Treating Yourself with Abundance

Happy Self-Care Friday to all of you. I like to create an inspirational word each day that keeps me on track with my intentions throughout the day. Today my word was abundance. I, like many of you I'm sure, can have a tendency to get caught up from time to time in the "woe is me" regarding the economy. How can you not? I see examples of the economy's influence everywhere I look and with people I know. It can be so easy to start looking at my own financial picture and wondering how long I can hold out in "this economy". Feelings of lack and doubt do not help to build up self-esteem or bank accounts. We all know that what we focus on increases so the more I focus on what I don't have, guess what, that's what I have.

I decided I wanted to feel abundance in my life today in all areas. So I repeated the phrase I have abundance in my life. I have abundance in my life during my morning walk. I felt wealthy in many ways and life felt big. I kept repeating it throughout my day. Much evidence showed up that I do have an abundant life: I received in my mail today not only a fabulous letter from my son (not an email but an actual 2 page letter, bless his heart) and an unexpected check! Abundance. I noticed a tree in our yard was bursting with pink blossoms so I cut a few sprigs and placed them in a vase on my windowsill. Abundance.

This one word has made me feel more on purpose in my work today -- abundance in a very powerful coaching session with a client; abundance in my planning and writing activities for upcoming events. No place or room for lack today. If I had focused on what I don't have, I know an empty sad feeling would have followed me all day. That is not practicing self-care not self-neglect.

I find in working with people in a coaching relationship, so often they are focusing on what is not working. If we can open up the door just a little bit to experience the lightness of what IS working, their motivation starts to show up, they feel good about themselves and they can start to move forward.

I wish you all a weekend filled with abundance. Let me know how that shows up in your life.

A new Day to be Grateful

Well Thanksgiving is officially past for 2008, although you may still be enjoying leftovers. I want to continue to focus on gratitude, especially as we go forward into the holiday season. With Black Friday and the holiday frenzy beginning, I want to stay with the feelings of being happy for what I have.

Many people in my family have adopted the less is more attitude and the more economic ways of dealing with Christmas. We will be exhanging something hand made -- food, a poem, something of ourselves not store bought. I asked my sweetie if we could forego presents to each other this year and instead treat ourselves to time together -- a special night out, or other date-like gift is more what I am wanting. I keep thinking of that song - "All I want for Christmas is you".

I am truly blessed -- blessed by the family I have - sisters who I love and feel so connected to; two kids who I think the world of; a son-in-law who is a mother's dream of sweet, kind and loving to my daughter; my first grandchild growing in my daughter's womb; my sweetie who cares for me so much, as well as his family; all my friends and the clients who I admire so much.

I am truly grateful for all I have and feel the need for nothing more with the exception of perhaps more time in every day to enjoy it all!

With gratitude and blessings to you ~

Gratitude When it's a struggle

Ever have one of those days when it feels hard to feel grateful? When you feel like you really need to feel grateful for what you have because you are stuck in that place of not feeling happy? I was in one of those places this morning, feeling like things were not the way I wanted them to be, not feeling happy about it and questioning the stability of my relationship.

I struggle with finding enough time for my sweetie. It feels like our lives get busy, we have hectic schedules and we have little that we do together that we both enjoy that makes us feel connected. Consequently, I really relish the times we can spend together with a common goal and objective. Something we were supposed to do together today turned out to be a solo event for me and I wasn't happy about it. There was a bump in the road where I was feeling in need of that connection time and he wasn't providing it, which made me feel disappointed, angry and sad. I went to that place of "this isn't working, this is bad".

Good thing I did almost immediately know that what I needed to do was go to my place of gratitude. I started thinking about how I was happy to be going to this function, with or without him, and that I knew I was going to have a good time. I got myself into the place of looking forward to the people I would be with and how it would be and knew it would be fun. I was grateful for what we do have together and yes, I could within a fairly short period of time let go of the sadness and disappointment I had been feeling about our relationship.

This is not always that easy to do and sometimes I rest in my place of unrest, unhappy and discontented for awhile before remembering that I really want to be happy and live happy. I thought this was the universe's way of giving me a great reminder, to appreciate what is working and is good in my life.

Glass half full.

Midlife and miserable?

I hate to say that, but many of us, myself included, reach "midlife", wherever that is, and wonder if this is really the life we wanted to choose. The conveyor belt of life is moving on and here we sit, settling for the life we are "supposed" to have. We can feel stuck and miserable. What to do?

It's hard to know what to do if you don't really know what you want. And it's hard to know what you want if you don't know who you are. You see we have to peel through many layers to find what is really true for us. To use a seasonal analogy, it's hard to see the path ahead when it is covered by seasons of leaves. Getting down to the basics is first.

There are many ways of discovering more about yourself so that you might begin to know who you are and what you want. During this time please don't beat yourself up about what you "should" do. This is a time to re-discover yourself and that takes time and patience. First and foremost is acknowledging the feelings as you go.

Because November is the month I have declared for my business to be Gratitude month, I'm going to suggest this practice as step one of discovering more fully who you are and what you want. If you have not had a practice of gratitude, begin by setting aside a time each day when you can focus on your gratitudes. This can be either first thing in the morning or the last thing at night. I like to do mine at the end of the day. I keep my gratitude journal next to the bed so I can recount all the things I am glad for at the end of the day.

It's good to aim for at least 5 as a goal, while you can certainly keep going if you feel inclined. What I notice about mine, is I can go back through all the months of the year and see the patterns of things I was grateful for as well as track my growth through the year. It is a wonderful self-growth tool not to mention the positive benefits to your outlook on life.

There is always something to feel grateful for (think of Pollyanna and the Glad Game) and it's powerful to focus on that which is good especially when so much of what we hear these days is aimed at what is wrong and bad.

My gratitudes for today:

1. Money in my bank account.

2. Meaningful work that I love

3. Time today for creativity and art -- working on my 'values collages'

4. Lunch with my sister and daughter. I asked them to each share their "Good News of the Day" - more gratitude in action!

5. Some lovely vegetables in my refrigerator which means I'm going to go cook a yummy dinner. I'm thinking some roasted beets and carrots. ;)

What are you grateful for today?

Coach Cindie
www.answersfromwithin.com

Checking in on the Gratitude

Ok well it's been 9 days of gratitude since I began this little month of upping the attitude of gratitude? Anyone out there been playing with this idea along with me? Have you noticed anything different about life?

I am remembering to do it twice a day and before I eat even if it's just to say thanks for all hands that made this food possible to get to my mouth. I've also created some gratitude cards, little mini collages of things that convey my gratitude. It does feel lighter and more fun to me to live with that attitude.

If you'd like some help boosting your gratitude quotient - here's a couple ideas:

1. pick one of your senses each day to discover gratitude. For instance if I choose smell, then as I'm taking my morning walk I am grateful for the crisp fall smell, the smell of my cats when I snuggle them, the smell of my morning coffee, the smell of a candle. You get the picture.

2. set your watch to go off at some appointed time every day - 3 times per day, hourly, whatever, and let that be your reminder to focus on something you feel grateful for in that moment.

3. make sure you surround yourself with grateful people; they will rub off on you.

I hope you are discovering some new things as you travel the gratitude trail. Please share how it's going for you.