What have I got to lose?

I've been asking myself this question alot lately.

When it comes to stepping out of my comfort zone and putting myself even further out into the world as a healer I find it's easier to step out as a small, insignificant Jenn.  Not at all the Jenn I am, and not at all the Jenn I wish to be in this world.

Last week I met a woman I'd only spoken to online.  She was so excited to finally meet me and I believe her exact words were "I can't believe I'm actually meeting you!"

Really?

But I'm just me.  What's so great about that?

I think we can all relate to this inner conundrum.  With the advancement of technology it's easier and easier for us to become who we want people to see us as, but it doesn't take away the fact that we are still human beings, struggling with our own shit and trying to feel confident about ourselves; completely and honestly confident.

I was flattered (of course who wouldn't be) by this woman's sentiment.  She was so sweet!

And it prompted some deep questionning for me.  Why do I not wake up everyday that excited to see myself?  If someone else thinks I'm worthy of that adoration then why don't I?  What have I got to lose by seeing myself as this spectacular, inspiring person instead of as the small, shy, insignificant girl?

The answer is......NOTHING!

None of us has anything to lose when it comes to stepping into the shoes that God sent us here to wear. 

You know those shoes that are sitting in the box on a shelf in the back of your closet collecting dust. 

Why don't we wear them?  Why don't we willingly put those shoes on everyday and wear them proudly?

When I search my heart for an answer to those questions I find that the truth is I'm scared of someone not liking my shoes.  That's ridiculous, right?  And if I dig even deeper I see that it's me that I'm scared of.  What if I LIKE who I am in those shoes?  What if I totally ROCK those shoes (btw, I see my shoes as those ruby red ones from the Wizard of Oz, totally blinged out and hard to ignore)!

What if, what if, what if.

If I continue this way I may just 'what if' myself to death!

Anyway, the point is I think in honour of a new year fast approaching, we dig out those shoes, dust them off, shine them up and put them on!  Wear who you are proudly because the world needs you to and more importantly because YOU need YOU to!

I can't wait to see what your shoes look like!

You are That!

I love love love having coffee chats with my friends.

I think of them as creative coffee chats because an idea always presents itself or a previous thought blossoms into reality in the blink of an eye.

There's something about these times that lights a fire under me and gets me moving in a great direction!

Today was no different, as I sipped my peppermint tea and listened to my friend speak about how pleasantly surprised she is to be surrounded by so many amazing people these days, it warmed me up (the words, not the tea).

In a world where we strive to become something bigger and better, we rarely stop and take a look at what we already have surrounding us.

This includes the wonderful people we call friends, acquaintances and colleagues.

Her sentiment resonated within me and I shared with her that the mere fact that she is surrounded by amazing, beautiful, talented and powerful people is because she is that!  She is amazing, beautiful, talented and powerful herself.  Why shouldn't she be surrounded by the same?

We often miss this big piece of the self love puzzle.

The easiest and quickest way for us to recognize our self worth is to look around us. 

Look around at all of the beauty in the people that call you friend.  You are that beauty.

Look around at all of the wisdom.  You are that wisdom.

Look around at all that love, happiness, creativity.  You are that!

So next time you are down and out, feeling alone or lonely, feeling unloved or unworthy, just look around at all of the people that love you and adore you and think you are the cat's ass!

Because you are that!

Do as I say, not as I do

Remember when your parents would say to you "do as I say, not as I do"?  Usually this piece of advice would pop up when your parents knew damn well they were doing something that went against everything they were trying to teach you, and they felt it necessary to cover their butts about it.

As children we knew this advice made no sense.

It was clear to us that actions spoke louder than their words because the moment we were out of our parents view we would pretend to smoke a cigarette made from a rolled up piece of paper, or we'd pretend to drink beer and get drunk (and later on maybe you stopped pretending and took on these habits for real?)

Lately, I've been noticing there seems to be an epidemic of "do as I say, not as I do".

I see too many people walking around with their "holier than thou" robes on, preaching to all who come into contact with them about how they 'should' live their lives, love one another, be kind, be compassionate, blah blah blah and then turn around and behave in a way that totally annihilates their message.

They may be fooling some people, but for those of us who have our eyes open, it's a disgusting display of hypocrasy.

I remember a few years ago, approaching a woman who was setting up a display at an event.  She was advertising her psychic skills.  I was interested in her services and what she was offering for the day and began to ask her if I could sign my name somewhere to receive a reading.  She turned to me with a scowl on her face and said "your not supposed to get a reading today, I already have all of my readings written out for the people who will be attending today".

I remember thinking "okay then" and walking back to the spot where my display was set up.  I watched this woman all day long and not one person showed up at her booth to receive her services (the ones she had already apparently written up for her potential clients).  I watched this healer/psychic sit all day long eating chocolate bars and drinking Diet Pepsi.  I watched this healer/psychic speak poorly about people who were coming and going, picking apart their choice of dress, etc.

The more I watched her, the more I couldn't for the life of me figure out how she could possibly have such amazing psychic skills when she did nothing that indicated that she loved herself enough to nurture her unique gifts. 

This encounter was at a time in my life when I was just beginning my Reiki practice, I was not confident in my intuitive abilities and had always admired people who were and who could help others through  challenges using their divine gifts.

If you are someone who wants to affect change in this world through the services that you offer, whether you are a lawyer, doctor, priest, civil servant, etc. you need to know that this 'do as I say, not as I do' attitude creates mistrust in the process and that does everything BUT attract people to your services.

I'm not saying you have to work towards sainthood for goodness sakes.  If you just asked yourself "am I the person I want to be in this world, am I the change I want to see?" every once in a while?  How could that change your life?

FYI:  I slip up ALL the time!  Just ask my hubby!  Like when I am driving my son around and I am fiddling with the radio and drinking a coffee, not paying attention to my driving....  This is one of those times where I catch myself being a poor role model and pulling the 'do as I say not as I do' stuff with him because he is learning how to drive and he is going to use the visual I am giving him as a guideline if I don't get my shit together.

Being authentic is a tough process.  You must work through your fears and blockages and beliefs about who you are in the world, tear them down and trust that your natural self is THE only way to be.

Of course we are all where we need to be right now.  We are all on our own perfect path.

I'm just wondering if maybe we can do a little bit better...


 

Just the way I am

Something interesting happened to me yesterday.  I fell in love with myself!

This may sound kind of funny.  To some people it may sound selfish or arrogant.  But it's true and it feels really good feeling this way.

It probably wouldn't be such a big deal to finally fall in love with ME if it wasn't for the fact that my entire life I haven't really been comfortable with who I am, sure sometimes there were glimmers of "like" thrown in, but nothing like this.  I have always struggled with feeling unworthy of others love and affection. 

There are times in my life when I feel absolutely "in my zone".  Reiki is that time for me.  Also, when I'm experiencing or learning something new.  It's during these times that I feel completely on task and on purpose. 

But there have been many other times when I feel lonely, isolated, unworthy, unloved and invisible to the world.  Am I destined to just muddle through life?  Or is there another reason why I am the way I am?



Why do I feel uncomfortable working in a mainstream job?  Why do I behave the way I do around certain people?  Why do I network the way I do?  Why do I procrastinate to the point that it debilitates my business?  Why do I always feel like I need to prove myself to everyone?  Why do I seem to always travel the bumpiest paths?  Why do I feel unworthy of financial abundance?  Why am I comfortable living the life of a hermit?  Why do I feel guilty when I indulge in something that makes me feel good?  Why is it when I stop going to the gym and taking care of my body my life seems to stop moving? Why is it that I can't be happy just settling with one thing in life, why do I constantly seek something to learn and experience?  The list of why's goes on and on.

These questions and more were all answered for me yesterday when I took part in a hand analysis session with Rosemary Heenan of Heart Power Coaching.

Our hands contain each and every aspect about ourselves.  They are like our own personal road maps.  Each detail intricately woven into our fingers and palms.  Some things I learned we have the power to change, certain lines on our hands can change if we make enough changes to our lives.  For instance I have what's called a grid on my left hand that indicates starts and stops with regards to business/career and that makes sense because of my procrastination issues, but I wasn't born with that grid, I created it myself and I can remove it from my hand print if I choose to do so.

As I had my hand & finger prints analyzed and explained to me I quickly realized that my entire life has been exactly the way it has had to be.  Each characteristic of myself is who I really am.  I have spent years apologizing to people for being me.  Not that they needed an apology but I always felt like I wasn't good enough, that my strengths were my weaknesses.  Now I see that my strengths are my gifts and that there is nothing weak about me!

I also see that the lessons that were mapped out on my hand have been lovingly played out for the 37 years of my life.  Each person and experience has been placed in my life to shine a light on my purpose and my lessons to be learned.

Fascinating doesn't begin to describe this process.

I felt a great burden lift off of me yesterday.  There are so many things that I have been denying myself out of guilt, fear and lack of money all these years.  These are the very things though that my soul needs in order to fully evolve and be healthy!  Take for instance the fact that I have decided not to attend the gym for the past 4 weeks now because of lack of money for gas.  Our financial situation hasn't changed, I just decided this was a good move to "save" us some money (I seem to always worry about money), since I didn't need to go to the gym anyway.  I can see clearly that my life changed when I made that decision, and with each thought of putting the membership on hold to save even more money things seemed to get worse.  What I found out through my hand analysis is that self love is right at the top of my list when it comes to what my soul needs in order to survive.  Going to the gym translates into love of self and therefore opens me up to receiving abundance from the Universe because I am loving myself.  I can feel that this is my soul's truth, the information resonated within me and filled me up with the wisdom that when I make this slight change and honor my bodies needs I will once again be on track.

I feel as though I've been given permission to love myself!  To accept who I am on every level and be that person that I've been denying all these years.  The freedom of this knowledge is life giving!

We all know what our purpose is, it can be seen in our every day tasks that we love, it can be heard in small whispers if we are listening and everything Rosemary told me I already knew and had already been addressing in my life but the confirmation of the whole story is what made this experience something I will never forget.

And there was something else about this experience.  Making a print of my hand and then looking at it in black and white was awe inspiring!  We don't see the details in our hands when we look with our eyes, but when you see it in black and white the image that is in front of you is a work of art!  Our hand prints are a true divine work of art!  And if our hand prints are a divine work of art and hold all the information about who we are.....then doesn't that make US a divine work of art also?