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Let Yourself Shine
What is the goal of a woman who wants to express her gifts to the world? Hopefully, One hopes the intent is to inspire and motivate people –— -to illuminate the world. !
However, before she can illuminate the world with her talents, she must allow herself to be illuminated, to be a vessel for the light of creativity to shine through.
Many people start down their chosen path claiming they want nothing more than to share their talents and make a difference in the world. But when it comes down to it, they barely speak up for themselves and their art. In fact, many people, particularly women, get so uncomfortable with their own power that they squash it down, quickly saying, “ooh, it's nothing” or “anyone could do this.”
It's common for a woman to dim her brilliance exactly when she should be shinning the most. I went torecently caught a show not long ago that showcased live music and the evening openedperformance with a charming duo: a (male guitarist and female singer). Their music was engaging, but both of them highlighted how greatthe greatness of other artists were and then went on to make a couple of underhanded jokes about their own music. I wondered why they were they up on stage in the first place. Their goal surely wasn't to embarrass and belittle themselves, but their fears and feelings of unworthiness must have kicked in, so they didn't support their own music. You don't need to boast or brag—, pushing for attention is a turnoff. – -Bbut confidence and pride areis necessary. People are likely to end up believing what you are saying and feeling about yourself and your talents. Sometimes self-deprecation is used as comic relief, but false humility and lack of confidence areis unappealing and sad. We must believe that we have something of value to offer if we expect the rest of the world to support us.
Diminishing one's own spirit and light comes in varying degrees in people, often stemming from a mix of cultural, social, and personal beliefs. People sometimes fear that if they let themselves shine fully, others people might judge them as frauds or as being vain, pushy, or egotistical. What's more, our culture doesn't always make it easy to for women to feel comfortable expressing their full potential; – -sometimes the wisdom embodied in 'don't “don't get too big for your britches”' or “'make sure your head still fits through the door”' reminds us of how little we are allowed to celebrate our gifts and success facing the consequences of non-acceptance and the threat of alienation. Finally, many of us, believe it or not, fear our own power and the responsibility it implies. For once full brilliance is acknowledged and released, it can no longer be denied, and there is a responsibility to direct this power to a purpose that will benefit the world. But Thisit is this responsibility that can be too overwhelming for many people— –; expressing your gifts takes strength.
There is an obvious reason the word "Star" is used for people who are in the limelight and exude brilliance and success. If you want to be successful in getting your gifts, art, and spirit out into the world, you must be prepared to let your talents radiate through you. Be comfortable with the woman you are and make no apologies. The world has abundant space for all unique voices, approaches, and creations. Always support the highest version of yourself— – -iilluminate the world!
Shannon
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Getting In Tune With Your Purpose
There’s a lot of talk these days about living our purpose - fully expressing ourselves to the world. It’s a wonderful idea, but what if we don’t know what our purpose is, or what we are meant to contribute to the world? Some of us can’t even get our heads around the concept that everyone has a meaningful purpose in life, or we just don’t believe in the idea.
So where do we start? How do we get in tune with our life’s purpose or destiny? The first step is realizing that purpose comes in all shapes and sizes. Purpose doesn’t have to be big or obvious, such as being a superstar singer, tennis pro, or talk show host like Oprah. In fact, most people’s paths are much more subtle and understated, and not necessarily related to their profession. One may find deep meaning in nurturing a family: raising happy, loving, and balanced children into adulthood. Another’s purpose may be to be an inspiration to others through their positive outlook, living a happy and authentic life. We often underestimate the power of our words and actions and their impact on others. Offering supportive words to someone going through a difficult time or transition may positively influence that person forever.
Hearing your calling means paying attention to your life and how you feel on a daily basis. Your body and emotions will always tell the truth and keep you on track if you listen. Simply put, if you are feeling happy and energized, and look forward to getting up most every morning, you are living in alignment with your life’s purpose. Meditation or some relaxing activity that calms the mind is also a great way to get insight into your life’s purpose. Calming the mind is not always easy, it takes practice, but once you get the hang of it it’s wonderful. Nuggets of inspiration will come to you spontaneously. An overall feeling of wellbeing will clear the way for your soul’s voice to give you direction.
A great way to tune into your life’s purpose is to get clues from your childhood. What were your passions? What were you drawn to without any influence from parents or teachers? Most of the time there is a connection between our interests as children and what we end up doing as adults. There are reasons why we spent hours reading books, sang into a brush in front of the mirror, or created extravagant buildings with our legos. Seemingly random passions and events that came into our life early on might now be pieces that fit into the puzzle of our life.
There is a big picture to our lives, and within that big picture there is a purpose for each and every one of us. If you are struggling to figure out your purpose, don’t worry, it will be revealed in time. You just need to tune in and listen.
Shannon
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The Art of Loving Yourself
In our culture there’s a lot of talk about love, romance and finding your soul mate. But what about romancing yourself - being your own best mate? It might sound egotistical and selfish to focus on loving yourself first, but it is absolutely necessary to nurture your own self-love in order to truly love another.
We often make the mistake of pursuing a love relationship in order to feel good about ourselves, to feel validated, and to feel that we are worth loving. The problem is, unless we fill up our own cup first no one will ever be able to love us enough - our well will be a bottomless pit. We need to feel whole and loved on our own, and then we will attract and keep a healthy relationship.
So, instead of spending a lot of time and energy lamenting the fact that you still haven’t met your soul mate, that you don’t have a date for the weekend, or even that your current partner doesn’t treat you as special as you would like, use that energy to romance yourself.
Treat yourself the way you would want your love mate to treat you. Don’t wait to be invited to a romantic dinner. Even if you are eating alone, set the table with the kind of romantic ambience you like: perhaps candles, flowers, and music in the background. Just because you are eating alone doesn’t mean you shouldn’t enjoy the whole experience.
Make time for yourself a priority. Make sure that time for yourself is on the top of your priorities list. Loving yourself means carving out time everyday for activities that you enjoy doing – fun things that lift your spirit such as: going to dance class, catching a matinee, or curling up with a good book. Also, spending time working toward your personal goals and dreams is an act of cherishing yourself. Check in with yourself daily and find out what will make you feel happy and loved.
Take care of your body and spirit. Keep your body and spirit in optimum form. Love yourself enough to take care of your whole self by getting the support of someone who will focus on your needs. Invest in a massage therapist, life coach, acupuncturist, yoga instructor, or all of the above if it feels right for you. There’s nothing like having the supportive focus of someone who will help you maintain balance inside and out.
The good energy you will feel as a result of treating yourself like the special person that you are will reverberate out into the world and will affect everyone around you in a positive way. There is an art to loving yourself, and once you get the hang of it you’ll never go back to waiting for someone else to make you feel great!
Shannon
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Reenvision Yourself
Life is a journey, and as comfortable as we may be with our lives, our soul demands constant growth and constant change. How we see ourselves is the most powerful tool in forming both who we are and who we are in the process of becoming. This means reenvisioning our lives and ourselves on a regular basis. Change doesn’t have to be earth-shattering, such as leaving a spouse or moving halfway around the world (although it might benefit some). Initiating change means checking in with yourself and the beliefs that no longer serve you. An outdated perception of yourself and how you relate to the world will hold you back from living your fullest and best life.
It's exciting to think we have the ability to visualize ourselves into a new and better life. You would think that all people would envision their perfect relationship or career and start the wheels of creation. However, without realizing it, most people work the opposite way. We tend to observe our circumstances (health, job, friends, money, status, etc.) and come to the conclusion that life is just the way it is. Change becomes difficult simply because we have seen ourselves in the same light for so long that we can’t imagine any other way of being. We become stuck.
Let’s take an example of a stay-at-home mother who has just found the freedom to pursue her lifelong passions but has become so attached to her identity as mother and caretaker that she has a hard time imagining herself in any other role. Until she is able to envision herself in a different way—as a multifaceted woman bringing different gifts to the world—she won’t be able to move forward.
So how can this woman change how she sees herself? How can any of us? Start by experimenting with these three exercises to help see yourself in a new light.
1. Make a list of your positive and negative qualities. Go over the list and honestly check in with yourself to see if these qualities, especially the negative ones, really ring true for you. You are likely to find several negative attributes that no longer pertain (or perhaps never did), as well as new positive qualities, giving you a boost in confidence and a feeling of empowerment.
2. Do some soul-searching for what you really want out of life and make a wish list. If you could do or be anything in life, what would you choose? A vision board is a great way to fine-tune your desires while having some fun. Look through magazines and gather pictures and words that represent the person you want to be. Make your own unique visual representation—anything that resonates with you—and look at it often. The images on your vision board will remind you of your priorities and keep you focused. Over time, or perhaps even instantly, the magic of transformation will begin.
3. Talk to someone who has already charted the waters before you. Look to a mentor or even a friend who can give you insight into how to get from here to there. Most people are happy to help and often feel flattered that you view them as a success.
We have all been given the gift to create our own lives. It is our responsibility then to create our best and happiest life. If you find yourself feeling stuck, check-in with yourself and reenvision your life in the way that you want. Remember, you hold the power to move yourself forward.
Shannon
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Celebrate Your Success
How many times have you found yourself working hard to accomplish something in your life, all the while imagining the incredible pride you will feel and the celebrations you will have once you reach your goal, only to let the accomplishment or event pass unceremoniously? What happened? You were likely too busy planning your next mission to soak in your present success.
Lingering in the afterglow of your success, regardless of its size, is almost as important as accomplishing your goal. When you celebrate your achievements, you send out a signal to the universe that you are happy with yourself and with the outcome of your efforts. You then become more open to receiving support for the next task that you need to tackle. Energetically, you are building on your success.
A woman may be more susceptible to forgetting the importance of rewarding herself for a job done well. Traditionally, with the exception of Mother’s Day, women didn’t celebrate accomplishments in the home, such as getting children to graduate from school, maintaining an orderly and clean household, and throwing a stellar dinner party. Men, on the other hand, have always been encouraged to celebrate their achievements of promotions, fatherhood, and sporting events with the ritual of cigars, spirits, and buddies.
Although times have changed and many women are out there in the world making a difference, we still need to remind ourselves to stop, breathe, and pat ourselves on the back. So what can we do to make sure we celebrate our success?
Plan ahead. Before you accomplish your goal, make sure you plan your celebration. This way you will have something in place for the when big day or moment arrives. Often, if you don’t have anything arranged, such as a gathering with friends or a little getaway, an event will pass and so will your enthusiasm to celebrate.
Get used to basking in compliments and self-adoration. We often feel uncomfortable hearing compliments from others, but we feel even stranger saying good things about ourselves. Practice looking in the mirror and saying a few positive words about yourself and your accomplishment, even if it was small, such as clearing your desk or completing a yoga class. Reward yourself with things you enjoy—taking a candlelit bath, going for a walk on the beach, or having a celebratory dinner with friends.
Finally, feel deserving of a celebration. Life can be overwhelming with all that we have on our plates—we deserve to honor our achievements large and small. The more you celebrate your successes, the more you fill up with positive energy and happily fall into the flow of living a charmed life.
Shannon Bryant
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Lessons In Letting Go
Have you ever applied for a dream job, knowing that you were fully qualified and deserving, had a great interview, but—to your surprise—didn’t get the position? Yes, it could have been that someone else had better qualifications, more experience in the industry, or an inside connection, but more than likely you were too attached to the outcome of the situation to actually allow it in. When your desire for something is so strong that you are totally attached to it, your energy can have an adverse effect on the outcome and push the opportunity away. It would serve you best, instead, to let go.
Letting go is not always an easy thing for us to do. It’s natural to become attached to both the physical and emotional aspects of our lives: old clothes, our first home, an idea of how a relationship should be, our way of looking at the world, our youth… and the list goes on. However, releasing what doesn’t serve us anymore is exactly what we need to do in order to provide space for fresh experiences, new people in our lives, and personal growth.
It’s hard to let in the new when we are holding so tightly to the old. A great example of this is when we so badly want to meet someone special while we are still stuck on a person or relationship from the past. We wonder: why aren’t we meeting our perfect soul mate? But when we hold on emotionally to a past relationship it makes it near impossible to attract a new or healthy one to our life.
Letting go can be quite difficult, but with practice it does get easier. A wonderful place to start is with your closet. Find old clothes, books, and decorations you never use anymore and give them away. It’s amazing how we tend to hoard things in the back of our closets for months, years, or even decades, afraid to set them free. Yet your closet is symbolic of space in your life and this exercise of “releasing” will translate into other areas of your life as well.
One of the ultimate freedoms is the ability to let go of heavy negative feelings such as anger, judgment, and resentment. Such feelings take up a lot of space in your psyche, and it’s critical to your emotional and physical health that you release them. You should be able to make significant headway if you are committed to looking honestly within and doing some personal work, either on your own or with a counselor.
The lessons we learn in letting go, or even in not letting go, are abundant. If you hold on too tightly to people and things, you squeeze out the flow of life and risk losing what’s important to you. However, if you are able to release your grip and let go of old situations, emotions, and anything that doesn’t work for you anymore, the universe will send you an ocean of new experiences, people, and things that will keep your life fresh and flowing forever.
Shannon
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Learning To Live In The Moment
How much of your day is spent thinking about some goal in the future, worrying about things that need to be done for next week, or fantasizing about how great your life will be once you’ve lost 20 pounds, once you are married, or have made a million dollars? These thoughts that continually lean towards your future can rob you of your present moment – basically your life.
It’s not that we shouldn’t set goals and work towards our desires. It’s that we should have our feet planted in the moment while keeping an eye out for the future. There really is something to the phrase, “it’s the journey that counts”. Your life is created by how you feel in the moment. The feelings that you have now attract the building blocks for your future. So, if you are unhappy with who you are now, or how your life is going, you are going to attract experiences that are a reflection of those feelings, and it will difficult to ever reach a state of contentment or satisfaction.
A good way to live in the moment and enjoy the journey of life is to find everything and anything that you can be grateful for and give thanks – there’s a lot of it! It’s so easy to loose touch with how amazing life really is when you continually think about the future and what you’re going to get or accomplish down the road. Start by acknowledging your good health, appreciate the blue sky and sun that warms you. Notice the beauty of all the different colors in nature, give thanks for the house or apartment that you get to live in, the friends you have, the dog that loves you, even the bills you have to pay to receive water and electricity. Taking stalk of how wonderful and abundant life is grounds you in the moment and inspires a reverence for life as it is now.
A wonderful Zen passage states, “Success is not found in what you have achieved, but rather in who you have become.” And “who you have become” is directly related to the growth that happens along the way to your future. Stay on course in the direction of your dreams, but keep your mind and heart in the present moment, for that is where the richness of life is and where transformation happens.
Shannon
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Courage to be a Warrior
A warrior, or spiritual initiate, is one who stays true to her calling because of a strong and innate sense of purpose. There is a “knowing”, a feeling that resonates through – basically, it’s the only way her soul will be happy.
It is no exaggeration to say that a woman dedicated to her purpose is a courageous warrior, and choosing to travel down her sacred path is choosing a spiritual journey. A woman with a great desire to use her energy to create something new, combined with a deep sense of purpose and vision, will always change herself in the process; the people around will be affected, and, ultimately, in some big or small way, so will the world.
So what are the obstacles to staying strong on one’s path? Often it is the many distractions of daily life: families, bills, and concerns with health and appearances. However, the biggest obstacle is lack of self-confidence: the courage to follow through on one’s intuition. Try to remember that incredible things do happen when one listens to the quiet and wise voice inside. Mountains are climbed when a force blazes a trail courageously and holds strong to faith.
Accept help and advice from others, especially from those who have blazed the trail before; but remember, you are still your own best ally. Advice can be invaluable, but in the end listen to your own internal compass – what feels right. If you can hear it properly without the many distractions of the outside world, it will never let you down. You must get up the courage to trust yourself. It may sound simple, but it takes a warrior to pull it off.
So go on, be a warrior on your path. There’s a good chance you will create wonderful abundance and opportunities for your devotion. But even if these things don’t appear in your outer world as fast as you would like, know that tremendous growth is happening within, and that the repercussions of your journey will be endless.
That is a guarantee.
Shannon
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