asking for clarity

An Autumn Ritual Just For You: Release Obstacles Now!

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Autumn is the perfect time to clean out and let go of what no longer serves you in your life. And letting go through ritual can be very powerful!

Look around and notice that the days are getting shorter and the leaves are falling from the trees. Soon, there will be less bounty and abundance being offered from the flowers and plants. Nature is letting go of excess and stripping down to the essentials – to what is really necessary to get through the long, dark winter. These cues from nature are beautiful invitations to help you in identifying, releasing, and letting go of the excess. Nature is signaling that it’s time to let go of the things that are perhaps weighing you down in your life.

It’s important to “clean house” on an inner level every now and again, and take stock of what you’re holding onto.

So often, you hold on to old fears, resentments, habits, patterns, limiting beliefs, and ways of being because they FEEL comfortable, but that’s only because you’ve been holding on to them for so long. However, when you take a closer look, you can begin to see that these things no longer serve you, and in fact are standing in the way of your moving forward.

The tree metaphor applies here: imagine what might happen if trees never shed their leaves? Yes, they might not ever look bare, and there is comfort in always looking full and abundant. However, if the trees never shed their leaves, they would never have a chance to grow new leaves – new ideas, new projects, new beliefs, new opportunities. See where I’m going with this?

I’ve created a simple and special autumn ritual to be able to identify and let go of the things in your life that are ready to be released for you:

Autumn Ritual for Release

First, reserve some special time for yourself. Go to an outdoor place that feels sacred to you: a park, a stream, a path in the woods. Any place that feels safe and supportive for you. Bring paper and a pen.

In sacred outdoor space, sit down in a comfortable place. Connect with nature. Feel your seat on the ground, and take a couple of nice, deep breaths in – taking in the autumn air and feeling the energy of releasing and letting go.

Next, use your paper and pen and answer the following questions. Take some time to really feel into these questions:

  • What in your life or work currently feels like a burden to you?
  • What habits or patterns leave you feeling tired, overwhelmed, or bored?
  • What is currently wasting your time?
  • What are you most scared of right now?

Review your answers, and create a list of 3 things that you know you are really ready to let go of. This list should be things that you know in your heart are no longer serving you, even though they might feel comfortable for you.

Next, find 3 rocks or pebbles. Each of these rocks will represent one thing that you are ready to release, surrender, and let go of. Be clear for yourself what each rock represents. Take a moment as you pick up each rock or pebble from the ground, close your eyes, feel the rock in your hand and say to yourself, “this rock represents my fear of success,” or “this rock represents my addiction to sugar” or “this rock represents my relationship with my boyfriend.” Allow each rock to truly take on the energy of each thing you want to release.

Then, go on a mindful walk with your three rocks. On this walk, observe all the ways that each of your “rocks” have hindered your happiness and success. Then, as you are ready, let each rock go, one by one. Drop them to the ground, really feeling that you are symbolically letting go of each. If you are near water, you can throw each rock into the water, listening to the splash each rock makes as it hits the surface and sinks down. Then take a moment to notice how it feels in your body to commit to releasing each of these things.

Finally, write down a next action step for each of your items. For example, if one of your items is your addiction to sugar, a next action step might be to cut sugar out after 7pm. Bring your action sheet home, and keep it somewhere convenient, where you’ll be reminded of these steps often.

Action follows intention. This autumn ritual is a great way to partner your inner and outer energy to create positive change in your life!

Summer Solstice and BIG Changes

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Here in Brooklyn, there’s no mistaking that it’s summer time. The heat is on. The sun is strong. The sprinklers are running, and the bathing-suits are out.

 

As many of you know, I am very conscious of living my life attuned to the earth and the seasons. And for me, summertime is all about investigating and getting to the next level of VISIBILITY. Why? Well, in the summer, the Sun is Queen. It’s all about the Sun. And traditionally, the sun represents being at the center of things, being visible, being seen and heard. Make sense?

So, in honor of the sun and summertime, I’ve prepared a very, very special opportunity just for you – a workshop and women’s circle all about visibility and bringing your sacred message to the world in big ways! I am over-the-moon excited about this event that’s taking place in NYC

on July 19th. It’s called BE SEEN, and it’s 3-hours of jam-packed visibility tools + experiential processes and ritual that will support you in being seen and heard and valued for your work in the world.

Here’s all the skinny on it: http://soulfulcoach.com/be-seen.php

There are lots of reasons why you don’t want to miss this event, and here’s one of the biggest reasons: I’m MOVING!!! Yup, it’s official; Jon, Penina and I will be packing up and moving to Charlotte, North Carolina later this month. So – if you’ve been wanting and waiting to work with me LIVE, here is your last chance for a while. I’m pulling out all the stops to make this a rock-the-house, not-to-be-forgotten event.

Will I see you there? I hope so! http://soulfulcoach.com/be-seen.php

And in the spirit of visibility, take a look at my article from Friday that’s all about creating effective, successful, and soul-centered presentations and talks.

Enjoy!

Re-Write Your Money Story and Live By It

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money-wipeMoney – we want it, we don’t want it, we have it, we need it, the other person has it, we love it, we hate it, we lost it, we made it, we deserve it, we don’t deserve it, we know how to attract it, we’re not the kind of person who attracts it. We each have a very unique and important relationship to money and beliefs around it.

Everyone has a money story, rich or poor, and it’s your money story that either allows you to attract in prosperity or completely blocks you from having what you want in your life.

If you are in a place in your life where your bank account doesn’t reflect what you want, or you have to skimp on what you buy for yourself, or you simply feel as if you’ve gotten a rotten deal and you should have more, or that everyone else around you has more than you, then you can be 100%, absolutely sure that you are operating out of a personal money story that is sabotaging you.

At its heart, your “money story” is a series of beliefs and fears that you have developed about money and your personal relationship to money. These beliefs and fears may or may not be based in fact. However, because you have thought them over and over and over again, your mind comes to believe these messages as truth.

It is absolutely vital for you to get very acquainted with – to actually “Befriend” – your fears about money. Why? Because when you avoid your fears, they take over your actions and thoughts and the result is that you sabotage yourself and your ability to create for yourself.

This happens in a variety of ways: anything from avoiding your work by spending too much time on email to telling yourself that you’re not good enough to apply for a certain grant so you wait until the last minute to do it, to telling yourself that no one will buy your services, so you undercharge yourself to telling yourself that you don’t have enough time to accomplish everything you need to and over-scheduling yourself to the point of exhaustion.

The first step to Befriending Your Fears about money is to become aware of what your fears are. Here are the top 8 fears that come up around money and abundance:

  1. Fear of not being good enough to have money & abundance – “I’m scared I’m not a good enough writer to make a living from it”
  2. Fear of not knowing how to earn money – “I’m not good with numbers” or “I don’t know how to run a business” or “I’m not the Wall Street type, therefore I’m scared I’ll never make money”
  3. Fear of the success and visibility that comes with money & abundance – “If I’m rich, then people will notice me and see I’m a fraud”
  4. Fear of not deserving money & abundance – “I’m scared I’m not the type of person, or my family isn’t the type of family, that can make money”
  5. Fear that it will take up way too much time to make good money – “If I really go after my dream and make it work, I’m scared I won’t have any time left over for anything else”
  6. Fear of losing connection with self or loved ones bc of money – “If I am rich, my sister won’t be able to relate to me anymore”
  7. Fear of surpassing loved ones because of money – “I am betraying my father by being more successful and prosperous than him; I’ll be leaving him behind”
  8. Fear of getting hurt, used or judged – “My friends will think I’m shallow if I buy a beach house in the Hamptons”

Take a moment now and get clear for yourself – what is the thing you are scared of most around money? Go with the first thing that comes to mind for you, and I want you to write that down, star it, underline it, do whatever you need to do so that you remember it.

Whatever this fear or fears are, once you are clear on them, then you can begin to really work with them and move through the process for Befriending Your Money Fears – leading you to open new doors to creating abundance for yourself on all levels!

The Three Most Important Questions to Ask Yourself When Moving Through a Transition

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Congratulations on your birthday! Does that make you 40 years-old now?

I heard about your brother’s sudden illness – is everything okay?

You landed the position, that’s amazing! How do you feel about leaving your ten year post at your old office?

What do all of these situations have in common? They each mark a major transition in a person’s life. A transition is anything from moving to a new career to an anniversary, birthday, divorce, marriage, letting go of a loved one, or anything else that marks the passing of one phase of your life into another.

While these periods can sometimes be very joyful or beautiful like a birthday, or difficult like leaving a job or getting a divorce, transitions effect us on a deep level because they signify groundbreaking change or movement both on an inner and outer level.

In addition to all of the joys or challenges that come along with it, a time of transition is also an opportunity to create new beginnings and harness the energy of the change to really move you forward in significant ways.

Whenever I work with women going through a transition in their lives, we spend time examining its significance. One of the places I like to start, in order to help them understand and grapple with the transition as well as honor and move forward in their lives, is by having them answer the following three questions: READ MORE

The Third Key to Accessing Your Intuition – Asking for Clarity

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As we’ve seen in the last two Soulful Coaching newsletters, the first two steps to Accessing Your Intuition (they are Acknowledging Your Body and Embracing Your Body) allow us to prepare our ourselves so that we can receive the valuable information that is kept there. Once we have re-connected with our bodies and opened the channel for hearing our body wisdom, the next step is Asking for Clarity.

 

If you haven’t done this before, it is amazing to discover that you really can hear the answers and information that are right for you if you simply ask the questions. So often, we forget to ask. However, the act of asking the question provides us an opportunity to focus on the issue at hand and get clear on what it is we really want to know.

Take Action – Ask for Clarity

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