As we approach the beautiful energy of summer, a time that brings celebration and rejuvenation – let’s take a moment to honor your WOWNESS!
We’ve all known phenomenal women. They have that special “something” – a glorious glimmer that brightens a room when they enter. Their smile, warm demeanor, or caring presence draws us to them. They fully radiate their beauty from the inside out.
Most of the messages coming our way this time of year are to “be someone else’s valentine.” But what if we took this opportunity to be our own valentine?
Valentine’s Day is a perfect opportunity to connect with the one who can truly bring love into your life – YOU!
Your well-being – emotionally, mentally, physically and spiritually – depends on you.
Since Valentine’s Day falls on a full moon this year, it marks an ideal time for honoring the Inner Goddess within you, celebrating your own wisdom and light. Imagine being able to make a heart-to-heart connection with yourself, one that’s filled with love and gratitude – and giving yourself permission to step into the highest version of YOU.
The Journaling by the Moonlight (JBTM) brand is expanding!
Come join a dynamic team of JBTM facilitators and add a rich, life-changing process to your menu of client services by offering workshops, retreats, and coaching programs based on the Journaling by the Moonlight process.
Originally created for mothers, this unique process is ideal for creative and spiritually-minded individuals who yearn for a deeper connection to self, and who are ready to tap into their inner light – what I call the “full moon within” – and claim their authentic self, both personally and professionally. Based on the phases of the moon, Journaling by the Moonlight gently guides individuals from darkness to light as they create an authentic vision filled with purpose, passion and creative expression.
As a creativity coach and life purpose intuitive, I attract mothers who desire a more spiritual and authentic approach to life, one that’s filled with purpose, passion and creative expression.
In our work together, whether it’s through private or group coaching – or in a workshop or at a weekend retreat – I gently guide moms on a journey of self-discovery by inviting them to explore the areas of their life that feel out of balance. This invites deeper questioning around the concept of “wholeness” – and what emotional, spiritual, and practical shifts may be needed to bring life more into balance.
In order to attract and manifest a more fulfilling lifestyle, it’s important that mothers connect with their own sense of what it means to feel grounded, at peace – and more complete. This is what opens the door to a deeper relationship with self – and a more authentic connection to the external world.
Today, I’ve invited Renee Peterson Trudeau, author of Nurturing the Soul of Your Family to share a few words of wisdom about reconnecting and finding peace in every day life.
Here’s what she had to say as it relates to Five Ways to Nourish and Renew Your Spirit:
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It’s 1976, and my mom and dad are sitting quietly with their eyes closed, hands resting upward — thumb and index finger touching — while my younger siblings crawl on their backs and shoulders. My older two brothers and I sit nearby, holding our own meditation poses, bored, rolling our eyes and counting the minutes until this ritual will end.
At least once a week or whenever things got stressful, my parents would pull all five of their children — ranging in age from ten to one — into our library for a family meditation. As much as I complained, a part of me yearned for this spiritual practice.
Spiritual renewal is essential to our emotional well-being. It helps us nurture our essence, feel centered, build inner strength, live in integrity, and trust life. It allows us to experience a connection to a higher power, feel a sense of purpose, and experience meaning in our lives.
There are many different ways we explore and nurture our spiritual lives. For some this includes spending time in nature, yoga, prayer and meditation, or musical or artistic expression. Some of the daily practices that provide me spiritual nourishment include:
Creating Ritual
We all crave sacredness and ritual in our everyday lives — not just around birthdays and weddings. Rituals can be both carefully planned events and casual but regular remembrances such as voicing gratitude before a meal or creating dedicated space in your day for contemplation.
When we mark important transitions or milestones in our lives — whether it’s your daughter’s first period or your son starting kindergarten — we connect to the sacredness of everyday life. We remember that life is mysterious and we’re more than our to-do lists!
Cultivating Stillness
Stillness, whether experienced through prayer, meditation, or reflection, is our time to be alone and connect to our inner wisdom or our higher power — what I call our internal GPS system. It’s essential for all of us to carve out time for quiet reflection each and every day.
One of the biggest gifts I’ve received from a daily meditation practice is the ability to live more comfortably with what is–whether that’s my husband’s recent layoff or a car accident. Life is like the weather in Texas — constantly changing. Meditation has helped anchor me, so that despite this impermanence and turmoil, I’ve learned how to be still and find my center in the face of it all.
Practicing Service to Others
Mother Teresa says, “The fruit of love is service.”
We are all interconnected. The more we reach out and are present to one another’s pain and suffering, the stronger we become and the easier it is to embrace the esoteric idea that we’re all one. I believe huge shifts in consciousness can occur when we reach out and help one another navigate this sometimes scary, often isolating and perplexing, but beautiful world. Sometime that might look like serving soup at your local homeless shelter and other times, it’s helping out your neighbor who just lost her husband.
Living in the Present
Many great spiritual teachers believe the answer to everything is to just “be here now,” and that our suffering and emotional distress would end if we simply stopped resisting the present moment.
One weekend as I sat on the couch with a full-body cold: a splitting headache, body chills and a nonstop runny nose, I thought about this principle. And, as I watched the things I was missing fly out the window — my friend’s birthday party, my son’s piano recital — I connected to my breath and felt myself arrive in the present moment. I sensed my resistance begin to dissipate and a feeling of peace slowly settled over me. I temporarily suspended my desire for things to be different and I embraced that on the couch, with a cold, was exactly where I was supposed to be.
Choosing Happiness
Three of my immediate family members died unexpectedly between my twenty-sixth and thirty-fourth birthdays. For years I let those losses dictate how much and how often, I could experience joy. Anytime I started to feel light, free, or happy, the old feeling of “waiting for the other shoe to drop” would creep in.
Can you only be happy if things are going your way and all the stars are aligned in your favor?
I believe we’re born with the innate capacity to experience emotional well-being and joy; it’s our birthright to feel good. Happiness comes from within; we’re wired for it. We just have to remember to choose this moment to moment.
It’s easy to forget who we really are. To lose sight of what really matters. To fall asleep and not remember how interconnected we all are and that we’re fully human and, at the same time, divine.
A regular spiritual practice — whether that’s daily prayer or meditation, being in a spiritual community, or singing— serves to anchor us. It grounds us and helps us navigate the challenges we face from just being human. It helps us stay awake.
So ultimately, we can begin to let go, trust the rhythm and flow of life and relax into the beauty of our true nature.
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Life balance coach/speaker Renée Peterson Trudeau is the author of the new book Nurturing the Soul of Your Family. Thousands of women in ten countries are participating in Personal Renewal Groups based on her first book, the award-winning The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal. Visit her online at www.ReneeTrudeau.com
Based on the new book Nurturing the Soul of Your Family ©2013 Renée Peterson Trudeau. Published with permission of New World Library http://www.newworldlibrary.com
As a creativity coach and life purpose intuitive, I attract highly-creative women who are looking for more meaning in their lives, both personally and professionally. They want to feel more alive by being fully present in each and every moment.
This mere act requires a woman to be completely in-tune with what’s going on within her body and with what’s going on outside of her. And while she’s “tuning in” – it’s not uncommon for a woman to connect with her emotions on a deeper level.
This always raises the question, “How well connected am I with myself? Is there a genuine love and appreciation for ME?”
Today, I’ve invited Christine Arylo, author of Madly in Love with ME to share a few words of wisdom as it relates to the self-love that’s required in becoming our own best friend.
Here’s what she had to say as it relates to Three Simple but Mighty Self-Love Practices for Being Your Own Best Friend:
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Be kind to others. Show up and be supportive. Be there unconditionally and without judgment when your friends are having a hard time. Tell your friend the truth, even when it’s hard. Remember to celebrate you friends. Cheerlead for them. Inspire them to go for their dreams. Respect you friends, honor them, appreciate them, be compassionate – in other words love them.
These are the rules of being a good friend. And while you may not be perfect at always showing up as a good friend for others, you know how to love others well. And when you do show up as a good friend, you feel good about yourself. Proud. Like you are doing a good thing, being a good person. Because you inherently know that giving love to others is a good thing.
But take that love and friendship and apply it to yourself and something different happens. Suddenly you feel guilty for taking care of yourself, selfish for choosing yourself first, and shy about tooting your own horn. Giving love to yourself in the forms you need it most – compassion, appreciation, nurturing, pleasure, etc. – feels wrong, weird and uncomfortable. In situations where you’d have no problem telling a friend to take a break, stop working, leave a relationship, or go for her dreams, you find yourself totally unable to give yourself permission to do what you really need. Until now.
Today, I invite you to take a stand for the most important relationship in your life – the one with yourself – by saying YES! to becoming a really good friend – maybe even a best friend – to yourself, and start giving yourself the love you need, no matter what. There’s nothing selfish about that. For the better friend you are to yourself, the more you fill yourself up with love, the more you will be able to give to others. You will be both a giver and receiver of love!
3 Simple but Mighty Self-Love Practices for Being Your Own B.F.F.
One of the biggest reasons we fail to be good friends to ourselves is because we don’t know how to give ourselves permission to take the actions we know would be best for us. Ask yourself these simple questions on a regular basis, or whenever you feel overwhelmed, lonely or out of sorts. Be honest. And if the answer to the question is “No” take the love prescription and daring act of love listed to get yourself the love you need in the form you need it in.
Am I happy?
If the answer is no, you are likely starving for joy. You need self-pleasure. Take this Daring Act of Love: Make a JOY Portrait, by filling up one piece of paper with all the things that make you happy – big and small. Then choose three, and turn then into “acts of joy” – actions you can take to create joy for yourself. Enjoy them within 24 hours, no matter what you have going on.
Am I taking care of myself, as well as everything and everyone else?
If the answer is no, your energy tank is likely depleted. You need self-care. Take this Daring Act of Love: Give yourself what you need, pronto. Close your eyes, put your hand on your heart, take a deep breath, and say to yourself, “What do I need right now to take care of me?” Then be quiet and see what your Inner Wisdom says. Whatever guidance you receive, do that one thing, no matter what.
Am I willing to disappoint another to not disappoint myself?
If the answer to this is no, you are putting others needs in front of your own, to the determinant to yourself. You need self-honor. Take this Daring Act of Love: Love-line a friend, and ask them to give you permission to do what’s best for you. If you are really stubborn, ask them tell you why it’s okay to give yourself permission to disappoint another not to disappoint yourself, and then you repeat back what they say. Often, when we can’t be a good friend to ourselves, we need to elicit the help of others who can be a good friend. This is how we learn to be better friends to ourselves.
Imagine what your life would be like from this day forward if in the moments when your inner critic wanted to tear you down, in the times you got scared to go for your dreams, or in the instances when you felt exhausted and needed a rest, you were able to wrap your arms around yourself, and give yourself permission to do exactly what you needed – without guilt, fear or judgment. This is what is possible when you make the choice to love yourself unconditionally and as a result choose to show up as a best friend, no matter what. A daring adventure indeed, but the only way really to live – in love, with yourself.
Christine Arylo is the author of Madly in Love with Me and Choosing ME Before WE. She is an internationally recognized speaker and transformational teacher for women and girls, and the founder of the international day of self-love (Feb 13). Visit her online at http://www.ChristineArylo.com and http://www.ChooseSelfLove.com
*Based on the new book Madly in Love with ME ©2012 by Christine Arylo. Published with permission of New World Library http://www.newworldlibrary.com
Imagine for a moment a pebble thrown into a pond. It creates a ripple that goes on and on and on. I believe that mothers are a significant part of the ripple effect – that will transform the world into a more loving, more nurturing place.
When a mother is living life with complete authenticity, she’s subconsciously giving permission for her kids to do the same. She’s truly at her best – creating powerful change for herself, her family, her community – and for the world at large. It’s all part of “the ripple.”
It’s my belief that “a happy mother makes the best mother” – and our kids really do want to see their moms happy!
But what if something goes awry – and “the ripple” stems from a place of frustration, confusion, disconnect or unhappiness?
My transformational work with mothers came out of my own experience of connecting with the moon during a really dark period in my life. Shortly after the birth of my first child, and after making some fairly significant life changes at the same time, I fell into depression – a place that felt so foreign to me, a place where I felt like I had fallen into a black hole with no way out. It was during this time, a period that spanned over two years, that I had disconnected from everything that made me happy. Because my son suffered from chronic illnesses related to serious colds and severe ear infections, I made a very difficult choice to give up a successful career in order to care for my son full-time. I hadn’t realized until this experience how much of my identity was tied into my career. Without it, I felt very lost and very unhappy.
It was during this time that I fell back on a great passion of mine – journal writing. And as a mom of a baby who did not have a normal sleep schedule, I found myself exhausted and emotional much of the time. So night after night, after I’d get my son settled and after my husband went to bed, I’d grab my journal and retreat to my favorite chair – beside a big bay window where I caught a glimpse of the moon. It was the moon that taught me the meaning of transition. I’d watch this beautiful lunar goddess, night after night, move in and out of her various phases. And before long, I began to connect her phases with my own emotional tides.
I noticed that the moon always began in darkness and gradually, she’d move into full light – and cycle back around again. And I noticed the contrast between dark and light – the darkness of the night sky against the beautiful full moon light. I started connecting to this – as if I was being divinely guided through my own transitions of dark and light. I began to notice the ebbs and flows of my emotions. There were good days and bad days.
So when I came to the point of writing my book, Journaling by the Moonlight: A Mother’s Path to Self-Discovery, I wanted mothers to realize that every human transition begins in darkness and gradually moves into light, where we get a glimpse of what is possible. And then we retreat, to ponder the many ways we can manifest these possibilities into reality. This requires deep work, where we step into our own truth and into our own power – and where we can emerge in the most authentic way possible. This is what I call the Blue Moon phase – when we finally realize that we are here on this Earth to be WHO we are, to put our personal thumbprint on the world in the most truthful, most authentic, most unique way possible. Each one of us are individuals being divinely guided on our own purposeful path.
Because moms are natural role models, our kids are observing all the time. There’s a lot of truth in the saying, “Monkey see, monkey do.” In other words, when a mom is modeling the value of following her heart, her kids get it – much more than they would if she was just saying it. Kids feel energy. They know when a person is happy and when they’re not. So why not be happy – and let the ripple flow?
Wouldn’t the world be a much better place if we were all following our hearts? If we could truly live life with passion and purpose, everything would have a richer and deeper meaning. It would create a ripple of positive and loving energy that could literally heal the world.
Each and every one of us has the power to create great change in the world. And this change has the most impact when we begin with ourselves – looking in the mirror and honoring the person who is staring back.
WHO is this person? Do you really know her at her core? If you were to remove every label that she wears – mother, wife, partner, community leader, business owner, loyal friend, etc. – who is she?
Imagine for a moment – each of these labels being a blanket. Slowly remove each blanket, acknowledging the label it represents, and set it aside. Continue doing this until you have no more labels except – SELF.
Who is SELF? Take a moment to describe SELF from the inside out. How do you feel when you’re not bombarded by what the world thinks you should be? What are your passions? What are your dreams? What makes you come alive? How does this person – from the inside out – want to show up in the world?
These are great questions to ponder in your journal, allowing yourself to answer them – truthfully and completely.
When we start chipping away at the exterior labels, what do we look like on the inside? What is our “diamond in the rough?”
Once we discover this, we’ve connected with our authentic self. And it’s from this place where purposeful, powerful and magical ripples are created.
What kind of ripple are you sending out?