Hello!!

Today I’m sharing a reading from A Course in Miracles. I’ve been reading this book for the past few months, and it is full of so many gems! Watch the video, or keep reading…

Nothing outside yourself can save you. Nothing outside yourself can give you peace. This also means that nothing outside yourself can hurt you or disturb your peace or upset you in any way
-A Course in Miracles

How often do we move through life looking for things outside of ourselves to make us happy? Or, to give us peace.  Looking for things to make us feel fulfilled, content and even joyful! 

But, when we realize that nothing and no one outside of ourselves can give us that sense of happiness and peace. Well, that also means that no one can make us upset or disturb our peace of mind.  This means that we are in charge of our own emotional state!  So, here’s the thing, if peace and happiness are not found outside, well then, where is it? This is the question I want to answer!

So, here it goes…

It's within each of us. 

There, I said it! And, man, is that empowering! I know, you must be asking, “So, you’re telling me peace and happiness is already inside me? But, why haven’t I been able to find it?” 

It’s not your fault, dear. Years of conditioned patterns have made it hard to see the light that’s inside. And so, we need to start to see these layers and patterns, and then let them go. This is where our practices help tremendously!

See, yoga talks about the mind like a mirror, or sometimes a lake. I’m gonna start with the mirror example. So, yoga talks about our mind being like a mirror and it gets clouded over. And so, when we look at a cloudy mirror, we see a super cloudy image, right? That doesn’t mean that we are super cloudy, it just means we need to clean the mirror! And so, yoga shows us exactly how to clean the mirror. Physical practice, breathwork, meditation, studying spiritual texts. These are the Windex to our minds! 

The other common example that yoga uses is about the mind being like a lake. And so, when the lake is all stirred up, it looks muddy. When we look at our reflection in the muddy water, it looks weird. But, if we let the water settle. If we stop throwing rocks in the water, and let it be. Well, then all the mud settles on the bottom, right? And, the water we are looking at is so clear we can drink it! Well, now how does our reflection look? Pretty hot, if I do say so myself! 

You get it? 

So, its normal that even though love, peace, and happiness are within us, its hard to see. We gotta do the work. Its not glorious. Sometimes its not even all that pretty. But, man, when you start to see that light inside you, it’s the most beautiful, magical thing in the world. 

So, what do you say?

Are you ready to do the work and find your happy place?  

Then, click here to schedule your free coaching call! 

Sending you so much love!

Keep Reading:
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Hello friends!
 
Today, I'm going to share with you the Bula Smile! I’m continuing to share some of my experiences from Fiji with you in this blog, bringing a little bit of Fiji back home!
 
So, what is a Bula smile?
 
I first heard of the Bula smile when one of the local Fijians actually told me that I have a Bula Smile! Always one to welcome a compliment, and assuming that it was a compliment (haha!), I responded, “Thanks! What’s that?” She told me that the Bula smile is how Fijians greet each other, and it means that when they see another person, the first thing they do is smile! Then, they say “Bula!” Bula is the Fijian word for “Hello.”
 
I absolutely love this! What a beautiful idea and practice that when we see another person, the first thing we do is smile, from our heart to theirs, we smile. It’s such a simple idea and one that I’ve carried with me in my heart since returning from my trip. Here in the States, we generally live in a really fast paced culture. I live right outside of Washington DC, and so I can certainly say that this area tends to be quite fast-paced! And so, living in this fast-paced environment, it can be so easy to get stuck in our heads, thinking about all the things that we're working on and all that we have to do for the day. As a result, so many of us, myself included at times, walk with our heads hanging down by the sheer heaviness of carrying all that we feel we need to do. When we do this, we totally miss out on connecting with the people around us.
 
So, what if we just look up, instead? What if we step out of our heads, and just look at one another and smile? It’s a simple idea, but how often do we really do it? And so, I totally know that this might sound a little cheesy, but isn't it just so beautiful at the same time?
 
I invite you to practice this in your own daily life, and then just notice 2 things:

1. Notice how you feel
   How does it feel in your body when you smile really big at someone, even someone you have never met before?
2. Notice how your smile affects the people around you.
   ​Some people may smile and engage in conversation; others may feel uncomfortable because this is something new for them to experience. So, their reaction may vary, but more often than not, I can say from my own experience, people respond with a smile. More often than not, I notice how it lifts their day, and then I go back to #1 and notice how I also feel even better! It ends up being this beautiful circle of love and positivity!

 
So, as always, let me know how this practice resonates with you! It might feel a little awkward when you first start, just because it is something new. But, I guarantee, you will instantly be lit up with joy when you do it, and as a bonus it will light up all those around you as well! So, leave a comment to let me know how this practice goes for you. And, if you like what you’ve been reading, then share it with a friend!
 
With that, I'm sending you a smile and so much love!!

Hello friends!

I really hope you enjoyed last week's blog all about my 50-foot pole climb while I was at Tony Robbins’ Life Mastery Seminar in Fiji a few weeks ago! Today, I am sharing my experience during the health cleanse portion of the seminar. So, a large part of the seminar was focused on learning ways to optimize our healthy and energy. While we were learning through listening to amazing speakers, we were also being guided through a juice cleanse. Every 2 hours, we were offered either juice, wheatgrass, or Udo’s oil. Additionally, a small group of us were offered salad three times a day. The premise was to cleanse and detoxify the body. I got a little tired of eating salad the last couple of days, but other than that I actually felt pretty great throughout most of the cleanse. After the seminar, I knew that I wanted to find a way to integrate some of the experiences that I gained through the cleanse with the Ayurveda principles that I have already been living with for the past few years. 

Right off the bat, I knew that I was going to return to eating cooked vegetables. According to Ayurveda, vegetables are more easily digested if they are cooked. This was a change that I made to my diet many years ago when I stopped eating salads throughout most of the year and switched to eating primarily cooked vegetables. Since making this change, I have personally noticed a significant improvement in my digestion and how I feel every day. So, I knew that I would return to cooked vegetables back home. But, I still also wanted to find a way to integrate some of the other benefits that I experienced while I was in Fiji along with the Ayurveda dietary principles that have played such a large role in my life. 

Ayurveda recommends experimenting with how different foods and practices feel in your body, and I am a big believer in trying things out. Since we all have different body types and varying proportions of the energies that make up our constitution, we are all completely unique in our body-mind constitution and digestion. This is why I love Ayurveda! It is not “one size fits all.” Ayurveda recognizes that we are each unique in our beautiful ways. Ayurveda states that we must take our constitution, season, and lifestyle factors into consideration when creating our food plans, and that there is a bit of experimentation in determining exactly what is best for our bodies in any given moment. There are overarching principles, and then there are the actual practices. This is the art and science of Ayurveda. 

That being said, when I returned home, I began experimenting with the principles learned at the seminar and Ayurveda. The first week was really hard, because I realized that I was not actually giving my body everything that it needed. You know, as part of the seminar, all of our food was prepared for us and offered to us on a pre-determined schedule. So, coming back home to a situation where I had to create the schedule and food myself was a bit different. When I returned home, I had a huge “action list” of things to integrate, implement, and research. I got overwhelmed, and as a result jumped into a dietary routine that left me feeling depleted. 

Well, just as I was experiencing all of this, I was also preparing to deliver an Ayurveda Immersion program all about digestion! Preparing to teach this immersion offered me a great reminder of the most important principles in Ayurveda digestion that I wanted to keep in my life. Teaching this program also offered me a lesson in my own teachings, and this came on the very last day of the immersion. 

On the last day of the immersion, I wanted to give my students a really simple, practical method for integrating Ayurveda into their daily lives (so that they would not get overwhelmed as I did!). I asked them to create a huge list of every possible action that they could take to integrate Ayurveda into their dietary practices. Then, I asked them to pick just the top 3 action items that they felt they could really commit to over the next 3 weeks. I asked them to be really specific in the action items they were committing to, and to forget about the rest! My advice was to really focus just on those 3 action items for the next 3 weeks until they became a habit. I wanted them to then notice how those consistently taken actions felt in their body. Keep what felt great, let go of what did not, and then look at their list and choose another 2-3 items to integrate over the next few weeks. Great plan, right? I loved guiding the class through this process, and my students also left the session feeling empowered with really practical ways to start using the principles that they learned about that weekend. 

Well, when I came home from teaching, I shared with my husband this exercise that I had led the class through. I was also chatting with him that evening about how I was feeling overwhelmed about integrating our seminar with Ayurveda into my own life that past week. And so, my husband, the caring genius that he is (and just one of the many reasons why I love him so!), lovingly reflected back to me the exact exercise that I went through with my class! It was exactly what I needed! Sometimes teacher needs to become student and re-learn her own lessons, which is actually part of why teach. I teach things that I have experienced in my own life and the tools that I have used to help me move forward to feeling better in my own body and emotions. And so, that evening, I committed to 3 action items and decided to not worry about the rest!

The three things that I committed to for the next 3 weeks are: 

1. Wheatgrass juice in the morning. We took wheatgrass shots twice a day in Fiji. I enjoyed the taste and how it felt in my body. Wheatgrass juice is chockfull of vitamins and minerals. So, I decided that I would have wheatgrass juice every morning after my morning cup of lemon water. I eliminated coffee while I was in Fiji, and so am replacing it with wheatgrass!
   
2. Ensuring Omega-3 and Omega-6 in my diet. While in Fiji, we were also given shots of Udo’s Oil daily. Udo’s Oil is specifically designed from a combination of organic oils in the ideal proportion of Omega-3 and Omega-6 that our body needs. Honestly, I wasn’t super excited about taking shots of Udo’s oil in Fiji! Since coming home, I have been drizzling Udo’s oil on my cooked vegetables and enjoying this much better! I also did some research and was excited to find out that ghee, clarified butter, is also a good source of Omega-3. Ghee is used often in Ayurveda and I use it in my cooking. So, I am committed to ensuring that I get a good source of Omega-3 and Omega-6 in my diet through either Udo’s oil or ghee.
   
3. Rebounding while reciting Affirmations. I am committing to jumping on my trampoline every morning for at least 5 minutes while reciting my affirmations (or, incantations). Getting on a trampoline is a great way to get the day started with some movement! Now, I already start out my day every morning with a brief practice of qi gong and yoga. And, now I am following that up with the trampoline because it is fun, really active, and a great way to engage the body while reciting affirmations, statements of all that I am and all that I am becoming! This is a powerful and fun practice get the day going with even more movement and intention.

So, these are three actions I have committed to taking over the next 3 weeks, and I no longer feel overwhelmed. In fact, I am able to enjoy these 3 actions all the more since I have made it very tangible and practical to integrate these principles. 

We can all do this! So often when we decide that we are going to work towards something in our life, such as building greater energy or health, or achieving another goal in life, we can get overwhelmed thinking of all the steps that may be involved. Recalling from last week’s blog, maybe we only need to look at “What is the next step?” What if we just pick 2 or 3 really tangible things to focus on until it becomes a habit, and then, only then, consider the next step. Don’t worry about the rest. You know, we make it so easy to feel bad about ourselves these days, why not make it easy to feel good instead? Pick two or three things that we can stick with, celebrate our success, celebrate our progress, and enjoy this beautiful life that we're living!

Let me know what resonated with you the most from today’s blog! How can you apply this into your daily life? Leave a comment..I can’t wait to hear from you!

Sending you so much love!!

Keep Reading:
Why I Climbed a 50-Foot Pole in Fiji…?
Fall in Love with Ayurveda
What is Ayurveda?

Hello dear friends!
 
This week, I am sharing why and how it came to be that I climbed a 50-foot telephone pole while I was on my recent trip to Fiji!  As many of you know by now, I was recently in Fiji for three weeks to get married and celebrate my honeymoon. As part of the plan, my husband and I decided to stay in Fiji for an extra week after our honeymoon to attend Tony Robbins’ Life and Wealth Mastery Seminar.  For two personal development junkies like us, this was the perfect way to start our marriage! This seminar was an immersive experience where we got to learn tons of great stuff about maximizing and optimizing our health, emotions, and finances.  On the very first day of the seminar, we were presented with the physical and emotional challenge of climbing a 50-foot telephone pole!  Now, we were attached to a harness and were guided through the entire obstacle, so we were entirely safe; that being said, I definitely do NOT recommend doing this at home!
 
The question naturally arises though, “Why was a pole climb part of this seminar?”  I had the same question at first!  In fact, I knew this was coming because I had seen posts on social media of people who had attended the seminar in the past.  I had seen their videos of climbing this pole and jumping off.  I was actually nervous for days leading up to this event just because of this one part of the event!  It turns out though, that I actually learned some of my biggest lessons of the entire seminar during that one pole climb!
 
Today, I am sharing with you my journey of the climb and the beautiful lessons I took away from that experience.:

1. A necessary part of growth involves stepping out of our comfort zone, but not into our shock zone So, the first lesson, was to move out of our comfort zone, but not into the shock zone.  What does this mean?  Well, any sort of personal growth requires that we step out of our comfort zone.  It would not be called “growth” if we did not have to step out of our comfort zone.  Yet, we also need to be mindful of where our “shock zone” is.  In other words, although all growth requires moving out of our comfort zone, we need to be able to recognize when we are pushing our bodies into the “shock zone” of flight, flight, or freeze.  When we push ourselves to this point, we send signals to our body that we are in danger and, as a result, our body can shut down from the sheer amount of stress. 
We do NOT want to reach the shock zone. We live in a society these days where it's a constant push to achieve, such that so many of us are living in a chronic daily low grade level of stress and our body’s sympathetics are constantly activated.  We really need to be mindful of our body’s comfort and shock zones, so that we can experience growth without harming our body and mind.
It is also important to recognize that the comfort and shock zone is different for each person.  The trainers presented this in a really beautiful way of emphasizing that some of us may climb halfway up the pole, others may climb all the way up the pole, some may get to standing on top of the pole, and even others may jump off the pole to try to catch a trapeze!  There were many stages to the climb and we were encouraged to find which one was right for us.

2. What is Your Outcome? My goal was to climb the pole and stand on top. I knew that this would be a hearty challenge for me to figure out how to get on top of this pole that has the diameter of a dinner plate!  Personally, I did not care about trying to catch the trapeze; I just wanted to get myself up on top of that pole!  So, this was the 2nd lesson: to determine the outcome or goal that was appropriate to me, without comparing my outcome to anyone else’s. 

3. What is Your Intention? What does this challenge represent to you?  For me, I had just gotten married and the pole climb represented me starting this new phase of my life. As the trainers described, when we go on a climb or a trip, we want to keep our bags light or even just leave our bags at the bottom of the pole.  So, this pole represented my new life and I was leaving my baggage at the bottom!  I was going to climb that pole and leap into this new phase of my life - boldly, courageously, and with a wide open heart!

4. What is Your Next Step? This last lesson is one that I have been reminding myself of every single day since the pole climb.  The trainers described that when we are on that pole, different emotions can come up and, when that happens, all we need to do is ask ourselves “What is the next step?”  When we take on a challenge or set out to achieve an outcome, it can often seem daunting when we are just looking at it from the bottom.  Sometimes just the scope of what we are trying to achieve can overwhelm us!  Certainly for me, I was nervous during the entire climb.  My heart was racing and I was shaking even as I approached the pole to start my climb.  I found it physically challenging and had to pause along the way, even though I wanted to rush to the top!  But, I had to pause, breathe, and remind myself, “What is the next step?”  I reminded myself of my outcome and intention as I focused on just taking that next step.  How often do we come up with an idea of something that we want to do in our life, but it just seems so daunting? But, if we just start walking and just take that next step, before we know it, we're there! Before we know it, we have achieved our outcome. Or, at the very least, we have been living with intention.
 
So, there you have it, four things to remember when you set out for your next challenge or goal in life!
 
Sending you so much love!
 
Keep Reading:
Honoring Our Obstacles
Live with Intention
The Power of Vision