Word For the Year: Expansion
My mentor, Christine Kane suggests that, instead of making New Year’s Resolutions for lofty goals that are impossible to keep, you consider picking a word to guide you throughout the year. She recommends that you choose a word that supports the intention for what you want to be more of in your life.
I have been using Christine’s Word for the Year practice since 2007 because it really works. The word serves as a guidepost for me as I make choices through the year. I post the word in my bathroom and acknowledge it daily, asking myself “how can I be that?”
That first year I chose VULNERABILITY. I wanted to let go of control and open to things that I didn’t have the answers to. I was ready to feel what was uncomfortable and go even deeper. I had so many opportunities during that year to practice this: with relationships, how I traveled, choosing to apply for a job that I didn’t get. And I had emergency open heart surgery. Talk about vulnerability and letting go of control. It was the most amazing gift of an experience to be in that space of pure vulnerability and know how much I was loved and supported.
The next year I chose ASK as a reminder that, even though I had fully recovered, I didn’t have to do everything all by myself. I learned to ask for support, money, ideas, companionship. More important, I learned that’s it’s not about having the answers but being able to ask bigger questions and opening to the silence that is larger than me for deep and true inspiration.
This past year my word has been EXPANSION. I wanted more space in my life. I wanted to show up bigger, both inside of myself and how I connect in the world. I wanted to open myself beyond what I already knew, to what else might be possible.
This is what happened in my year of EXPANSION:
In January I moved from my tiny guest house to a roomy 2 bedroom bungalow with great outdoor space for me and my dogs and every other thing that was on my wish list.
I completed a 100 hour Life Coaching program where I learned new skills to engage and encourage my clients. I connected with interesting people and inspiring teachers and I stood in front of a group of 150 people and claimed that I was ready to show up bigger in my life.
Despite “the economy,” my computer training business, Mac to School brought me more money this year than the last three. I offered a new product, unlimited email support, and now receive an extra $400-$600 every month in the mail.
My yoga poses have become more open, on and off the mat, and I am breathing deeper and fuller.
I opened to new definitions of relationship. Letting go of preconceived ideas and expectations has made so much room for deep, healthy, unconditional love in my life.
The biggest expansion has been with my Creative Living coaching. For the past several years I have been sporadically leading workshops that use creativity to encourage people to discover and live their passions. This year I was ready to expand the business and make it a bigger presence. But I had no idea how.
I had been telling friends that I was looking for ways to market the business and the following week an email from Christine arrived, offering a free teleconference called Upleveling Your Business-All About Customers, Creativity and Cash. It was exactly what I had been asking for.
At the end of the call Christine offered her 10 week Uplevel Your Business program. As much as the commitment and the price tag challenged me, when I came back to my word, Expansion, I knew that this was a sure fire way to really step into that bigger, more connected space I was asking for.
Because of the program, I have brought my coaching business Spark the Heart front and center. It was the impetus for the new website and all of the behind the scenes changes. Spark the Heart has brought me more money in the last 6 months than ever before. I led my first Creating the Life You Dream Retreat in the fall and have several workshops already scheduled for 2010. And I am clearer than ever that this is the work I am meant to do.
In all of this expansion, I also expanded in my physical body. And so my word for 2010 is EMBODY to bring awareness to my physical self so that I can more fully embody my work and be big in my life without being so big in my body.
What word would you choose to guide you through this coming year?
I invite you to write it down where you can see it every day. Let it guide you as you make choices and decisions. Let it lead you to a richer, deeper, more meaningful life.
Perhaps you’d like to share your word in the comments as an affirmation and commitment to your new word.
[ssba]How To Be a Hero
from Niki de Saint Phalle's Queen Califia's Magical Circle
What story are you telling?
For the last two years I have been angry and resentful about the care I received after my open heart surgery that left me with an ugly and painful keloid scar. I wrote letters asking the doctor to take responsibility and pay for a scar revision but was denied.
When I finally heard myself telling my story out loud, I realized that I was holding on to all kinds of negativity that really wasn’t serving me. I had set myself up as a victim in my own story.
Once I realized this simple truth, I asked myself, what story would I rather be telling? Did I want to continue the fight and pursue legal action, fueling the anger and resentment? Did I want to keep seeing a part of my body as ugly?
I knew I needed to let go of the who-done-me-wrong saga and find a new story to tell where, instead of a victim, I am a hero.
What new story would you rather tell?
I thought about what I really wanted to happen. I considered what I could do that came from a place of strength and personal power.
My new story is that I am strong, healthy, healed. And that this year, I will make more than enough money to be able to easily afford to choose my own plastic surgeon and have the scar revision procedure.
It sounds simple, I know: Just tell a different story.
But it works. If you change the story, the story changes.
Already I feel lighter without the anger and resentment. I am no longer harboring those victim feelings. Not surprisingly, while my scar is still sensitive, it is a little less painful, less red, less angry. And my body really does feel stronger and healthier. And I know that I am healed.
It’s a great feeling to be the hero of my own story. I invite you to listen to the stories you are telling. Are they true? Would a different story serve you better? How can you be the hero of your own story?
[ssba]No Cost Self-Care
Self-Care doesn’t have to be expensive or elaborate. It doesn’t have to be a day at the spa or a lavish dinner out. Even the simplest acts of taking care of yourself will bring great benefit to you.
So many of my clients spend hours in front of their computers. Most do not even think to take a break for anything more than a quick bite to eat or a run to the bathroom.
When we sit at our desks, our shoulders are hunched forward, our neck is stiff, our heart is closed. It is so important to regularly counter this posture with stretches and movement.
Take regular breaks from sitting in front of your computer
Get up from your desk and raise your arms slowly over your head. Grab your left wrist with your right hand and gently tug, feeling the stretch in your side body. Breathe into the space. Switch hands and stretch your other side, breathing into the stretch.
Shrug your shoulders up. Really squeeze them toward your ears. Then release. Do this several times, feeling the tightness dissolve. Roll your shoulders forward several rotations, then reverse the direction.
Release the strain in your lower back by gently folding into a forward bend. You don’t have to touch your toes for this to be effective. Bend your knees slightly and let gravity pull your body down, allowing your head to drop. Hang like a rag doll and breathe into your back body. Imagine the tension leaving your body.
Relief for your eyes
Long periods of staring at a computer screen can strain your vision. Look away from the screen at least once every hour and stretch your eyes.
Close your eyes and squeeze them shut, then open them wide. Repeat.
Slowly look all the way up, then all the way down, all the way left, then all the way right. Move your eyes in a slow clockwise circle, as if you are looking at each of the numbers on a clock. Reverse the circle, going counter-clockwise.
15 minute power position that is sure to boost your energy level
Lie on the floor with your legs up the wall. Close your eyes and just breathe. If thoughts rush through your head, just notice them and let them go. Feel the weight of your legs supported by the wall and focus on your breath. This simple position lowers your heart rate, brings the blood back to the heart, relaxes your legs, your back.
After fifteen minutes, slowly roll over to your side and take your time standing up.
Balance all of that solitary sitting with movement and connection
Take a walk outside in the fresh air.
Notice some living things around you.
Water the plants.
Kiss your pets.
Call a friend for a chat and a laugh.
Consider scheduling your computer time between errands and chores to give your body and your mind more variety in the day.
[ssba]Sparked by SARK: Delight Yourself First
Delight Yourself First
That’s the message that writer, artist, color queen SARK shared this past weekend at the annual Coaching Conference at the Southwest Institute of Healing Arts in Tempe.
Don’t just write a list of to-do’s, make the activity fun and exciting and delightful. If you want to go to Europe, she said, instead of writing down Get a Passport, find your passport application and fondle it lovingly. If your dream is to plant a garden, don’t Buy Fertilizer. Go on a fertilizer adventure.
Anyone who is familiar with SARK, free spirit and author of 15 inspiring books, knows that she lives a life of delight. Her loud laugh fill the room with her true love of living.
We all have creative dreams, she said. Your creative dreams will wait for you. They want to be made real. She shared some of her tools and tricks for keeping her own creative dreams alive. Action comes before inspiration, she said. Find ways to delightfully make micro-movements to make your dreams real.
AN INVITATION TO YOU:
Say YES to something that delights you.
Say YES to envisioning your creative dreams.
Say YES to Sparking Your Heart with one of our workshops.
For more delights from SARK, visit her wild and wonderful world at www.planetsark.com
[ssba]Running with Mentors
They say that if you are a runner and want to improve your speed, you should run with someone faster than you. That the competition will motivate you, challenge you, inspire you to be better, faster, stronger.
My dream is to write my book about living creatively, travel around the country in my RV to book-signings and speaking engagements and lead guest workshops.
For years, this dream was just a quiet, private vision in my own head. It wasn’t until this past year that I have shared my dream out loud and taken action to make it happen. I am teaching my workshops again locally, and I have started writing my book. I am on my path, moving forward to realizing my bigger dream.
And on most days I feel balanced and content with the pace of how I am moving.
And then I see my mentors up-leveling their lives, offering webinars and teleconference calls, touring all over with their newest books and suddenly I feel very far behind in my own goals and I wonder if I will ever get where they are.
I could easily get stuck in this place of envy and discontent and fear that I will never live my dreams.
But then I stop and breathe and acknowledge that I am exactly where I need to be. That I am moving at my own pace, with my own plan. They have been doing their work for a much longer time. They have written many books. I’ve just started writing mine.
And once I feel grounded again on my own path, I am able to say a prayer of gratitude for them being ahead of me, holding up even more possibilities for me to imagine for myself.
[ssba]A Day of Beauty
Your attention is the most powerful creative tool that you have.
We’ve all heard that energy follows thought. That if we think….. then…… is bound to happen. If you seek out kind people, you will meet kind people. If we are always complaining about something, then there will always be something to complain about.
What would happen if you shifted your thoughts? Adjusted your attention?
Would you even be willing to try?
For one day, consciously pay attention to everything that you think is beautiful.
It could be a vase of flowers, the sky, a table setting, a person’s smile, the arrangement of fruits at your local market–whatever beauty is for you–notice it, acknowledge how it makes you feel, even share it with someone else.
At the end of the day, write or draw or express how your day of beauty felt. What else did you notice about the day and the interactions you experienced?
Would you be willing to do this every day?
[ssba]How to Connect in 5 Focused Minutes
For months, probably years, I have been wanting connection. Connection to others, to myself, to nature. Saying this, acknowledging this, becoming aware of this need is a wonderful first step. But I wanted more. I wanted a deeper connecting. As with everything, I had to begin with myself.
Connection happens in the quiet moments when we are able to tune out the chattering voices in our heads and move into the deeper, wider space inside. It takes patience to find this space and practice to be able to stay there. And yet, it takes very little action on our part to begin.
Every morning I sit outside with my bowl of bran cereal dotted with dried cranberries and I begin my day with noticing. I notice my thoughts, the sky, the smell of the eucalyptus leaf mulch that covers my dirt yard. I sip my coffee and delight in the fat yellow cat claw blossoms strewn on the ground from last night’s wind.
I watch the birds in my yard, but it isn’t until I notice their individual stripes and colorations, learn their names, that I connect with them. And when I write about them, sketch them, feed them, I am bringing them INTO myself, creating an even deeper connection with them. And when I share the stories, the words I’ve written, I am bringing them OUT of myself, into the world and that is a deeper connection still.
The Practice:
Find a quiet space, preferably outside, or looking outside. Nature provides a shortcut to this place of connection. Sit in this quiet space for fifteen minutes and just notice. If you begin to hear voices in your head saying you’re too busy for this sitting still, that there are a million more productive things you should be doing, take a breath. Acknowledge that you are taking this time, this short but precious time, and that you can tend to all of that stuff later.
And breathe.
What colors do you see?
What does the air feel like?
Do you notice any shadows and light?
How many shades of green can you see in the grass?
What do the clouds look like, floating by?
How many different bird songs can you hear around you?
The more often you are able to connect in this way, the quieter your mind will become and the larger the space inside of you will become, making you more connected to what you truly desire.
Homework:
Most of us can’t do “nothing” for five minutes, much less fifteen. So here is a focused activity you can try:
I ask my students to keep a Book of Observations. I used to call it a Journal of Observations but the word “journal” conjured too many bad connotations: that journaling meant writing about how you FEEL!!! This is exactly NOT that.
A Book of Observations is a place to record what you notice, where you study a thing every day, where you pay attention to the details of your life. It could be the light in your living room at sunset, the growth of a plant, where your neighbors park their cars every evening.
You can write in your book, affix daily photographs or drawings, or paste in things you find in your daily noticings. In some way, make it a place to collect the observations of what you really pay attention to in your daily life.
Taking time to notice the world outside of yourself begins to create space inside of yourself where the real connecting begins.
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