12.11.12

the artful life has moved!


Life is change and growth, evolution and expansion - things end, and new things begin.

The Artful Life has a brand new spacious home on WordPress. I love it! I am so excited about everything I can bring you from this new, better place. I hope you will love it too.

Here it is: www.theartfullifeblog.com
artfulwoman.com will be redirecting there soon too.

Do you follow me via an RSS feed? Please add my new feed so you don't miss any posts! here it is:
My New RSS

And if you follow via email, go here to renew your subscription:
My New Email RSS

I hope you will be excited to visit me in my new home.

Love,


8.11.12

The Artful Life Has Moved!!!


Life is change and growth, evolution and expansion - things end, and new things begin.

The Artful Life has a brand new spacious home on WordPress. I love it! I am so excited about everything I can bring you from this new, better place. I hope you will love it too.

Here it is: www.theartfullifeblog.com
artfulwoman.com will be redirecting there soon too.

Do you follow me via an RSS feed? Please add my new feed so you don't miss any posts! here it is:
My New RSS

And if you follow via email, go here to renew your subscription:
My New Email RSS

I hope you will be excited to visit me in my new home.

Love,


4.10.12

have you set your goals for october?


I am visioning spaciousness and ease for this month.
My next phase is all about expansiveness and revision:
revisioning, rebranding and expanding my business,
growing The Artful Life and moving it into a new, spacious online home,
revisioning reorganizing and renovating my home.

The foundation for all of this expansion is a renewed sense of powerful self-love. The work of transformation I have done this year has strengthened and opened my heart. The heart is the vessel for joy, for love; it opens to allow our gifts to flow out into the world.

Spaciousness. An open heart. The easy flow of your gifts into the world. Your own beauty reflected back to you, your gifts returned to you multiplied - this is what I wish for you - and for myself - during this season of harvest and gratitude.


3.10.12

an autumn interlude


Slanted yellow light, wind rattling dry leaves, smell of apples and earth, golden things, fast moving clouds, thoughts of opening to change.

2.10.12

the true meaning of self-care


Welcome to October at The Artful Life! Our Fourth Key to an Artful Life is Practice Loving Self-Care, and for the month of October, that's what we'll be focusing on here, with posts, interviews, and some challenges for you to help you maximize your self-care.

But what is self-care?

True self-care arises from self-love, and has little to do with self improvement or self discipline.

Are you a parent? If so, you know the fine line we need to walk in caring for those we love. We can't simply impose our will upon our children in an attempt to shape them into the person we think they should be. Nor can we indulge their every impulse and whim in an attempt to give them autonomy. Our best bet is to act out of love, and create a climate where positive habits can flourish. Punishment leads to fear and inhibition, indulgence leads to unhealthy habits.

It's pretty easy to wrap our minds around these concepts when it comes to caring for others. Yet when it comes to caring for us, many times we find ourselves bouncing between the extremes of self-indulgence and punishing self-discipline.

For me, I know that healthy self-care begins with having loving structures in place for dealing with stress. Without these structures, it is much too easy for me to lapse into a cycle of pushing too hard then "relaxing" with unhealthy comforts, then pushing myself even harder to "make up" for my indulgences. Does this sound familiar?

I am so grateful that I am finally beginning to identify this cycle in myself, and that over time I have  begun to build a structure of truly self-nurturing habits to replace the unhealthy comforts. I do need to be vigilant though; not perfectionistic, but vigilant. If I step back in to my shadow comforts (a very apt term coined by Jen Louden) I try to use it as an opportunity to reflect and gently re-adjust, rather than as an opportunity for self-recrimination.

This morning, for instance, I woke up with a bad headache. The headache actually woke me several times during the night as well, and robbed me of a good night's sleep. The headache was not a surprise. I chose to have it.

I chose it when I chose to have two glasses of red wine late in the evening. I know from long experience that if I want to indulge my love of cabernet, I need to do so very moderately, early in the evening, with food, and on a day when I can sleep in a bit the next morning.

Yesterday wasn't like that - it was a long, stressful work day, another in a long run of long, stressful workdays during which I had let my self-care structures slide a little bit. The choice I made at the end of the day was not a self-nurturing choice. And I woke up this morning really cross with myself, which was also not a self-nurturing choice.

But here's the important thing: I caught myself, and identified the self-indulgence/self-punishment cycle. So instead of letting the crossness with myself fuel yet another day of pushing too hard, I stopped and asked myself

What do you need today?

The answer came: I need to rest. I need to reflect and journal. And I need to consciously let go of a stressful incident from last week, so I can move forward positively.

With this simple moment of deep listening within, I was able to slip back in to the flow of loving self-care.

Will you join me today in reflecting on self-care? You could consider these questions in your journal:
  • Where do you practice true self-nurturing in your life? Are there any places where you slip into a cylce of self-indulgence/self-punishment?
  • What structures do you have in place to support self-nurturing?
  • What are your "shadow comforts?"
  • How often do you ask yourself What do I need today?
  • What do you need today?








28.9.12

entering the flow - there are no sure things and that's ok



I had a huge 'aha' moment this week. One of those moments of grace when you get a glimpse through your blindspot and see that thing that's holding you back, that thing that everyone else can see but can't tell you about, that thing that's usually invisible to you but that just might be the key to your next transformation.

So here's what happened to me. I was driving through the golden autumn morning, on my way to meet with some potential clients about a contract I was shortlisted for: a nice opportunity to work on a challenging project for a good cause and enhance my income a bit over the next few months. It also happened to be something to which I knew I could fully apply my gifts.

Sounds pretty good, right? We want to design our lives to invite this sort of opportunity.

I was excited and a little nervous, which is all good. But there was also this low-level grumbling going on in the back of my mind, that went something like this:

"grumble grumble all dressed up... grumble... my entire morning.... too busy for this... grumble grumble not a sure thing."

Ok so here's where the blindspot thing comes in. This grumbling was not unusual, apparently it's pretty typical of the background noise anytime I am investing energy in something that I perceive as not being a sure thing.

But the difference the other morning was I stopped mid-grumble and thought

Wait... what?

I caught that grumbly part of myself in the act of sabotaging me. That grumbly part was busily persuading me that it wasn't worth investing my life force in something that wasn't a sure thing. And usually all this goes on under the radar, and I just respond by turning down the flow a little, unconsciously withdrawing my best energy from the not-a-sure-thing-thing.

But this time instead of just unconsciously submitting to the grumble, I actually heard it and questioned it.

Like really questioned it. Like:
WTF are you talking about, grumbly part? F.. Seriously? Have we been holding back from investing in anything that's not a sure thing? Is that what's going on here? Because NEWSFLASH nothing is a sure thing! OMGWTF I can't believe I've been doing this to myself.
Yes my aha moment was fairly full of explatives starting with 'F.'  And it all happened in a mere moment or two while driving through the autumn sunshine.

Grumbly Part is now under 24 hour surveillance. Because it looks like for a few years now Grumbly Part has been working behind the scenes to wreak havoc on my energy flow and engagement with the world.

My story is very individual, of course. But I believe this is something we all struggle with in one way or another.

We resist the flow of our energy out into the world because we are afraid. We're afraid of getting exhausted, running out. We're afraid of being rejected, of failing, of getting in over our heads. We're afraid of being visible and vulnerable, we're afraid of standing out. We're afraid of falling, of losing, of not measuring up, of being disappointed. We're afraid at the beginning, the middle, and the end.

But you know what? We're also brave. We do put ourselves out there, we do keep trying, we do take chances, we do invest, we do step up.

There's a part of you that's trying to scare you into hoarding your energy like food in a famine. But there's another part of you that knows that by holding back, you're just blocking the flow. And holding back the river is exhausting. And holding back on what's flowing out also means holding back on what's flowing in.

There are no sure things, and that's OK. I'm asking the question: what would happen if I poured my gifts and energy out into the world like everything was a sure thing?

I'm just asking myself that question. What question would you like to ask yourself after reading this post?

And by the way, I turned on my full energy flow, rocked the meeting, and got the contract.

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