The Woman in Red

Being Mom

Today many of us will get and give gifts of appreciation, cards and notes declaring gratitude, and warm hugs full of love.  And I too enjoy it all. This day of acknowledging Mom’s has got me thinking about what it means. What are we actually celebrating?

Much of the focus is naturally on the value of nurtuing children. The endless giving that mom’s seem to deliver. We esteme all that our mom’s have done for us with an underlying tone that it has been sacrifice. That they gave a lot. That it was costly.

I’m wondering if this is healthy? Are we reinforcing the right attributes? Please don’t misread this for the extreme opposite. I absolutely believe that we should take time to applaud the wonderful relationship we have with our moms and their amazing impact on the planet. I am simply questioning if we are playing a little (or a lot) small? 

What do I think makes women amazing? Here are a few attributes:
I think of our ability to speak with power and emotion. To build trust, friendships and intimacy. To enjoy dance, laughter, and chocolate. To experience sensual beauty, creation, and nurturing. To build community, hold the space and influence change.  To generate sustainable, grassroots economy. To form alliances and develop synergy. To embrace wealth and governance. To be inclusive, instill trust, and inspire peace.
Wow!

I believe that we as women have been missing a key ingredient in our personal development…EXAMPLE. Many of us are aching for an example to follow. This has been a mantra in my head for years. But lately I have heard a new calling, which I believe is a collective destiny, and it says BE the example you have been searching for. Women are pioneering a new way of experiencing the world, each other and themselves. If radical change on our planet is going to occur, it is going to start with us. With ME! The new culture of harmony and peace is internal and then emanated. As Moms, we need to rise up as the example. No longer working at putting everything we have into the next generation, literally emptying ourselves into them but to embody the very essense of what we are trying to instill. To be it and then naturally it will be received. There is no more striving, emptying and sacrifice. It can be an overflow of joyfull, energetic, radiance. LIVE IT! It is a celebration of creation, of being, of fulness. It is as close as I can describe the spirit of God alive in us. And it is worth celebrating.

Happy Being Mom Day!

me, my mom (Betty), and my daughter (Fiona) 2009

This new voice with no words.

As a witness, my immediate response is, “LET GO!!!”
The obvious is not so clear when we believe our thoughts.

FEAR. We all want to be free. We all want to release. But as we desperately cling on the edge of our fear, the question is HOW?

I recently got back from an amazing week in Ojai CA (near LA). I attended a glorious retreat called Release with BraveHeart Women. It was one of the most radical processes I have ever been part of. An unbelievable array of live, experiential methods to release the things that hold me back. It provided me with an entirely new means of experiencing the NOW. Many of my skills and much of my personal development has been focused on intellectual reflection and intuitive discovery. I am grateful for the growth that has brought me. What I have experimented with this past week is listening to the vocabulary of the body through emotion and feeling. I am certain that many of you already understand this language but for me, it was an entirely new (and I dare say foreign) experience. It revealed that much of my life had been spent in my head separate from the visceral experience of the now moment…where life is truly lived. This release process was a LIVE practice of this concept. No classroom training. Simply, here is the tool, now let see you use it NOW. It stripped me down to such a base level, (like a child) because the tools I had up until then were ineffective for the task. All I could do was awkwardly emanate this new voice with no words. It was absolutely liberating.
Bottom line, it cannot be explained, only experienced.

I sit here in my office, listening to the keys tap as I share what is in my heart. You have heard me say, I love freedom. I don’t just want to think about it. I want to BE free. This morning, I got an invitation that spoke to every single one of my requests, you know, the intentions I set out for this year at the beginning of January. And it requires me to expand so far beyond the construct of what I currently know that I feel like I’ve been invited to visit another planet by aliens.  There is only one answer, YES. But try and explain what I am doing… there are no words.

I'll just repeat myself. LET GO!

Ojai California

This is where I am going this week!!!

I am so excited to spend a week doing a BraveHeart Women's retreat called RELEASE. And that is exactly what I expect to do...release. It is based on the concept that our bodies retain memories on a cellular level (cellular memory if your googling it) and that some of our blocks can be a combination of physical and emotional resistance. Fasinating stuff!
To be honest, I have no more idea of what this will entail than that. I'm learning to make decisions based on my spirit's pull and not get too hung up on the how. This is one of those decisions.

My hope is to release my need for approval and my fear of money.
Oh the freedom of .... well freedom.  

See you next week. 

He picked me.

In 2007, I wrote a list.  Even though Andy had only passed the year before, I knew I wanted to be married again. I love the intimate, life-long, commitment this kind of relationship supports. I also knew I could be better. Losing my husband catapulted me into a number of revelations about myself and especially what kind a wife I was and could be.

I wrote a list of attributes I wanted in the man I was going to marry.

He will love me deeply.

He will be as smart as me (or smarter)

He will want to know everything about me

He will protect what is important to me

He will love my kids

He will be spiritual

He will handle his money well

He will have his own strong opinions and beliefs

He will be passionate and compassionate

He will walk his life honourably, with integrity

 

That was 6 years ago. When I look at this list now, it is obvious that these characteristics are what I wanted for myself, my own personal character. But what is amazing, it is also what I got.  Today is the 2^nd anniversary of the day I said yes to Darren Ward. He is a man who adores me, who loves my kids, who cares about his own character and growth, who checks-in with his spirit to see if he is on track in life. He has shown me how to give my heart completely and freely. He demonstrates his feelings in the simple moments of life that end up making every day a joy. It is his delight to make me happy. He really knows how to love. He is far more than I could have ever imagined. And he picked me.

I am so grateful for Darren. I am so very happy.

Breathe, vibrate and release.

Working with the organization BraveHeart Women, I have learned to do Oxy-breathing. It is one way to release the hormone Oxytocin (not Oxycontin hehe) in your body. It took me a little while to get it.  For one, it required me to relax and breathe in, filling my belly.  Sadly, I realized that I have spent most of my life holding my stomach vainly tight. It has taken me some time to tell my stomach muscles to relax enough to receive a breath in this way. Another step is to breathe out with a happy Haaaaaa sound that is long and pleasurable. At first this was just an act of breathing that seemed to be relaxing but did not produce any noticeable change or experience.  The transition happened for me when I felt the vibration of the Vegus nerve that Ellie Drake had been teaching about. Once I set that off, the release of Oxytocin was noticeable and I felt safe, available and expansive.  Sounds like a lot of nice words, I know, but if you are actually experiencing them, it is delicious. It is my desire to have freedom from the thoughts and experiences that bind me. Learning to release my body through Oxytocin is one more area I have been able to find some freedom.

My next experiment is to practice Oxy-breathing when I’m stressed and frustrated (body tension from mind tension) and then check-in. One of my struggles is that I find it hard to check-in and listen to myself when I’m stressed. Oxy-breathing is just one way to allow myself to move from my mind to my spirit for answers when I find my body is in stress (adrenaline). Because ultimately, I want to live from my spirit.

Think about it, what would be different if you stopped, checked-in and did what your spirit was telling you? What is stopping you? Now that is something worth freeing.

Go with the flow.

I am having such a good time playing. I’ve learned a new concept through the women’s organization BraveHeart Women about fight and flight. In fact, it is fight, flight or freeze. What I have learned is that when I am under stress or pressure, I often resort to fight. In fact, most of my action toward goals has been in an adrenaline state of striving…fight. It is exhausting. When I sit and notice how I feel when I react this way, I see tension, resistance, forcing, criticism, comparison, and frustration. What I want is less FIGHT and more FLOW. I heard an analogy once that described life as a river. There is only one river and it is going downstream. So the issue in life is not picking where to go, that is already predetermined (downstream). It is about how you go. If I feel any stress, I am resisting the flow (facing upstream). To me, that is a picture of the difference between FIGHT and FLOW.

But I notice another factor. I sometimes want to eliminate goals and timelines so that I don’t operate in FIGHT but my intuition says that eliminating the goal doesn’t eliminate the fight, only reduces the likelihood of it being revealed. So what I want to learn is HOW do I operate in FLOW with ease, compassion, openness and faith while still being in line with goals, plans and timelines. I want to have a vision and declare my intentions while ending the tiresome pushing and forcing energy I normally use to get there.

It is an experiment. I want to walk in a receiving, intuitive, experiential flow toward my spirit’s calling. Sounds a bit strange but I am committed to living free and my spirit is calling me to release resistance. So my first step is to recognize resistance when it’s happening and then check-in with that deeper part of me for wisdom. Real time answers! I’m ready for an internal revolution.

I want to be free.

Freedom to me is inner liberation. To have my life fueled by the joy of my spirit and supported by the strategy of my mind. To be free of my fears of other, especially rejection. To be free of my fear of myself, that I am somehow not trustworthy to run my own life. To be free of my fear of lack, that I would recognize abundance and creation and an unlimited world.

 I’m trying something new. I have written about it before. I am trying to make decisions based on “what I want” as opposed to “how am I going to do it”. I am experimenting with the idea that the spirit sets the vision and the mind supports it, not the other way around. 

 

 

This is very strange for me. I usually depend on what I perceive as the safety and control of the “plan”. To make a decision based on a vision feels like breathing water.
But I want to stop THINKING about these philosophies and really live them. So this month, I have quit my job at the warehouse I have worked at for nearly 9 years. If you read my blog about More Than Surviving , you will know that this job has meant that I could maintain my financial dignity through the loss of my husband Andy. But I have outgrown it and am now going to go out on my own to do something new.

 I have learned that I cannot choose the RIGHT THING. I need to choose the opportunity that is in front of me and let it lead me where I need to be. It is a system of vision and trust, and not having a clue how it will unfold. Instead of trying to fit my vision into where I am now, I am open to expanding into it…to get bigger.

 So my next step of faith is to take the training and experience I have been gaining over the past year as a financial coach and step out and DO IT full time. It is time for my life to be filled with more. 

 Freedom!

                  Inner Liberation!

                                                  Expanding!

                                                                        More!

The answer is at the hair salon.

One minute I’m sitting in a stylist chair at 12^th Ave Hair Salon getting beautified by Sandy Goldsmith and the next I am holding THE ANSWER.  Don’t you just love the salon? Owner Paula Ebelher overheard my conversation about attracting greatness and developing a vision for my business and did what very few of people do, acted immediately. She got up from what she was doing, went upstairs and grabbed THE ANSWER. She placed it in my hands and I’ve been reading it ever since. The Answer is written by John Assaraf and Murray Smith (from the movie and book The Secret).  It applies the law of attraction to business in a very practical way. About halfway through the book, I realized that I didn’t just want to know The Answer, I wanted to apply it. So I set aside a Saturday to sit down, answer the questions the book proposed and then build a vision board as one method of integrating the concepts into my life.

What a cool experience. Instead of flipping through magazines and waiting for something to move me, I sat and checked in. I asked myself, with the prompting of questions from the book, WHAT DO YOU WANT? I realized how important it was to have a clear vision of my business and my life BEFORE I looked through the magazines. Have a vision and then find pictures and words that equal that or the marketing will dictate your vision…it’s a sobering thought.

I realized that I didn’t have to choose my dreams from a catalogue. I have the creation power of God in me. I don’t have to pick from what has already been done, although that is nice too, but I can have anything I can imagine…NO LIMITS.

So instead of a vision board, I built a vision scrapbook. Yup, one page wasn’t enough. I have a page for my spiritual life, a page on wealth and affirmations on receiving, 3 pages on elegance and beauty, 2 pages on my new business, a page on personal development, 3 pages on my future home and lifestyle, and 2 pages on romance and travel. Oh ya baby, there are no limits.

I am expanding to receive my visions as we speak.

 Thanks Paula, for helping me find the answer.

more than surviving

It is amazing how our past is filtered through our present. As I have changed, grown, and let go, my experience of my past shifts and transforms into something else completely.

 I am now able to look back with some compassion at the newly widowed woman I was in 2006 and see I was doing the best I could.

The best I could.

I had no life insurance. I didn’t own my house. I didn’t have enough money to meet my expenses on my own. I had no idea how hard it would be.

 Only a few days after Andy had passed, I found myself sitting across a brown laminate desk in the tiny office of my friend, Lorne Mann, getting legal advice. I had in hand a purchase agreement for the house I was living in but had not yet bought. I had 3 months to fulfill the financial requirements if I didn't want to lose it. In the other hand, I had a newly discovered bill for 10s of thousands of dollars of debt accumulated by my husband while working in northern Alberta. I was so scared. Scared that we wouldn’t be able to stay in our home. Scared that I couldn’t take care of my teenage kids. I walked out of that office down the street to arrange the funeral, which I had no money for either. Well that is not exactly true, I had the $2500 government grant, enough to cremate him…nothing more. I had no idea how I would pay the remaining $6000.

I remember sitting on my kitchen floor repeating, “I don’t want to do this. I don’t want to do this.” Finally I swallowed hard, gritted my teeth and stood up, stuffing all that pain, anger and fear. That was all I had time for. I had kids depending on me. And the following Monday, I went back to work. I devised a plan to increase my company’s profitability by 20% and then pitched it to our customer. Then proposed my wage increase to my head office. With that done, I could pay my bills without my husband’s income and stay in my home. People have said to me since that if they had to, they would just sell their house and move. What they can’t imagine is their daughter having a breakdown simply because the magnets were moved off the fridge…just move eh? There was no way, after all my kids had lost, I was going to tell them they had to give up their home too. It isn’t anything like we think it will be. I borrowed a few thousand dollars off a friend and was able to buy my house on time. I paid him back the following month. My friends, family and church cared for me but within a year I cracked. It was just too much, too hard and I wouldn’t admit it. So my body let me know…with anxiety attacks.

Eventually I worked through it but it was hard. I wanted to pretend that I was fine, that I could handle it. But the truth was it was too hard. I always had thought that if something happened to Andy, I would just take care of it. I would survive. Well I am telling you now that I was a fool. I didn’t know what I didn’t know. If I could, I would tell that naive, stubborn self, “you are worth more than just surviving…oh so much more.”

More hugging is the answer

Love is a drug...no actually. I’ve been introduced to science that is associating love and bonding with a stereotypically female hormone called Oxytocin. This research is tracking the links between the release of this hormone in both men and women with an acceleration of trust, nurturing and inclusion. This has prompted mainstream business to look at the role this hormone has on team building, collaboration and general happiness. It is the foundation behind Oxy Circles in the Braveheart Women organization. Cool eh?

Here is what Wiki says,
Recent studies have begun to investigate oxytocin's role in various behaviours, including orgasm, social recognition, pair bonding, anxiety, and maternal behaviours. For this reason, it is sometimes referred to as the "love hormone". The inability to secrete oxytocin and feel empathy is linked to sociopathy, psychopathy, narcissism and general manipulativeness.

 Listen to The Love Dr, Paul Zak on this TED talk and see what Oxytocin might do for you.