women’s coach

One More Spot Left In The Wise Woman Leadership Program!

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Just a quickie message this week because I was teaching in NYC last week and on the run!

I’ll catch you up on all the latest news with me and Soulful Coaching next week, but for now I really just wanted to let you know we’ve got ONE spot left in the Wise Woman Leadership Program. Is that spot yours? I hope so! We start next week – now is the time to enroll and step into the next level for yourself and your work.

And … I am THRILLED to present a really wonderful article on social media written by guest writer Siân Killingsworth in this week’s newsletter. Siân is a friend and colleague, and a whiz at social media. Enjoy!

With love,
Joanna

Things Have Been A Little Busy Lately!

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It’s a quickie message today because things have been a little busy here lately!

October 4th was Part 1 of “6 Essential Strategies for New & Emerging Business Owners” and wow-ee, what an awesome training it was! If you’d like to participate in Part 2 of the training: 60 minutes of Q/A coaching with me, you can still register: http://soulfulcoach.com/6essentialstrategies.php

Aside from being with my clients & filling the last few spots left in the Wise Woman Leadership Program, this month is all about content development and planning for 2013! I LOVE months like this: I get to be fully steeped in my creative juicy-ness and soul-centered vision. During planning and content development, I go deep with what YOU, my community, would really like to learn over the next year, and I start making it happen.

I can’t wait to share with you all that I’m preparing for you!

(And by the way, if you don’t routinely put aside time in your business for planning and content development, I HIGHLY recommend you schedule it in. It’s so important!)

In the meantime, I’ve also become a “soccer mom”! Penina started in a soccer league last month, and we are all enjoying it so much. I’m happy to say that we’re slowly settling in here in NC, and taking pleasure in the little things in life.

Hope you enjoy today’s article: it’s all about how to create a better workday for yourself.

with love,
Joanna

Be Happy Every Day (No Matter What)!

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Have you ever had a case of “the Mondays”? You know those days – we’ve all had ‘em – you wake up knowing your workday is going to be tough or dreary and you just want to go back to sleep already! Perhaps it’s an intense meeting with a prickly boss or a 5-hour session on learning the new computer system or back-to-back meetings all day. Sometimes the issue is as simple as insufficient sleep and you just know it’ll be a long slog all day.

Whatever the reason, those days can be difficult and arduous. But the good news is, they don’t necessarily have to be. Attitude counts a lot on these days, and sometimes a quick and easy attitude adjustment can turn a dismal day into a bearable – maybe even an enjoyable – one.

And of course: you want to have as many enjoyable days and as many enjoyable moments as possible. Not only does that help you love your life, but it also keeps you happier, and inspires you to more forward movement in your business. Sounds obvious, I know, but so many of us forget that simple truth a little too often.

Take Action – Get Excited … on purpose!

Here’s one super-simple – and a personal favorite – tactic for managing my energy on workdays. I recommend doing this EVERY workday. By the end of the first week, you’ll notice some pretty amazing changes!

When I wake up that morning, before even leaving bed, I walk through the day in my mind and find at least three things, events, or moments to look forwardto that day. I take 5-10 seconds with each thing and savor it in my mind. This can be anything! Some ideas are:

  • a quick chat with a co-worker who makes you smile
  • a big deal that you’re about to close on
  • a delicious lunch
  • a client session that you are really passionate about

After that, I pick some things in my personal life that day that I’m looking forward to, and savor those things:

  • dinner with my husband & daughter
  • a conversation with a good friend
  • taking my favorite yoga class

Focusing on and feeling happy anticipation about the positive moments in your day can help lessen the weight you feel around the unpleasant moments.

What are you looking forward to today?

Turn Your Attitude to Gratitude!

Another strategy for bringing back joy to your workday is to take a moment to remember the parts of your job that you love and give thanks for them. Sure, you might hate doing paperwork, but don’t forget that you enjoy teaching class, or writing, or getting to know your clients. Or maybe you feel very stressed about meeting with prospects and trying to connect with them. But try to bear in mind that you love creating programs or classes, or that it feels terrific to close a session with a client and reflect with them on how they’ve grown or benefited.

What are you grateful for today?

Instead of focusing on the parts of your day that you’re not looking forward to, make an effort to identify and get excited about the parts of your day – no matter how small – that will make you feel alive or make your heart sing. The more you focus on the positive, the more you will notice it and enjoy it in your life … and the more your soul-centered project will soar!!!!

How to Honor & Protect Your Time and Energy, Part 1

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I’ve always been what I call an “over-responsibility” person. I used to feel that I had to make other people happy, had to meet their needs, no matter what. Regardless of what it might cost me.

When I first started my coaching practice, I did anything for any client – I charged ridiculously low rates, and I would meet them anytime, anywhere. I’m embarrassed to admit it, but in the beginning, I charged just $15 for a 45-minute session. I agreed to sessions at 6:30 AM. I did 11:00 PM sessions. I traveled to clients an hour each way, and still only charged $15 for the session – no charge for my travel time. As you can guess, that did not work! Not only was I under-earning, but I also had no time for marketing to grow my business, or for taking care of myself. I was stressed, exhausted, and often annoyed at my clients. But it wasn’t their fault I felt this way. The fault was mine – because I wasn’t setting any boundaries.

I’m sure many of you can see yourselves in my story. So, so, so many entrepreneurs, artists, and leaders have trouble with boundaries around time. Typical problems include:

  • Not enough time to work because you have guilt around childcare
  • Giving away too much time by constantly emailing clients
  • Excusing a client who cancels frequently (wasting your time)
  • Doing the work of others who are doing things incorrectly or not on time
  • Working overtime consistently because you fear telling your boss that the workload is too heavy

Once you realize that you’re dishonoring your time and dishonoring yourself, it’s time to sit down and get really clear on what you need. I have formulated a series of exercises that will enable you to establish a schedule that allows you time and freedom to accomplish your business and personal goals, and a series of healthy boundaries to serve as a framework for your success. With these boundaries, you can stop feeling overwhelmed, taken advantage of, or scared. You can stop worrying that you’re over-worked and start stepping into time and energy well-spent.

How you spend your time is how you live your life.

In this first section of How to Honor & Protect Your Time, let’s look at scheduling and prioritizing, because setting boundaries for yourself begins with time management.

First, get clear on the top two or three things you don’t have enough time for because of unhealthy boundaries. Is it marketing? Is it self-care? Is it time to write?

What are you losing out on because you’re not honoring your time?

Create Your Ideal Schedule

Creating an ideal schedule is KEY to setting time boundaries for yourself. The more clear you are on your schedule, on what you’d like to be doing at what moments, the easier it will be to honor your time, your energy, and what’s important to you.

 

 

 

To create your ideal schedule:

1) Draw a grid with a column for each day of the week, and a row for each hour of the day.

2) Assign work time and personal time.

3)Get more specific: Identify what you need to do and when you need to do it. Start with Monday – Friday, or Tuesday – Saturday, or whatever works for you. Include each thing you would be doing each day throughout the week, and at what time. Block out time with clients, marketing time, travel time, shopping for supplies time, yoga time, family time. Include team meetings, networking events, even dentist appointments. When you can see that on your schedule, you’ve begun to create boundaries for yourself. The more you get clear on your schedule, the less scattered you are, and the more you are able to open time for yourself.

Determine Necessary Tasks

The next tool you need is to be able to get clear on what tasks you do that are worth your while. This is so important to being able to honor your time because it allows you to really prioritize what is most important and stick to it.

For this, make a running list of every single thing you do for one week – start today. Once you’ve followed yourself and your activities for a week, the next step is to categorize your activities this way:

  • Category 1 – essential tasks you currently don’t lose time on because the boundaries are good
  • Category 2 – essential tasks you want to keep but could use a better system or could streamline
  • Category 3 – non-essential tasks to either eliminate or to save for another time
  • Category 4 – tasks to delegate, which are essential but which you can give to someone else

Be honest with yourself. You’ll see some important things as you mark your tasks in this way. You might see that you need an intern or a team member. Or maybe there are things you’re spending time on that aren’t benefiting you. When you compare your actual schedule with your ideal schedule, you can apply the task categories to bring the actual schedule closer to your ideal.

Look for How to Honor & Protect Your Time, Part 2 next week, in which we’ll examine specific tactics and conversations to have for boundary-setting around time!

Conquer Your Fear and Step Into the Light!

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We all experience fear differently. It rears its ugly head in many creative ways. When you are trying to bring your Soul-Centered Project into the world, that fear is often about visibility. You’re afraid of being seen because someone might think you’re a fraud. Or that you’re too old. Or too young and inexperienced. Or the fear is that you’ll be rejected. It’s easy to let that fear take over and hide away!

Yet, one thing is true about fear across the board: If you fail to address the fear when it comes up, your chances of achieving those juicy goals that you set out for yourself decrease drastically.

So how do I take on my fears?

 

I’m going to share with you three of my top ways to deal with fear, and avoid its paralyzing effects:

1) Identify How Your Fear Expresses Itself in Your Life

Fear takes you hostage because you often do not recognize that you are afraid! These “fear-based expressions” are much trickier than you first realize, yet so important to identify and pay attention to because they can cause pain and anxiety in your life.

There are three main ways in which our fears become expressed in our lives. I call them “fear-based expressions.” They are:

a) Body-based Expressions: These are fear-based symptoms that are expressed distinctly in your body. Perhaps you get a stomachache, your head begins to throb, or that old knee injury comes back for a painful visit.

b) Self-doubt and Criticism Expressions: Fear often expresses itself through self-doubt and self-criticism. You tell yourself things like, “You don’t look right!” or “You don’t present well” or “Who do you think you are? You aren’t good enough.”

c) Self-Sabotage Expressions: Self-sabotage symptoms are obstacles you put in your own way. We often soothe fears by sabotaging ourselves and our goals: by becoming indecisive, by “losing” documents, by forgetting to set the alarm, by deciding to do the laundry instead of writing the cover letter, on and on. Many people sabotage themselves by not making themselves and their Soul-Centered Project known in the world. Sound familiar?

Take Action: Think: what are your fear-based expressions? Take a few minutes and make a list of all the body based, self-doubt based, and self-sabotage based ways fear plays out in your life.

2) Identify What’s at Risk

It is my firm belief that fear always arises as a “red-alert” when something is at risk if you pursue a particular goal. For example, if you were to promote your business, perhaps what’s at risk is that people won’t sign up for your program. Or, that they won’t pay attention to what you have to say. Perhaps what’s at risk is the salary or connections you’ve made in your current position.

It’s important to ask the question, “What’s at risk for me if I were to really make myself visible?” because the risk IS what you are scared of.

Action Step: Journal on the following question: What’s at risk for you if you were to get visibility and be seen?

3) Name Your Fear and Embrace It

Now that you know what your REAL fear is (what’s at risk), it’s time to name it, feel it in your body, and embrace it. Yup, I’m serious. If fear is the big elephant in the room, and it’s not named or welcomed, then you can never really get to know it well enough to ask it to go away. Don’t be embarrassed about it; we ALL have fears, even the most successful or the most confident of us. It’s part of our human nature. You wouldn’t be human if you didn’t get scared sometimes.

 

Action Step A: Name Your Fear. Simply name it in a word or two or three. “I am scared of failing,” or “I am scared of being ignored,” or “I am scared that I don’t look right.”

Action Step B: Feel the fear in your body. Take a few moments. Slow down. Close your eyes and notice where the fear lives in your body. Do you feel it in your shoulders, in your stomach? How does your fear affect you physically?

Action Step C: Embrace Your Fear. Perhaps you want to write it on a big piece of paper and hang it up on your refrigerator or your bathroom mirror. Perhaps you want to carry it around in your purse for a few days. Perhaps you want to write it in an email that you send to yourself or your best friend. However you do it, make it a point of embracing the thing that you are scared of. This simple act will take some of the emotional charge out of the fear and allow you to see it for what it really is.

Congratulations! After these first three steps, you probably know much more now about the nature of your fear and how it affects your life. These are great strides toward releasing this particular fear from your life, and gaining the visibility that you and your Soul-Centered project need to thrive!

Audre Lorde and Putting Makeup On in the Dark

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Don’t Hide!

Years ago, Audre Lorde wrote: “We fear the visibility without which we cannot truly live.”

She was right about visibility in so many ways, and especially when it comes to making your dreams a reality. You need visibility to thrive and to create success. Yet being seen in the world can sometimes be scary or overwhelming.

It certainly was for me.

Be visible!!

Two years ago, I presented at a conference to over 200 women. It was my job to inspire the women to a place where they could love themselves deeply to reveal their soul and spirit to themselves and the world. The problem was that I wasn’t loving myself that day. Post-baby, I looked exhausted because I was nursing. I couldn’t get my hair to do anything I wanted. I didn’t fit in any of my clothes. The morning of the event, I wanted so much to hide from the world that I put makeup on in the dark and avoided the mirror at all costs.

Fortunately, I managed to inspire and deeply transform the women that day, but the truth is that I almost didn’t make it on stage! I almost backed out at the last minute because I didn’t want a single person to see me. Sadly, the fear of being seen – whether it’s because you don’t like the way that you look or you’re scared of being rejected or you don’t have enough confidence in your message – rears its head often for many soul-centered visionaries out there. The result is often self-sabotage, or hiding out or quitting … or simply feeling tortured with each marketing or PR step you take.

I don’t want you to miss out on the visibility you want any longer.

To help you learn how to create visibility for yourself and your Soul-Centered project, I’m going to teach you what I’ve learned about visibility since that conference 2 years ago.

At BE SEEN, we’ll be together in–person for a powerful and groundbreaking afternoon. You’ll receive:

  • a sacred women’s circle and ritual to help you overcome your visibility fears
  • my favorite method for getting crystal clear on your message
  • lessons on creating effective marketing copy that will get your message out in the world in BIG ways
  • a last opportunity to learn with me in person before I leave NYC!

Part content-rich business workshop, part internal excavation & transformation, this totally unique event is not to be missed!

Register NOW at http://soulfulcoach.com/be-seen.php.

We’re already 50% full, and it’s so important that you be there. I don’t want you to go another month or year hiding out from the world and keeping your message a secret.

Wishing you wild success and joy,

Joanna

p.s. I’ve overcome so many of my struggles with visibility … AND as I evolve, sometimes new visibility fears come up. The latest has been a huge block to creating videos of myself & a message to share with others. In honor of BE SEEN, I blew that fear out of the water and created a video just for you. Check it out here: http://soulfulcoach.com/be-seen.php

5 Tips for Soul-Centered Presentations & Previews

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Presentations are an important tool that provides you and your business an opportunity to connect with multiple prospects in a powerful & authentic way. If done correctly, presentations are one of the most effective ways to help you attract clients and income easily and quickly.

Typically they are either no cost or low cost – an easy investment for the audience – and for you. They can include Preview Teleclasses, Community Talks, Free or low cost workshops, or Open Houses – any scenario where you give the audience valuable content, and also a taste of what they can expect when working with you.

No matter how large or small your audience, no matter how formal or casual or intimate your presentation is, you want it to be Soul-Centered. What is a Soul-Centered presentation? It’s a talk or presentation that is authentic, of high-content, and of high value. It’s true to your soul-centered mission, your soul-centered vision, and speaks directly to your ideal client with confidence, gracefulness, and total integrity.

This may seem simple – just be true to yourself, right? – but creating presentations can become a minefield of potential mistakes and lost opportunities if you don’t have the right strategy. Here are five of my top tips that I share with my clients to help them create presentations that are effective, powerful, and Soul-Centered.

1. Give at least 4 presentations a year: This may seem obvious, but I can’t tell you how many people go out of their way to avoid presenting at all. So I want you to be honest with yourself: Have you been staying far away from invitations you’ve received to speak, or from reaching out to set up presentations? Are you operating under a fear of giving talks or presentations because you’re scared of being seen or not being good enough? If yes, I encourage you to work through your obstacles so that you can get in front of your target audience and show them what you’ve got (‘cause you KNOW it’s good!).

If you recognize you’re not really showing up to give presentations, my coach’s request is that you set a goal of setting up at least 4 for the following twelve months…and more if you’re already giving presentations!

2. Script out a powerful and effective Call to Action: Probably the #1 mistake I see folks make when they give presentations is that they do a beautiful job of giving valuable content to their participants, and then….they don’t tell their audience how to take the next steps with them! Or maybe you mention your services, but it’s super-brief and beside the point. My recommendation is to spend a full 10% of your presentation time on your call to action. Don’t rush it. Script it out (even if you don’t read from it). Speak passionately about how your prospects can take the next steps with you. Stand up for the powerful service you provide, let your audience know about it, and create a super-duper easy invitation for them to connect with you further.

3. Don’t give away too much: Your presentation should be high-value and chock-full of content – ALWAYS – however beware of over-giving. Don’t give so much information that your prospects’ experience is so complete that they don’t feel the need to take the next steps to buy your service or product. Let me be clear: This is absolutely not a business trick. This is about really serving your prospects: if you give away so much in a presentation that people leave feeling like they don’t need anything further from you, you’re doing them a disservice. They may feel complete in that moment, but we know the value of ongoing support. Whatever your service or project is, your work is more valuable when it is in a deep ongoing experience rather than a stand-alone half hour or 60 minute interaction.

4. Be authentic & make a personal connection: When giving presentations, it’s common to feel that you “have to” use a certain voice or language or energy or style. Sometimes a big audience feels scary, or sometimes the intimacy of a small group can be worrisome. But please remember: Don’t try to be anyone else other than yourself. If you’re not being authentic to who you are, your presentation, content, and call to action probably isn’t going to connect deeply with your audience. Remember: your audience is there to hear YOU. Speak from your heart, speak what you know to be true, reveal yourself.

5. Follow-up with your participants:The presentation doesn’t end when the actual talk is over. Always remember to follow-up with your participants within 24-48 hours to let them know how much you enjoyed being with them and to remind them of your call to action. Follow-up is KEY.

Your Soulful Coaching Call to Action

1) What is your biggest block or fear when it comes to making presentations? Maybe there are two; write them down. Awareness is so important here.

2) Make a list of 5 local or virtual venues, communities or associations that you could speak at and send out inquiry letters.

3) Script out your presentation and make sure to include a powerful call to action, an authentic and personal connection, and plans to follow-up afterwards.

Do you want to learn more about soul-centered marketing strategies, visibility and being seen in the world in a BIG way? I invite you to register for BE SEEN! We’ll spend a full 3-hours together at this live workshop. If you are in the NYC area on July 19th, please join me for a transformative experience that will radically change your approach to visibility and to being seen for your message. Register today (it’s my LAST live event in NYC before I move)! http://soulfulcoach.com/be-seen.php

A Foundational Formula for Marketing ANYTHING

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No matter what you’re wanting to gain visibility for – your next new program, your book, your private client offerings, your clothing line – it’s VITAL that you market yourself and your offering in one way or another.

And, whether you let people know about your stuff via your website, blog, social media, prospect calls, inquiry letters, or presentations, you want to make sure that you are incorporating an effective strategy into your marketing. If you aren’t using a strategy in your marketing that really connects you and your target audience, then chances are you’re having a lot of trouble attracting in new clients, new publishers, new boutiques to sell your clothing line, etc.

I want to share with you today a highly effective and easy marketing formula I use and teach all of my students and clients. I use it every single day in my own business, whether I’m writing web copy or giving a teleclass or speaking with a prospective client.

The thing that makes this formula so effective is that it allows you to connect fully and deeply with your ideal client/target audience. And after all, the key to good marketing is about making an authentic, intimate connection with your prospects.

Let me walk you through this foundational marketing formula step by step:

1) Connect your prospect to what’s missing in her life : Your prospect/target audience is looking to you to help fill a void or bridge a gap in her life that she can’t fill herself. For example, if you’re a health coach, your ideal client’s void might be that they are exhausted all the time, or that they feel terrible about the way that they look. The best way to connect in with this person is to let them know, through your copy and words, that you get it. Instead of avoiding the pain they’re in, gracefully name it or ask them about it.

2) Connect your prospect to what she wants for her life: Once you’ve made space for your prospect to see what’s missing for her and how it feels, then you want to get her really connected to the possibilities that could open for her. By doing so, she’ll not only feel even more connected to you and that you understand her, but she’ll also then be in a position to get excited about making a change in her life. So to continue the example of the health coach, your ideal client might want to feel energized or beautiful or active or in full well-being. No matter what marketing avenue you are using, you want to really activate your prospect’s vision and create the space for her to get excited about possibilities for her health and well-being moving forward.

3) Let Your Prospect know how you can help them get from where they are now to where they want to be: Now that you’ve really helped your prospect understand what’s missing for them currently, as well as what possibility they envision for their life, then it’s time to get really clear and specific and tell them how your product or offering can help them get from where they are to where they want to be. You’ll want to talk about or list all the ways that you can help them specifically.

4) Make a Powerful Call to Action: This is the final step. It’s the step that so many leaders and entrepreneurs skip over, and it is so, so important. You want to clearly and confidently invite your prospect, potential publisher, potential buyer, etc. into a next step with you. Perhaps the call to action is a connection call or perhaps it’s an invitation to buy your service or join your newsletter community or to have lunch with you. Whatever it is, state the invitation clearly with as much detail as possible.

There you have it! I’ve given you the quick, down and dirty version here. There are, of course, many more details to consider and add in, but you’ve got the structure now.

I hope you start using it right away!

Your Soulful Coaching Call to Action

It is definitely an art and a skill to craft effective, soulful marketing materials…and it is so necessary to do. So if you’ve got a soul-centered project that you’d like to put out into the world and you would like powerful support around creating your marketing and visibility plan, get in touch at info@joannalindenbaum.com, and we’ll get you set for a 45-minute, complimentary and private Intuition Activation call so you can get crystal clear on your visibility needs and how a Soulful Coaching program might be able to help you.

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!

Who’s your Mama? How to get nurtured, loved, and supported

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I appreciate Mother’s Day in a whole new way now that I’m a Mother myself.

I realize that it’s not just about honoring my mother, but it’s really about taking a day to get the importance of being mothered – of being nurtured, loved, seen, appreciated, taken care of.

For some of us, this is exactly how our mothers mothered us. For others, not so much.

Here’s what I’ve come to learn: no matter how loving  your mother has been, no matter how nurturing your mother has been, no matter how encouraging your mother has been, there is no mother on the face of this earth who is perfect. Period. Not even me (though sometimes I tell myself I am!).

In other words, none of us have found in our mothers the opportunity to ALWAYS be seen, always be heard, always have our opinion valued, always be given the benefit of the doubt, always be respected.

And because of it, as you grow up, you might feel a little unseen in the world, undervalued, unheard. Or perhaps somehow your relationship with your mother created for you the feeling that you were always responsible for her or your family, or that it was unacceptable to break the pattern of illness or addiction or lack in your family, or that you would be unloved if you became your own, separate person. Perhaps somehow you were told that you were “too much” or “not enough”. Or maybe the message was you’ll never REALLY be successful, or that you’re not attractive enough.

Whatever the story was for you, chances are there is a story, and that story has had a profound effect on your life and your image of yourself. READ MORE