Loving Yourself First

by Blaze on February 12, 2012

Valentine’s Day is the day to celebrate love and loving the planet over. A day when many of us will feel the magnetic pull to go out and buy flowers, chocolates, cards, or gifts to express our love to others.

And the real question is…When do you show love to yourself?

(Has your inner lizard voice just reared its judgmental head and blurted out a disparaging diatribe that you’ll start loving yourself right after you taken care of everyone or everything else?)

In the western world, we are a society that excels at putting everyone else’s needs before our own. We fear that loving ourselves first makes us seem downright selfish.

How many times in your personal or professional life have you offered more love than you could actually give? Perhaps you stayed later at the office to finish a last-minute project, even though you had already planned to go to an exercise class. Or maybe you agreed to do something for your spouse, even though some part of you was kicking yourself for saying yes.

How can you commit to self-love?

One of my favorite experiences of practicing self-love is taking the time to do nothing. Yes…absolutely nothing for 15 to 30 minutes each day. Some of my nothing experiences this week have included listening to the roar of the waves in Monterey Bay, watching Purple Finches gorge on seeds from the feeder, and opening my heart chakra with gentle breathing. Doing nothing takes practice, we are so conditioned to Do, and not simply Be; so if you find your mental to-do list creeping in as you are ‘doin’ nothing,’ be gentle on yourself and lead yourself back to nothing.  The great news is you can practice doing nothing for 15 minutes again tomorrow too!

After each of my experiences of self-love this week, I’ve felt more connected to myself and to the world around me. And incredible sense of compassion, empathy, and understanding filled my body. I also took a moment to forgive myself for not loving myself first in the past, gee-that was huge!

Love fills me
with the urge to practice loving;
to sit quietly and feel my chest open,
while green heart strings play.
–Blaze

Now it’s your turn to practice…When will you begin to love yourself first?

Valentine’s Day can be a perfect day to get started!

(Photo by Jesse Solorio)

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Are You Ready to Bring It?

by Blaze on January 1, 2012

It’s the dawn of a bright and shiny New Year; do you know how you’ll end 2012?

Every year around this time, millions of Americans pause and reflect on the previous twelve months; taking an inventory of the good, the bad, and yes-even the ugly in their personal and professional lives and resolving that the next year will be different. We vow to do things like lose weight, eat healthier, exercise more, or reduce expenses and expand our client base. Or perhaps we resolve to spend more time with our family and friends and less time working.

We each begin the year with the best of intentions, and sadly by end of February most of us are back to our same old habits, our New Year’s resolutions long since forgotten.

Are you ready to beat the odds?
Are you ready to bring it?
Then grab and pen and paper and let’s get started.

Six Tips to Make Your Resolution a Reality

Resolution to Reality Tip #1 –Brainstorm Your End of Year Goals

Decide on all of the goals that you want to achieve by the end of 2012, be as specific and detailed as possible as you write each of them down on your page. Take some time with this step; don’t leave any goals that you want turn into reality for 2012 out at this point.

Resolution to Reality Tip #2 –Choose One Goal

We are a country of overachievers; therefore, we think if one goal is good, then two surely must be better. In this case, please choose your single most important goal, the one that you most desire to become a reality by the end of the year. Circle your one choice on your piece of paper.

Resolution to Reality Tip #3 –Embody Your Choice

Close your eyes and imagine yourself at the end of 2012; see yourself having achieved your desired goal. Look down and see your slimmer body or even you enjoying quality time with your family.

Next, ask yourself silently, how does this feel? Is it a feeling of happiness, warmth, joy, or something else? Keep your eyes closed and allow the positive feelings to come to you, whatever they are. Take three deep breaths as you really feel into your choice. Then, chose one word that best describes the feelings associated with your goal, write down word next to your goal. (Please don’t skip this tip; it’s important to identify your feeling word!)

Resolution to Reality Tip #4 –Streamline Your Goal and Create Milestones

Now it’s time to take out your paper or computerized calendar and start streamlining and planning your one goal. For example, if you want to lose 20 pounds by the end of the year, you could streamline your goal into just two pounds a month or even losing just one pound every 15 days.

Take some time to decide the best way to simplify or streamline your goal. Next, create milestones on your calendar to guide you throughout the year. Having goals written down where you look consistently is critical keeping your focus throughout the year.

Resolution to Reality Tip #5 –Add Your Word to Your Milestones

Next, take your embodiment word from Tip 3 and write into your calendar next to your milestones. This word will serve as a reminder to check-in with yourself, and get in touch with the feeling that you most want to have by the end of the year.

The great news is that you’re training your body to feel what it’s like to have your final goal at each milestone along the way. And by staying connected to your feelings, you’ll be encouraged to achieve the next milestone and then the one after that too!

Resolution to Reality Tip #6 –Take Action and Seek Support

Without consistent action your resolution is just a dream, so this is where you commit to take the necessary daily steps to achieve your goal. And don’t forget to ask for support from your family, friends, and even co-workers too; they can help cheer you on towards your milestones each month. Make your resolution to reality process fun; you might even consider asking others how you can support them in achieving their resolutions too.

Most of all, don’t forget to bring it!

And cheers to you in advance; if you follow these tips, you’ll be so proud on December 31, 2012 that you beat the odds and made your resolutions a reality.

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Discovering Your Miracle Powers

by Blaze on December 25, 2011

Three candles burning brightDuring the month of December, we celebrate so many historic miracles:

• The enlightenment of the Buddha in the Zen tradition,
• A Feast of lights and oil for Hanukkah,
• The celebration of the longest night for the Winter Solstice,
• The sacred birth of the baby Jesus for Christmas,
• A sharing of fruits in the spirit of Ramadan, and
• The festival of family, community, and culture for Kwanzaa

How do you celebrate miracles and joys the season?

I believe that there are actually miracles of love and light all around us, if we’re willing to notice and discover our own miracle powers.

Become a Believer

The first step in finding your miracle powers is to really believe; it sounds so simple right? The first step in achieving what you really want is truly to believe it’s possible! Whatever “it” is: more clients, bigger profits, better health, more fulfilling relationships, work/life balance or even experiencing miracles. All too often we forget to believe…and without belief, it simply can’t be possible.

There are two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.
–Albert Einstein

Right now, do you believe or are you a non-believer?

Ask for Miracles

The second step to find your miracle powers is to request them. How could you begin asking the universe and others for what you most want? As we ask for what we most desire, we experience greater clarity around what we want and need for our planet and ourselves; large or small, grand or simple…miracles come in all shapes and sizes.

What miracle do you most desire in this moment?

Be Open to Receiving

The third step is being open to receive the gift of a miracle. Being open is not about being grabby or begging; rather it’s about allowing the mystery of the miracle to appear. It’s about honoring the perfect timing and space of the miracle; it’s about believing in grace.

How can you best be open to receiving today?

Express Thanks

The final step is saying thank you when the miracles occur. As you start saying thank you, more miracles begin appearing in your path; it’s because you become an open a channel to believe, see, and receive them by expressing your gratitude.

How do you say thank you?

Putting it All Together

As you can see, discovering your miracle powers is a simple math equation, one that allows us all to B.A.R.E. ourselves to the power of miracles happening in our everyday lives. I hope you’ll begin to experiment with baring yourself and experiencing the power of miracles today and every day.

Believe + Ask + Receive + Express = MIRACLES

 

May the gifts of the season, in every tradition, be yours!
Please feel free to share your miracle stories below.

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Making Holiday Peanut Butter Cookies and Friends

by Blaze on December 18, 2011

Breathe deeply, deeper. Can you smell the rich and flavorful aroma of cookies baking in the oven? My house is currently luxuriating in the wafting scent of rich and delicious peanut butter. I won’t try to fool you with the quick and easy store brand label; it’s actually the tantalizing scent of fresh, homemade peanut butter cookies.

The process of making cookies begins in a dimly lit rear corner of my favorite grocery store, where a clever machine rests. By simply placing a biodegradable container under its spout and clicking the industrial strength toggle switch the magic begins. Before one’s very eyes and amidst a loud whirl, shelled peanuts are crushed and ground to a smooth mash of sweetness. Pure and honest flavor emerges with no added oils, sugars, or preservatives. Just seal the lid, pay for the treasure, and return home to begin your own baking adventure.

To the fresh ground peanut butter, add sugar, an egg, and vanilla; roll into balls, crush with a fork, and bake for 10 minutes in a 350-degree oven. (If you want to make your cookie extra holiday festive, add a piece of chocolate to the center of the cookie after they cool.) Four simple ingredients make this simple recipe delicious thanks to Claire Robinson and the Food Network. And while we’re thanking people, let’s not forget to mention George Washington Carver who actually promoted peanuts as an alternative to growing cotton in the early 1900’s. (Cotton cookies just don’t sound as appetizing!)

Unbelievably, that’s it, just a few steps and you can make flavor packed peanut butter cookies of your own.

So, where does the making friends part of this blog post fit in? I believe that making friends is as simple as making cookies-start with the ingredients of people, add in love, and combine.

If you love it enough, anything will talk with you.
–George Washington Carver 

I believe the magic recipe of making friends is all about loving, talking, and sharing with people. When was the last time you really made the effort to look into someone’s eyes and love them, talk to them with honor and respect, and share your BRILLIANT self with them? So many times we’re rushing from this moment to the next, and we don’t slow down enough to lovingly connect with others. Tomorrow, consider making a commitment to yourself and your colleagues, to share your love with others. Next, try keeping your commitment for a whole week, by then your co-workers will be beginning to see you in a totally different light. Share how much you value your new friendship and notice the shift between you both.

Making new friends can be really is this simple: love, talk and share…and perhaps offer some yummy Peanut Butter cookies from time to time; that helps too!

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Is The Holiday Season Turning You into a Scrooge?

by Blaze on December 11, 2011

You wake up and can feel the tension and your stomach is in knots. You’re already fanaticizing about January 15, when the holidays are firmly behind you and you can move back into “real” life. And some part of you knows you’re already feeding your inner Scrooge excessive amounts of cookies, attempting to medicate both of you into a sugar coma. You just want it all to end, there has to be an easier way.

merry jingle bell with ribbon

How do you make the holiday season easier on yourself and those around you?

1. Keep it easy

Easy is just that, easy. Think of every easy way you can do a task, even if that means reducing expectations, delegating, and simplifying. Create a cookie icing assembly line or ask your partner to sign some of the holiday cards, or go one step further and have your names pre-printed on cards instead. What can you make easier in your holiday routine?

Easy is right.
Begin right and you are easy.
Continue easy and you are right.
–Chuang Tzu

2. Challenge your shoulds

Along with our holiday shopping lists, many of us make equally long lists of things we should do, like decorating the house, planning parties, and so much more. Many times we turn holiday traditions into shoulds and we forget that we are always at choice. Rather than letting the shoulds get the best of you, consider crossing five of them off the list straightaway, then you can make room for new ideas to come in if you want to incorporate them as well. This is one way I define being brilliant, crossing off the shoulds and living true to yourself instead! Yes, this may feel edgy at first, but isn’t your personal sanity worth it?

3. Manage your energy

As a twenty plus year veteran of the retail industry, I know the pressures of the holiday season first hand, and I too was lulled into a jingle bell fog. Some of the best advice I ever received was to manage my energy; translation, time is a finite resource, but energy is refillable. How do you refuel mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually? Knowing your unique ways to recharge ahead of time will help you make it until the middle of January and still be smiling.

Bottom line, make the holiday season easier so that you can concentrate on what really matters to you, the people in your life, including yourself! And don’t forget to consider putting your feet up and enjoying a cookie as you watch A Christmas Carol, after all–you’ve easily earned it and Scrooge looks so much better on the small screen than embodying you in real life!

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Finding Gratitude One Day at a Time

by Blaze on November 20, 2011

We are embarking on a time of year when many people quote Charles Dickens, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times,” otherwise known as the Holiday Season.

The 39 days from Thanksgiving until New Year’s Day is a time when American’s eat, decorate, go to parties, shop, wrap, eat, party again, open gifts, take it all down, return things, recycle, and then eat some more.  Sounds hectic right? And it feels even more difficult some years too.

I’ve decided to shift my energy this year even before the season officially starts and set my intention to find gratitude one day at a time. (Truth be told, I gave this program a trial run in October and had amazing results.)

How to Begin Finding Gratitude:

  1. When you wake up and before you put your feet on the floor, allow one positiveGive Thanks Pumpkin and uplifting word or virtue to enter into your consciousness. Some examples include: connection, love, joy, or happiness.
  1. Allow this word to become your word for the day. Feel free to jot it down in your calendar, put on a sticky note, or write on your white board.
  1. Embrace this word for the entire day; make it your goal to embody this word in as many ways as possible. Don’t forget to take the time to think, play, and have fun with your embodiment of the word! If you’ve chosen happiness for example, one idea would be to consider smiling at as many people you can during the day.
  1. You can keep it the word as your personal secret or you can share your word with others too, whatever you chose. You can make it a game and even ask others guess your word for the day.
  1. Then just keep the process going from Thanksgiving Day to New Year’s Day and feel free to share your words in the comment area below too.

I bet you’re wondering about those amazing results I mentioned, I’ll share. One of my words was connection; I held the intention of connecting with people who I haven’t spoken with in months, after all life gets busy for all of us. I made phone calls and wrote to anyone that just popped into my consciousness on that day. What followed was a mini-reunion that flowed into the next week; I received return emails, talked with people over the phone, and even meet old friends for lunch. I felt so energized by reconnecting with people and they were grateful that I thought of them and we had a chance to catch-up.

Are you ready to find your idea of gratitude one day a time? Just get started on Thanksgiving morning and be ready to experience your own amazing results and cheers to 39 days of good times!

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Getting Unstuck Now

by Blaze on November 13, 2011

Are you feeling stuck; like your hand is super glued to your phone and you can’t hang up?

Or is it like you keep finding yourself on Facebook and you don’t know why stuck?

Or is it like you have three more meetings to attend this afternoon and you’re not ready for any of them stuck?

Sometimes we find ourselves in situations that make us feel like we’re trapped with Ned Ryerson in the movie Groundhog Day, constantly repeating yesterday, today.

Bang Your Head Here Sticky NoteI have a sure-fire and easy way to help you get you unstuck, first simply breathe. A good old-fashioned deep in-breath through your nose and out through your mouth. S-l-o-w-l-y, no hyperventilating allowed here. Then repeat at least twice more. Maybe you’ll even decide to repeat this process several times. Feel the cold air entering through your nostrils and the warm air being expelled from your lungs through your mouth. Heavy breathing sounds are good right now. Continue breathing like this until you feel the shift. You know the shift feeling, right? That’s when that dense and full stuck sensation changes to feeling lighter, softer, and more relaxed.

Are you sensing those tranquil feelings washing over you just like waves lapping at the seashore? Ah.Then it’s time for the next step, stand-up and move. Yes, I said actually get up and move. Move any direction, left or right, back-wards or forwards, and if you’re an over-achiever you can even jump up and down. Just move.

Then it’s time to imagine yourself moving towards something you enjoy; a thing, person, or a place that brings you pleasure, desire, and joy. Maybe you want to take a physical step towards something you’re just picturing in your mind’s eye. Or you can just envision moving towards it. Either way, you’re moving.

(And you’re already unstuck.)

Now you’re free to be at choice and actually choose what’s next.

I told you it was easy.

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Everyday Lessons

by Blaze on November 6, 2011

Monarch Butterfly in a Human Hand

Everyday Lessons


When the dress fits, wear it.

When the dog barks, feed it.

When the life fits, become it.

When the butterfly returns home, love it.


Everyday lessons of life,

stimulus and response,

right and easy,

two steps onward in shoes

that align you with your truth.


Keep walking forward,

toward the light,

into the beacon of life that calls you,

connects you, and

welcomes you home.

–Blaze

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What Are You Buying?

by Blaze on October 27, 2011

Girl with Shopping Bags

Every day we make hundreds, maybe even thousands of buying decisions; and the question becomes, what are you buying? Ok, I hear you; you’re saying, “Blaze, I didn’t spend a dime today, so clearly you’re not talking to me.” Actually, I beg to differ.

Every single decision we make in life is a choice point. Is it option A, option B, or even option C?  And behind every choice there is a why.

As an over twenty-year veteran of the retail industry, I have been involved in the process of buying and selling items for almost half of my life. I have sold everything from magazines to inflatable swimming pools at the local drug store, to clothing, lingerie, jewelry, furniture, electronics and all kinds of things in between.

Thank God we’re living in a country where the sky’s the limit, the stores are open late and you can shop in bed thanks to television. –Joan Rivers

I have collected so many joyful stories over the years of helping customers find an important item for them, or even someone else. These items, material possessions in reality, were purchased to express emotions of desire, appreciation, and love to others.

And then the sad stories, where no amount of “stuff” would fill the gaping hole growing deep inside of some people. I’d look into their eyes and see sadness, fear, and maybe even despair as they pushed their purchase over the counter. And at the same time, I saw a dim glimmer of hope, a long-held belief that this precious thing that they were buying would fill that void, warm their heart, and break them open into the person that they most wanted to become.

I remember feeling this sense of longing so vividly as a child when I wanted a Heather doll, Holly Hobbies’ best friend. My younger sister had received a Holly Hobbie doll as a gift and I decided even though I was a bit older, that I wanted Heather. I ached for this doll; and each day that I watched my sister play with Holly in 1974 was pure torture. My parents did not understand my desire, my Mother even remarked at one point that she thought I was just too old for dolls and I’d never really shown an interest in any dolls the past. Finally, after a time, I just gave up hoping, wishing, and wanting for Heather.

Then one day, the following Christmas, Heather appeared unwrapped under the tree. No boxes, no tags, and no bows were necessary to announce she was mine. Me, the too old girl had gotten her wish; I held Heather and sobbed, tears staining her printed brown eyes.

Then in a flash of a heartbeat as I gazed into her eyes, my ten-year-old self realized Heather was just a stuffed rag doll, a child’s toy. More tears fell from my eyes and my heart-felt empty again; I sobbed even louder rocking Heather, or was it she rocking me at that point?

Today there are many people just like the ten-year old me wandering around a new car showroom, cruising the mall, looking at houses, opening the refrigerator, watching infomercials, and even surfing the internet looking for their Heather too.

Are you one of them?  Are you looking for something outside of yourself to complete you, to warm you heart, or to make your soul sing?

And if you are, I encourage you to get curious about what you really want at the core of your being. Close your eyes, take some time, and imagine yourself already having that thing, that one special and unique thing that you want so much.  Imagine holding it in your arms.

What single noun comes into your mind?  (Hint:  This is likely what you REALLY want!)

My word from way back when was comfort. And what I know now is that I didn’t really need a doll; rather what I was seeking was someone to give me a hug, to offer me a shoulder to cry on, and to rock me when I got scared.

 

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I’m Starting Over

by Blaze on October 16, 2011

Beautiful Baby Girl

I’m Starting Over…

 

going back to the very beginning,

suckling the tender milk of Mother Earth,

rubbing my belly like its my newest friend,

dropping things I don’t like

and holding on a bit longer to things I do,

enjoying “whirled peas,”

making faces at others to make them smile,

sleep when I want to,

allowing others to help,

know that what goes in, will come out,

by finding my words,

knowing that God will provide,

understanding that hats keep my whole body warm,

and a tight blanket wrapped around me keeps me feeling safe,

all of my needs will be taken care of,

I’ve already survived my riskiest challenge ever…I was born.

I’ve started over.

–Blaze

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