Category: Empowerment For Women

Change Your Life With Gratitude

Change Your Life With Gratitude

Change  Your Life With Gratitude

Happiness and gratitude vibrate at the same level of energy.  Somehow it's hard to know what happiness is, or how to generate it, but most of us know what gratefulness feels like. So let’s keep it simple and just bring more gratitude, or thankfulness into life.

Yes, I know, it's not always easy to be grateful, especially when everything goes wrong, but that's exactly the most important time to be thankful. Make it a daily habit. Add it to your daily schedule together with exercise and meditation. Remember why you do it: you want to attract good things into your life!

I found this wonderful quote in one of my books: It's said to be from the Matthias gospel”

"He who HAS will be rewarded with more, but the one who HAS NOT, will even lose the little he HAS."

What does this mean? It's not exactly fair: unless we add gratitude to "having and not having." If we have gratitude we get more good things, if we don't have it we lose what we have. "The law of attraction," in action.

Continue reading “Change Your Life With Gratitude”

Change Your Mind Change Your Life

Change your mind change your life

Change Your Mind Change Your Life

How are YOU doing with change? Is it hard for YOU or easy? Life is so full of changes and most of us resist it, don't YOU think so too?

Speaking for myself I can say that I used to fight changes fiercely, until I was over 50 when everything in my life was changing, if I wanted it or not. Resisting it was extremely painful, but I did not know what else to do until………….

Somehow I had the idea to just go with the flow, accept the changes and make the best of it. You know what? That was the best thing I ever did in my life, besides having my beautiful kids 🙂

What helped me in my search of a happy life was a book by the psychiatrist Jerold Jampolsky: "Change your mind changes your life"…………He was miserable too; actually he said he was an alcoholic and eventually got so miserable that he wanted to end his life. Thank god he found the course in miracles and it started to change his life.

He started to write books, present courses and started the center for attitudinal healing in Sausalito. The concept how changing our attitudes makes us happy is inspiring thousands of people.

Wow, what a concept, YOU don't have to stay the victim, YOU could change YOUR mind, be happy, forgive, let go and do whatever YOU want.  This idea can be the beginning of a new life. What is there to lose? What is the risk? It might be time to risk doing something new and be happy.

When we grow up we do not learn these concepts, we mostly learn to fit in, to not risk, to play it safe. But today we have all these wonderful programs, books, movies, meditation centers and coaches available, who can help us go through the changes. It's much easier to accomplish with a good support system.

Below are a few methods to help change our way of thinking.

  • Mindfulness Meditation 

Do YOU have a meditations practice? If not I would highly recommend it. You can find a group anywhere, or you may want to set up a group with friends. If that is not possible or practical for you, just get some guided meditation audios and follow that.

The process of meditation is very soothing, extremely easy and helps to be more aware in life. It reduces stress and is good for YOUR health and emotional wellbeing. A lot of my friends love Yoga Nidra, which is a very relaxing guided meditation, where YOU scan your whole body.

There are lots of scientific studies about the benefits of meditation and if YOU think it's a religious thing and YOU don't like it, I would suggest reconsidering. There are also lots of meditation centers that offer retreats.

Retreats are my favorite kind of vacation. Spirit Rock in the San Francisco area is a magical place; they have great teachers, a beautiful setting and great food. But there are many others in most parts of the world.

Meditation and mindfulness has helped me through the hardest time of my life and now I know that anything can happen and I will be able to deal with it in a healthy, no drama way.

  • Supportive Environment

Do YOU have people around YOU who support YOU in YOUR efforts to change? Sometimes when we feel that change is necessary, we are surrounded by people who don't like change and they try to keep us exactly where we are. I had to let go of a lot of old friends, because they were hindering my process. Find groups of people who want to go a different route in life. 

There are many of them; you can find a meet up group in a topic that you are interested in. Surround yourself with like-minded people; create an environment that supports YOU.

  • Work With A Coach

A coach is the best support YOU can get, it's priceless to work with someone who is there to support YOU, YOUR well-being and help YOU uncover what makes YOU happy. Someone who reminds YOU of YOUR dreams and keeps YOU focused on YOUR vision. It's the best supportive environment YOU can get. Have YOU ever tried it? Book an exploratory session with me, it's my gift to YOU, click the contact tab and leave YOUR information if YOU are interested.

What's helping YOU to create change in YOUR life? Please leave a comment; it's always helpful for others 🙂

 

 

Playfulness And Creativity Will Create A Great Life

 

More Playfulness And Creativity Will Make A Great Life

 Playfulness  And Creativity Will Create A Great Life

Welcome to another wonderful week and a new chance to do something excitingly creative, even if it’s a simple thing.

It's essential to bring more playfulness and creativity into YOUR life if you want to be more successful and happier. A creative life is being in the flow,  trying new things and living life as a fun adventure. No, it does not mean you have to go on a safari, master an art technique, climb Mount Everest, or go skydiving, unless YOU are attracted to this kind of adventure. It’s more about doing something new, something that excites YOU.

Simple things can work just fune, like an art class, a poetry reading, the museum, a dance class or maybe to learn Italian…… Maybe it’s a book club, a meditation group, or YOU might want to check out a meetup group to connect with people who have the same interest, or maybe YOU always wanted to try a meditation class……….Let YOUR imagination run wild.

I remember being on a flight from Amsterdam to San Francisco and I found a great article in the KLM flight magazine, that totally inspired me. It was about a successful blog with the topic of micro adventures within the local area of Amsterdam. For example bike tours, hiking tours, walking adventures around town or boating on the next lake or river, basically to have a great adventure within 10 miles of the city.

I found it very fascinating and try to incorporate it into my life as much as I can. Sometimes it just requires more presence, to see the adventure in little things. I love to go to the local thermal bath, it’s a beautiful walk through the park. I enjoy the birds, the flowers, the trees and it just makes me happy to absorb everything and I hear myself say: I'm so lucky, my life is great, everything is so beautiful.  

When I’m at the bath, I participate in the aqua gymnastic, swim outside under the trees in this wonderful thermal water and I enjoy the meditation they offer. It’s my adventure and it helps me balance my life. I feel totally nourished and happy.

To bring more creativity and play into a busy life, can be that easy. Sometimes it might be just to change YOUR perspective. Let’s say YOU have a long commute and find yourself complaining about it. Well, there might be nothing YOU can do about the commute, but maybe YOU can change something about how YOU commute, maybe books on tape or some great audios will help you to turn it into a fun cruise.

This might apply to other parts of YOUR life, family, life partner, business, work and friends. Think about a constant complaint that comes up and try if YOU can change something, if not drop the complaint and try to change YOUR perspective into something that’s positive. That's also being creative!

Try this fun exercise: Be aware and catch yourself every time YOU say: I need to work on something, work on the painting, work on the golf game, “work on having fun”. It’s pretty ridiculous to call all fun activities work. Let’s exchange the word “work on” with play on, or have fun with.

I want to have fun with my painting, have fun with cooking, have fun playing golf, have fun doing anything.  Instead of having to go to work, it might be: I will go to play at work, I will playfully connect with people and I will come up with creative solutions to problems.……..Do You feel how it changes the energy? From dreadful to playful?

I love this practice, it has changed my life. If YOU give it a chance, it will change YOURS. This is part of living a creative life. YOU will create a life that works. The more fun YOU have, the more playfulness YOU can bring into YOUR life the happier YOU will be.

Yes I know it sounds simple, but I’ve been practicing this for the last few years and I am happy, exited and I love my life. My life is not perfect, there are problems with people, places and things, but I choose to deal with them in a way that’s creative and empowering.

Empower yourself: Instead of living from vacation to vacation, let’s create a life that we don’t need to escape from, let’s make it fun!

Do YOU have a little, adventure YOU would like to share with us? Please leave a comment below.

 

 

Perfectionism Kills Creativity

perfectionism kills creativity

 

Perfectionism Kills Creativity

Do you have a problem with perfectionism?

  • How does it show up?
  • How does it make you feel?
  • Does it prevent you from doing what needs to get done?

After participating in lots of human potential groups, reading hundreds of book and taking many classes, I allow myself to say that perfectionism is a huge problem, effecting millions of people. What's your opinion?

A long time ago YOU might have started to try and be perfect, because YOU wanted to please your parents when you were a kid. Maybe YOU thought YOU will only be loved if YOU do everything right. YOU might  have been ridiculed and then continued the thread of perfectionism through our life.

Now why is perfectionism a problem?

  • Keeps YOU from taking action, because everything has to be perfect
  • Cannot love and accept yourself the way YOU are
  • Creates seperation between YOU and others
  • Prevents YOU from being in the flow
  • Never happy with what YOU do or say
  • Tendency to be uptight and judgemental
  • Prevents you from enjoying YOUR life
  • Zapps YOUR energy
  • Kills YOUR creativity

 Do any of those items apply to you?

If so, do not despair, the good news is: YOU are not alone and YOU can let go of it. The desire to do everything right can be positive to some degree, if it helps YOU to do something well. But if it freezes you to take action, or if YOU can't enjoy YOUR life, it's a hindrance.

How can perfectionism be dropped?

One of my mentors says: It's better to perform mediocre actions and DO things, than to be perfect and NOT DO things. The other great quote is: "progress is better than perfection."

If you have a dream for your life and you need to perform certain actions, but don't do anything because of the fear to not do it right…. you have a problem. YOUR dream will have to wait and maybe wait forever. If you are ok with that fine, if not something needs to be done. Do YOU agree?

For example…. a lot of people want to use videos to market their businesses and get their message out there, but they don't do it, because they don't like the way they look, how they talk, or they have the excuse that they don't have the technical knowledge. Not none of them is a good excuse and I used all of them until………………..

I had this struggle myself, let me tell YOU about it 🙂

Part of my business plan was, to create videos in order to be visible online, to have a chance for people to get to know me and to be known for what I do. The problem was: I had no clue how to do it, felt very insecure about the way I looked, the sound of my voice and in addition to that, I did not have the techical know how…….big problem!

After a while I was getting tired of telling my coach that I had not done it. So the desire to do it and to be accountable to my coach made me get over the resistance and fear.

I had a cheap little MINO HD camera and a tutor at the local college helped me with the techical aspects of how to record and how to do "idiot proof" editing with "life movie maker", an editing program that comes with windows. I still had fear but now the desire and the personal support made me actually do it….Wow what a relief.

I got a simple $30 tripod at Best Buys and started recording when I I created my vision boards and guess what… I actually had major fun doing it. I made sure I had kind of a nice background, I put some makeup on to have color in my face and then I just did it.

The editing was fairly easy to do. I learned how to cut pieces together, to add text and how to blend the different cuts together. It was super simple. The last step would be to save it and upload to YouTube and that was it. I was proud of myself, because I acted in spite of fear.

Every time you get over a fear or resistance, YOU empower yourself and you can overcome YOUR perfectionism one step at a time.

Here some more tips:

Detach from the result

Some things need to be done and there is no way around them, but  YOU can make it about the action and not the result, YOU can just enjoy what you're doing, make it creative. Be curious about turning it into a playful activity that you love to perform. This might not change the task but it will make it possible to have fun with it and actually enjoy what YOU do.

Prioritize

When you have a project ahead of you, make a list of all the items that need to be done, then determine the order of how important they are and make a list of people who YOU could ask for help. If it all gets to be too much, drop the items at the end of the list. For example if you have to organize a party,  it's better to have fun with your guest than to have the perfect decor or food. Always ask yourself what are the most important essentials in order to enjoy this.

Don't take yourself so seriously

Have you noticed that when YOU struggle and try to be perfect YOU can't have fun. When others are light, playful and creative, YOU might judge them for being so, but in the back of your mind YOU would like to be light and quirky yourself. Try to notice when you get annoyed with others who have fun and look into it……… Normally whatever annoys us in others is something we do not allow ourselves.

So now I would like to invite YOU to be willing to add more fun to YOUR life, make it playful, enjoy it!  When YOU are at the end of your days, it might not be important how perfect everything was, but how much you enjoyed your days, other people and yourself 🙂

My dear friends, do you have any tips about how to drop perfectionism? Please leave a comment, it helps to get some more ideas and practical tips.

 

Do You Suffer From Confusion?

do you suffer from confusion?

Do You Suffer From Confusion?

Confusion is a success killer.  Have you heard the quote: confused minds don't buy? Even worse; confused minds don't do anything. In order to be successful and move forward with YOUR dreams and desires, YOU first must have clarity about what it is that YOU want.

Some definitions of confusion:

  • Uncertainty about what is happening, intended, or required.
  • The state of being bewildered or unclear in one's mind about something.
  • A symptom that makes you feel as if you cannot think clearly. You might feel disoriented and have a hard time focusing.

Confusion does not feel good, it makes you feel stuck and not able to move forward. Just to clarify we are NOT talking about confusion, connected with alzheimers and age related dementia, we are talking about temporary confusion.

Where does confusion come from?

For a normal human being, confusion is a temporary intellectual and or, emotional CONDITION. Where one is torn between different choices, or facts
and a resolution cannot be found at the moment.

This creates an inner conflict which arises because one cannot understand what's going on and does not know what's the next  best thing to do.

This condition can arise on many levels. It can occur regarding everything from a harmless not being able to decide which menu item to order, which item to buy or, to the most important  life-issues.

Do you want to leave a relationship or not,  quit a job or not, commit to something or not. All this is normally  preceeded by confusion.

The most important action one can take, will be to just accept the fact that you feel this way. This might sound too simple to be true and I hate to say it,  yes it is. By accepting the fact that you are confused and stuck you release the conflict, or resistance which is stuck  in your energy field.

This makes it possible for new creative energy to come to you, in form of intuitive ideas or subtle hints, about what would be a good choice to make. Now this is not an intellectual process, it's very intuitive. 

One activity that will help is to meditate and get centered.  Walks in nature and exercise are also great. Have you noticed that sometimes solutions come to you when you are relaxed and not looking for them?

It's normally hard to remember something, when you force yourself to come up with it. But when you let it go and say, ok, it will come later, it normally floats into your conscious mind. This is a great example for the process.

So practice with easy items and see if they come to you after you let go of trying to remember them. Then go to more important items and try and write them down. Journaling is always good, it helps to create more awareness and whenever you go through something similar you can look up your notes about it.

Also, when you have difficulties to decide on what to order in a restaurant, try and practice to make a choice right away without agonizing over it. Remember it really does not matter to make the perfect choice, you just want to make a choice.

With all these little actionsteps, you are practicing new behaviors. The NEW is always kind of uncomfortable, even scary, but it's the only way to get out of these patterns.

Fear always plays a role when we are confused, we are afraid to change something in life, because we do not know how it will work out and uncertainty produces fear.

But nothing in life is certain, we might have everything worked out and the next day we find out we have a desease, our partner leaves us, we have an accident and so on. So it's a good practice to trust the universe that everything will work out for the best of all concerned.

Here a simple relaxation meditation, I just learned from a brain expert.

Take a deep breath in, when you breathe out say your name, repeat this several times.

 

 Did this help? Please let me know and leave a comment

 

Do You Believe You Can Create Your Life?

Do You Believe You Can Create Your Life?

 

Do You Believe You Can Create Your Life?

If you say no, then why?

I also did not believe I can create my life, it took me a long, long time. Somehow I could not believe that I can be successful, that I can be and have what I want. Success was for other people, the "lucky ones." Does this sound familiar to you?

Well thank god, I changed my mind. I now believe that I can create my life and that I can have and be what I want to be.

Continue reading “Do You Believe You Can Create Your Life?”

How We Can Accept Getting Old

 

how we can acceot getting old

How We Can Accept Getting Old

Can you do it or can't you do it? This is a very personal subject for most women and there are many different ideas about aging. Some people like the approach of denial and postponing the visual effects of aging with facelifts, all kinds of surgeries and treatment,  which is totally fine.

But eventually there is no escape and as my every day practice in life is acceptance, I thought for myself it would be a good idea to come to terms with some of the effects of aging, like gray hair, white patches, dark spots and I hate to say it: sagging skin 🙂

"You can't help getting older, but you don't have to get old." George Burns

At 48 I started dying my hair to cover the gray. That was 10 years ago, a long time of applying toxic dye to my head. Last Year I let my hair turn gray. Every time I got it cut, more gray showed and after my last cut today, I am proud to say that my hair is all gray.

Continue reading “How We Can Accept Getting Old”

Letting Go Of Family Secrets

letting go of family secrets

Letting Go Family Secrets


Do you have any? To be honest I did not think I had them, but eventually I realized I had to accept them and let them go, one secret at a time.

Up until 10 years ago I thought my life was great. I lived in one of the most beautiful parts of the world.  We owned a nice house with a huge garden and had 2 beautiful, healthy kids. The beach was our playground, we had good friends and we were creative. My husband worked in special effects and I had a successful business, so it all looked pretty good.

Continue reading “Letting Go Of Family Secrets”

Empower Your Life With A Daily Meditation Practice

Empower Your Life With A Daily Meditation Practice 

 

Empower Your Life With A Daily Meditation Practice

Most people have a hard time to meditate, you are not the only one! I had a very hard time to get my practice going, I found it extremely difficult to sit down, do nothing and just watch my breath.
Actually I could not do it.

Finally a  friend told me about a meditation instruction class.  I was desperate, my life was totally out of control so I tried it. This structure helped me to get into the habit. I just kept sitting down until my mind stopped chattering and there was peace for 10 minutes.

This practice has changed my life, gave me more peace, kindness, and awareness.

A few of the benefits  of meditation are:

  •  It will help you get into the creative zone
  •  Reduce stress
  • Improve your overall health and wellbeing
  •  Improve communication
  • Improve awareness
  • Improve realtionships

Yes and  it’s free, all you need is a quiet place to close your eyes, focus on your breath and that’s it.


What does it do?


This space of non-doing and non-resistance will give you a chance to feel your own energy field and stop the stream of thoughts. The moment of "not thinking" will give you time to recover from constant “thinking strain” which is also called "monkey mind" and resistance.


You create resistance when you have thoughts of wanting to be happy, content and successful, but you also have negative thoughts like: "it''s not possible". When you don’t have resistance, you can choose how to act and it will be easier to attract all the good things into your life.

The less resistance you have, the less negative thoughts you have and the less you will repel the good things. (Thinking, especially negative thinking can be a very strong energy and as long as we are involved in it, we might not be able to let in intuition.)


It's a magical process and very simple.  But sometimes we don’t want to do the simple and obvious things because we get too intellectual about it and our mind takes us out.

Have you ever heard yourself say?
• It’s too easy, this cannot work,
• How can sitting somewhere with my eyes closed make my life better
• This is stupid
• I don’t have time.
• I cannot do it


Now the good news is: you do not have to listen to this voice and you do not have to sit and meditate for hours, or even ½ an hour. If you start with 5 minutes a day it will be a good start. Probably it will feel so good to take some time out that you will want to meditate longer. But this is up to you.
So try it out and have fun with it. If you need more instruction get a guided meditation CD and start changing your life!

What is your meditation practice? Please leave a comment and let us know:-)
 

How To Empower Your Life With Creativity

How to empower your life with creativity

 

How To Empower Your Life With Creativity

Creativity is not about intelligence or information. It's about inspiration, from the Latin word "spiritus", meaning "breath, courage, the soul." Creativity is about being fully alive, living courageously, or as the painter Joan Miro´ says, "Expressing with precision all the gold sparks the soul gives off." When was the last time you felt fully alive? What is it that triggers your courage and challenges your fear of sharing your soul? Knowing this is the key to discovering the creativity that is waiting to be expressed through you.Expressing your creativity, your true self, is one simple way to empowe your life.

When people ask you if you are creative, do you say: No I’m not creative at all.

  • I can't draw
  •  I can’t paint
  •  I don’t have  it

 

If so, you're not alone. Many people think that creativity has been gifted to some selected few.  If they can't paint like Van Gough, sing like Maria Callas, sculpt like Rodin, write like Simone De Beauvoir, they don't dare claim to be creative. It feels like an arrogant thing to say about yourself. If you are not an expert, or not making a living from your creations it feels like a sin to say you are creative.

But creativity is our very birthright, our gift. Why, when we're asked to think of someone creative, do we rarely think of ourselves, but of famous people, that have defined creativity over the years? We think of Picasso, Mozart, Diebenkorn, Matisse and their likes, when the real truth is that every one of us is a born creator. It’s the gift we bring to the world: the ability to create, to turn something invisible into something visible, to create something out of nothing and to fully express ourselves.

 

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of the book: “Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention”, says that creativity doesn't happen in our heads but in the interaction between our imagination and our social context. It's a matter of experience and response, a matter of relationship to others and a commentary on the significance of our encounters.

Creativity is the vivid expression of who we are in the world

  • our imagination creates our thoughts
  • our thoughts create our words
  • our words create our actions
  • our actions create our experience
  • our collective experience and expression create our culture

 

Each of us is contributing part to the creation of the cultures we participate in. The world is not divided into two groups of the creative and the uncreative. If there's a distinction, it's between those who are creatively productive and those with unexpressed potential. People who do not express their creativity are not happy campers, they are the ones who feel unfulfilled, bored and resentful. We are creative by nature aand need to find a way to live it.

Each of us, to varying degrees is unconsciously motivated to create, to be original and to solve challenging problems. The question to ask is not, "Am I creative?" But rather: "What inspires me to create?"

Creativity can be expressed in simple ways. It can be how we dress, how we communicate, how we interact, how we move, how we solve problems. It can be expressed in cooking, or dancing, in decorating our homes and many other simple pleasures. There are unlimited ways to express creativity. It’s having fun in life, it’s laughing, it’s all the good stuff.

What about you? Do you not allow yourself creativity and time to play? Do you say: I will do it when I have time, first I have to practice, go to school. I will do it when I’m not so stressed out or maybe when I’m retired……….Does this sound familiar to you. If it does please reconsider and try to do the things you love to do, it will lift your spirit:-)

Please leave a comment with you thoughts and I hope this inspired you to find your creativity.