Honoring Your Path

“Being a parent is an incredible, humbling gift. Making millions and saving the world are honorable traits. If you truly want to change the world on every level, honor your path and live your truth.” ~ Staci French

In a society where “busy” somehow is tied to our self-worth, it is extremely difficult to sometimes stay true to our path. In fact, it is a wonder we even can remember our truth. The age of technology has provided us unending amounts of instant information at our fingertips yet very little understanding. We have instant gratification, instant answers, and relationships without any physical interaction ever. This age of technology makes it difficult to stop long enough to get quiet, to connect to source, to ‘feel’ whom we are and where we came from.

I know as a mother, an employee, a volunteer, an activist, a business owner, etc., I sometimes cannot even remember my name because I am going in so many different directions. When there are three seconds to pause and reflect, my first thought is usually something like, “Oh, the dishes need to be done and the laundry needs folding but all I want to do is lay under the stars and dream.” Most times, I end up doing the dishes, then the laundry and spending thirty seconds under the stars...maybe.

I know for many of my friends and myself, we are extremely hard on ourselves. We allow societal pressures and all that is “expected” of us to dictate who we should be. I often think about the Natives and how their life was spent hunting, cooking and gathering. There were not these other 986 million things that were expected of them. Do not get me wrong, their lives were extremely difficult and yet they were also simple. You worked to survive. Now, we work to pay our mortgage, utilities, food, car loan, gym membership, wifi, cell phones, membership to internet sites to ‘find friends’ and the list goes on and on. Yet, we do not know our neighbors name. Many times, we do not even know our “friends” real name that we play Internet games with every single day.

There is an awakening happen. For some, it is a slight uncomfortable shift that they are not sure is even real. For others, it is as if they have lived life under a mushroom and someone just picked their mushroom house for their dinner, letting the light in. Then, there are those of us that have felt this coming for many, many years. It is time for us to stand up to the societal expectations and honor our own path. To honor our own path is to honor the truth that lives within us, the truth we came from, the truth of the Universe, the truth of Oneness.

I challenge you to allow yourself to play with your kids, to go for a run, to go to yoga class, to sit and talk with friends, to lay under the stars and dream big. In fact, do not just allow yourself these simple pleasures in life; insist you do them every single day. Facebook will always be there, your email is usually full of spam anyway. Let’s support each other in getting back to what truly matters in life…our heart connection to every soul on this planet. The egos in the world are going forward faster than those of us connected to our source. So much of that is because we are to busy thinking we must have our heads stuck to our cell phones or we might miss something.

Connecting to source means connecting to self. We are being called to move in a different direction. We are being told by the media what to think, believe, do, and be. It is time to wake up and get back to our Source, to recognize our Oneness. On a very deep level we are all connected. Part of being here together is to assist each other in moving forward. So, turn your phone off for a few hours, forget the dishes, they will not be mad you left them in the sink, wear wrinkled clothes, and get back to honoring the reason you were put here on this earth. Make a commitment to be present and connect on a heart level every chance you get. Turn strangers into friends and hate into love. Above all else, give yourself grace to honor yourself in every sense of the word!

#truthhonoryourpathonenesspresent

Our Deepest Fear Is That We Are Powerful Beyond Measure...

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our own light sine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.” ~ Marianne Williamson

Right now, I am in the middle of like three of the top ten things scientists have proven will kill you on their “top ten most stressful life events” lists. Okay, so maybe you will not actually die, but you might feel like you want to.

I have been through some of these events before, but this time around, I feel completely at peace on the inside. On the outside, it feels crazy once in awhile but I am moving forward. I am choosing to believe the pace I am going, is the exact speed I am supposed to be moving at. I am also allowing myself to just be.

I am jogging, although some days I feel like Forest Gump and just want to run and run and never come back. Then, some days I feel like a slug with nothing but a trail of slime behind me. Mainly, because those are the days, I am mentally, physically and emotionally on the edge and although I am jogging, it is more like I am crawling…not just physically but spiritually, too.

I spend the entire three plus miles asking God, Buddha, the Universe, my spirit guides, the angels, anyone honestly who will listen, sometimes even the dogs barking at me or the deer in the meadow, to give me strength on every level to keep one foot in front of the other. It’s like jogging has become a metaphor for the transition I am going through in life. Yes, I am extremely fortunate to live in the most gorgeous wilderness. Being out in nature, in the ever-changing wild, is a metaphor for my ever-evolving soul.

What I love most about going through these “stressful life events” this time around is I feel grounded, I feel centered, I feel as though no matter how hard it gets, there is something so much bigger than myself guiding me, supporting me. I feel my deepest fears letting go. I feel them blowing by me in the wind, leaving as though they will miss me but knowing it is time to part ways.

I have spent most of my entire life being a “type A” personality. I have had plans upon plans starting from the time I was in junior high. I was graduating from high school, going to college, four years later starting a career as an engineer. A few years after that, I was getting married and a couple of years later, having three kids in about an eight year span. Well, all the ‘life goals’ list, spreadsheets, organizers, calendars, planners, etc. did not make that happen.

Sure, I had three kids, in three different decades. Yes, I worked as an engineer but not before doing many other hands-on mechanical jobs, hanging out of helicopters and crawling in underground high voltage vaults. And, then twenty-five years later, I long to do only what feeds my soul.

I still love numbers, but they do not feed my soul. I love people. I love people who challenge me to be a more conscious individual. I love people who call me on my bullshit. I love people who embrace each other, even if we do the same line of work, who support each other as we all move forward in life. I love empowering others, whether it is through my intuitive gift or simply going through every single minute of the day with my heart open, sending love blasts to all I encounter.

I remember many years ago Oprah saying the 40’s were the best years ever although she has probably changed that to the 50’s now, but I feel deeply grateful for the wisdom that comes from aging. I feel deeply grateful to be able to put my “type A” personality on the shelf more often than not and go for a jog, lie in the grass under the stars, dream big and believe. I feel deeply grateful for the younger women in my life who I see are “getting” this in their early 30’s now, who are loving wide open, who know it is good for their children and their families to take care of themselves first. Who get that living their own passion, whether it is photography, teaching, singing, nurturing, gardening, yoga, etc., even it is only a few hours a week, is what creates children who understand healthy boundaries, who “get” how to deeply care for others because they “get” caring for themselves.

We are not meant to live as victims of what our culture believes we “should” do. Mothers are not meant to be martyr’s who drag themselves around exhausted, weary and in a blur because everyone else comes first. We are meant to slow down, ground and center ourselves in whatever way that looks like for you. To literally smell the roses, feel the earth, laugh like we were children and embrace each other’s gifts to the world. We are all unique and we all have lessons to teach each other. There is always more to open to, more love out there, to give and receive.

Even under the “most stressful life events” there is love, hope, belief, and incredibly supportive relationships. One of my favorite phrases which I first heard at Seattle Unity probably fifteen years ago still reigns true….”Let go and let God.”

#powerful #stressfullifeevents #greatness #lightnotdarkness

What Makes You Come Alive Is What The World Needs Most...

My children have inspired me to write about doing what makes you come alive this month. My oldest has sacrificed her social life almost completely to live her dream of becoming an Olympic equestrian rider and the only freshman in her college equestrian team to make it to the semi-finals. It amazes me because when I was her age, I had absolutely no clue what made me come alive, so I bounced all over the place with no direction of any kind. Looking back, I was like a ball in a pinball machine waiting for the next “thing” in life to whack me and move me in a different direction.

My middle child knows exactly what she wants to do when she grows up. She has been telling me she wants to sing, dance and be on stage since she could talk. I have absolutely no idea where she got her singing voice from but it really is quite amazing. She sings and dances her way through life on a daily basis, practicing in front of anything that will give her the slightest glimpse of her reflection. Her voice lessons start this week and honestly, I feel it is the beginning of the end so to speak.

Children naturally do what makes them happy. If they want to skip through the store, there is no thought as to whether they should or shouldn’t, they just do it because they know it makes them feel good. Once when we were waiting in the airport in Puerto Vallarta, I took my daughter’s hand and we skipped quite a distance through the terminal, laughing and giggling. Of course, we got stares but what seemed more amazing were the smiles we brought to people’s faces. Why is it then, that as we grow, we stop doing the things that truly make us come alive?

The world is in a period of transition right now. We need more and more people who believe in the possibility of doing what makes them happy for a living. If you look around, there are more and more of us doing what makes us happy for an actual living. Of course, sometimes we gift our services to others and they to us but we also deeply believe our purpose here on earth is to do what makes us come alive for a living.

I have recently been talking to someone near and dear to me about this exact thing. She has been raised with the mentality of “you must have documented, corporate experience” in doing ‘whatever’ in order to make a living at it. She is honestly an amazing artist. She can plan an event, decorate a house, create collages; she is a master at just about anything creative and has been her entire life. Her belief system, which creates her reality, is such that she cannot do what makes her come alive unless she has documented experience. Granted, if what brings you joy is being a neurosurgeon then it might behoove you (and your patients) to get a degree and have some experience.

When we live out of what truly, deeply makes us come alive, our light shines brighter and this in turn changes the entire world. It literally changes the energy in the universe.

Look out into the universe late at night; notice the brilliance of the stars, the Milky Way, the Big Dipper. Know that you too can shine and illuminate the world. That you come from the same energy as the stars in the heavens and the world needs your brilliance now more than ever.

I challenge you to take five minutes a day for thirty days to write down what made you come alive each day. Nothing complicated, it can be very simple, such as the smile of a stranger or the music in a store you visited. At the end of the month, you will have a great list of what feeds your soul which can help you get that much closer to your dreams, your purpose. Of course, if you need help along the way, feel free to contact me. I want to help as many people as I possibly can while here on this earth, in whatever way is needed.

Together, we can and will change the energy of the world, the universe.

#passion #comealive #feedyoursoul #purpose