So, for me, when I notice the contrast, the question that immediately comes to mind (as it often does) is “why.” Why don’t I love myself as readily? Why don’t I love myself as much and as easily as I love my year old son?

Well, it could be because I – like many women – tend to be a people pleaser. It could be that I look to others for approval instead of myself. It’s also probably that I’m simply human and it’s a natural tendency to compare ourselves to others and view ourselves as coming up short.

I’m going to say that it actually doesn’t matter why I haven’t been loving myself as much as I’d like or could! I can say right now that that stops. It’s time to love ME… unabashedly… unapologetically… abundantly. It’s time to change the talk-track in my head. Here goes…

I’m great. If I pause just a moment, I can notice many wonderful attributes about myself. I am going to treat myself like the great, caring, smart person that I am. I will appreciate myself daily for my talents and accomplishments. I will make sure that I nourish myself with regular massages and daily moments of rest. I will say “No” when I’m asked to do something that doesn’t work for me. I will say “Yes” to activities that will refuel me, even when my head tells me in the moment that I don’t deserve them or shouldn’t take time for them. I will put myself first.

What about for you? Do you love yourself? How do you – or how can you – love yourself?

We are creatures of habit.  We have our routines.  We have our schedules.  Some trivial.  Some vital (morning coffee anyone?).  Some hectic.   When an interruption or change occurs, we’re thrown off kilter.  These side steps, while usually temporary, often last long enough to drive us bonkers.

What lies beneath the surface when these routine interruptions occur is a whispering that a timeout is order.  A whisper that an opportunity is present.  An invitation to take time to regroup, reconnect, reestablish, rest.  In our frenzied, tightly scheduled state, we’re either not hearing it, ignoring it, or rationalizing that it doesn’t apply to us.   Oh but it does.  It applies to us and those around us.

I’m in the middle of an ambitious personal fitness endeavor that requires me to tightly arrange my schedule to ensure my commitment is kept.  There’s little wiggle room to that schedule for the next several weeks.  Wednesdays are an early morning.  I commit to be out the door by 6:10 am.   It’s 5:15 am, I’m lying in bed recognizing my body is feeling fatigued and sore, building the mental strength to drag my butt up and get moving, when suddenly my husband rolls over and drapes his long muscular arm over me.  I always find solace in his arms.  Feeling the pressure of my self-inflicted schedule I thought, “hmm, I can stay put for about 15 minutes, then I’ve got to get up.”   Fifteen quickly turned to 20,  while I enjoyed the snuggle, my mind was racing about my routine, beginning to feel rushed and guilty to escape such a pleasant, comforting place.    Timeout, this isn’t just about me.  It’s also about my husband.  He reached out, wanting to be close.

He’s not working right now.  It’s times like these when a timeout to connect, acknowledge our love, commitment, compassion, and patience becomes more vital than ever.  There are days when one of us may need that timeout more than the other.  Routine interruptus is never wasted in those moments.  They strengthen our foundation.

When Alison Miller wrote about the gift of gratitude last week, I realized how grateful I am for these interruptions.  They help define what’s really important.  Today, it was important to lay in bed a little bit longer.  I thank my husband for his routine us interruptus.

As for that fitness commitment, 9:30 am worked just fine.

“The urgent finds you; you have to find the important. Importance is not fast. It is slow. It is not superficial. It is deep. And as a result, it’s extremely powerful. When important matters go wrong, they undermine everything. When they go right, they sustain everything.” -Stewart Brand

Shannon M. O’Regan
Personal Fitness & Wellness Coach
www.smoventures.com
www.smoventures.blogspot.com

I have been thinking a lot about gratitude lately. What it means, how it feels, and how to expand the presence of gratitude in my life. Gratitude is both a state of being; being thankful and appreciative and a feeling; feeling thankful and appreciative. Often gratitude is fleeting in our lives…present when we like what is happening and not present when we don’t like what is happening. Yet, we do have a choice when it comes to gratitude. We can choose to be grateful regardless of the circumstances in our lives. We can treat gratitude as an active stance that we deliberately hold toward life. In this stance, we open our eyes fully and see the richness and abundance in life and are more fully present to what there is to appreciate. A quote from the Buddha that reminds me of this possibility is:

Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn’t learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn’t learn a little, at least we didn’t get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn’t die; so, let us all be thankful. – Buddha

I heard someone say recently that the only way to live a life of true dignity is to live in gratitude. He spoke of how life without gratitude keeps us stuck believing that the current state of our life is insufficient and that happiness and fulfillment can only come from having more than what we have. Over the years I have become increasingly present to the gift of gratitude in life although truthfully I often find myself going in and out of how present I am to gratitude in my life.

I have had the desire to be more present to gratitude for some time hoping to have something happen that would awaken my soul and leave me in a deeper state of appreciation. Strangely enough that happened for me in an unexpected place…seeing the film Avatar. The film takes place on a planet called Pandora and much of the story takes place among the people indigenous to the planet. These people are called the Nuvi and they have a very profound relationship to their planet, to one another and all life, plants and animals that live on Pandora. In one scene, two of the lead characters are hunting and one of them kills an animal for food. She leans over and thanks and blesses the animal for the gift it has given with its life. Over the course of the film you see how the Nuvi people are deeply connected to the soul of their planet and each other and how they live in deep appreciation of what their planet offers them.

Since I have seen the film I have found myself much more present to my connection to other people and the planet in which I live. I have found myself wondering frequently about where the objects in my environment come from. Where did the tree grow that supplied the wood for my desk? Who cut down the tree and transported on its journey to become my desk? Who cut up the wood? Who made it into a desk? Who took it the store where I purchased it? Who brought it to my home? When I go to my closet I have been wondering about what were the raw materials for the clothing come from? Who designed these clothes? Who sewed them? Where do they live? What are their lives like? When I open my refrigerator or go the grocery store I feel amazed by the variety of food that is available that has been supplied through so many different sources. What has opened up for me is an incredible sense of gratitude for all that is present in my life and all of the people, animals, plants, etc. in which I am connected. Even when I am struggling in some area of my life or not happy with something, I see gratitude is always available. I am aiming to have gratitude be a central part of my life and it is a journey of discovery to bring it more fully to life.

What are your thoughts on gratitude? How do you make gratitude a practice in your life? How can you expand the presence of gratitude in your life?

Every so often my husband and I play an imaginary game of winning the jack-pot lotto of $50 Million or more.  It’s funny, once we get past the things we would buy, pay off or donate – we end up with 90-95% of the money left to spend.  Then the wishing gets a little deeper; starting a foundation to fund women entrepreneurs and research to eradicate Autism.

 So what do you wish for? 

As adults many of us just stop wishing.  We may think it’s childish or silly.  We may even think – why bother it’s not like I’m going to ever get it?  Whatever your reason for stopping the flow of creative wishing  . . .  let’s get wishing again!

Consider this,  your happiness is directly proportionate to your ability to wish.  I actually believe it’s true.  When you feel relaxed and happy things seem to flow easier.  Wishing is critical to a happy life.  Here is what great wishing provides us:

• It keeps us open minded and open to new possibilities
• It helps us think creatively and solve problems
• It is the basis for all brainstorming
• It raises your energy and calls forth inspired actions.

 Wishing isn’t child-like.  Wishing is something we all need to engage in regularly. 

Your mission (should you choose to accept it) is to decide what you would do with your 3 wishes and share your wishes with someone in your life today!  My three wishes are:

1. For our Tiara Business to be recognized globally as the resource for women.
2. My sons are living rewarding, fun, happy and full lives.
3. A vacation home somewhere on a lake were we escape to regularly, and we enjoy ourselves with families and friends for years to come.

It’s funny how we often want others to provide us with a deep level of love, acknowledgment, and acceptance when we are unwilling to do so ourselves. Tiara just celebrated Madly In Love With ME day on February 13 where we had a roomful of women committed to radical self acceptance and self love. It was inspiring, because it’s clearly THE way to break the cycle of low self esteem that plagues women and girls around the world. We can’t expect the next generation to love themselves fully just because we say they should. We must show them the beautiful, loving, peaceful, powerful world that’s possible when we love ourselves.

What do you do to cherish, honor, prioritize, and love yourself?

Sounds good in theory, yet I’m always one who likes to look at how it works in reality.  So, I took a look for myself.

Today on my way to a lunch meeting that I was really excited about, I got a call from my son’s daycare. He’s running a 101 degree fever.  Ugh!  Okay, here’s an opportunity to apply acceptance.

First step was for me to choose to accept my circumstances: My son was sick. That was it: he was sick, he had a fever and he needed to be picked up from daycare. Not, “Oh I should’ve seen that he wasn’t doing well this morning. I’m a bad mom.” or “The universe is out to get me.” or “My kids are sick ALL the time.” None of that. Just that it’s 10:30am and my son is sick.

Okay, so I turn left at the next light to head to daycare and I’m on the path to accepting my circumstances. Now, my reactions. Whew, I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed that I can’t go to this lunch. It had been rescheduled once before and I was looking forward to seeing my friend and business partner and eating at California Pizza Kitchen. I’m disappointed that my little guy is sick. He had been lethargic a few days before and my husband stayed home with him 2 days earlier. We thought we had done what we needed to so that he’d be well. And, my husband had rearranged his schedule during a full week just weeks before an important production launch for him. I was disappointed that what we’d done hadn’t been enough. So, I’m letting the feeling in, I’m letting the disappointment in and not trying to pretend that I’m not disappointed. I’m not pretending like I’m supposed to be all great and all positive about it. I’m clear that I’m disappointed and a bit sad and concerned about my son and annoyed. It’s a relief to own it.

I can now, after having admitted my reactions and loosened things up for me a bit, also look at what was great about the situation. There are a number of aspects about the situation that are great. Thank goodness I have the kind of business partner who says, “I’m sorry about your son. Go be a Mom. We’ll reschedule.” I’m grateful I have my own business and have the flexibility to take care of my son the rest of the day. I amazingly don’t have any other appointments this afternoon so there’s nothing else I have to rearrange in this moment. What I’ve committed to doing today, could be done in an hour – maybe an hour and a half – after the kids go to bed. I have great daycare providers who are on top of my son’s well-being and noticed my son’s fever right away and will be as concerned as I am.

After I start looking at what was working inside the situation, I was able to get into free-flowing action. Before I arrived at daycare, I had a doctor’s appointment for my son scheduled that day and had made arrangements for Grandma to be with my son the next day.

The acceptance approach seemed to work in the moment! Now, I see I’m resisting the idea that I might have to clear my schedule the day after tomorrow to be at home with my son. Another opportunity to bring some acceptance…

In what situations have you been able to bring acceptance? Where do you see opportunities to bring more acceptance?

What is intuition? Intuition is a knowing…different from the knowledge we possess already… it is not a knowing that comes from books or education. It is an apparent ability to acquire knowledge without inference or the use of reason. The word “intuition” comes from the Latin word “inturei” which is roughly translated as meaning “to look inside” or “to contemplate.” While our intuition may be informed by our experiences it is not a knowing derived purely of it. It is a knowing that comes from within. It is almost an instinctive sense of something that may be in existence in some realm.

Often our intuition is something that we describe as a “gut” feeling. Well, there is actually very little difference between the cells in our brain and the cells in our intestines. So when we say we have a “gut” feeling about something we literally do…our brain is not just in our head. Our “brain” is in our bodies giving us information, instincts, knowing all the time.

Recently, someone told me that that they had the image of me being like a bonsai tree. Sounds very strange I realize. It was an intuitive image that came to this person. She didn’t know why but she offered her intuition to me anyway. At first, I thought that’s interesting (and maybe a little weird) and I didn’t see any immediate connection. But upon pondering her intuitive image, I remembered that when I first met my husband, he had 2 bonsai trees. They were beautiful and required a good deal of care and attention on a regular basis to flourish. Eventually when we had our first child and did not give the trees the attention they needed, they stopped flourishing and eventually died. Upon further reflection, I saw the image of me as a bonsai as useful guidance and a reminder of my own needs for care and attention (that I can skillfully ignore). The bonsai tree intuition was shared with me at a time when caring for myself was very much called for in my life. It then occurred to me that it didn’t matter whether her intuition was accurate or inaccurate (or weird) because what it did was allow something to occur in me. It allowed me to connect with my own needs.

After this experience, I recognized I could relate to intuition in a new way. Instead of thinking of it as something that is right or wrong, I can see it as a gift, as an offering of guidance that can allow for something that otherwise might not be possible. It is not a righteous knowledge. In other words, intuition is not right or wrong; true or false; accurate or inaccurate. This knowing of intuition need not be about prediction or control. Rather, it can allow for something, create an opening in ourselves or others or make something possible that wasn’t possible before. One reason, I believe, we often don’t listen to or trust our intuition is because our minds bring the idea of intuition into the duality or true or false; accurate or inaccurate. When we instead think of intuition an offering and as the possibility of offering guidance or wisdom without having to assess it as correct or incorrect, then the true gift of intuition can be given.

What are your thoughts on intuition?

How do you use your intuition for yourself and others? What stops you for trusting your intuition?

If you listen to your “gut” as a possible guidance that allows for something, as an offering, what impact may that have on you?