The Power of Emotionally-Charged Intention
I want to share my story of how my life-long enthusiasm for boating and desire to observe wild animals in their home created an unusual and rare event. This intention I felt so strongly, like a charge in my life, and I believe it created the outcome of a wild otter jumping in my sea kayak.
Your Worldview of Change
Your worldview is the lens filter of how you perceive and interpret everything in your life, in others words your personal philosophy. It impacts how you feel when you wake in the morning, your engagement in relationships, how you show up in the world, and most profoundly how you feel about yourself. It might surprise you to learn we all have a choice about our worldview – and yes we CAN shape it to create the life that we want to live.
What is your life perspective?
Does it serve you in all aspects of your life?
How do you want to live your life, and are you doing it?
Learning to Trust Yourself
Our culture often encourages risk reduction as a guiding principle from which to make life decisions, sometimes at the expense of trusting one’s innate and intuitive wisdom. If we only seek to minimize pain, suffering, loss and conflict, as humans we can find ourselves living from a place of fear – disconnected from that true happiness that our internal compass is pointing toward. Can we listen to and trust our intuition, that whisper of knowing? It takes conscious awareness to pro-actively trust yourself.
Grounding in Your Truths During Uncertain Times
Today we live at a time when so much of which we learned about our world, our nation, our collective values, and perhaps even ourselves, is being dramatically shaken up and flipped around. Many of us have no idea how, where, or when the pieces are going to reconfigure and stabilize, if they ever do. At times like this, staying connected and grounded in your truths is essential for inner stability and directly supports your personal compass (how you show up in the world).
Bridging the Gap of Change
I explore CHANGE in this newsletter, and more specifically the PROCESS of change. I refer to this as the gap between where you are now and where you want to be…and how do we get there with greater ease in the process.
Everyone reacts differently to change. Andy Warhol nailed it when he said “When people are ready to, they change. They never do it before then, and sometimes they die before they get around to it. You can’t make them change if they don’t want to, just like when they do want to, you can’t stop them.”
Targeting Your Intentions
Spring is such a luscious time to review and reaffirm intentions that serve as our compass or GPS as we navigate through our lives. I planted a garden for the first time in years last week, and I am amazed at how it has grounded me and helped to really clarify my business intentions. When I refer to intentions, I don’t mean the goals and tasks that make up a strategic plan, nor do I mean the objectives that usually are specific, measurable, attainable, recordable and time-sensitive (SMART). To me, the plans and SMART objectives are about “Doing“. In contrast, my definition of intention is about how I am “Being” with myself, in my relationships, in my business and in my garden!
Opening to Inspiration
As I write this newsletter I notice that I am struggling to conjure my own personal inspiration to share with you now. I’m just noticing and accepting – recognizing that life is like the ocean’s tide, changing with ebbs and flows. Inspiration is the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative. To use more metaphors, sometimes inspiration flows like a steady river and other times it hides under a rock. I suggest that you just notice the pattern of your inspiration, and capture those flowing moments by journaling or creating mantras that capture your spark and enthusiasm, feeding your joy. You can then revisit these inspirations when your energies are low with life’s events.
Recognizing Courage
As we bid farewell to March, I chose to focus on the topic of courage for this newsletter and my short video, specifically, how to recognize courage in ourselves. Unmistakably, courage is something that everybody wants – a character strength that fosters respect both others and from within. Courage is generally defined as the ability to do something that we perceive as difficult and frightening.
Embracing Self-Compassion
With February coming to a close, I have chosen to focus on matters of love, specifically self-love. It is no secret that we cannot share with others what we do not have within ourselves. When we engage in negative self-talk and self-criticism we are undermining our own well-being, existence, and maybe even survival.
Practicing Gratitude
I hope you are enjoying the freshness of the New Year with reinvigorated courage and gratitude. My personal practice is to live in the present moment while approaching each day with enthusiasm, knowing there are ripe opportunities everywhere. I am grateful knowing that I will make wise use of these opportunities as they arise.
Acknowledging opportunity and practicing gratitude is also deeply integrated into my approach as a nature-connected coach. I am certain that each of us shows up in this world in our own unique way based on the attitudes, perceptions, and behaviors that we each choose. I am grateful knowing that it truly is our choice to create change in the directions we desire.
