Super Woman Slowing Down

I’m proud to be featured today in fellow Retreat Coach Judith Geiger’s blog with an interview.

Our conversation revolves around a long time ally that I am now choosing to not be so controlled by; The Super Women persona! She’s been around awhile and has gotten me through some really rough times by being a powerful drill sergent that kept me going, but mostly she just tires me out now.

Super Woman might be pretty, and she is one hard driving soul! She expects everything to be perfect, requires no mistakes, allows no rest till it’s all done, leaves no time for healthy eating, has high expectations that are often unreasonable and unattainable, and is critical and demanding.

On the other hand, she doesn’t accept no for an answer, which often can be a positive thing as she gives support and encouragement to push through the fears. She believes anything is possible and that she has the strength and personal resources necessary to push forward. She says, “we can fly to the highest places, handle anything that comes along, and still look pretty in the end”.

I have to admit, she has been a good friend. However, there comes a time when the opportunity to choose a gentler path comes our way, and it’s looking pretty inviting to me!  Having developed the 17 Elements to achieve a Life System of Whole Health, I am acutely aware that there are other options now. These possibilities allow for life to weave it’s magic through the day, for me to honor my bodies needs as they come up, to give space for feelings and emotions, and to follow the murmurings of my heart versus some predetermined goal that may not make sense anymore.

While I am letting go of my own personal Super Woman, I am not completely saying goodbye. I know that there are elements of her that are useful and important to keep around. Knowing the difference between the positive and negative attributes of her allows for choosing empowering ways to have her work with me, rather than against me, and allows me to lead a much more sustainable life. I’m happy to have her back me up, and I am no longer willing to have her run the show!

Retreat Bliss

Hard to believe a whole week has already gone by since my last entry. Where does the time go? Sounds like it’s time for a home spa treatment to relax and unwind from the week.

Being a Retreat Coach it’s only natural that I strongly advocate the idea of retreating. Think beyond an expensive spa or long weekend retreat, although those are really great and certainly you are worth it as much as anyone! What I am thinking about is the concept of retreat as a way of life, as an attitude, a way of being. In other words, retreat can happen at anytime, in a variety of ways. All you have to do is recognize, and claim, that retreat is what you are doing.

A quiet moment in the garden. Closing your eyes at your desk for a few moments. A long hot bath. Time out in nature. Candle light. All these moments can be turned into a retreat that refreshes your mind, rejuvenates your spirit, and calms your heart.

I recently came across a great little book called “The Busy Women’s Home Spa Book” by Liz Wilde. Liz is also a Life Coach as well as a beauty, health and well-being writer. This book is fun, and easy to read. I got refreshed just looking through the pages at all the beautiful photographs that look so inviting!

She suggests that the rules are simple for what you could do every day that would make you feel-oh-so-good and what I would suggest is integrating the idea of retreat as a way of life. Your habits need to be: simple, give you energy and be things that you want to do! Easier said than done perhaps, and remember, you are in charge of your own life. Choosing to be relaxed, healthy and happy is up to you.

Here are some ideas for leading a retreat oriented life.

• Take time to find stillness and quiet every day, even if only for 5-15 minutes.
• Indulge in self massages
• Turn off your television
• Stretch and move your body
• Spend time in nature; reflecting, observing, just being
• Laugh often
• Get to bed early
• Eat healthy, organic foods
• Use candles and turn mundane events into special ones
• Take an “emotional health” day off from work
• Dance wildly in your living room to music you love

While all of these suggestions might look like every day activities, when you do them with the intention of retreat they become so much more.

As for me, I am going to get off this computer and go try Liz’s Easy Relaxing Face and Neck Massage recipe, before meeting friends for a silly game of miniature golf (laughing is essential!)

Relationship Sustainability-Myth or Attainable?

Yesterday morning I took a long walk. My getting-better-all-the-time-routine is to take a walk every morning. This time however, I walked with a bit of a heavy heart.  Relational dynamics with my partner were really troubling me, and my soul (never mind the Coach in me!) was aching to find some solutions .

I walked with the question of: What does designing sustainable relationships really mean, and is it even attainable? Quite honestly, this isn’t a game I feel I have played so well over the years, at least within the realms of intimate, primary partnership. My father once said that I go through boyfriends faster than he goes through trucks! (Of course I wasn’t sure how this applied as it seemed I was going through way more boyfriends than he was trucks! But I guessed he was trying to tell me something in his John Wayne style of fathering). While in the past my successes haven’t been so great, it is a game I continue to master and am learning to play in a whole new way!

Since I’ve read Marci Shimoff’s “Happy For No Reason” book, I have been making a practice of increasing my happiness set point. She talks about how you can choose to be happy, no matter what circumstances or situations are occurring in your life. While my heavy heart wanted to have a pity party, something else decided it was more important to somehow put this choice into action. I began to focus on all the beautiful things around me, and there were so many! The exquisite orange Ocotillo blossom against a lush green background of trees.  The delicate white thistle flowers. The grey silhouette of the Elm and Chiricahua Mountains in the distance. The sweep of wispy clouds against the dramatic blue sky. The call of the Cactus Wren. So many things to bring joy to my heart!

The more I walked, the better I felt. Suddenly,everything I needed to know came tumbling through with great clarity! What needed to be said, how to say it, and the awareness that it needed to all be said very, very quickly. There was no more waiting, no more pretending, no more allowing. A certain rush of emotion came up with it, and I tenderly allowed for it. As I continued to focus on all the beauty around me, a calmness spread through out me and I moved into a grounded place of knowing that was soothing and comforting.

My ultimate belief is that sustainable relationship is attainable. What this means to me is a relationship that gives and nurtures energy, rather than draining it. What I know is that I’ve just been doing it wrong all these years. I looked outside myself for the energy, rather than harvesting it within myself. In doing so it was hard to see the beauty that was all around me, available for my own personal harvest! When, on my walk, I focused on that which brings me joy, I found the answers to that which was bringing me sadness. I went home, we had a great talk and the dynamics are in a positive place. And that is happy making! Which creates more energy, which builds on the happiness, which expands the energy even more, which……well, you get it, right??

Perfection Is Not Sustainable

Today I am launching my blogsite: Bliss101-Encouraging the Design of Sustainable Relationships, Lives and Environments.

This is a big deal. I have been in this process for a couple months now, waiting for it all to be perfect before I let the world in to see. Each day or so I tweak it, change this or that, get frustrated by technology, or ignore it all together. The process has neither been satisfying or very energy producing. I have held onto the idea that that it needs to look a certain way, say all the right things, project the perfect image, appeal to the right market, and with each passing day I found myself with less juice for actually launching the whole thing.

How funny that a blog focusing on sustainability of relationships, lives and environments would be depleting my energy versus producing bundles of positive energy on many fronts! Something needed to change. But, I was stuck and uncertain. (Yup, even Life Coaches need a good swift kick in the butt once in awhile to get off the bench and back in their game.) Mine came in the form of an innocent conversation with a friend where I realized that striving for perfection was about the most unsustainable thing I could be doing.

In the natural world, there is little perfection. (Or, as I like to say there is so much wonderful perfection in all the imperfection.) Right now sitting at my desk, I look out my window on a half dead pine tree that stands just over the fence in our neighbors yard. It’s craggy, tipping over and has only a few green boughs on it. Most people would cut it down, sighting dangers and aesthetics as reasons. Personally, I think it is just perfect! It provides a wonderful resting place for birds, some character to the landscape, and a reminder that beauty and form and aliveness and life has no rules, really.

So, who am I to judge the perfection of anything in it’s current form? While my blogsite is not perfect in my eyes with regards to how it looks, or even what I think it says, there may be something here that is exactly the most perfect thing for someone who visits.

So, welcome all to Bliss101! I hope you will stick around and join me on the journey of designing sustainable relationships, lives and environments in our lives. Not perfect ones, just sustainable ones! My hope is that something here inspires you to live life on your own terms, to remove the blanket of shoulds holding you back, to get healthy and strong in all ways, and to find your special path to joy, fulfillment and Whole Health. Thanks for being here.

Also, big thanks to Kathleen Sullivan of the SavvyVA who got me going on this project ad helped out  lot!!

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