, the zany, dorky person who I naturally am, got lost in a spiral of self-judgement, self-pity and the feeling that this is how I was “supposed to be” after the things I had been through. To put it bluntly, I was pissed off, bored out of my mind, depressed and TOTALLY out of alignment with who I was.

Fast forward a few years (like 10). I gave birth to my son and spent the first year or so of his life looking at him much like my sister is looking at me in the debut picture of this post. How is he smiling and happy and goofy all the time? Where does his energy come from? Can I have some of it????? I couldn’t help but smile myself. Two years later, my daughter was born. By this time, I was starting to get the hang of this whole motherhood thing (if anybody can truly “get the hang” of parenting, that is). I began to watch their interaction with one another, and from the very first day I brought her home, I watched them find joy in each other. They laughed incessantly together from the day she could laugh. They began to imagine and create together as soon as she could do that. They played dress-up and restaurant and superheroes and would come to me almost daily to see who’s creative outfit was the best (they still do, and they always tie). Watching them, I started to learn how to play and be silly again. I remembered how much fun impromptu dance parties in the living room are, how much fun it is to make others laugh and how amazingly freeing it is to let yourself be the dorkiest, craziest version of yourself, no matter what.

I am proud to say that now, at 35 years old, I am once again an unapologetic dork, like it or lump it. It took me a while, but I finally realized the importance of owning my inner dork, without exception. I’ve also realized that we ALL have an inner dork. Mine shows up through goofy costumes, bad dance moves and singing off key, but maybe yours is something else. Maybe you like telling really bad jokes. Maybe you’re really into stamp collecting or enjoy looking in the mirror and making up your own commercials. Maybe you like to secretly escape to Star Trek conventions or enjoy watching Anime action/adventure flicks on the weekends. Whatever your inner dork digs, let it shine! You enjoy these things for a reason, and denying them because of social norms or how others might perceive you, isn’t doing you any favors. There is endless joy in embracing the things that allow you to be a total goofball. When we take ourselves too seriously, we slowly extinguish this beautiful part of ourselves. When we learn to love it, we inspire others to do the same.

Yes, I am a dork, through and through. I am a dork and I own it proudly. I am also married to an incredibly awesome dork and the mother to two of the most amazing dorks I know. Find your passion, embrace it and share it with the world, no matter what it looks like. This is what makes you uniquely you. If you’re really ready to let your dork flag fly, share a picture of your dorkiest moment in the comment section below! I’d love to see it!

If you are ready to release your limiting beliefs and learn to love your inner dork again, visit my website HERE or call me for a free consultation at 561-951-7045. You can also like me on FACEBOOK to keep up with my latest classes & events.

The Unlikely Life Skill I Learned From Being a Smoker

First off, no, that is obviously not me in the above picture, but I’m apt to believe it may have become a pretty accurate depiction of me had I continued to smoke. Hehe. Pretty sexy huh? So yeah, I was a smoker for a pretty long time. I know, I know…save your judgement. I get it…it’s gross…but I have to say, at the time I sort of liked it. Throughout my years as a smoker, I learned a few things, some more enlightening than others. For one thing, phone conversations are far easier to endure when you have something to preoccupy you (I hate the phone). For another, smoker’s cough is really unattractive, smelling like an ashtray is a great way to discourage people from intimate conversation, and if you want to spend a lot of money on a whole lot of nothing good…smoking is a good way to achieve this goal. However, I digress. As the title suggests, there was one incredibly valuable lesson that I did learn from smoking. Let’s start with a little story, shall we?

When I was 19 my head was pretty much as far up my ass as it could possibly fit. I had gone through a series of really shitty events that left me feeling out of touch, out of place, out of friends and looking for a way out of my current state of being. In other words, I was pretty freaking miserable and totally lost. So, imagine my excitement when my friend mentioned that he was taking a road trip cross country. This was a great idea, barring the fact that he had no car to take aforementioned road trip. Enter Jillian and her ruby red Hyundai Accent…my way out of reality surfaced right before my eyes and we set off barely two weeks later.

Now, aside from the excitement of being on the road blasting Allman Brothers CDs with the windows rolled down, a Hyundai Accent packed to the gills with my life’s belongings, proved to be pretty tight quarters for two pig-headed, opinionated kids with their heads up their asses. Needless to say, within a few weeks, road trip buddy and I were starting to feel a little overwhelmed with our close proximity to one another. We found ourselves smoking more cigarettes than usual, however, being that we were on an extremely limited budget with no source of income and no timeline in place for this marvelous adventure, this wasn’t going over so well on our wallets. Road trip buddy made the executive decision to buy loose tobacco and rolling papers, and save our very convenient, pre-rolled cigarettes for special occasions. Now of course, he, being the initiator of this marvelous idea, was naturally in charge of what and when these special occasions were. How very convenient.

Fast forward another week or so. Ruby red Hyundai rolls into Denver with two clueless kids sitting in the front seat…arguing. To this day I can’t recall what we were arguing about, but I assume it was probably something very important, like where we should eat lunch or whether we should set up our tent or sleep in the car that night. (I mean, the big decisions you have to make when you’ve shirked all of your responsibilities to gallivant across the country are just never ending). Long story short, road trip buddy gets especially aggravated and dips out for a few hours, leaving me sitting in the parked car, more than a little annoyed, in the middle of an unfamiliar town. I reach into the glove box for a cigarette and what do I find? Apparently he has decided that this is some sort of special occasion, because he has taken all of our pre-rolled cigarettes and left me only with a bag of loose leaf tobacco and some rolling papers. Only problem…I can’t roll a freaking cigarette to save my life! Of course I have no trouble at all rolling other things (snow balls guys…I’m talking about snow balls), but my cigarette rolling skills are definitely lacking.

15 minutes pass and turn into 20 and then 30…no sign of my friend or my Marlboro Lights. I try to bum a smoke off of passerby, only to be met with dirty looks (it could have been the dirty, bedraggled, slept-in-a-car-last-night look I was sporting…or maybe I smelled from lack of showering…I guess I’ll never know). I finally grab the papers and the tobacco and try desperately to roll cigarette after cigarette, each of them falling apart in my clammy, nicotine-deprived hands. I mean, wtf, right? 30 minutes turns into an hour and I’m getting more and more pissed. A desperation takes hold as my aggravation mounts. I roll and roll and roll and fail and fail and fail, each failed attempt making me feel like more of a total loser. Finally, when I am just about to give up, one of my pathetic attempts actually ignites enough for me to take a large, glorious inhale into my panicky lungs. A wonderful sensation fills me, but it’s not from the nicotine. It is the feeling of success. Dipshit (I’m sorry if you read this…you know I adore you) has still not returned, but now I’m motivated. I spend the next 2 hours rolling cigarette after cigarette after cigarette, and each one gets looking a little bit more like the real thing. By the time I see his figure walking down the sidewalk, I have a whole bunch of them strewn across the dashboard and a shit-eating grin on my face. However, he doesn’t need to know exactly how well I’ve done, right? So before silently gloating and lighting one up as he opens the car door, naturally I stash a little supply in various hideaways in case this ever happens again. Needless to say, he was more than a little surprised and I didn’t go without a smoke for the rest of our trip.

So, while this may not be the best example (it kept you reading though, right), I learned a very valuable lesson that day. I was at a very low point in my life where I was pretty set to give up on anything and everything that wasn’t working out for me, because, to tell the truth, not much was. I had thrown my hands up in the air in pretty much every area of my life and determined that I just wasn’t good enough or deserving enough or smart enough at anything to succeed. Road trip buddy inadvertently did me a huge favor leaving me in the car that day, yearning for just one drag of a freaking cigarette. He gave me a choice to either accept the situation as it was presented to me or to take charge, persevere through the obstacle, and change the reality of it. So often, we forget to do this. We get so overwhelmed or discouraged by the perceived problem or roadblock in front of us, that we don’t even try to seek an alternate solution within ourselves. We accept that this is our fate and we just have to grit our teeth and bear it, rather than digging deep and remembering that we have the tools and solutions to all of our obstacles within us. In the Yoga tradition, this perseverance is called Tapas. It is the ability to stay the course even if things feel a little daunting or uncomfortable (what a gift it might have been had I chosen to apply that Tapas to quitting right then and there, but that is to ponder another day). It is a choice available to all of us, and when we choose to keep working towards whatever the goal may be, even through the obstacles or the not knowing what the outcome will be, this is where we find the antidote to the obstruction…in my case, the nicotine to my hankering.

Ironically, this perseverance was much needed as well when I decided to quit smoking 10 years ago. Although this story may seem insignificant to some, it has stuck in my memory as a moment where I was able to move through a feeling of powerlessness to emerge triumphant. Learning how to roll a cigarette…a habit that has no value or significance in my life today…who knew how much it would influence me? I have used the memory of this day over and over and over again to remind myself what I am capable of if I just stay the course, even through the uncertainty and discomfort. Something that simple and unimportant.

Dig deep for a moment…if you feel powerless, find that one, tiny thing that you have done that made you feel triumphant…even if it seems small and insignificant. You never know…it could be the one thing that encourages you to find your power and persevere for years to come. You’ve got this!

If you need help finding your personal power or feeling unstuck, I’d love to help you start living your most brilliant life. Visit my website HERE or follow me on FACEBOOK HERE

Can I Tell You Just How Powerful You Are?

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I’m part of this amazing group of people on Facebook whose sole purpose is to light each other up as they pursue the manifestation of their hearts desires in this crazy thing we call life. Some people post in there about their desire to find their true love, some about being financially free, some wanting optimum health, others of their dreams to start a family or a successful business, etc. and so many others in the group offer words of love and encouragement. It’s pretty inspiring, and I find myself wandering into this group whenever I might have a moment where I forget just how much love there is in the world (because let’s face it…it isn’t always sunshine and puppy dogs…there’s a whole lot of mud puddles and shit piles along the way).

Recently, as I perused the feed on this sight, something I hadn’t noticed before caught my eye. Scattered among the stories of successful manifestations and requests for well-wishes, healing thoughts and uplifting comments, was an underlying current of sadness and a feeling of lack. So many of these people posting, weren’t posting about success, but about their failures…an inability to change the things that have been showing up in their lives. Things weren’t happening as fast as they were “supposed to” or they weren’t any “good” at manifesting. They didn’t feel that they had what it takes to get the job done. I sat with this for a few minutes, and I found myself getting increasingly agitated. It took me a while to pinpoint it, but then, there it was. Wow…we are force fed a LOT of bullshit when it comes to the idea of manifesting!!!

Although there are many incredible teachers out there on the subject, somewhere along the line it seems that we started to believe that all we have to do is close our eyes and picture an endless wad of money (or whatever your desire is) filling our back pocket and suddenly, there it will be. Now if that works for you, more power to you (and please call me after you read this so we can chat…I have a few questions to ask you…for a friend) but for the vast majority of us, it’s going to take a little more work than just envisioning what we want in order to actually cultivate it to fruition. It’s going to take an alteration in our relationship to what we are trying to manifest, and than, constant motion in a new direction. Sounds a little more difficult, right? Well, not really. I mean, have you had much luck the other way? If you are still reading this, my guess is that you haven’t, and that’s a little frustrating, right?

“Okay genius…” you may be saying, “so tell me then, how DO I manifest my hearts desires?” My response? Well, now that really depends on YOU. Like I said, manifesting is truly all about changing your relationship to that which you feel like you do not have enough of. The feeling of not having enough is a feeling of lack, and the feeling of lack, in any capacity, is what is limiting your ability to manifest. So then naturally, the first step is to identify what the limiting belief is before you can start to change it. What do you feel like you are lacking, and perhaps more importantly, why do you feel like you are lacking it? Next, set a goal…what do you WISH you could believe about this? Now, it’s time to start making small, tangible steps towards what you would like your new belief to be.

You can’t just say one day “I don’t have enough money” and decide the next day that you will change your thought process to, “I’m a millionaire”. It’s not going to feel real to you….in fact it’s going to feel like complete bullshit, am I right? The key is about baby steps that CAN feel real to you. For example, perhaps the first step is just saying ,”I may not have had enough money in the past, but I know that I have the ability to change that for my future…and here is one way I can start to change that now”. After that it’s just about progressing the thought process until it becomes a more natural way of thinking…a conditioned response if you will. Perhaps after a week of repeating this new possibility to yourself and accomplishing that first step, it feels okay to compound on it. Maybe it becomes, “I have taken the first step towards manifesting my financial freedom and I feel proud of myself for following through. Now I know that I am capable of making changes and the next step towards my ultimate goal will be (insert here).” Once this feels okay, you build on it a little more, each time adding a new goal or task (that’s the constant motion I mentioned) that leads you one step closer to your brand new, shiny belief that you are indeed financially stable and secure (if we are continuing to use the above example). Does this sound familiar at all? In one of my previous blogs I talked about turnarounds…a staple in the coaching business. Well, this is the outline in a nutshell.

Unfortunately, we can’t change (for now) the fact that we DO live in a society that is all about immediate gratification. Doubly unfortunate is that this need for instant gratification is what leads us to feel like we aren’t doing enough, fast enough, in the first place. BUT…as I just gave an example of, the key to undoing the belief systems that have led you to where you find yourself now…a place of lack…IS on your keychain, which means you definitely have the power to unlock a new possibility. Does it suck that it might take a little more work than just closing your eyes and creating a clear picture of the new convertible or the perfect relationship or yourself 40 pounds lighter? Not really! In fact, it’s pretty empowering to know that you can ALWAYS take at least one step away from the things that are weighing you down now in the direction of something else that will make you happier, healthier, more vibrant and whole. You literally never have to stop! If you get somewhere that makes you happy for a while and suddenly one day, you wake up yearning for change…you can start the process all over again! Not to mention, think of how amazing you will feel when you’ve achieved the new belief and you can look back knowing that you did it yourself…not just with the power of your mind, but with the fierceness and devotion of a warrior. Kind of incredible, right? Believe it or not, this journey isn’t about hardships…it’s about what you do with them. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again…the pen is in your hands. Write something worth telling.

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What You See is What You Get: The Power of Your Perception

tent I lived in a tent for almost a year once up North. I was 19 years old and had just finished a trip cross-country with my then-boyfriend. We had grandiose visions of a 6-month trip to backpack across Europe and we carefully laid all of the plans. We would set up camp in an empty field on my friends property, spend the summer landscaping ridiculous hours, eat like college freshman and spend every penny we saved on backpacking gear, plane tickets, Eurorail passes and youth hostel reservations. It was fool-proof, right?

Everybody else seemed to think I was crazy. I’ll never forget the look on my poor mother’s face the first day she took the dirt road down my friends property line, swung a hard right into the field and pulled up outside of my new digs. I think she said something along the lines of, “Oh my God, you are kidding me, right?”. Her husband just kept shaking his head as we proudly showed him around, continually mumbling, “Wow” under his breath. My sister laughed her ass off at me and told me what a dipshit I was. Even my cat, Doja, tilted his head disapprovingly when I showed him the perch we built in a nearby tree to keep his food away from the coyotes. He gave me that look implying I must be fucking joking. Had it really come to this? Not that I could actually blame any of them…this wasn’t exactly the first in my long line of questionable decisions, but I wouldn’t be deterred.

I worked my ass off that summer, digging trenches and pits, planting trees, grading properties, spreading mulch and rocks, mowing and trimming trees. Bruises bloomed all over my body with the physical labor and my muscles ached like nothing I have felt before or since. I still have a giant scar on my left thigh from the damned hedge trimmers! The boys called them rat bites, and I imagine the feeling was quite similar. Still, we would go back to the tent each night, full on fast-food, exhausted and sun-drenched, but ready to face the next day with nothing but our end goal in sight. Nothing could slow me down.

While everybody else saw a shitty little tent, boyfriend and I saw freedom and opportunity. I saw myself getting closer and closer to pursuing a dream that I was determined to make happen. I was able to overlook the lack of amenities, running water and hot food. I was able to find some comfort in taking my showers at the landscaping office loft in a rickety stand alone stall while my fellow co-workers milled around below. I was able to smile confidently when others scoffed at what I was doing, because I saw it so differently. It didn’t matter what anybody thought of me…I was following my dreams.

Fast-forward to September 11, 2001. Ring a bell? That’s right…the day the Twin Towers went down. We had been tent-dwelling for 7 months by this point and our departure date was fast approaching. The reality of the news broadcasts hit me like a ton of bricks. Everywhere I turned were warnings that Americans should not travel abroad…that it was not safe. I remained undeterred, still completely convinced that this was my fate, but I was soon to learn that she (fate, that is) is a tricky little Diva. For whatever reason, boyfriend and I had purchased our plane tickets at different times. As we sat down by the light of a kerosene lamp in our teeny little tent, unpacking and repacking our backpacks for practice, something rather important came to our attention. We realized suddenly, that unbeknownst to either of us, we had booked our tickets 10 days apart. I was beside myself pissed! How could this have happened? October 01 was just weeks away and, instead of getting on a plane to skip off to London for an adventure, I would have to spend another 10 days milling around Cape Cod while a gray, dismal Autumn set upon it. Boyfriend urged me to stay positive and promised to meet me back in London the day my flight came in. He left a few weeks later, leaving me and my tent and the gray weather some time to think.

During this time of introspection, a few things became clear to me. The first was that lots of people had some pretty valid reasons why they didn’t want me to take this trip. I was urged not to go by every childhood friend I’d ever had, my parents, my sister and countless others, which of course, only made me want to go more. Then one night, I had a random conversation with a stranger, and for whatever reason, his words resonated and I had a moment of realization that indeed, this was not my trip. It was boyfriends trip and I was just along for the ride, living somebody else’s dream. This knowledge was further compounded when 2 days later, 3 days before my flight was set to depart, I received notification from boyfriend that he had missed his flight back to London and would not, indeed, be able to pick me up at the airport. I would have to meet him in Amsterdam. I clenched my teeth and painstakingly made the decision to cancel my trip.

All of a sudden the tent morphed into something sinister right before my eyes. All of the long summer nights spent sweating my butt off within its walls, sharing a single mattress with a man that moved too much in his sleep, the relentless sweeping and sweeping and sweeping to try to get nature back on the outside of the tent…I resented it all. I hated the musty odor, the way I had worked myself to the bone every day doing physical labor and the fact that I had not a penny to show for it, spent as it had been on this trip. And now, it was getting colder and rainier outside every day and I was sitting here alone…cold, tired, aggravated and feeling like a failure, stewing in all of this anger, while boyfriend flitted across Europe with my portable cutlery set. My perception of the situation transformed as my relationship to it did. Suddenly, I saw no hopes and dreams manifesting, but a waste of 8 months of my life instead.

I share this story for two reasons. Number one, because it was a pretty interesting time in my life and it’s always a funny story to share. Number two, hindsight being 20/20 like it is, I have come to find so much value in this experience and I have realized how greatly it has helped to shape the woman I have become…particularly my rather warped sense of humor (tee hee). Most importantly, it has really helped me to realize how much our perception influences our emotions and life situations. When we can stare a difficult situation in the face and find a silver lining, we are giving ourselves an opportunity to create possibility for something positive. In coaching, this is called a turnaround. Alternately, if we get so entrenched in the negative aspects of a situation, we are allowing ourselves to fall prey to its perceived power over us. In coaching, we call this a limiting belief, holding us back from the greater possibility that lies within the lesson. In the story above, my relationship to the greater goal helped me drive myself forward and look beyond the hardships of the situation, however when that goal was removed, it was easy to let myself slip into dismal territory.

This happens so often. Maybe all of a sudden the job you prepared for, interviewed for and were hired for, loses its luster 5 years down the road. Perhaps its a relationship you are in or a way of thinking that has become engrained. Possibly its a habit you deem bad. Your wants and needs have changed and whatever you are doing, isn’t growing with you. Do you sit back and stay where you are, knowing that perhaps its “easier” or it’s what’s expected of you, even though your relationship to the situation has changed, or do you see that you are being offered an opportunity to change? Do you get lost in the routine and monotony, or do you find the silver lining? What have you learned from this place which has provided tools for you moving forward?

So where are you holding yourself back? Where are you perceiving the people, circumstances and situations that make up your life in a negative light? Where are you getting stuck? Name all of those things, and then spend some time searching for the possibility. What have you learned from these perceived trials? What might they potentially blossom into for you if you could try to see them in a more positive frame? How have these things helped to motivate and inspire the current you? How have they showed you who you are and what you want from life?

Each of us holds the key to our own happiness. The pen is in your hand, so write the story that you want to live. If what you’ve written so far isn’t making you feel happy or excited, crumple up the paper and start over again. Change your perception and change the whole game. You are the only one who can decide whether to see it as a tent or the Taj Mahal.

Note: The above picture is not of my camp sight, but it definitely gives the basic idea.

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Ignite Your Light, Change Your Life.

Every morning that we wake up, we are given a unique opportunity to approach the gift of this day from a place of peace that resides deep within us. In this place, there is no self-judgement, no shame, no comparing ourselves to others, and no apologies for the things which make us different. This is a place where we are fully connected to what makes us the fascinating, ever-changing, talented, powerful beings that we are. It sounds like a dream, right? Well, however elusive this magical place feels to you at this given moment, it may help to hear that it is so much closer than you think. Right at your fingertips, actually, and all you have to do is learn how to access it.

We are brought into this world relying on others. Our families keep us safe, warm, fed, and clothed, as well as offering us boundaries and rules. Our teachers, communities, and peers expand on these boundaries, educate us, and offer us endless opportunities to connect. We realize at a very young age the need for human connection, for without it, it would be impossible for us to thrive. These are all necessary steps on our journey through this life, however, a problem can begin to arise when we put so much emphasis on what others can do for us, that we forget what we are capable of doing for ourselves. This absence of recognition in our own abilities can lead to an extremely distorted image of self-worth. This is often where our paths begin to veer from all that we are destined to become, instead moving us to a place where we settle for wherever we are. This is the place where dreams are lost and life becomes a monotonous routine of daily tasks and disappointments. Not to say that we are unable to find happiness, but that our happiness loses the technicolor it once held for us. We find ourselves at a crossroad, where we feel disconnected from ourselves, without quite being able to explain what it is that’s making us feel this way. This is a time of choice. This is where we are confronted with the opportunity to access this place of inner reserve.

To our left, we see our life the way it is. The landscape is flat and drab, but predictable and comfortable as well. To our right, we see a mountainous terrain full of possibility and excitement, but also riddled with deserts of fear and unknowing. We know that if we take a step to the left, we are choosing to be content with our discontent, and allowing our dreams to slip further from our grasp to possibly be rediscovered later down the line. If we take a step to the right, however, we realize there is no turning back, for once we have begun to embark on this path, we will never again feel content living in the familiar. If we choose to go right, we are choosing a path of self-discovery; one that will surely be difficult and scary at times and which will definitely push us far outside of our comfort zones. We are choosing to shed our limiting beliefs and go in search of the truth that is burning deep in the core of our being. We fight back our doubts, and allow that nagging curiosity to win out…we take a step to the right.

As the next leg of our journey begins, our light instantly begins to burn brighter. We start to look at ourselves from an angle of interest. Our passion is reignited as we dig through the layers upon layers of conditioned responses that have accumulated throughout the years, only to discover little gems of our own personal wisdom buried within the debris. We begin to realize that we have been seeking outside of ourselves for answers that we had all along. We start to remember that we DO know who we are, that we DO know what’s best for us, and that we CAN trust ourselves. We begin to play games with the friend we have found in our intuition, testing its knowledge time and time again, to find that the more we trust it, the more keen it becomes. With this dawning sense of self, our confidence is boosted. We realize that we have something to offer. We start to understand that we are here for a reason and that life is not just some series of banal tasks that need to be accomplished. We start to take back the power that we have given away over the years, and the connection that we once desired begins to change shape. We no longer feel the desire to be connected from a place of lack or need, but rather we long to be connected to bask in other peoples light, to shine our own out, and to lift one another up as we each continue on our paths. Our passion is in full flame, and nothing can stop us from moving full steam ahead.

Oftentimes when we reach this place, we may feel the need to scream out to others, so sure that we have found the key to happiness. However, we must remember that life is about balance. Although we have found our way to higher ground, there will still be valleys we must cross, this time equipped with new tools to help us battle the shadows we find, both in ourselves and in others. This journey is never over. Each time we climb to a new plateau, there is another opportunity to climb higher still. Perhaps we even go back down a bit before we ascend further, hopefully lifting others up with us when it is time again to climb. You may even find yourself stagnant in one place for a while, but the best part about the journey is that you can never unlearn the things that you have learned along the way, and so inevitably it will continue eventually. The first step is simply to take the first step.

There are so many ways you can do this. Join a group in your community with the similar interest of embarking on a journey to their highest self, buy a guided journal, go on YouTube to access guided visualizations, start a meditation practice, or hire a life coach who you trust to help you navigate the journey (I know a pretty good one… AHEM). Whatever it looks like for you, take the first step, and I know you will be amazed to watch all of the next steps start to fall into place. Life’s an adventure. Live it up.

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Tag: personal growth