Seeking Clarity and Color

If you are a seeker like I am, and you know if you are, much of your time is spent searching for the

truth. Not just for what is true, right and real in the world but also what is true, right and real within and for us. We call it consciousness and clarity or even clarity of consciousness. Sometimes we may think there will be an overall moment of enlightenment and suddenly we will have all the answers we seek. We will have a clear hold on who we are, what we want and what the purpose and meaning of the world is all about.

Many of us think this moment will someday come to us if we pray earnestly, meditate deeply or follow some other prescribed path to wisdom, peace and knowledge.

I am beginning to believe though that while we may have moments of enlightenment and times of deep profound spiritual connection, life and all it's complexities remain an ever-changing mystery.

This may at first seem disheartening to a seeker but there is great comfort in this viewpoint.  It  allows room for the frustration we experience when we think we knew and later find out we had no clue. How many times have you looked back on parts of your life when you were on an earnest and honest path and found later that it did not lead where you thought it would? We can fall into a trap of thinking we were stupid, mislead, failed somehow or made a big mistake when the truth is that at the time we were on that path it was indeed the path we needed and was right for us where we were and who we were at that particular time. In fact, you can rest assured any pursuit we have followed earnestly and passionately is right for us if not as a destination than as a vehicle or tool that will take us to our ultimate destination.

That brings up yet another thing to consider; is there a destination at all?

Maybe the journey and all the paths are simply intended to open us, to teach us and to lead us to a deeper understanding and acceptance of the vastness of ourselves and of life itself.

The older I get and the more I learn the more open I am to the infinite myriad ways of living, of loving, of being. The less I seek one true answer or way, the less I see black and white or even gray but instead see unlimited shades of technicolor brilliance blended into a breathtaking hue.

I have come to realize that color can be more powerful than clarity. That answers are not always permanent, that what is true and right can change.

I have always been a seeker.

But what I seek has changed in some subtle ways or at least my understanding of it has.

This allows more freedom and less stress to move forward.

I move forward with hope and faith.

I hope I am on a good path and I have faith it is all a good path.

I hope I have learned as much in my life as I have unlearned along the way.

I hope that all that I have let go of so far is only opening space for more knowledge and experiences to fill.

I hope for the insight and wisdom to know when to shift directions and try a new way.

I hope to honor the needs of others and myself as I make my way. 

I hope that in learning to accept and love the multiple shades and shapes of my own being I have learned to accept and love those I encounter as well.

I have faith in myself to blindly navigate this heartbreaking and beautiful journey and have some fun along the way.

As we seek we become more open to the answers before us but at the same time we must seek to be unattached to that answer so that more will be able to come in their turn to replace or reshape what we believe. We must also understand that what is true for us may not and should not be true for others. In accepting and appreciating the differing truths of others we expand our knowledge and way of being as well. 

We must seek standing tall with hope and faith, arms outstretched, fingers spread wide to embrace all that is available to us but to let it flow freely through us as well, awash in all the beauty, pain and color that will make us all of who we are to be and lead us to wherever it is we are going.

Four Step Plans to Get What You Want

 

As a coach I can tell you there are methods, strategies and systems proven to work that you can implement to reach your goals and achieve what you want in your life.The best way to get what you want out of life is to use the proven 4 step plan most of us already know. Clarify your vision, make step by step plans, set written goals and get busy. It boils down to: Clarity, plan, goals, go.

But most of us falter at the very first part of this; knowing what we truly want. Not just superficial things, but the feelings, emotions and experiences that those things provide, what we really crave and yearn for. 
Vision is a great focus for January. What do you want this year? Are you doing the things you need to do to get it or do you sit back and not really expect anything to change? 
Vision: Picture it, be specific and focus time thinking on it and planning for it.
Believe you are capable to attain it and start working toward it. There are countless articles written about the methods to do this, get the help you need and just do it!

But there is another 4 step plan most of us do not know about. This plan boils down to:  Ask, Awareness, Acceptance, Appreciate. We rarely hear about these concepts. But I think not having this part in place can negate the work of the other four steps and too often does just that. These steps are crucial to get what you want. They move forces around you to your aid, leave you open and ready to receive, to take opportunities that come your way and to be grateful when this all happens.

Ask for what you want in specific terms, let people know your desires, meditate upon it, put up picture and vision boards, pray. It may surprise you the help that is available to you when others know what you are looking for. This also serves to make it more real and sets you up to receive.
Aware Become more aware of the presence of aspects of what you want that are in your life now. What are they ? Grab hold of them and look for things that are within your life or easy grasp that contain what you seek that you may take for granted or have overlooked. Keep your eyes open, when we ask earnestly things come our way. Are you missing them because you are not open or do not believe? Maybe it is showing up in a slightly different package than you expected, or maybe you are too distracted to notice. Pay attention, quiet your mind, be open and aware so you can recognize what you want when it shows up.
Accept Take what comes to you with both hands open. Be sure you have let go of what you no longer want so you can freely grab on to the new stuff.  We will get both what we expect and accept. Let it in. Sometimes when what we want shows up we are fearful, we think we do not deserve it or we think we may screw it up. You must be ready to accept even when it may not show up exactly when or how you thought it would.
Appreciate After a time we take things for granted. It is human nature, we all do it. Be motivated to appreciate and celebrate the people, things and experiences that make your life wonderful because as soon as you don’t they won’t. 

You deserve exactly what you expect and accept 

Four Room Life by Design

Design Your Life One Room at a Time

When we look at our lives as a whole it can be overwhelming: career issues, relationship struggles health concerns, juggling schedules and activities, fitting in leisure time and hoping for a chance to find a meaningful spiritual moment. I think it is helpful to break up the major aspects of our life to examine them and have deliberate intention regarding the elements of each.

I call these aspects the four rooms. These rooms; health, work, relationships and spirituality combine to house our very soul.  What is within each room and how we occupy it defines the quality of our lives. Each room is ours to uniquely fill and attend to in our own way, I call this design.

Design is a word that implies choice and intention as well as style and individuality. Ideally, while we all have the same rooms all of us have different elements within them arranged in a way that suits us uniquely.

When you look at life through this perspective it is easy to categorize things and examine the elements within as well as become more open to the choices you have to arrange things more to your liking in each room. Work for instance may contain a job with fulfillment, projects, training, achievement and salary issues as supporting elements. In this room, as with all the others, one may assess the amount of time and energy spent,  the satisfaction and meaning gained and whether the room is authentic or needs some tweaks or growth to fit into the larger design.

Room by room we honestly take stock; clearing clutter, moving things around, getting rid of things that do not fit well and adding elements of our own choosing thus making our life a better reflection of who we truly are which makes it much more fulfilling. 

This of course requires time and reflection which we can chose for ourselves. One way to do this is to dedicate silence days, a practice I started a few years ago and cherish. I simply tell my family and friends I am on a silence sabbatical and magically they respect that and ask what time I will be free. Frankly, this respect surprised me at first but I think how I named it seriously and scheduled it made the importance clear, try it. Another method is regular retreats. I think this is so important especially for women I began conducting retreats several times a year as part of my business. This provides space for learning and growth, positive connection and the chance to be pampered and to begin anew. I am offering a Fall women’s renewal retreat soon you can see details here

 http://www.lifescapestrategies.com.  Taking time to reflect, learn grow and chose what you want in your life is what design is all about and what will lead to the happiness and meaning you seek.

As you begin to look at your life from this perspective which rooms do you feel are in need of attention? Relationships, Health, Career, Spirituality?

Are the spaces reflective of your own personal style and flair containing elements of your own choosing?

Do the rooms in your life fulfill and sustain you?

When we recognize that the total of our lives is in fact made up of the aspects of our lives all working together we gain the power to choose what elements matter most. Living by design with intention rather than default is powerful. It provides a much surer route to the peace and happiness we seek because it calls upon us to be aware and authentic. Taking the time to design each room and spend time in them creates the comfort, balance and safety we need to sustain our souls allowing us to express ourselves and experience life fully.

Arms Wide Open

At  a social event I coordinated recently one of my daughters friends, a man I had not known long, approached me after watching me greet the guests and commented," you like to live with your arms wide open". 

It was a phrase I had never heard before and I instantly liked it and knew the truth of it.

I do live with my arms wide open in many ways and consciously try to open them more all the time.

I think living with your arms wide open allows the room to embrace all the different people and experiences available to you. It also makes room to live more fully, taking in more of everything including emotion, ideas, beliefs and customs

 Living with your arms wide open is stretching your arms up and out in joy and excitement or pure celebration for the beauty and magic that is around us all the time.

As children we typically start out like this wanting to play with everyone and everything. Explore investigate, make friends, hug. We are open and curious when we are very young. But we learn to limit ourselves in so many ways. We are taught that some things are bad or wrong, we become disciplined, regulated, fearful. We can become judgmental or self conscious, less free and open to everything and everyone around us.

As we grow older it takes awareness and choice to live with open arms. It is not easy to embrace everything and everyone, maybe it is not even possible or desirable  to do so, but in opening just a bit wider we will find new insight,  friendships and joy that we had not know before.

I have not always had my arms wide open, in fact quite the opposite. As a young woman with low self esteem and little confidence I held back, hesitated, fearful of rejection or looking foolish. 

I was reluctant to try things I might not like or that I might not be good at.

I really tried to make friends or speak to others I was convinced they would not be interested.

As a religious person I judged certain behaviors as bad or sinful and held my beliefs to be the right ones, my opinions and teachings made more sense of course.

As a young clueless mother I devoured books on childrearing to find the "right" way to do it and came up with routines and systems that would work best.

I had an insatiable curiosity to learn how to do things "right" as if there were only one way. What I finally discovered was how limiting this was. 

I also discovered that I did not want to live in a straight and narrow world I wanted things to be curvy and wide. I began to see the value and validity in so many things, the richness and depth of diversity of all types.

I was not satisfied with one form of belief and wanted to know about and embrace all ways of being spiritual and holy recognizing that all the information and wonder of the world cannot possible fit into neat little constructs.

I cultivated a taste for all types of performance and could not get my fill of poetry, dance, music and books.

Most importantly, as I became more open and accepting of who I was with less judgment and worry I developed a deep desire to know and care for others. I was comfortable talking to everyone and anyone and made fast friends.

I have found there is a vastness, depth and wonder to all aspects of life, even the parts that are unpleasant. While each aspect, experience and person I embrace has the potential to bring delight, it always adds to me becoming more of who I am.

I cannot say I am open to everything, I most certainly am not, but I do stretch my arms wide a good deal of the time and am thankful I have found them full of beautiful people, experiences ideas and emotion. I challenge myself to learn about things I do not understand, search out something new or interesting, have all types of friends. These are the highest goals of my life: to embrace it all, to learn to accept everything, and to enjoy as much as I can.

Less is More in the New Year

We tend to focus a lot of energy on what we we want to add to our lives in the new year and very little considering what we would like to let go of. Naturally we set goals around all we want to accomplish, learn or experience but rarely do we take action regarding the habits, attitudes and activities that drain our energy, time and keep us stuck.

I must admit I am guilty of that, I am cognizant of things that suck my time and habits or thinking that do not serve me but I typically do not set out written goals to remove them as I do for the things I want to add to my life.

I think this is a huge oversight. What we chose not to do in our lives is just as important as what we chose to do. In fact, many times it is more significant since the things we continue to do get us the results we continue to want to change.

This year as you make resolutions, set goals and plan for the year ahead include a list of of what you want less of or what you will leave behind altogether to make 2015 your best year ever.

Top 5 Areas That Less Means More in the New Year

1. Cull Your To Do List What things are you doing on a regular basis that you do not want to do anymore? I stopped grocery shopping, heavy cleaning and most cooking when I started my own business a few years ago. Twenty- eight years of doing that for my family was quite enough thank you and taking that off my list freed up a lot of time to write, work and study. If you look closely there are likely many things you do not like or need to do or may not be necessary to do yourself. What can you stop doing entirely , lessen the frequency of or delegate? By the way, this is the best way to make time for the things you really want to do.
2. Attitude Check What thinking are you holding onto that is holding you back? We all get stuck in negative thinking or victim mode from time to time and often do not realize how it zaps our energy and undermines our mood. What are your negative thoughts saying to you and how can you start arguing back to have a bit less of that in 2015? Are you self criticizing, complaining about your job, resenting your partner? Maybe you have had a long held belief that really does not serve you well. How might your life be different without that? Take steps to let the thinking go and replace it with a better attitude that honors your best self.
3. Love It or Leave It If a better attitude is not enough consider if there are some things or people in your life that would be best left behind this year. It can be difficult to let relationships go or to change jobs for instance but it is more difficult still to live your best life invested in things you do not love or do not love you back. If you are not spending your time invested in things that are important and positive for you you will find yourself spending most of your time unhappy and unfulfilled. Obligations are valuable but your first obligation is you. We can all  do well to diminish the people and things that are bringing us down.
4. Stress and Worry  How about less stress in 2015 as a worthy goal? There are many proven methods to reduce stress yet it remains a top problem for most Americans especially women. If you listen to a group of us sometimes I wonder if there isn’t a secret competition to see who has the most to do and complain about. We can get attached to this for sure, chose to quit this race instead and implement a plan that releases stress and worry by adopting a realistic lifestyle and regular peace and balance enhancing activities such as daily exercise, meditation and fun.
5. Walls We all have them whether we are aware of them or not. These are the ways we protect ourselves from being hurt in all areas of our lives. Fear of being rejected or failing motivates us to build a protective layer that we think keeps us safe but in fact insulates us from real success, happiness and love. It is one of the saddest aspects of our humanity that we will forgo the experience of something incredible because there is a risk of pain. Most of us can let down our walls with certain people or in some situations and be truly free to experience life fully and be completely ourselves but when we are honest we know that this is difficult to do or that we could do it better and more often. This year consider that protecting yourself is just not necessary anymore, that you are free to experience fully and be all that you are and that regardless the reaction or outcome you may get as a result you will be fine. Something to work towards that has untold rewards.