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This was the next thought in the “Ten Thoughts for Whole Living” section of the September issue of Body & Soul magazine. Here’s the next thought: “Becoming aware of your habits is key to an intentional life”. As I read this thought, I realized which habits I was very aware of and which habits I habitually ignore.  One habit (although I don’t know if it’s a habit or a pattern…..hmm) that I need to become aware of is when I have a ton of things that I need to do (and want to do) and I start borrowing trouble. I can feel the tightening inside of me as I begin thinking this needs to be done, I want to do this, I’d rather do this, etc. When I do become consciously aware of the fact that I’m doing this, there are two things that always help.

The first thing is just to take a few deep breaths and sit with whatever it is that I’m feeling at the moment. When I can physically feel that I’ve calmed down inside a bit, the second thing I do is just to take SOME sort of action re: what needs to be done. I just did this today. I have a lot of websites I’m working on, projects around the house and a paper due for a class I’m taking. I came into my office, cleaned up the ’shrapnel’ from last week (unopened mail, lists, magazines, etc.), re-did my to-do list and am now comfortably working and not overwhelmed at all. Just getting everything down on paper has made me realize that’s it’s not as much as I thought, and the added bonus to living an intentional life is that nothing I’m doing ever feels like work.

So the idea for this post came from one of my favorite magazines, Body + Soul (if you haven’t ever read it, I highly recommend it.  It’s a great mix of health, wellness, exercise, mind and spirit).  In each issue, the last page of the magazine has Ten Thoughts on…. (the topics change). This came from Ten Thoughts on Whole Living. The first thought was “Learn to receive what others have to offer, and you’ll enable someone else to give”. What I loved about this is that we’re always hearing how good it feels to give (which it does, I’m not disputing the value of giving or the importance of it for that matter), yet we never stop to think about the importance of allowing other people to give, to us. Is it that we don’t think we’re worthy of receiving? Or do we not want to put other people out?

I had to learn to accept from other people- and it was primarily help. I’ve always been a very independent person and sort of had this idea that I could “do it all”, whatever that means! It’s definitely an ego based idea that’s for sure. What’s funny though is that as I allowed other people to help and accepted their help graciously, without worrying about how I could give back, I started to feel SO much better. And as that happened, I noticed the other person’s joy in being able to help (which of course made me feel even more gratitude). It’s always a give and take- it’s just a matter of what you decide to take away from each experience. The giving is actually the easy part.

Your Business and the Law of Attraction

So here is the recording of my first teleseminar with Hemal called “Your Business and the Law of Attraction”. I hosted this with Hemal on July 28th. If you haven’t visited the Law of Attraction page on this site, you can read more about Hemal there, but he also has a wonderful blog and you can read more about him, his work and how he helps people with the Law of Attraction and manifestion at : http://www.manifestingandlawofattraction.com

I have a group on facebook called The Women of Internet Marketing and Hemal has a group called Universal Law of Attraction. My group focuses on women who are building online businesses and Hemal’s group is, well, obviously about the Law of Attraction. We received some great questions before and during the teleseminar. I hope you enjoy it!

Listen Now!

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So I had a TOTALLY proud mom moment that I just had to share. I took my son with me to turn in a bunch of recycling last weekend (I finally broke down and decided to turn in our cans and water bottles…$40!).  I had foot surgery a few weeks ago, so I needed him to help me get the bags out of the car. As I kept our place in line, he went and got all the bags out of the car (my little man….he’s 7 years old) like a trooper. The day we took the recycling in it was super hot (I believe it was over 100 degrees) and the poor guy running the recycling center was totally roasting, and it was only 10:30 am). I mentioned to my son that we should go get the guy something to drink when we were done. A few minutes later, my son looked up to me and said “I have my water bottle in the car and I haven’t opened it yet, can I give it to him?” I gave him the car keys and he went and got the water bottle, which totally made this guy’s day. Then as Read More »

So I got a message from my body a week or so ago….basically it was a reminder that I’m not 20 anymore (actually haven’t been for a while) and that I can’t stay up into the wee hours of the morning, then get up early and go about my day as usual. This is the third week my kids have been back to school, so the first week is when I pushed myself a bit to much. Soccer also started the same week, so we were of course running around for the whole week.

As things have been picking up with my business, I find myself back on the computer late at night (I guess that’s probably the only downfall to working for yourself, doing something that never feels like work). I tend to be a creature of habit, so when my sleep was cut from about 7-8 hours a night to 6 or less- it caught up to me. After a week of this schedule, I ended up getting pretty sick. Sore throat, congestion, cough, aches, the works. Which is pretty much the only time I get sick….when I’m not getting enough rest. So, by pushing myself (although it didn’t feel like it at the time) I ended up losing a lot of time last week. At lot more than I would’ve lost had I just gone to bed earlier. Oh well. Lesson learned!

Needless to say, I’m back on a better schedule and am taking the time out of my day for rest, meditation and exercise. Taking the time to do these things ensures I will have the strength and energy to do everything else.

I sort of go back and forth between listening to music and listening to books on CD in my car, it just depends on my mood and how long I’ll be in the car. I was heading over last week to get a massage and dinner with two of girlfriends (a surprise birthday outing), so I popped in a CD lecture by Dr. Wayne Dyer and Marrianne Williamson. It’s a 4 CD set, the first two CD’s are them speaking individually, then the last two they take questions from the audience (I need to go to one of those events). I’m always amazed at how I can listen to something multiple times, yet something different will resonate with me each time.

As I was listening to Wayne (yeah, we’re on a first name basis), I heard something that almost brought tears to my eyes ( in a good way…I know, I’m a bit of a mush). He was talking about the morning, afternoon and evening of your life ( a theory I believe he said was Carl Jung’s) and that for most people, the afternoon of your life is in your 30’s, although that’s not the case for everyone. What got me so emotional though was when he said that you go from a state of ‘doing’ to a state of ‘being’, and that when you find your passion, it really just takes a hold of you. As I was driving, I realized that this is exactly where I’m at in my life right now. I’ve explored so many different things in my life, but nothing has ever taken a hold of me the way this business has. Not only am I getting to do something I love, but the most amazing people keep showing up in my life. I couldn’t stop this thing even if I tried (not that I want to). And what really inspires me is simply the way I feel when I’m a part of it. I haven’t lost site of the big picture- but it’s just not that important. I am so grateful for where I’m at that I’m just enjoying the ‘being’ of it all. The doing gets done without me having to think about it.

I may be being a bit ambiguous here, but the feeling that comes when your passion takes a hold of you is like nothing I’ve ever experience before. Hindsight is 20/20- but I can definitely say it’s been worth the wait.

So lately I’ve become crazy busy with everything I’m doing on the web. Don’t get me wrong- I couldn’t be happier. I’m literally walking around saying “Thank you” in my head as often as I can, because being able to do something I enjoy so much, which never feels like work, really is a blessing. My challenge is the amount of things I’m learning at one time- and as much as I am a self proclaimed information junkie, sometimes you need to know when to stop what it is you’re doing and move on to something else.

I picked up Adobe Photoshop last week- the real deal! I had started with Elements, but realized I needed the full version to be able to work with most of the web graphics I’m dealing with. I am fortunate enough that one of my ‘web’ guys has spent a couple of hours on photoshop with me and I’m getting much more comfortable- or so I thought. Two hours later and a heated wrap on my neck…..I’ve decided it’s time to switch to something else. I got quite a bit done, but know that if I keep working on the same thing, not only will I get way more frustrated, but I’ll lose the rest of the day!

Naturally, I came back here. I have plenty of work to do on this site, and as much as I love learning the graphics side of all this, there’s so much more to do. I have a couple of other projects to work on in Photoshop, which shouldn’t create the issue I had with the last. I think I’ll give it another shot after I finish up here…..we’ll see how long it lasts.