After a Long Winter’s Nap…

Has anyone else noticed this? I feel in many ways like I’ve been on a Universe-imposed internal retreat. The things that are happening in my life right now are stirring up old memories and letting me know where there are things I still need to let go of. Yes, this is definitely a time of letting go. Here in North Carolina, we’ve had the opportunity to experience weather conditions we haven’t had in a while. They’ve reminded me of the amount of energy I put into things I have absolutely no control over.

Really, what good is it to worry about whether we will have snow or ice? Don’t get me wrong, it’s nice to be prepared – to have food and water and a plan. Beyond that, we are wasting our energy.

When we get clear on what is ours to do and what is the Universe’s to do, everything – and I mean everything – changes. Where is your faith? Do you have any? Do you have faith that everything will be ok and that you will handle the things as they come to you? OR do you have faith that everything that can go wrong, will go wrong? (If you’re talking about the latter, that’s where your faith is.)

What are you afraid of? I was watching “The American President” during the time I was snowed in. Michael Douglas as Andrew Shepherd, the President, said “I was so busy trying to keep my job that I forgot to do my job.” Do you ever feel like sometimes you’re so busy trying to stay safe and control the logistics of your life that you forget to actually LIVE it?

Now is the time to dust of your dancing shoes and let go of everything that is no longer serving you – from a sweater you love that has seen better days and needs to move on to your fear of snow. Let go of relationships that are no longer serving you. One of my friends said “I have decided that I’m not wearing anything that I don’t feel fabulous in.” Are you ready to make that commitment to yourself? Are you ready to reclaim your body and your life and to make the absolute BEST you can make of it?

It’s time! What are you waiting for?

If you cringed when you read that, think about making a list of what you’re waiting for – why is this not the time for you? Do you feel that everything needs to be resolved in your life first? Are you worthy of having what you want? Does someone in your family – spouse, mother, child – or your circle of friends want you to continue to be the doormat for them? If so, what would your life look like without that person? Go a step further and look at what your life might look like with a completely loving and supportive person in that person’s place.

Suspend your fear and do this exercise as if you can change everything you’d like to change. You can’t change other people, but you can let those people go and get new people who embody the qualities you want in a friend or mate.

Put it all down on paper – bring it out into the light and see what’s in there holding you back. When you see it for yourself or you talk to someone and hear out loud the reasons that you are still playing small, sometimes that helps you to see how it made sense swirling around in your head, but out in the open, it sounds ridiculous.

Put your ratty old victim energy in the throw away box, and pull on your warm, fuzzy outfit of self love and empowerment. You deserve it. It is time to change what you believe is possible. Really, it is.

Don’t Judge a Book by Its Cover

Have you had things happen lately that appear to be horrible? I mean Chicken Little “the sky is falling” horrible? Relax! You are being invited to view these things differently.

It’s a little like the Wizard in the Wizard of Oz. Oz the Great and Powerful wasn’t really great and powerful after all. And perhaps, whatever your problem looks like (or series of “problems”), it probably isn’t as bad as it seems. I am not trying to diminish whatever you’re going through. Many of the things we’re having the opportunity to experience right now are in the category of what we would call “worst case scenario.”

But what if you chose to re-focus your attention to the things that are going well in your world right now rather than on the litany of things that seem to be going wrong?

In race car driving, one of the most obvious things to avoid is the wall, right? If you’ve ever watched NASCAR, you will find (and I’m not a race aficionado, so please, no letters about the details) that there’s a lot of wall on any given race track. So, if you’re traveling at high speeds, the wall is not what you want to run into.

I was at a Tony Robbins seminar many years ago in Maui where he talked about learning to drive a race car. Part of the challenge, he said, was that you go into it with the idea “Don’t hit the wall” – which of course focuses your attention on what? HITTING THE WALL. (Law of Attraction 101) He said that when he went out, there was an instructor in the passenger seat. As he began to increase his speed, the instructor started saying “Look at the track. Stop looking at the wall” because he couldn’t seem to take his focus off of the wall. Ultimately, the instructor ended up having to physically turn Tony’s head to focus on something other than the wall. Until that point, he was so focused on the wall that the car was headed straight into the wall. And that was a guy who understands and is an expert on the power of focus!

So back to your life. If you shift your focus toward what’s going right and really (this may sound crazy) ignore the badness of the bad stuff, you will see huge changes in what happens. When I say ignore the badness of the bad stuff, I mean that you should deal with what you have to deal with, but otherwise do not give the issue, person, occurrence any more of your energy than absolutely necessary. In fact, if you can, put yourself in a place of gratitude for everything else, for anything else. That will raise your vibration out of the low vibration of fear and enable you to even be grateful for the “bad” thing because it helped you to realize how much good you have in your life.

Sound ridiculous?

What if the purpose of the “bad” thing was to distract you or divert you from focusing your attention on what you really want to be doing, but perhaps you feel a little uncomfortable about taking your life to the next level? And what if it was YOUR energy that invited it so that you didn’t have to live in the biggest, most excellent way possible?

I promise you, I am not completely crazy. This is exactly what I’m experiencing in my own life right now. It has almost become comical. I am happy to report that I am now only freaking out for only a brief few moments before I’m able to re-focus. The power this has brought for me is indescribable! To know that the things that used to threaten me no longer threaten me. But more importantly, to know that all is really well, despite the illusion of scary Oz the Great and Powerful looming ahead. Look over to the left and see the little man behind the curtain and know that whatever it is, it’s not as bad as you’re making it out to be.

If you focus on the wall, you will hit the wall. If you focus on the road, you can drive along happily until you’re ready to stop.

There are no wrong answers. It’s your choice. Just remember you can make a different choice!

Where’d the time go?

An interesting side effect of living in the moment is that if you stop to see where you are relative to other things (like days on the calendar for instance), you find that time has flown by! That’s what has happened to me lately.

I have been present – really present – to what’s going on in my life and to living in each moment. It is a really great feeling to do that. No fear, no stress really because in every moment all is well. And then it was the middle of October. What I realized is that when you are living in the moment, you don’t feel like there are all of these “things” that need to be done – you just do what is in front of you to do. The interesting thing about this is that everything that needs to be done, gets done. The difference is that you don’t spend a lot of energy on it before you do it.

It’s a nice place to play. Try it sometime. If I can do it, I know you can!