All in, baby
Our spirits, souls, and bodies, love thrive when we are “all in”.
To be all in means believing in yourself and everything you commit to 100 percent. On all the levels mentioned above, we can sense when we doubt ourselves or the other person or thing. The results of that doubt can be detrimental, either leading to self-sabotage or "other-sabotage" at a gross or subtle level.
Being all in can feel frightening as it takes away your escape hatch. However, giving yourself over entirely to your worthiness and a big possibility is the only way to fully know yourself.
If you cannot believe in the other person or thing, your work is either to choose to believe or realize it's time to find what you believe in. And to discover that thing, you must believe in yourself. It all starts there.
Empowerment
You can create more harmony in your own life and, therefore, the world if you are willing to experience how much courage you have within you.
To be empowered means removing the discord from your own life. The main thing this takes is courage, and you have as much of it as anyone else on the planet; it’s simply a matter of whether or not you are willing to access it.
Courage often feels shaky, sweaty, nerve-wracking, fluttery, or many other things besides relaxing. To make courage more enticing, picture yourself on the other side of your bravery, feeling the harmony and peace from being free.
Harmony is on the other side of the resistance. Empowerment is loving yourself enough to dive in.
Loving them when you upset them
Anyone who has made sustainable, long-lasting, positive change in the world has also pissed people off.
This is a reminder in case part of your strategy to make a difference has been to placate everyone. You can’t.
You can however, upset some people and love them anyway.
Unexpected goodness
One of the best things about life is those beautiful things that happen that we couldn’t have planned for or expected.
You can be an unexpected blessing today through how you show up today. The way you listen to someone could help them see a new possibility or have the courage to do the next thing. The smile you offer someone could change the trajectory of their day and life. The contribution you have been holding inside of you could be the thing someone else is waiting for.
You become a catalyst for positive change when you show up with unexpected presence and intentionality. Today (and every day) is the day.
Gratitude as the antidote to doubt
I got my favorite bathrobe for a wedding present ten years ago. It is white, fluffy, huge, and cozy. Unfortunately, it now has a hole in the left pocket after years of use, and I forget it’s there.
When I wake up in the morning to come downstairs, I often put on the bathrobe, forgetting the hole is there, and then the phone falls straight out my pocket, slamming loudly on the floor. It scares me every time, and I am unsure how my phone has not broken yet. This hole in my bathrobe pocket is a lot like doubt, allowing the thing I want to carry with me to disappear faster than I can do anything about it.
When we spend time doubting, all of our excellent work slips away, especially in our relationship with ourselves, when we think, I shouldn’t have done that, about a courageous and wise move that didn’t go as planned. Or, when we believe, I don’t deserve to do that thing because someone else would be better, about something would fulfill us so much. This doubt is dangerous because it drains us of all of our trust, faith, and joy.
The stitch to fix the hole is gratitude. When we notice doubt has robbed us of our self-esteem and appreciation of our highest selves, our practice is to be grateful instead. By shining gratitude on the gifts of our intuition, inner guidance, strength, and wholeness, we amplify them, making them more valuable to ourselves and others.
Our human minds cannot understand the bigger picture right now. Tapping into the present moment's gifts, even when there are “failures” and challenges, connects us to our innate power so we can navigate our lives with resilience and ease.
The key to a successful holiday season
Is to remember that if you judge something or someone, you become it.
Boundaries are about being able to remain your loving self, meaning that you don’t give your power away to people and things you cannot control. For example, when you judge others, you invite them into your sacred space and let them take over. Instead of judging, you can notice and discern what’s harmful so you can respond well and focus on who you want to be.
You don’t have to get sucked into judgment. Instead, you can enjoy the protection of discernment.
3 reasons you might feel stuck
We feel stuck because:
1. We don’t take the time or space to allow ourselves to see what is actually possible.
2. We won’t be courageous enough to do the thing that brings the possibility closer.
3. We do both of the above, yet don’t express appreciation and gratitude for the divine genius and wisdom within us that has guided us and will continue to if we allow it to.
We can get unstuck by committing and recommitting to staying in a flow of the three choices above. The power is within each of us.
If you are holding back
If you are holding back in one area, you are holding back everywhere.
What might be possible in every corner of your life if you allowed all of your courage, generosity, love, honesty, and self-expression to flow out of you in that place where you are currently stagnant?
Open up, especially if it feels uncomfortable. The unexpected is waiting.
You are the authority
Part of the definition of the word authority from dictionary.com:
The power to determine, adjudicate, or otherwise settle issues or disputes.
You are the ultimate authority in your life. Any internal dispute you have about your worthiness, wholeness, or ability is yours to settle. You get to say.
The dream and the truth
And impactful life is one where you can balance staying connected to the dream and dealing with what is real now.
You can use the energy and inspiration of your dream to give you the resilience to deal with what is right in front of you. You can use the grit of what you gain from your work today to help you build your dream.
A dream isn’t a way to pretend or turn away. It’s a place to rest that gives you the fuel to show up. Circumstances today are not reasons to become resigned. They are the pathway to actual change.
The ones who will always find something wrong
Unpleaseable people are not the people to spend your time trying to please.
Co-creating with and serving others is essential and leads to our long-term fulfillment. However, if you seek to make a difference for someone committed to staying offended, your energy will be wasted. These folks also impact you deeply when you focus on them because they can cause you to doubt your contribution and give up.
Continue to get better and do better, and keep your energy on those willing to do the same.
What a leader knows
To be a leader means to support folks in getting somewhere important.
The truth is, none of us likely know for sure exactly how to get there, and a leader knows this. So a leader embraces their job to ask the right questions and have faith in us to help us figure it out together.
Lead not by knowing the answers. Instead, lead by understanding the critical destination and trusting a committed group can discover the way.
The quality of love
Living a life of choice is about living a life sourced from love.
Living a life sourced from love comes from remembering that we are inherently divine and perfect, and nothing, good or bad, can change that. Living life from fear comes when we forget our essence and attach our worth to external sources.
When we shift from fear to love, it often changes the actions we take or don’t take, and it might not. The point of the shift is that it changes the quality of our efforts, therefore changing the quality of our lives.
Let choosing love be one thing that upgrades the quality of your life.
Check out to check back in
When we feel challenged, our work is to find the sweet spot where we can discern the difference between running away and helping ourselves find more ease.
Finding laughter and joy can help us process our experiences and see things from a new perspective when life feels hard. Regarding our most essential commitments, checking out of seriousness can be helpful if the checking out helps us check back in.
You are the only one who can sense the difference for you.
What you say and what’s possible
What you say to yourself and out loud is directly correlated to the choices you have.
If you say something isn’t possible, you are right. You won’t be able to do it. If you amplify the power of your obstacles by talking about them as walls, you will make them bigger, and you won’t see beyond them.
If you talk about what is possible and what you want, you will see many, many more choices.
For change to happen, you have to actually want it enough to say it’s possible and that you are a part of creating it.
The present moment has grace
Here and now, you get a fresh start. You have the ability to make a brand new choice that moves you out of where you’ve been and into something new.
The past is gone. Learn from it and don’t spend your energy there. Your opportunity to begin anew is only ever right here, and to receive it, you have to take it.
Let your limitations help you feel limitless
When you scatter your energy, you don’t get to experience the true power of your undiluted focus and effort.
If you harness your attention and focus only on what is most important, you might begin to understand how limitless you are.
Limit what you say yes to and expand.
First isn’t always best
A loving reminder that your first reactive thought is just that- your first reactive thought.
A first reactive thought may show up as “I can’t,” “I won’t,” “It’s not possible,” “It’s not okay,” or something else that builds a wall. When you notice yourself putting up walls, it might be a good time to get curious about your other possibilities regarding what thought you choose to focus on. The options are infinite.
True opportunity
A genuine opportunity might not always feel comfortable, and it will feel like a fit for your unique gifts, particular genius, and vision for your life.
Temptation is not to be confused with an opportunity. Just because something might be a good opportunity for someone else doesn’t mean it is for you.
Invest your precious life into your opportunities, not anyone else’s.
The secret to results
You can accomplish much more than you imagine if you are willing to have the correct, uncomfortable conversations.
When you wait to do something uncomfortable, it only becomes more painful. The more willing you are to get to talking, the more creative power you have.