Fear of Success?

fear of success

Fear of Success?

You want success, but then something inside of you does not want success… .Fear of success comes up when you try something new and most of the time, this fear prevents you from doing the things you love to do. Have you noticed this conflict inside of you?

Scenario: This is what it looks like in my life: I am gung- ho to move ahead with something, a new project, something kind of scary. For example, I am planning to go to a new networking event, meet new people, create a new event, call someone important, ask for help…

What I sense in my body:

A weird feeling of unease in my belly, or solar plexus.
A "voice" inside of my head saying: oh you don´t really want to do this, it´s too scary, what if it goes wrong, it takes too much energy, people will not like it, you are too old, you don´t really want this anyway.

And on it goes…The strange thing is, this might be the very thing you want in life: to be successful with something you love to do, but the "voice" does not want to help you do it. The "voice" wants to keep you safe.

All this is happening automatically and it´s not logical. The "voice" is the old part of the brain, which wants to protect you from getting eaten by bears and dinosaurs. This is the the reptilian, or nimbic part of the brain. It does not know that most of us, especially in the western world, do not have to fight with bears and dinosaurs any more 🙂

Trying to do a new thing means: reptilian brain is on high alert… there might be a bear out there. Yeah it sounds pretty funny, but actually this "voice" is very successful at talking us out of trying anything new, with the result:

Nothing happens,
No dreams get realized,
No goals get achieved, just the same old, safe, unfulfilling life.

What can you do? You can face the fear…and you can try these 4 simple tips to help you act in spite the fear of success.

Awareness is the first step. Just by being aware of your voice and the feelings in your body, you can feel the fear and chose to act anyway. It will not feel good the first time, but the more you do it the easier it will be.

Simple example: When I started with social media and online marketing 2009, I wanted to post a tweet on Twitter. I was scared to death, somehow I thought everybody on Twitter will look at this and think, oh what a stupid thing to say….But eventually I overcame the fear and posted the tweet….now it´s routine. I had the same fear with writing articles, creating and posting videos, doing interviews, approaching new people.

To be honest, anything outside of the routine is still difficult, but now I have ways to help me over the resistance.

After being aware, it´s helpful to visualize what you want and create little reminders of your dreams and goals. For example a visionboard is a great tool to remind you of what you really want in life, it´s also fun to create one. I will post some videos about: How to create a visionboard, at the end of the post.
Create a mastermind group: 3 to 5 people in your inner circle who know about your dreams and goals and will remind you. Make sure they are people who want to help you to succeed and believe in you. It´s a good idea to talk to them about your resistance and fear of success, so they are fully aware of it and can help you through. There is no easy way… the fact is there is fear and it does not feel good, but the only way out is through.
Create a list of affirmations and simple sentences that will remind you of what you want to achieve, write them on little cards, set reminders on your phone, on the wall, on the bathroom mirror, in your purse. It sounds a little simple minded, but these simple affirmations help.

If you need more help, get a coach! Someone who will help you through the walls of resistance. Someone who recognizes your full potential and knows how to help you realize it.

And last not least, just have fun with the process, enjoy it! Enjoy even the difficult parts! Yes you can!!!

Please leave a comment if you would like to share your ideas, if you like this post, or even if you don´t like this post.

Written with love

Marita

How To Make A Vision Board – To Attract The Perfect Relationship

Easy Vision Board Meditation

Click here for more articles about visionboards

What is Creativity Anyway?

What is Creativity Anyway?

Hi Marita here…. I came across this article by Ian Philips and found it very interesting. Working as a coach I noticed that one of the essential keys in order to live happy, peaceful, fulfilled lives is: to be authentic and express who YOU are. To express your creativity is a way of expressing your gift. Sounds very simple doesn't it? Well unfortunately it's not, but it can be practiced.

The question is: "What inspires you to create?" Using your creativity does not mean you have to be artists. "Every day" creativity is expressed when you cook, or talk, how you dress. It can be expressed through gardening or how you decorate your homes. Even sports can be a great way to express creativity and of course there are many more ways.

As long as you are immersed in the activity and find joy…………. you are creative…. the key is to dare to "be it and do it", it's a life purpose… Enjoy the article!

"Creativity is our gift from god, using it is our gift to god" Julia Cameron

Have you ever had the thought, "I'm not creative. I can't even draw a straight line"? If so, you're not alone. Many people think that there is some essential relationship between creativity and the ability to make art. If they can't paint like Picasso, sing like Josh Groban, or sculpt like Henry Moore, they don't dare claim to be creative. It feels like an arrogant thing to say about yourself, if you're not an expert, not making a living from your creations, not well-known and publicly acclaimed for your imaginative gifts.

Why, when creativity is our very birthright, do so few of us feel creative? Why, when we're asked to think of someone creative, do we rarely think about ourselves, but of the public figures that have defined creativity over the years? We think of Monet, Mozart, Jackson Pollack, Martha Graham, Ansel Adams, always the figureheads, when the real truth is that every one of us is a born creator. That's the hallmark of being human: the ability to create, to turn something invisible into something visible, to forge a poem out of a feeling or a song out of a sorrow.

Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, author of 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 begets our thoughts, our thoughts beget our words, our words beget our actions, our actions beget our experience, our collective experience and expression begets our culture. Each of us is contributing 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. We're creative by default. We're genetically predisposed to create. Each of us, to varying degrees, is intrinsically 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?"

Personal creativity is not about intelligence or information. It's about inspiration, from the Latin 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 is the last time you felt fully alive? What is it that calls forth your courage and trumps your fear of sharing your soul? Knowing this is the key to discovering the creativity that is waiting to be expressed through you.alive, living courageously, or as the painter Joan Miro´ says, "Expressing with precision all the gold sparks the soul gives off." When is the last time you felt fully alive? What is it that calls forth your courage and trumps your fear of sharing your soul? Knowing this is the key to discovering the creativity that is waiting to be expressed through you.

…….I hope this article was useful. Now I will inspire you to use some very basic tools to get into the creative zone.

Morning pages are a great meditation and very simple, all you do is: write 3 pages freestyle, whatever comes up and do this every morning. The only rule is not to think and not to edit. It's a way of getting all the rubbish out of your head, that prevents you from doing what you love to do.

Here is a sample of my morning pages: I hear the birds singing, oh I forgot to buy coffee, this woman really bothered me, I cannot believe she said that. Oh my god I don't want to judge people, but I don't care, I think I need another cup of coffee, I can write what I want. Somehow my nose is itching, this is such a beautiful song on the radio, I feel like dancing, it reminds of when I was on one of my beach walks………The beach is so beautiful, I miss the beach, I should have gone to the beach more often. Sometimes I like to write………….there is a big pile of stuff on my desk, why do I get so messy, oh well, right now I just write.

Try it, it's one of my favorite practices, I get addicted to it…

How do YOU express your creativity? Please leave a comment, it's always great to hear what YOU have to say.

How To Discover Your Super Powers

How To Discover Your Super Powers

Sounds great doesn’t it? Superman powers, Yoda powers, Angelic powers, Psychic powers, Divine powers. I sure want them, what about YOU?

Theses are actually not the powers I would like to talk about today….. The super-powers I am talking about are very real and yes, every human being has them. They are energy forces within your system that youl have access to.

There is a trick though…….you must be aware of them. Some of these super powers are conscious and some are subconscious, but even knowing about the subconscious ones will help you in your life as long as someone points them out to you.

My coach introduced me to human design and I found it soooo fascinating that I started to immerse myself into studying and now I get great results using some aspects in my coaching.

Ok, now the big question: what is it and how can this be of practical use for you? …. A human design chart is an interesting looking chart based on many aspects from Astrology, I Ching, Kabballah and Chakras.

It’s called “a system where science meets spirituality”. The most important fact is that when you learn about your uniqueness and how to express your uniqueness, you will be able to create a great life.

With work that you love, people that support and stimulate you, a healthy body and mind and the feeling of being alive. It will help YOU

Discover Your gift,
Discover Your purpose,
How to work with challenges
Create a fulfilled and balanced life
Make good decisions

One of my superpowers is my “gut feeling” a built-in guidance system, so as long as I listen and I am aware of it; my gut feeling tells me what I should focus on and what to let go of. I can’t go and make things happen I have to wait until something happens that awakens this gut feeling and then I can respond. This was a life saver for me, because I always tried to make something happen and when it did not work I was FRUSTRATED as hell.

Another superpower is my curiosity, which is always interested in things, in new programs, new ways of being, travel, transformation and sharing with people what I just learned. For years I was trying to be an expert and it actually killed my creativity. My unique way of presenting myself is to share my curiosity with others and stimulate them with my creative flashes.

The last one is my sense of timing… I was born and raised in Germany with never ending schedules and rules; when I had to what. My unique design is the opposite; I have to follow my own rhythm in order to be happy, I have to “go with the flow”. It is essential for my well-being to honor this. As a result of not knowing this, I always thought that there is something wrong with me. Now that I know, I can live my life accordingly and not schedule every minute of my day.

Now I leave unscheduled time to do whatever inspires me; well yes…. sometimes it’s doing the laundry 🙂

Can you see the practical use in your life? I can’t even tell you how good it was to know this………….. It has changed my life.

One other part is that my feeling of self-value fluctuates depending on who is in my environment, so it’s not my stuff. When I feel low self-worth I sense whatever people feel who are around me, this energy affects me. Being aware of this has helped me to look at feelings from an observer perspective. What is mine and what is yours and I do not have to be so affected by everything.

Ok my friends this is only a very small part of how to create a great life, there is a lot more to it. Are you ready to change your life from blah to great? Contact me and sign up for a complementary, 2 part exploratory session, where you will meet your own superpowers………..wow, how awesome is that?

Blessings

Marita

The Power Of Vulnerability

The Power Of Vulnerability

My friend and meditation teacher Claudia, sent me the link to this video. What a beautiful story and so well presented by Brene Brown, I just love it. I also decided to write less and offer you more thought provoking videos to have more fun…………..

Do YOU like the idea?

Researcher and storyteller Brene Brown is telling a story about vulnerability and how it affects the quality of our lives, she has a great sense of humor too……. I hate to say it but most scientists are not so funny……… but more dry………ooops that was a judgement. I would like to use less judgment in my life, which is easier said than done, but I am aware of it, that's the first step. It's all a process 🙂

So what is vulnerability and how do we deal with it?

Most of us do not want to have anything to do with our own vulnerability or other people’s vulnerability, or better said we run the other way when we are confronted with it.……….

But the sad truth is, that the more we are denying our vulnerability the more we deny other qualities, like aliveness, creativity, joy and self-expression.

We all want to belong, to be loved and to be connected to others. We are trained to perform, to hide our feeling, to be strong to pretend we are perfect, to know it all, to never ask for help, sounds familiar?

So what do people do in order to not feel these feelings?

For example: eat, drink alcohol, take drugs, shop, work, rage, try to be perfect, complain, gamble, sex……….of course I'm talking about excessive behavior, yes all this numbs the stuff we don’t want, but also all the good feelings that make life worth living.

So what do we want?

To be loved
To be seen
To be heard
To be enough
To be accepted the way we are
To express our selves

Yes, it's that simple. If you can think of anything else let me know, I will stop now and let you enjoy the video 🙂

Are YOU ready to dive into a great new life? This might be start 🙂

What Do You Do When You Feel Like The Lights Are Out?

What Do You Do When You Feel Like The Lights Are Out?

Of course this is meant in a metaphorical sense 🙂 When I say lights I mean; creativity, happiness, aliveness, a good sense of self and motivation. It does not feel good, "when the lights are out", but unfortunately it happens. I just experienced an episode………….. Everything was fine, I got a lot of projects done, had good insights, was full of creative energy and then………

I found out that 2 wonderful people I knew, died unexpectedly,
One of my clients did not show up for her call
I got a bad score in a practicum

All these events threw me off track. I felt sad, unloved, stupid, unfairly judged and deserted, yes all the "yucky things"…. Normally I can take this as an adult and it would be ok, but this time it threw me back into being a 5 year old, feeling rejected and yelled at for something……………can YOU relate?

It took me 2 days to recover and it sucked all my creative energy out of my system. All I wanted to do was sleep, which I allowed myself to do and I did not force myself to do anything, I thought I needed to do.

For example tell myself that now I spent enough time feeling sorry for myself and it's time to get back to work……., no I just let it be. . After the 2 days I felt that my lights came back on and I was back to my adventurous self. So what was it?

Sometimes when we want to move ahead, make life experiments and try new things in life and businesses, "the play safe team" gets overwhelmed and wants to remind us to better play it safe. It creates challenges for us to say: don’t do this it’s not safe, this is too scary, I will not venture there, I rather stay where it's safe.

Because it’s the job of the "play safe team" to keep us safe, not happy, not thriving, but SAFE. The good thing is; that the more we practice self-awareness or mindfulness, the easier it will be for us to feel what’s going on. If we can be very compassionate and loving with this scared part of ourselves, it will cooperative, the more love it gets, the faster it will recover 🙂

What do YOU think, have YOU experienced something like this? What has helped YOU to get out?

How To Turn Work Time Into Fun Time

How To Turn Work Time Into Fun Time

Hello my friends, how are YOU doing? I hope life is treating you well, or if that's not the case that you find a way to make the best of it.

Some people wait for retirement to have fun…. no no no don't do that, make it fun now 🙂

I am self-employed and work out of my home office, which is great, but sometimes I like to be around people. It’s so important to have fun at work and find ways to create an environment that inspires the creative juices to flow.

In the spirit of play I took myself to my favorite bookstore, ordered a cup of Cappuccino, and enjoyed the beautiful view of the old cathedral, the tall trees and the people streaming by below. The cloud formations floating across the sky were like pieces of art……….

All this inspired me to write and I thought to myself: I am so lucky to be able to work like this. It was so easy to write, the words just kept flowing out of nowhere onto my paper.

Other times I go to the library to work on my laptop, which is another favorite place to have "fun at work." It’s a great place to take a break and look at books or magazines to get inspired in between.

Creativity and playtime need to be nurtured and it’s much more fun to work when creativity is flowing, so it’s important to come up with creative ways to do that. Sometimes we can’t draw it out of ourselves, but need to do little things to invite inspiration.

Meditation is a great way to get into the creative zone
Listen to your favorite music
Go for a walk in between to clear you head
Take regular breaks
Talk to some fun people

Some parts of work might not be fun……. period, but instead of complaining about it nonstop and giving it all this nasty, negative energy, try to make the best of it and change your perspective about it. YOU will see that it's a lot easier to just do it and then voila, it’s done. Now you just have to pat yourself on the back big time!

Mastermind groups of like minded, fun people are also a great way to have fun and get more ideas. We are communal beings and need the connectedness and exchange with others. This is a great way to practice connecting and exchanging………………Now I'm running out of ideas, the ball is in your court now 🙂

What helps YOU to have more fun at work? Please leave a comment to share your insight, we love to read it.

Oh, I almost forgot, check out my "Dive into a Great New Life Experience" it's my gift to you.

Two 45 minute coaching sessions, a fun assignment in between and a great follow up.

Just do it! It's never too late to have a great life 🙂

email me at maritasteffe@gmail.com to schedule your appointment

Dive Into A Great New Life

Dive Into A Great New Life

Hello my friends, yes I am talking to YOU! Are you ready to dive? Are you sick and tired of life the way it is and would like to explore something new?

So what happens to women over 40?

As long as the children are at home everything seems to be ok, but as soon as they leave, this nagging " what's next, or is this all there is," is knocking on the door.

Sometimes dramatic things happen, the marriage might not be working anymore, maybe death took a partner, maybe the career YOU had for a long time just isn't fulfilling enough, it’s too stressful, or maybe it's just this dream, that has been dangling out there and now it's time to pursue it……………………

What is it for YOU?

YOU might realize that life is short and even when YOU are successful and have all the material things, it might not satisfy YOUR heart’s desire. It's a time of searching and evaluating and it can be very confusing and crazy making. I know it was for me.

I remember going in spirals from the time I was 50, I tried several things, thought it was a good idea at the time but it really wasn’t.

Like a miracle, in the end every little piece of the puzzle brought me to where I am today. A huge part of finally getting there was to trust my intuition and learn to listen to the quiet hints and iintuitions I would get.

Well this might not apply to everybody, but I know it applies to lots of women. I have been talking to lots of them in Germany and the US, we talk at meetings, at events, on social media and so on.

If YOU are interested, I tell YOU a little bit about my time of searching and what I came up with: I had my first experience with life coaching when I was 50, I was fascinated but somehhow I forgot about it again and started doing other things. YOU know they were kind of practical, but not expressing my passion.

Somehow, when I was 57, I started taking classes at CoachVille to learn better communication skills, then I noticed oh, I love this life coaching thing and so I pursued a career as a professional life coach.

I realized that being immersed into deep, life changing conversations makes me come alive. It’s the most inspiring environment for me. Working with a coach has been a life changing experience in my life.

He helps me to focus on essentials, to value myself, keeps me on track, inspires me, believes in me and we also have a lot of fun designing a life and business game that works for me and my nature. I learned that I don't have to do it alone, what a freaking relief that was…………..:-)

Just in case YOU wonder why I’m telling YOU all this: it’s because when most people are left to their own devices it’s very hard to make changes. The bigger the game is, that we want to play in life, the more challenges appear, accompanied by fear and resistance.

If we think we have to do it all alone, most of us don’t do it…and yes, that's the end of the dream.

Don't let that happen!

A coach will help YOU to get out of YOUR own minds, help YOU to be aware of the possibilities, reminds YOU of YOUR potential, champion YOU through the challenges, believe in YOU when YOU don’t and helps to design actions that will get results.

PS: I just designed a new “Dive Into A Great New Life” experience, which will provide great value for YOU. It’s not one session but two and it’s my gift to you, wohooooooooo.

Let me give YOU an idea what we will do and to say the least I am very excited about offering it

Session one: Together we will determine what it is that “something” that you wanted to do for a long time?

Assignment in between session: I will give you instructions on how to make a powerful vision board.

Session two: We will discuss the vision board and look at YOUR environment to find out:

What needs to be eliminated,
What needs to be transformed
What needs to be added in order to support your success.

YOU will get a sheet which will help you with the needed upgrade to your environment.

This could be a powerful first step to dive into a great life and this experience is my gift to YOU, e mail me at maritasteffe@gmail.com to schedule YOUR time, YOU will need 2 times 30 minutes.

PS: I will be on a meditation retreat until 8/17, so you will not hear from me until the 18th.

The Law Of Attraction And Vision Boards

The Law Of Attraction And Vision Boards

As a life coach it is important for me to offer tools that work. Vision boards are one of them; they are fun, creative and highly effective. The key is: YOU have to believe that the process works, if YOU doubt it, the process will not work.

I quickly want to tell YOU about my last magical experiences with vision boards: last year I created one with lots of photographs of houses I took in my hometown in Germany. Guess where I live now, in exactly this town, in the center of the city close to everything. It started with a tiny idea to make this move, nothing more…………….. Please trust the magic and make one, do it for YOU.

The law of attraction states that we attract into our lives anything that we give attention to, regardless of whether it's positive or negative. Now this is important: If you constantly think about negative things, guess what! YOU will attract the same energy into your life, YOU will be a crap magnet! It’s a quantum physics law, it states that we attract anything into our lives that we give attention to.
If YOU focus on negative thoughts YOU attract things that are negative, if YOU focus on positive YOU will attract positive events, people and things.

A vision board is a tool, to use to focus on positeve and inspiring images and words. YOU do not have to paint the pictures in YOUR mind, YOU just look at them, it’s the easy way to visualize YOUR life dreams. So start now and create YOUR life YOUR way and achieve YOUR life dreams.

How to make and use a vision board
YOUR personal vision board is limited only to YOUR own creativity and imagination. Some people have produced simple vision boards and others have made vision boards that could sell at art show for hundreds, if not thousands of dollars. But let me tell YOU: artistic ability is not a prerequisite for creating a functional vision board. Anybody can do it and anybody will have a blast creating it, it’s so simple and creative, make it playtime

YOUR subconscious mind works in pictures and images, so make YOUR vision board as visual as possible with as many images as you can. Add inspirational and motivational words towards the end, they can be written onto the images, or YOU can type and print the words, cut them out and glue them onto the board.

Each picture on YOUR vision board should evoke a positive emotional response from YOU. The sight of YOUR vision board should make YOU smile and fuel YOUR passion to achieve your dreams every time YOU look at it. Be inspired by the images and feel them!

Place YOUR vision board in a prominent location where YOU have a chance to see it as much as possible. YOU need to constantly expose YOUR subconscious mind to this feel good energy. The more YOU look at your vision board, the more YOU feel it, the faster YOUR dreams will manifest. YOU do not have to know all the steps to get there. YOUR subconscious mind will do it for YOU.

Negative feelings like self-doubt and criticism can damage the delicate energy that YOU generate with YOUR vision board. If YOU notice these feelings YOU must do something to neutralize them.
Practice affirmations, they are very helpful to override negative thoughts and neutralize negative emotions. But it does not mean that YOU do nothing. YOU must listen to your intuition and YOU must go out and meet people.

Now let's get started and create YOUR life YOUR way. The more YOU manifest, the happier YOUR lives are, the better this planet will be. There is no prerequisite for creating a functional vision board and the procedures I’ve outlined below can be used by anyone. Let me know what happens and leave a comment, I love YOU all 🙂

Law of Attraction – The Secret Law Of The Universe

Law of Attraction – The Secret Law Of The Universe

Most of us know that the law of attraction states that "like energy attracts like energy." This simply means that the thoughts we think, the actions we perform, the feelings we feel, the words we say, all vibrate at a certain frequency. So whatever frequency our thoughts and beliefs are, that's exactly the same frequency we attract. Now that's a scary thought, do you agree?

You can compare it to a radio receiver, which only receives a channel when it's tuned to the right frequency. You think about 50000 thoughts a day and most of them are not conscious to you, they just run like a background program. It's not only your thoughts, it's other people's thoughts too. Yes it's like living in a soup of thoughts and it can get messy 🙂

Depending on how you were brought up, how confident you are, how creative you are, how courageous you are, how aware you are, you might have a hard time to be in charge of your feelings, thoughts and actions. Maybe you have reacted to the same situations and people for decades. It's pretty much like a "robot state", the reactions are triggered by old memories and they happen automatically.

The most important fact about the law of attraction is that you must be aware of all this, if you want to attract your dreams and desire. Below are a few simple tips that will help you to apply the law of attraction to your life.

Meditation will increase your awareness, it's like getting stronger antennas and you will be able to make a choice of how you want to react to certain people or situations.
The Sedona methode will help to let go of old patterns. You can do it yourself by going to the website, getting the book, or the audio. It's pretty much just asking series of questions and being willing to let this stuff go, but the results are profound. If you are willing it just happens!
Another effective way to reprogram old stuff is by listening to brain entrainement audios. The most effective ones I have found are: Quantum Mind Power Triliminals" by Morry Zelcovitch. They are very soothing to listen to and I love the results. Some patterns are hard to change, they were created on a subconscious level, so it makes sense that they can only be changed or let go on a subconscious level.
In order to help you with the visualization process you might find it very helpful and meditative to make a vision board. A vision board is a collection of very inspiring images and words or phrases. The main purpose is to help you visualize and focus on what you love and desire, to help you achieve you life dreams. It's a simple map to create your dream life. The more you focus the better it gets. If you use all these practical simple methods you will see results in your life.

If you use all these practical simple methods you will see results in your life. Try it out and let me know how it goes.

How To Stay Positive In A Negative Environment

How To Stay Positive In A Negative Environment

You might say that it's not a good idea to hang around negative people and I would say the same. But sometimes these people are close family and we might not want to stay away.

For example parents: They might be getting old, in pain, scared and in a situation where they have to let go of control. Can YOU see how hard this is? I sure can and if someone does not have training in spiritual principles, or personal development it's hard to deal with these facts and the default might be: NEGATIVITY.

My choice was to move back to Germany to be closer to my parents. After living in California for 34 years, this was a hard decision, but somehow my feeling told me: Marita it's time to go back and be there for them. One problem is that there is a lot of negativity in my parents environment and I will need a strong practice and support system in order to not get sucked in.

Watching the news several times a day, complaining about the state of the world, the greed, the problems, the cheeting. Getting together with others, all this gets discussed and it's a vicious cycle of a hostile world, injustice, powerlessness and sickness. Wow it's no fun, I don't even want to know.

A toxic environment, but I make it my practice to be present and to stay positive, I want to be a "breath of fresh air". Detachment with love is the practice and I watch everything around me like a movie. The practice is to not react and to be loving and patient. Thank god I have a good meditation practice and support system of friends who will keep me on track.

I am so amazed and grateful about my progress. All the work with 12 step groups, spiritual programs, personal development and coaching have made such a difference in my life. It empowers and supports me through difficult times. The important lesson for me is to know that not everybody around me has the awareness to be on this path of forgiveness, acceptance and letting go and I have to accept this.

Living in a space of mystery and not knowing what tomorrow will bring is also challenging, to say the least. Living life outside of the comfortzone, having faith that everything is the way it's supposed to be and just flowing with whatever happens. That's the space where miracles happen.

My " Simple Miracle"

The beginning of December I applied for an apartment in Germany, I was hoping to be able to move in January 1, but I will not be able to move in until February 1. The thought of staying with my parents for another month was hard for me and for them. Now the miracle was, that I applied for US citizenship and the only thing left to do was my "Swearing in Ceremony, which I did not have a date for at the time. One day later my friend checked my mail and I got the date for the ceremony, January 8th. I booked a flight and decided to stay in California until the end of January. So, it worked out perfectly!

These miracles strenghen my trust in the universe and the more I notice them, the more I can let go of trying to control everything. What a relief that is.

What's your recent miracle?