Simply Authentic...Your Soul Voice is Calling. Visualize, Journalize, Vocalize

Visualize, Journalize, Vocalize

Visualize, Journalize, Vocalize is a phrase I coined early on in the creation of Wishweavers.*  Bringing your authentic dreams and wishes to light and into reality, using the six degrees of connection, is a three part process. This process uses different learning styles for those who are visual, auditory or tactile. You see what you want, and deserve, clearly in your mind’s eye. If you can’t see it yourself, how are you going to go about describing it to others and getting it? You write it down because that makes it real and helps solidify details and concrete goals you may be missing. And you share it with others, vocalizing, which kicks the six degrees of connection into action. (But be careful who you share your dreams with! No dream stompers – only people you know will support and buoy you with encouragement.)

I will add a couple of things to that at this juncture in my career and life. Add emotion. Incorporating feeling into the visualization process makes all the difference in the world. A very good book on this topic is ASK AND IT IS GIVEN by Esther and Jerry Hicks. That book added a whole new dimension to my personal visualization and creation process.

The other thing to add is the phrase “as is in Divine order for the highest good.” Sometimes we think we know what we want, but God has a slightly (or radically) different take on the subject. (Please don’t take that literally—like God is sitting at a desk with a pencil, like Santa, checking boxes on a piece of paper and deciding if your wish is a good one or a bad one.)

The “perfect” house you found on Red Leaf Avenue may actually be destined for a family with a dog that will enjoy the fenced back yard, while one almost exactly like it, but with a pool and flower garden the dog would have destroyed, is waiting for you right around the corner on Peony Drive. You just haven’t seen it yet…that’s all.

Visualize, Journalize, Vocalize (discriminately), with feeling, as is in Divine order for the highest good.

Authentically Yours,

Laura

*For those unfamiliar with Wishweavers, refer to www.wishweavers.com. The website is still mostly there, like a potential rental house that needs to be remodeled.

Simply Authentic...Your Soul Voice is Calling. ME NOW Exercise: Your Ideal Day

ME NOW Exercise: Your Ideal Day

I was in an all day seminar recently and grabbed a pen, as I often do in these things (especially right after lunch), and started writing to ensure I wouldn’t start to nod off. Sometimes I write letters. This particular day I started working on what I refer to in my first book as the ME NOW exercise.

Imagine your life, yourself, as a clean slate. Wake up in the morning and notice your surroundings. What are the colors, textures, scents, sounds and beings – people, animals, plants, etc. – around you? Did you wake up in a king size bed with a rich thread count in the sheets, on a bed of pine needles in the forest, in your very own house boat? Wherever you start is your ME NOW. What gifts, talents, skills and energy are you using to better your life and the lives of others? Write down every detail. Know your contribution to the world and where your money comes from, what you are doing with your time and resources. For now, let your imagination run wild. Later you will break down priorities and map out a plan.

This exercise is a lot of fun. Just take yourself step by step throughout a 24 hour period, a week if you wish, noticing how you’re feeling and what you are sensing.

I first completed a similar exercise called Your Ideal Day, from the book WISHCRAFT by Barbara Sher, in the fall of 1999 shortly after I co-founded a women’s group (known as M to the Sixth Power or M/6 for short), dedicated to helping each other make our dreams come true. Being involved in this group, and reading Sher’s book, changed my life. All the critical pieces in that particular ideal day manifested into my life within six months.

Now I do this exercise regularly, typically every year or two. I start with when I wake up in the morning and end with when I go to bed at night. I also give this exercise as a homework assignment when I facilitate classes and workshops. One attendee of my LIVING IN BALANCE series several years ago presented a particularly creative result that stands out in my memory. In her ideal day, she and her husband were running an intergalactic import / export company. You read that right. Not international, intergalactic, working with artisans from planets all across the Universe. That one got a big burst of applause from the group. J

My recent one wasn’t quite that expansive, but beings plenty of tropical breezes and scooter riding surfaced, I have reason to believe some changes may be coming before too long. At the very least, a sunny and sandy vacation in 2014!

Just completed my morning activities, which include morning maca shooter, yoga, meditation & prayer. I invite you to give yourself permission to live today without history or herstory. Be in the moment with God's story about you. It begins like this: "once upon a choice" not "once upon a time". Choose to be happy, creative & feel that all your needs are met as the beginning of your choosing. Blessings! -Michael Bernard Beckwith Facebook post (If you have not checked out this amazing man’s work before, do it right now!)

Authentically Yours,

Laura

Simply Authentic...Your Soul Voice is Calling. The Worst Decision I've Ever Made

The Worst Decision I’ve Ever Made

You may have noticed my last entry was over 90% quoting Dr. Phil. Not only did I admire what he wrote, and how he wrote it, but I paid close attention to what he said about a “decision audit” -- truthfully recognizing whether or not important life decisions had been based on desire or fear. 

A huge part of authenticity is becoming clear about our motivations. We have all said and done things we regret. We’ve all made choices that weren’t in the highest interest of humanity or our planet or even a close personal relationship. Or especially ourselves.

Rather, what I am talking about here is a decision that completely alters the trajectory of your future, and it’s only later – looking back – you just want to smack yourself alongside the head (and maybe you do) and go WTF WAS I THINKING?

Some who know me well may think my worst decision has to do with my divorce…or my marriage. It doesn’t.  I don’t regret my over 12 year marriage, nor do I regret my divorce. I learned to become a better partner by being married to Jeff, and when we had done everything we could to keep our relationship intact and couldn’t – we both knew. As for those of you who know about the one time I was pulled into the police station and finger-printed – suffice to say I never again had too much wine and not enough Chinese food at a hot-tub party and tried to drive home, really slowly. Really super stupendously bad idea back in 1997.

No, the decision I am talking about was a decade earlier, 1987, Phoenix, Arizona. I was fresh out of college and after 3 ½ months left my first professional job as a placement counselor for temporary employees at a company called Pro-Tem. (I met my best friend at that job, which makes it an enormous blessing.) I enjoyed placing temps in jobs (remind me to tell you the story about actor Patrick Duffy’s home construction job; that was a hoot) but the office was so slow I would sometimes do my nails because there was nothing else to do. So they sent me out to market for them. Cold calling and me were SO not a good fit.

I had an interview with a start-up cosmetics company – cosmetics meaning the little bottles of shampoo, conditioner, body wash, etc. for hotels and the like. The atmosphere in this warehouse type building on the industrial side of town was charged – everyone in that office was jazzed about what they were doing. I vibrated around these people. And they assured me the receptionist job was only a starting point. They wanted people to grow with the company. They were filling the receptionist position because the last one had been promoted. I wish I could remember the name of the company to see whatever happened with them. It would not surprise me, at all, if I am to this day using their bottled products whenever I am in a hotel room, and they have expanded to a line of spas or something like that.  

I had interviewed at a bank around the same time. The bank receptionist position paid $100 more per month. I held off on giving an answer to the cosmetics company, who had offered me the job, until I heard from the bank that I had been hired.

For $100 more a month.

Looking back, I realize that while that tiny amount of extra money per month felt like security at the time, I went against my gut feeling and the energy I felt around those people and in that environment.

Perhaps in a parallel universe I was a part of that company’s and my personal success. From where I am sitting here, it feels like the biggest mistake I ever made. I ended up working in banking (at three different banks) until I moved away from Arizona in 1990, and didn’t truly enjoy any of the banking jobs, while I made the most of all of them and met some wonderful people.

I rarely express regret because I truthfully rarely experience it. My friend Quinton (God bless his soul on the other side) once said that I am an unflappable optimist.

But I wish I had taken the job with the cosmetics company.

I’m sharing this story because Dr. Phil got me thinking, and I believe it’s best to make decisions based on that energized and “right” feeling, rather than the illusion of security which is really only that – an illusion.

Here’s to releasing the F word of fear, and going with the authentic desires of the heart and soul!

Authentically Yours,

Laura

Simply Authentic...Your Soul Voice is Calling. From Dr. Phil - You Can't Play the Game of Life with Sweaty Palms

From Dr. Phil – You Can’t play the Game of Life with Sweaty Palms.

I liked this article from Dr. Phil in the October 2013 issue of O Magazine enough to quote a good chunk of it here.

There’s a four letter F word that’s not offensive to your sensibilities. It won’t send your moral compass spinning like a top. But this F word is far more insidious because, unbeknownst to you, it could be the motivation behind a shockingly high percentage of the life choices you make. The F word I’m walking about is fear.

A psychology professor of mine used to say that 80 percent of decisions are based on fear rather than desire… If he was even close, think about what that could mean for your life. What if you married not Mr. Right but Mr. Right Now because you heard your biological clock ticking… Or what if you spend the next decade in some boring, dead-end job because you’re afraid nobody else will hire you to do something you love?...

It’s possible you’ve been selling out for so long, you don’t even notice it anymore. I get so many letters from readers who feel stuck or are living without the sizzle they long for. Too often we settle for what we don’t want instead of reaching for what we do. Why? It’s an epidemic that I call fear paralysis.

You can’t play the game of life with sweaty palms, so it’s time to do a brutally honest “decision audit” to find out what’s driving your choices. List the top seven decisions you’ve made in your life, and think back to how you made them. Ask yourself truthfully if you were driven by an aspiration or if fear ran the show. Were you moving toward something you wanted or away from an alternative that scared you? … Living – really living – is about taking chances, so what a shame if you never conquered your fears.

By the way, I am not advocating a reckless risk-to-reward ratio… What I am saying, however, is that if you are punking out on your dreams, you need to start believing in yourself enough to go for it instead of settling into your comfort zone…

Start by not blowing the stakes of your decision out of proportion. Your self-worth is not a matter of wins versus losses. It’s an inherent, God-given quality, so don’t catastrophize the consequences of your decisions.

Next, I want you to play the “what if” game, but you need to play it all the way to the end. If you’re going to ask the question, then you’ve got to answer it with a realistic worst-case scenario. What if you quit your job and the next gig didn’t work out? Is it an outcome you’d be able to handle? Could you recover?...

You’d likely start over again and be much wiser. If you’d be gambling your rent money or your children’s lunch money, then maybe the risk isn’t worth it. But if that’s not the case, I’m betting that the downside isn’t as bad as you think – and the upside could be life-changing. You’ll never get ahead by playing it safe.

I couldn’t have said it better myself. Which is why I didn’t. J Thanks, Dr. Phil.

Authentically Yours,

Laura

Simply Authentic...Your Soul Voice is Calling. If I Can't, God Can

If I Can’t, God Can

Is something bothering you? So much so you can’t stop thinking about it? Get yourself a can. Or a jar. Set the can aside for one specific purpose, to put your worries in, knowing if you can’t deal with it, someone else can. The someone else could be your higher power (I call mine a God Can) or a circle of people or angelic entities you trust.

 

Write your worries down on a piece of paper. Fold the piece of paper and put it in the can. Make it symbolic, a ritual, knowing you no longer have to worry about that issue. Your IVIN (Inner Voice/Intuitive Nature) will help you sort it out, and you can forget it about it now. Whenever the worry resurfaces, remind yourself, “That is in the can!”

One of the first techniques I learned was the God Box. You simply write down your worries and pop them into some kind of a container…Sounds simplistic, but honestly, it works… During the period of offering, solutions often spontaneously arise. When the mind is no longer grasping for an answer, space opens. The Box gives room for a Divine plan, even in impossible messes. –Tosha Silver, from the book OUTRAGEOUS OPENNESS

Authentically Yours,  

Laura

Simply Authentic...Your Soul Voice is Calling. It's All ABout Me: Part 2

It’s All About Me: Part 2

There’s one best way to give to others, and that is to give to yourself first. Good financial advisors say to pay yourself first. The same is true of your emotional bank account. None of us can share what we don’t have to give.

Take a solo retreat to a beautiful area (the coast, mountains, prairie, river) for a half day, an entire weekend if you can. Bring only inspirational reading material, your journal and a pen. The iPad is okay as long as you use it only to write and read inspirational material. Turn off the phone. Do not check e-mails. TV, do I even need to mention…NO! Don’t even listen to music, other than the music of the birds singing, the natural hum of insects and nature, the brush of the wind, the sound of the moon coming out over the water. Soundless perfection.

Pay attention to everything you see, hear, smell, touch. Write about it. Everything will have meaning in it. Sleep well and deep. You will come back to your daily life completely rejuvenated.

Authentically Yours, Laura

Simply Authentic...Your Soul Voice is Calling. It's All About Me

It’s All About Me: Part 1

Do whatever comes your way to do as well as you can. Think as little as possible about yourself and as much as possible about other people and about things that are interesting. Put a good deal of thought into the happiness that you are able to give. –Theodore Roosevelt

Of course I can’t speak for you – but I am an interesting person. Frankly, my whole life is extremely fascinating. And I am a scintillating conversationalist…which is perhaps why I spend so much time talking outloud to myself.

Nonetheless, I happen to appreciate these wise words from Mr. Roosevelt.

Truthfully, I suspect most of us spend way too much time worrying about what others think of us, when they are too busy worrying about themselves and their own fascinatingly scintillating (read sorry ass) lives to really think about us at all.

I also happen to believe most people are inherently good. And I am cognizant of how blessed I am with people I love and who love me.

And if you can take one more thing I happen to believe, it is that the better you take care of yourself, the more you have to give to others. Ya just gotta water your own well first.

In spite of everything I still believe that people are really good at heart. –Anne Frank

Your vision will become clear only
when you can look into your own heart.
Who looks outside, dreams;
Who looks inside, awakens.
-Carl Jung

Authentically Yours, Laura