Stress Eating Release

When your find yourself stress eating, after you are fully conscious that that is indeed what you are doing, give yourself permission to do so but add the following twist:  With each bite release whatever it is that is making you want to stress eat.  With each crunch or each sweet tasting morsel send the tension out of you and release it to the Universe, ask the angels to take it away.  Keep the visual alive with each bite until you feel better.

I tried this for the first time today and it was interesting...The need to finish the whole bag of pita chips faded quickly.  I had about a handful of chips and then was ready to put them back in the pantry, satisfied and feeling lighter.  Loved it!  Try it and see how it works for you.  :)

Take Time To Process Events

When unexpected situations happen, especially if they seem wrong and/or unfair and most of all trigger you emotionally, take time to process what has happened before responding.  Start by pushing it off of you (which means don't obsess on it) and then sleep on it.  Your mind and emotions will be a lot clearer after some sleep.

Then work on not getting caught up in the emotion/drama of it all, and focus on what is most important for the good of all and how it can be achieved.  Set your course of action and pursue it.

Keep checking your emotions.  If you are still emotionally unbalanced about it step back and reevaluate the situation in relation to the greater good.  Reassess your goal and go for it.

Allow The Unexpected To Happen

"You have to take risks.  We will only understand the miracle of life fully when we allow the unexpected to happen."  by Paulo Coelho

Allowing the unexpected to happen does not feel natural to most people anymore.  We are too used to attempting to control everyone and everything around us in a desperate attempt to achieve a fictitious state of stagnant balance, a utopia our mind fabricates.

When you allow the unexpected to happen, you are trusting and have faith in something bigger than you.  You give up control and most of all allow energy to flow through you, instead of blocking it. This allows you to be in the flow of life again, letting you experience all of its wonders.

One simple way to check if you are blocking energy from flowing is to pay attention to your breathing. You'll be amazed how often you do not let your breath energy flow through your whole body. Be mindful of your energy flow today.  Find the blocks and imagine them being softened and removed through your breath.  Give yourself the gift of letting energy flow freely through you and see what happens.  :)

Everything Is Relative

Everything is relative.  Your worst experience might look mild compared to someone else's experience. While you are living it, it is the worst.  When you get past it and/or see how your worst still looks like a piece of cake compared to another situation, it immediately lightens your situation.

What has happened to you is is still unchanged.  The only thing that has changed is your perspective. It goes to show how nothing really matters as much as you think it does and that "this too shall pass".

The more often you experience this consciously the less important dramatic events become and the easier it will be to stay in balance and in your center.

Imagination

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." by Albert Einstein

Interesting thought, isn't it?  Our society is so focused on knowledge.  Imagination seems to be a frivolous activity. What would our lives be like if imagination was the more important factor, if you were able to land a job based on your imagination, if you were valued and compensated by your creativity and not your knowledge?

What would that be like?  Just imagine...  :)

Reach Out

If you need help, reach out to those who love you. Just like you can only help someone else if they want to be helped, you need to speak up when you need help too. Put your pride and prejudices aside and give it a shot.  You just might be positively surprised and helped too.  :)

Integrating Fun

When you are working toward a goal it is easy to get significant and too serious about what you are trying to achieve (especially if you are an overachiever!).  When you loose your playfulness, creativity goes down and the task becomes harder to achieve.  Once only the head/mind is engaged you may still get the job done, but you will not have enjoyed the journey and odds are that the results won't be as great as they could have been.

Whatever your goal is make sure you have fun along the way.  Enjoy what you do.  Even if it is not apparent sometimes, find the silver lining on the journey and make it a part of your goal.

Blank

What do you do when you find yourself in a situation where you draw a blank as to what/how to advise someone else?

Accept the blank!  It is OK to do/say nothing.  Sometimes that is the appropriate thing to do.  It can well be that the other person needs to figure things out on their own.  Let the situation play out without your input.  That too is a solution and one that is warranted at that point too.

Age

Every age has its ups and downs.  The trick to life is to embrace all ages with an open heart, an open mind and make the best of it all.  Love all each age has to give.  One thing you can always count on is that with age comes change.

To Fix Or Not To Fix

When you see your children going though a tough time it is a natural instinct to want to help them and/or fix it for them.  There is a fine line as to when it is appropriate to do so and when it is better to let them resolve their own situation.  The truth is you cannot always be there for them and they have their lessons to learn too.

Remove yourself emotionally as best as possible when the situation arises and evaluate from a neutral standpoint what makes the most sense.  Sometimes you may just want to ask if help is needed.  Other times you may choose not to interfere and then again you may find it better to do something.  Either way it is most imperative to respond rather than react.

Shifting Focus

Sometimes it is ok to make someone else angry on purpose or at least try to get under their skin. Never thought this to be true, but my daughter was so stuck in her head during a tennis match that nothing seemed to penetrate it.  She was in a self induced funk and unable to break out of it.

I finally suggested to her coach to make her angry, since she had tried every other possible positive approach. I theorized that a distraction, even if "negative", would stop her from playing the same self distructive tape she was playing in her head and shift her focus. And it worked!  She got out of her funk and won the match.

So the insight is when you see someone else not being able to let go of a thought pattern, see if you can get under their skin or do something to shift their focus.  Once you break their self-induced spell you can start working with them again.  :)

Enhancing Crystal Healing

Since the beginning of recorded history, almost every culture has placed an extraordinary amount of value on precious gems.  Crystals and gems were highly respected for their remarkable, even magical powers and vibrational healing properties, which is still true nowadays too.

If you do wear jewelry one way to enhance the healing properties is to put your consciousness toward it.  You do that by simply touching and/or looking at the stone(s) and accepting its energy as needed by you.  The more you do this the better your results.

By making the process conscious on your end you co create your healing.

Self-Nourishment Exercise

Today take time to look yourself in the mirror and tell yourself at least five times each:

I believe in you!
I love you!
I forgive you!
I accept all of you!
I cherish you!
I adore you!

Really look at yourself and put your heart into it.  See what happens for you.  Go with the flow.

Pressuring Yourself

Do you ever pressure yourself beyond reason?  Do you ever get so caught up in your standards that you loose sight of the situation at hand?  When you find yourself in this stressful situation, stop and breathe!  Step out of it and reassess not just your goal, but your standards and how they apply to the situation at hand.

It is very possible that at this point you are living out an old pattern of yours that is bringing up long standing fears.  Instead of letting the fears get the better of you, choose to face them in context of the current situation (this is very important).  It will give you a "real" perspective and dissolve the fear.

ENERGY FOLLOWS THOUGHT

ENERGY FOLLOWS THOUGHT.

I saw these three words printed in bold today. Though I have blogged about this before, I found this format very powerful.  It is short, to the point and easy to burn visually into your brain.

Keep these three words close today and see them in your minds eye.  Feel that energy follow your thoughts and more importantly pay attention to your thoughts! You are in charge.  You create your reality.

Regenerative Time

Often times, when I get super busy, I feel the need to cut out things I enjoy in order to "gain" time and "focus" on what needs to get done.

Though technically you are gaining time, depriving yourself of time off/regenerative time costs you more time in the end.  You need this time to reenergize.

Thus, especially when you are busy, make time for brief regenerative breaks.  Though it may feel counter intuitive, it does help you in the long run.

Clearing The Air

As the outside temperatures are finally starting to drop, it is good to be able to open the windows and let the fresh air in again.

Take time to breathe in that fresh air and let it air out not just your home but also your body.  Think: "In with the good" as you are breathing in and "out with the bad" as you are breathing out. Just as you are clearing the air in your home, clear the air too in your inner home.  :)

Puzzle Pieces

If everything happens in your life for a reason then all those events are like puzzle pieces.  It is up to you to put your puzzle together and see how all the pieces fit.

When you are younger it is harder to see the big picture, because some pieces may still missing.  As you get older the picture becomes clearer.  If you look close enough you can often see why certain things/events happened to you and how they fit in on a larger scale, though at the time it didn't make sense or didn't seem to matter.

Take some time today and think about your life to date on a large scale.  Why were you born where you were born?  Why did you choose the parents that you did? Why did you live where you lived? Etc. What do you see?  If your life is a puzzle, how is it coming together for you?

Accepting Your Strengths

Do you know what your strengths are?  Do you fully accept your strengths?  This may sound like an odd question, but do you? 

Accepting your strengths and living them to their fullest potential can be scary too.  Take time today to see where you might be holding back, where you are reluctant to shine "because you don't want to outshine others for fear of hurting their feelings".  Feel your strengths and know that by using & showing them you are giving everyone else around you permission to do the same.  You can be an inspiration to others to be the best they can be too by taking a chance and being all that you can be yourself.

Peace And Inspiration

There is peace to be found when you stop looking for answers, when you stop waiting for something to happen/for your expectations to come true, when you find acceptance in what is and whatever may happen.  Peace is yours for the choosing.

Inspiration can be found everywhere.  It is all around you in nature, in people, in animals, etc.  When you put all judgement and beliefs aside and truly open to what is around you, you will start seeing with different eyes.  Your heart will be open to what is and you will see courage, beauty, bravery, goodness, possibilities, etc, in short inspiration everywhere.

Life is happening now.  Choose your peace and  let yourself be inspired.  That is where happiness and joy are.

Reminder

Once in a while we all need a reminder that we are bigger and better than we believe ourselves to be. Thus know that you are!

As you read this blog know your greatness, feel your power and trust your instincts. You are all you want to be and more. Believe in yourself.  I believe in you!  :)

The Family Test

If you want to see how far you have come in your personal development, spend time with your family and observe yourself and how you interact with them.  Our deepest patterns and behaviours are linked to our early interaction with family members.

Thus if you start noticing changes in your interactions with family members you can rest assured that you are moving forward significantly. Congratulations! If not, be kind to yourself and give it more time.  It has taken a long time to develop your patterns and it will take some time to alter them.  Trust your baby steps and keep at it!

Daily Existance

Take a look at the following scale while thinking of your daily life.  Are you:

Surviving, getting by, making it, having enough, having plenty, living in abundance?

How does it feel to you?  Are you comfortable with it?  Is this where you want to be?  Is there a difference when you think about your external reality vs. your internal reality while looking at this scale?  Where is your comfort zone?

Become aware of your perception.  There is no right or wrong here.  What is important is for you to be conscious of your beliefs when it comes to how you live and if they match where you want to be.  If they do - great!  If they don't, start consciously changing your old beliefs on your way to realizing your new reality.

Predicting Others

To predict how other people will react to changes in your life is a fruitless exercise.  Based on their preferences, biases and fears that are not always known to you, their reaction will be unique to their life and what you are mirroring to them.

You can save yourself a lot of time and headaches by letting go of predicting other people's reactions to your life. Spend that energy on your own growth and trust that all will be well in the end. 

Respect

Respect needs to be earned.  It is not a given, just because you are older or because you are the parent. If you don't respect the person you are dealing with why should that person respect you in return? Age is irrelevant. Respect is a two way street.

If you treat others the way you want to be treated from a heart centered space, without hidden agendas, then trust and respect automatically grow from this continued action.

Writing

When you are following your inner path, a great tool to help you along the way is actually writing. Whether it is daily journaling, blogging, writing letters or some other form of writing, it is important to not only spend time in your head and heart, but to actually "make it physical".

When you write you need to organize your thoughts and give them form.  Reading back what you wrote also gives you the chance to gain some distance and a new perspective.  It also makes whatever you are writing about more real and, if they are insights or learnings, easier to remember.  You will be more likely to ground changes in you through the process of writing because of its tangible aspect.

Give it a shot and make the time to write in whatever format works for you.  It will enrich your life.  :)

Saying Yes In Your Life

In today's busy lifestyle it is easy to forget that you are in charge of your life, that you have the option to choose.  Take some time every day this week and see what you say "yes" to in your everyday life.

Then start making conscious choices as to what you want to say "yes" to. It may take some getting used to but the rewards are big.  

Sometimes there are things you don't want to do that are however necessary.  When you make a conscious choice to do it anyway, the resistance to it dissipates making it all flow easier, which helps you and those involved.

On the flip side, when you do what you love, energy flows naturally, so everyone is a winner in this scenario too. Being mindful of your time from a heart centered space will facilitate your flow of life as well as that of those around you.

Abundance

"Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into." by Wayne Dyer

Many people think of abundance as material possessions, when in truth it is a state of being. When you feel abundant, when you feel whole and complete, that is when you mirror abundance in the material world too.

Spend more time tuning into abundance vs. focusing on acquiring it.  :)

Thinking And Believing

What happens when you can't out think a situation?  When no matter how much you try to rationalize your way through it there is no clear cut answer you can figure out?  What do you do then?

Believe!  Believe that the solution will come to you.  Believe that you will know what to do and when to do it when the time comes.  Believe in yourself, your intuition, your heart.  Believe in the non-logical. When you get to this point you have already done all the possible thinking you could have ever done.  It is time to have faith, trust and to believe.

Internal Peace

"One cannot reflect in streaming water. Only those who know internal peace can give it to others." by Lao Tzu

When you have internal peace you can mirror that peace to others.  The trick to have internal peace is to:

1. Find that inner peace.

2. Be that inner peace.

Easier said than done, but the truth is still that simple. Once you experience that inner peace, you know what you are looking for and where to find it.  Being that inner peace then takes practice. One day at a time, one experience at a time, one baby step at a time.  :)  All worth it and all part of the journey.