Simply Authentic...Your Soul Voice is Calling. Mental Rehearsal

Mental Rehearsal is Powerful

Great golfers and surgeons go over their game, their surgical procedures, in the mind ahead of time.

I do the same thing when I am in a play or preparing for a performance.

What mental tape are you playing right now? Are you preparing for what you want?

            From YOUR BEST LIFE YET by Joel Osteen:

Osteen tells the story of a little girl named Tara Holland who grew up with a dream of becoming Miss America. When she entered the Miss Florida pageant in 1994, she became the first runner-up. She tried again the following year and again was first runner-up. Tara moved to Kansas after that and in 1997 became Miss Kansas and was crowned Miss America that same year.

            As Osteen writes, this former Miss America could have easily given up. Instead, she chose to rent hundreds of pageant videos and watch them multiple times, always seeing herself in the experience of receiving the crown and walking down the runway wearing it. “Another reporter asked her if she was nervous walking down the runway in front of millions of people watching on television and with the announcer singing the famous Miss America song. Tara’s response was interesting. ‘No, I wasn’t nervous at all,’ she said. ‘You see, I had walked down that runway thousands of times before.’”

Authentically Yours,  

Laura

Simply Authentic...Your Soul Voice is Calling. Unleashing the Inner Artist

Unleashing the Inner Artist

A few months ago I read a letter to the editor in O Magazine I wish I would have saved. It said something like “When will people realize that artists…from the buildings we work in to the restaurants we dine at…create the world in which we live?” It was a well written (an artfully written) letter and I can’t quote the writer here because I don’t know who it was. 

I say everyone has an inner artist. Every person on this planet. That is a whole heckuva lot of people.

With everyone born human, a poet—an artist—is born, who dies young and who is survived by an adult. –Charles-Augustin Sainte-Beuve

I got that quote (kinda depressing, huh?) from Julia Cameron’s THE VEIN OF GOLD, which was gifted to me by a colleague several years ago. I started reading it then, and set it aside about a third of the way through. Yesterday, the thought came to me three different times in one day that I needed to pull it out again. So I did. (I went through the entire 12 week process in Cameron’s THE ARTIST’S WAY when I was writing my book proposal in 2003.)

Creating something with our hands, our bodies, takes us out of a busy mental place and into a more heart-based place of allowing inspiration, expansion and expression.  

For example, I have a cousin who repairs and does restoration on motorcycles for a living. Don’t tell me that’s not artistry. A recent Facebook post also showed his creation of a coffee table made with leg rests, wood from an old stereo, a bolt crate, and newspaper clippings from 1915, 1916. It is coated with casting resin. It is interesting, wonderful, beautiful (I would love it in my home) and artistic. I don’t know if my cousin would call himself an artist, but I certainly do.

I have dabbled in a number of artistic pursuits over the years, as they always come calling and will not be ignored. Right now, I sing, play the keyboard, sketch from time to time, make collages, and have this artistic writing habit that seems to keep getting bigger and bigger. J 

 

 

There are things inside each soulful heart which long to be expressed in an artistic manner.

What are yours? Listen…and create.

Authentically Yours,

Laura

Simply Authentic...Your Soul Voice is Calling. Sacred Home Care

Sacred Home Care

Okay, so I’m a little anal (retentive that is) about having a clean home. Not like white glove perfection. Tidy might be a good word. Trust me, there is plenty of dust in places I don’t usually look, and every once in a while I move a piece of furniture and go…really…? Where was I when that spider built a web, a fly got caught in it and everyone died - above a good quarter inch of some unidentified fuzz - without my knowledge? This kind of thing happens.

Nonetheless, I clean every Thursday evening whether my home needs cleaning or not. Some Thursdays involve more in-depth cleaning than others, like if dinner or overnight guests are coming (like they care, but I do). If someone wants to get together on a Thursday evening, I’ll move cleaning to Wednesday or whenever. Hey, I just said I’m a little anal (a term we used to use, which is probably more appropriately OCD now), not a lot.

Over the years, I’ve realized that being a little anal or OCD about your home environment isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Our homes respond to the care we give them, and the energetic feeling we experience is palpable. This may be why home redecoration and de-cluttering shows are so popular. Just walking into a cared for room feels sooooo good. J

I pay attention when I dust, vacuum, lint brush off the cat hair on the pillows, rinse out the bathtub and sink. I listen to what my home environment is telling me.

I don’t call it house cleaning anymore. I call it sacred home care.

Authentically Yours,

Laura

Simply Authentic...Your Soul Voice is Calling. Kombucha Tea

Kombucha Tea

Living an authentic life takes a lot of energy. (Of course living an inauthentic life, in opposition to your heartfelt desires and the flow that wants to naturally happen, takes a whole lot more energy…but that would be a different post!)

It’s a good idea to keep our bodies as healthy as possible while we are doing our authentic work and fulfilling our purpose here on Planet Earth. I have had bad habits over the years – thankfully they are decreasing, rather than increasing. (Haven’t had a cigarette since the second week of July, yeay!) Mostly I eat in a healthy manner. Note I said MOSTLY.

A lot of things have helped me maintain a healthy body…regular exercise, chiropractic work, yoga, massage therapy, acupuncture, meditation, a couple of minor surgeries. Paying attention to my breathing. I have taken fruit/veggie supplements for years, and am a fan of Juice Plus.

But I’m focusing on Kombucha tea here…for those who have not heard of it, and for those who have and want to make their own. My beloved has been making and drinking Kombucha tea for around nine years now, and hasn’t been sick the entire time!

I got my first culture from George and have been making and drinking it for almost a year now. The same is true for me, even while I have been surrounded by coughing, sneezing, sick people at the office. There have been times I felt I was coming down with something, so I took an extra dose, added some Airborne, and went back to bed for a couple hours. But I haven’t been sick enough to miss a full day of work in long enough I wanted to share the Kombucha tea recipe.

From NOURISHING TRADITIONS: The Cookbook that Challenges Politically Correct Nutrition and the Diet Dictocrats, Revised Second Edition: Sally Fallon with Mary G. Enig, Ph.D:

Soviet cancer researchers determined to find out why, where and how this dread disease (cancer) had increased so dramatically following WW II…two districts in the region of Perm, on the Kama River…stood out like neon lights…hardly any cancer cases…How could this be?...it was soon confirmed that nary a home in the region was without the fermenting crocks of kvass or kombucha.
-Tom Valentine, Search for Health.

From George’s Recipe:

Never store Kombucha in metal; always use glass. Heat will also kill the culture, so keep everything room temperature while you are preparing the tea. After it is prepared, you put it in the frig.   

-1 gallon of tea with caffeine (six tea bags), cooled to room temperature

-1 C sugar

-Mix together until completely dissolved (in glass gallon jar, add part of the tea, then mix in the sugar, then add the rest of the tea and mix again)

-Add 4-6 oz. of Kombucha tea as starter fluid

-Add a culture

-Cover with clean, dry cloth that allows air in, secure with rubber band

-Place in warm, dry place for approximately 14 days, undisturbed (top of frig works great)

 

To “harvest” and prepare for a new batch, have a clean, dry gallon glass jar ready. After removing the culture and setting it aside in a dish, strain (with a straining cloth—a knee-high nylon works great) the batch you have been preparing.  The culture may be at the top or the bottom of the jar. (Don’t stick your hand or arm into the jar to retrieve the culture because you just end up with a big, huge mess. Been there, done that. If you can’t take the culture out easily from the top with your fingers, just strain the liquid slowly until you can.)  

You will have cultures to give away because one culture always forms another. You can store the cultures in an ounce or two of prepared tea in a sturdy Ziploc bag in the frig.

 

Make your next batch and put the jar you just “harvested” in the frig!

A “warning”…some stringy and clumpy stuff that doesn’t look appetizing comes along with the culture. Even after you strain it and put it in your drinking jar, you may find stringy and clumpy stuff in there later on because the culture continues to grow, particularly in a good batch. It’s not going to hurt you. It’s just not very appetizing. You can pull it out with your fingers or a spoon. Or strain it again. I’ve gotten to the point I just swallow some of the smaller strands in the tea without batting an eye. The bigger clumps, not so much. J I take them out.

The tea tastes good, particularly chilled, and I love the health benefits.

 

Authentically Yours,

Laura