My House, My Home

It's honesty time: I'm feeling super emotional about selling my house. 7 years of my life have been spent in this house, designing it, making it my own. Every colour we painted, every finish and fixture that we changed was changed to make it feel like a home for us. We even chose our furniture especially for this house. We set it up just the way we liked it. Our first house. We grew and changed so much as people in this house. Even the 'For Sale' sign out front of the house triggered powerful emotions in me.

Over the past month, in getting my house ready for sale, I've shown it more care and respect than I ever have in the past 7 years. And I found myself asking why I didn't clean the walls regularly, why I didn't touch up the paint when it got marked up, why I didn't replace the door right away when it stopped working right, why I let my counters have dirty dishes on them overnight, why I didn't just vacuum the baseboards once a week when I vacuumed the floors. Because I realize now how much I love how my house looks and feels when it's at its best. And it doesn't take much to keep it that way if I do it regularly. In caring so attentively for my home in the past month I made friends with it, I thanked it for keeping me safe and realized that somewhere along the way, my funny little modular/trailer that we were only going to have for a few years until we left town became a wonderful home.

Then it really hit me. Why don't I show myself that same care and respect? It felt like cleaning and caring for my home was a metaphor for cleaning and caring for myself. When I'm the best I can be, I love how I look and feel. I am friends with myself and I love myself. And unlike my house, I will always have my body, mind and soul to call home. Like a house, I can change much about myself physically, mentally and spiritually. But unless I nurture myself regularly with special care and attention, I am not at home within myself.

I am not usually attached to possessions at all, but this house feels different. I feel different. Owning and caring for a home taught me how important it is that I need to own and care for myself. And it wasn't until I had to leave this home that I learned this lesson. Life will keep putting you in places to learn your lessons. My house is one of those places.

Thank you, house and home for your lessons. I will take them into my next home and into myself. I'm sad to be letting you go, but that's what I needed to learn this lesson. And now I know that I have a home in myself no matter where I am in the world. <3

Make Magic Happen!

We know them as the famous words uttered by all the Hollywood movie directors: "Lights! Camera! ACTION!" Upon that last word, the clapperboard snaps down and magic is made. But what if the director never said "action"? 

So often in initial consultation sessions and even in coaching sessions, people tell me how important X is to them. That X is their number one priority. "I've got to get back in shape, fitness is so important to me," or "I want to put myself first" or even "something's stopping me from being where I want to be and getting it sorted out is my priority." When we chat a bit more, they go on to tell me all of the dreams, wishes and desires tied to this priority for who they want to be and how they want to live their best life.

When talking about their deepest dreams, wishes and desires for themselves, I see people light up and sparkle. I see their eyes dance, I hear their voices become light and animated as they smile when they speak. I watch their arms move with fluidity and freedom and their whole body seems taller, confident and unstoppable. 

Then it happens.

I know it's happening even when they don't because the change is so obvious to me it's like night and day.

I watch as they talk themselves out of the very thought of even trying.

It happens in an instant and they don't even have to say a word. It happens in their minds and is immediately reflected in the sigh of breath, the shoulders that droop forward, the crossed arms, and the heavy limbs. Their eyes look downward and the light shuts off. All this happens in a millisecond and I know what's coming next.

With their voices as steady and rational as ever, I hear people say things like:

• "I'm ready to go, but I just don't have the time to start something else right now." 
• "I'm so busy right now. I know it's important so I'll do it next month when my schedule clears up."
• "I just don't know where to start."
• "I'm just not ready."
• "I don't have any money."
• "I have kids. I can't do that."

All these reasons are just different ways of saying the same thing: that the priority wasn't a priority to begin with and that they feel safer living in their current situation than in making their dreams into their reality. Why? Because taking action is scary.

I once read somewhere that "the distance between your dreams and reality is called action." If we don't DO the thing, we can't BE the thing. That thing stopping us from taking action to reach our dreams and be the person we want to be is fear. Fear of failure, fear of what other people might think, fear of success, fear of not being good enough, fear of what might or might not happen if we try, fear of not be able to provide for our families, fear of being a bad parent, fear of what might happen if we drop other activities to allow ourselves to pursue what makes us fulfilled. So we keep on living by making everything else more important and then feel sad, anxious, depressed and unfulfilled as we watch our dreams move further and further away from our reality. 

We don't even know we're doing it. We don't quit the committee we're on even though we're miserable with it because we're afraid of what the other members would think or what might happen if we left. So we stick with the miserable committee rather than taking that yoga instruction course. We know the course would get us closer to our dream of owning a yoga studio and then we rationalize it away by telling ourselves our schedule is too full and we can't take it on. Then we resentfully attend each committee meeting feeling more trapped and miserable than before.

The only way through fear is action. When we feel anxious and fearful it's about an imagined situation in the future, yet when we arrive at that future we most often find that all that suff we were afraid of never happened, or if it did, it was nowhere near as bad as we thought.

You can only bridge the gap between your dreams and reality by taking action. Take action BECAUSE it scares you. Fear can act as a sign telling us exactly what we need to do, pointing us in the direction of our goals and our heart's desires. Sign up for that class, book that coaching appointment (see what I did there?) quit that miserable committee because you were meant to live in freedom and fulfillment. 

Be the director of your own life. Shout "ACTION" and get out there and make your magic happen!

Step into the light.

Today was a day when I felt like quitting. All of it. The coaching, the business building, all of it. I felt like quitting my book.

I'm working with a writing coach who is helping me finish my book. To put it mildly, it hasn't been easy to write. In fact, it's one of the hardest things I've ever done because it demands that I commit effort every single day to something without any idea of what it will look like in the end, whether it will be good or what it will even accomplish. We humans like our immediate results and our instant gratification. Writing a book has literally NONE of that. That's what makes it so hard.

I hadn't written anything for about a week and was feeling like quitting. Today, I wanted to quit so bad. So I decided I needed a chat with my writing coach. I honestly told him I was frustrated and wanted to bail, but that there was a part of me that had to finish, and I needed help inspiring that part of me to keep going. Here is what he told me:

Of people who are asked what their top 10 life ambitions are, 83% have writing a book on their list.

Only 5% of that 83% who say they want to write a book, ever start writing.

Only 1% of the 83% finish writing their book.

He said that just by starting I'm already in the 5% and by completing my rough draft, I'll be in the 1%.

He said that no matter how well (or badly) written my book is, the absolute worst thing that can happen to me if I finish is that I will be in the 1% and will accomplish something that 83% of people want to do, and 82% give up on.

I think that's pretty amazing.

And I think that's true about life and becoming your best you. All of us want connection, love, to be seen and heard, to belong and to feel worthy. To have those things, we need to do what's hard and what scares us. We need to be open and vulnerable as we walk into the dark and the scary to own our stories and own who we are. We need to pull back the curtain on our light and bring ourselves out of hiding. All of ourselves. We must admit we are afraid, we must open ourselves to all of life's experiences and all of our emotions even when they cause us great discomfort.

Even if it scares us to death.

We have to lean in to those uncomfortable and awkward parts. We have to make peace with those parts. Because we can't have the light without the dark. When we uncover our light, our own unique light of the billions of lights that are on this planet, we give others permission to do the same. It is the hardest thing to do. So many of us keep our light hidden because the possibility of being rejected and hurt while we're vulnerable is awful and terrible. Yet it's when we shine our light despite those fears that we find love, belonging and connection.

In uncovering your light and sharing all of yourself openly, you will encourage others to shine. The darkness will vanish. You will be surrounded by the light of others and your own unique light will inspire others. Your life will be made so much brighter, and it starts when you decide to own all of yourself by shining your light.

And the more often you uncover your light and the longer you keep it uncovered the stronger it will get. It will get so strong that the worst thing that happens to you won't feel like the worst thing anymore.

You will have done what so many others can't. Just starting puts you in a wonderful place, and as for finishing? There is no end to what the power of your own light can do for others.