Why "Just Breathe" is not Enough

A little over a week ago, 9 people were killed by a man 21 years young, in the basement of their church. Outrage, anger, sorrow are some of the emotions people share feeling, and how to respond to their emotions and this tragedy, a struggle. I shared my initial thoughts in an article I posted on my website and one of the responses I received was “just breathe”. Now, I teach people I work with how to use their breathing for lowering anxiety and stress. So why did I find myself feeling irritated by this response to “just breathe”?

“Just breathe” seems a kind enough response to my feelings of outrage and pain, yes? Earlier in my life I would have thought so and ignored the feeling inside that more was needed. Yet my life experience's have delivered priceless wisdom about the need for both inspiring words and conscious action. Too many women fall into the trap of talking and talking about what they don’t like yet fear speaking up or taking action for making things better. Women who then end up feeling badly about themselves and feel helpless or hopeless in their life or a relationship.

As Elizabeth Cady Stanton offered “The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and not only hesitate to tell the truth within us but fail to act upon it, the divine floods of light and life flow no longer into our souls.” Women’s power emerges in large part through her willingness to give voice to the truths she feels within, to give voice to what is waiting for her to speak up for. Women’s power emerges when she owns the divine grace she is and engages her grace and soul for transforming the world.

The Reverend Clement Pinckney-one of the 9 people killed in Charleston last week-was both a minister and a State Senator. When asked why he chose to be both, he said he knew prayers alone would not help the people he served gain the jobs they needed for a better life. He said he needed to both serve his faith in God through his ministry and serve his underprivileged constituents through politics. “Both faith in the prayers he offered and taking action in the world he lived in were needed for making things better."

I leave you with but one suggestion instead of my usual list of a few. A suggestion for when you find yourself in pain or despairing about a relationship or the state your life is in. Give this one suggestion an opportunity for you to experience the guidance and wisdom within you. Close your eyes, focus your breath into your heart, and say to yourself ”Divine Being of compassion and grace I am, bless me with loving myself and my life today”. Feel these words as they resonate within you and receive what comes forth when you offer yourself these words. Then commit to trusting the power and presence of your grace as a woman for your life.

"Are You Choosing Better or Bitter When Life Bites?"

Many women struggle with an injustice, a wrong done them by someone they love or by life. They believed being a good person insured them of good in life, yet now they find themselves struggling in an important relationship or their health under seige. “It’s not fair” or “why me?” are thoughts which hound them and their faith in life and people is badly shaken, including their faith in themselves.

I have great empathy for their pain and frustration for I too have felt betrayed by both people and my body. The betrayals felt devastating at the time and I remember feeling so lost as my rules for life had failed me. Who and what was I to trust? Certainly not people, and it felt as though God was on vacation at the very time I needed his help! When your world falls apart, it can be scary and confusing how to make things better....I know.

Life is not fair, at least not the way your mind tells you it ought to be. A crisis in life challenges our belief in life as fair as well as that life plays by the rules we've made up for control in life. If we were like machines, performing tasks as our life, our desire for life to be predicable and as we want it to be would be, well, logical. Alas, we are not machines, rather an alchemy of the temporary physical and the eternal spiritual. 

Mystery rules life yet navigating life and creating happy and satisfying results does not need to be mysterious. People will disappoint you and life will challenge you, yet happiness in life comes not from what and who you control, but through your responses with people and in life. Aligning yourself with the adventure of your life, offers you the opportunity time and time again for the mystery of your life to delight and inspire you. 

When you find yourself in a painful place in life, you DO have the power to make things better.

1. Reach out for help even if you are afraid. Many a client has confessed to me how scared she was and how hard it was to email me for setting up their free Clarity Session with me. Their fear and lack of confidence in themselves fought with their deeper desire to enjoy more happiness in their life and relationships. Having the courage to change your life for the better does not mean you don’t have fear. Having the courage to reach out for help means your fears don’t win and you do.

2. Tend better to your emotions for becoming better, not bitter, in life. Let me give you an example. You’ve noticed your hubby seems unhappy and you are both irritated he’s unhappy and afraid to ask him why he’s so unhappy. What does he have to be unhappy about? No one seems to care if you’re happy or not! 

Notice the bitterness creeping in? Your emotions are competing for your attention with caring about your hubby. Learning to tend to your emotions as a way you love yourself as well as others, prevents becoming resentful of those you love. Being a martyr is highly over-rated and bitterness is so yesterday!

3. Understand the difference between the false power of control and the true power of your responses. It is easy to become bitter when life bites you when you believe you are powerless to make things better. Learning you have within you all you need for victory with life’s challenges, makes both your life and the people in it, much more fun! 

I trust life and I can teach you to trust yourself in life as well. Life wants you to be healthy and happy, and through engaging your holy, you can be. (Did you know that the words heal, holy, and whole all are from the same root word “whole”?) The grace in your life simply needs your grit to engage for creating a life you are in gratitude for. 

"Have you forgotten the most important Valentine?"

"Have you forgotten the most important Valentine of all?"

We are heading into Valentine’s Day and I remember with fondness, decorating many a shoebox with glitter and paper lace doilies for my classmates to put their Valentines into. Making the choice of whether to give Scooby Doo Valentines or Mickey and Minnie Mouse Valentines was a ritual I eagerly looked forward to every February. And I smile when I pull out the old Valentines I made for my parents during art. Oh, the days of love being simple and fun!

Celebrating love became a bit more complicated as I grew older. Parents lost their luster and pledges of true love turned into betrayal. I watch sadly as people once happy in love, angrily rewrite their history as never having been so. Was love just a fool’s game or is there more to why love seems to have gone from fun as a child to risky as an adult?

Love suffers from a myth which can lead people in relationships to being hurt and becoming bitter about their beloved. The myth? That if a person loves you, it's their job to make you happy.  So… if you are unhappy, the person you love is at fault. Recognize this myth? This myth has done so much damage in relationships that when I spot this myth operating in a client’s life, I call it out for what it is--a lie which hurts all involved.

The truth is that the job of being happy begins with you. Who knows better than you what makes you feel good, what tickles your funny bone, what makes you feel all is right with your world? Only when you learn to love yourself, to support and honor yourself, are you truly able to have a happy and loving relationship with another. Without loving yourself first, you are limited in the love you can receive as well as give another person.

So this Valentine’s Day, don’t forget your most important Valentine of all-YOU! Take some time for loving yourself just as you are. Like old movies? Then watch one this weekend instead of making excuses about why you can’t. Think a clean house is over-rated? Give yourself a day-hell a weekend!-of not telling yourself to tidy up and really enjoy a bit of mess. And shower some true loving on yourself, for loving others always begins with you.

"Why Being a Good Girl Won't Make You Happy"

"Why Being a Good Girl Won't Make You Happy"

I am truly blessed to work with women who courageously take up change for being happier in their life and relationships. They are tired of compensating for their unhappiness with food, or shopping, or by (always) complaining to their friends and family. These women have spent years being the good girls they were taught to be as children. But being a good girl hasn't brought them happiness and tired of being unhappy, they reach out for help for being happy again.  

Being a good girl can serve to make important adults happy when you’re a child. But being a good girl as an adult not only keeps your happiness at bay, it keeps the happiness of those you love at bay as well. The saying “If Mama ain’t happy, nobody be happy” is not a judgment about unhappy women, but a truth about the impact a happy (or unhappy) woman has in her relationships and life.

How happy/unhappy you truly are is felt by all you care for in life. Putting on a smile and pretending to be happy does not fool anyone but yourself. When I invite a woman to be silent less and share herself more with those important to her, fear of being rejected is often the reason she has not done so. Yet the price of not being authentic in her relationships has eroded her self-respect and trust of herself and others. The woman begins to realize how pledging allegiance to relationships or institutions which don't honor her, are relationships and institutions she can ill afford for being happy in her life. 

Here are a few questions to ask yourself:

• If you no longer believed you needed to be a good girl for being happy in life, what would you change in your life or relationships?
• What would you stand up to-that you now only complain about or feel helpless to make better-if you had support?
• Would you be more willing to make different choices if more happiness and self-respect would be your result?
• If you could be happier if you reached out for help, what stops you?

The questions above are not meant for you to answer by yourself. Only recently have we embraced a belief of strength as being solitary. I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty clear how that’s (not) working for us. Talk about these questions with those you trust and I'd love to hear from you!