From pain to gratitude

Today, I felt the pain of rejection and it was hard. I know it's hard for everybody. But there are actually days that I forget that rejection and pain are hard. You know what I mean by hard--heavy heart, frowney face, teary eyes. Just plain hard. Sometimes I think that being committed to seeking integrity and service should be some kind of get-out-of-jail-free card for the feelings that pull me down.

And then I'm reminded...being self-aware, surrounded by support and committed to growth doesn't make pain go away. It just gives me more choices on how to respond to the pain.

Here are some choices I made in response to the pain I feel today:

1) Talked with some supportive, encouraging friends

2) Wrote about the ways certain choices I made helped contribute to things not working out the way I wanted and then read this writing to a friend. (This was painful but liberating. It soothed the little girl inside me and got me more focused on how to grow.)

3) Got some good work done. (Funny how when I attend to business I've been putting off, strains on the heart tend to soften.)

4) Made delicious, healthy meals

5) Took a really luxurious nap

Here are some things I chose NOT to do:

1) Hide from my feelings

2) Eat unhealthy food

3) Call unsupportive people

4) Argue with the person I felt rejected by

All in all, a beautiful day. Not because life was easy today. It was not. But because I chose to treat myself with love and make choices from grace and dignity.

Wow, I can honestly say I'm deeply grateful for today.

Choosing a Life that Loves You

You deserve to be loved. You deserve to to feel good, to breathe easy, to be inspired.

You deserve to take care of yourself. You deserve to feel connected to others. You deserve to be surrounded by love.

Most of us don't know this. But it's true.

What choices are you making today that surround you with love, validation and support?

How are you treating your body? Are you letting it rest? Are you giving it opportunities to loosen, stretch and strengthen? Are you bathing yourself with soap that feels good and smells yummy? Are you putting foods in your body that nourish and nurture it?

How are you treating your spirit? Are you surrounding yourself with loving, supportive people? Are you giving and getting hugs? Are you having fun? Are you showing up with honesty and integrity so that your spirit feels clean and your heart feels open?

I hear a lot of people talking about building a life they love. But what about building a life that loves you? There are plenty of people, places and things I love that don't exactly return the favor. How do I choose the situations that make me feel loved, nurtured, cared for?

I ask myself a simple question: am I comfortable or uncomfortable? If I'm uncomfortable, is it because I'm growing into new territory? Or is it because something just happened that makes me feel unsafe? Many of us are so busy getting through the day, the work, the boss, the traffic, the crowds, that we forget to ask: "How do I feel in relation to what's happening right now? Is this ok with me? Do I feel good in this moment? Or do I feel lousy?"

If I feel lousy, who can I talk to about my feelings? Who can I talk to about my choices?

When we talk to people and reach out for support, we often discover new choices we didn't know we had. Choices that bring us closer to love, closer to peace, closer to living from the knowledge that when we lead happy, purposeful lives. When we make these choices, we are far more capable of generosity, love and compassion than when we are frustrated, annoyed and resentful.

By choosing a life that loves you, you give yourself the ability to love openly, generously, soulfully. By choosing a life that loves you, you give yourself the capacity to attract people who love you, visions that inspire you, and wonderfully synergistic experiences, discoveries, and "coincidences." Some might even call them miracles.

By choosing to take a stand for your own worth and lovability, the old manifestations of worthlessness, rejection and loneliness simply won't have the oxygen to survive in your new world. Sometimes they'll slip away, sometimes they'll march off in a huff. But they will always be replaced by still more abundance and love.

So, what life do you choose today?

Explode or Explore?

Explode or Explore?

How do I respond when things don’t go my way? Do I get angry? Do I get super duper fake nice? Do I pretend it doesn’t bother me? Do I explode? Or do I go exploring? Odds are you’ve responded in all of these ways at one time or another.

I invite you to consider that when things don’t turn out the way you expect, there’s at least one lesson (usually many lessons) to be learned from how things did turn out. My intention was to create x. But the concrete outcome was y. What actions did I take between my intentions and my outcomes? How can I gauge the effectiveness of my actions? Those concrete outcomes are actually the strongest feedback available.

When I first understood this idea…I mean like really GOT IT, it made me dizzy. I was sitting in a workshop in Manhattan listening to a friend get chewed out for making a statement that sounded self-righteous to our workshop leaders. “But it wasn’t my intention to sound that way…” she had said tearfully. They replied: “Forget your intention. Look at your impact.”

I went home that night, opened my notebook and started scribbling:

“My intention was to get 15 new clients by September 15^th. My impact: Zero

My intention was to have a peaceful call with my mother. My impact: we had a fight.

My intention was to finish my book by August 31^st. My impact: 30 pages done.

My intention was create a relationship with this really nice guy I dated for a month or so. My impact: he broke it off.

I listed 15 more intentions and impacts that didn’t match. And I cried. I thought I was living my life pretty well. But the evidence pointed me elsewhere.

Now I had a choice: stew in self-pity and blame for others (for past and present actions) OR go exploring. What could I do differently? How could my attitude change? How could I become a woman whose results would be consistent with her intentions?

What’s not working in your life, your career, your vision? Where’s the opportunity to go exploring?