The Lake of Your Heart 💙
What would it be like for you to plunge (or even dip a toe) into the lake of your heart? Come join me in this Making Room For YOU experiment… To turn inward this Valentine’s Day (or any other day!) and swim around in the welcoming waters of the lake of your heart.
Savouring the Rest of Our Summer
Let’s Seize the rest of our summer by savouring some of our favourite summer moments or actiivities! What do you want to savour?
Hope You Enjoyed Mother’s Day
I hope you enjoyed some moments of goodness, even joy, yesterday, however and with whomever you celebrated.
I savoured some time outside in the backyard reading our book club choice this month, Bittersweet: How Sorrow and Longing Make Us Whole by Susan Cain. A highlight for me was taking in the beauty of our young magnolia tree, which is covered in blooms for the first time ever.
Permission to Be Kind to Ourselves
In the last few years, I’ve become increasingly fierce about promoting and validating qualities that have been labelled “feminine”, such as kindness and compassion, and therefore seen as weak or at best, secondary to, “masculine” qualities like rationality and logic. It's time for us all, as human beings, to own the power of these "feminine" qualities within us and each other, and using them for more good, for ourselves and for the world.
Celebrate? Right Now? Pardon?
I’ve had the concept of “celebrating” swirling around in my head for the last few weeks. It was an intuitive decision and since I made it, I’ve been trying catch up with my intuition about it. ("She" tends to be a bit more audacious than the regular "me". :-)) I’ve been asking myself, why was it so important to celebrate, in this very difficult year, of all years?
Growing: Courageous, Powerful and Connected
I have been spending the quiet time that I have in this very full “nest” of ours ;) reflecting on how to get really creative in the midst of these unusual times. The theme of growing has been front and centre for me, even more than usual. My intention is to help us all feel even more grounded and connected to ourselves and each other so that we can be courageous and can grow into this challenge, finding the opportunities in it.
It’s Time for Us to Be Smarter with These Big Feelings
These times are providing an opportunity for us to grow and become more emotionally intelligent. Emotional intelligence is about being smarter with our feelings, bringing our cognition and our feelings together. (Definition from SixSeconds.org) Our feelings are important data to take in; we ignore them at our peril.
Did You Know Personal Courage Cannot Exist Without Fear?
The Latin root of "courage" is cor, which mean "heart". So, at the centre of personal courage is the heart. To be personally courageous means, by definition, that we are fearful but act anyway from our heart. This type of courage does not exist without fear. This is how I experience personal courage.
Savouring - A Very Pleasant and Effective Tool for Success!
Savouring is a positive psychology "happiness intervention", meaning that finding ways to savour the joys in life has been shown to lead to increased happiness and well-being. And studies have also shown that increased happiness and well-being lead to more success in life - and not the other way around as many of us assume.
Seize the Summer!
Seizing the Summer may not be about the hammock for you. And Seizing the Summer is not necessarily about planning a big exciting trip, or some other splashy event, either, though those can be very fun. Seizing the Summer is about what would be really meaningful for you.
A Broader View of Mother's Day
I’m celebrating the beautiful, loving, nurturing energy that we all have inside of us - whether we have children we are responsible for in our nuclear family or not.
Waves That Can Overwhelm Us and Knock Us Down
That wave slap experience has stayed with me over the years in a visceral way. Lately, I have been noticing that my experience feels akin to what can happen to us when life comes at us in a wave - of emotions or thoughts or circumstances - and hits us unexpectedly. It's that same terrible feeling of overwhelm and of powerlessness.
Unexpected Gratitude
The other day I was working at a café here in Toronto, with a view through the window into the climbing gym where my youngest was in an after-school program. This has been our weekly routine for some months now and it is working beautifully. As I sat there, feeling stressed by what was on my plate, I felt a huge wave of gratitude come over me.
I Do, and I Don’t, Want to Transform
If you are anything like me, you probably have mixed feelings about the idea of transforming certain aspects of yourself or your life. When I would hear Claire Zammit, the founder of Feminine Power, talk about how we were going to transform in the first course I took with her, I would feel a good dose of fear along with any excitement. I feared that transformation would mean that everything I had built - my marriage, my family, my friends, my work - would be on the table for transformation.
Fun is Not a Luxury
In my conversations with other women over the years, I have heard over and over about their yearning for Fun. But they often hold themselves back from creating fun in their lives - they see it as a luxury. I too am guilty of this. But Fun is not a luxury. It is not selfish. It is an essential ingredient in our lives. And we need to Make Room For It.
Are You Choosing to be a Victim or a Creator in Your Life?
Are you choosing to be a victim or a creator in your life? This is a moment to moment, day to day choice. One of the most influential things I have learned in the last few years is the sense that life is happening through me, not to me… and through you too… through us all. I knew this at one level before – I knew that I had many choices as to how I could behave and that those choices impacted my life and the lives of those around me.
Connect With Yourself First
Happy Valentine’s Day! I know this day can bring up a lot of emotions, positive and negative, whether you are single or in a relationship. I also know that the most effective way to be able to relate well with others - our loved ones and otherwise - is to connect to ourselves first. What do I mean by this exactly? I mean being able to turn toward yourself at least once a day and have the kind of conversation that you would have with someone you love - like a dear friend, your partner, or a child in your life.
What Are You Proud Of?
What are you proud of? Tap into your pride and have more energy to contribute in a socially valuable way! Over and over again, women tell me that they want to feel proud of their life and work. And yet, so many women are hesitant to share what they are proud of for fear of looking like they are bragging or showing hubris (excessive pride).
A Grounded Loving Tornado
I have been playing around with naming a very powerful source of energy that I have been able to tap into at times in the last couple of years. I am calling it being a “grounded loving tornado”. My sense is that this energy is a type of human spirit energy – connecting to something larger than ourselves and also acting in alignment with our deepest values.
Why I Love Our Street Party
We heard about the party because neighbours were selling tickets to a raffle to be held at the party. We were curious, so on the day of, walked up and checked it out. We loved the community feel to it.
- authenticity
- brain
- change
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- feminine power
- giving
- gratitude
- growth mindset
- happiness
- humility
- international womens day
- intuition
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- perfectionism
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- pride
- receiving
- reflection
- replenish
- resistance
- savouring
- self-compassion
- self-doubt
- selfishness
- silence
- social change
- success
- vulnerability
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- yearning