Tag Archives: female empowerment

Words of Wisdom For Instant Happiness

Today, I received an email from a friend and colleague who I admire, Natalie Ledwell, quoting one of the women I admire most, Marianne Williamson. The quotes are pointers to how I choose to live. I think you will enjoy them so I have reprinted Natalie’s email below.

If you don’t know about Natalie’s work with Mind Movies, you will want to look into them. Mind Movies allow you to program your mind to the things you want, overriding all the programming you take in unintentionally–and you actually get to create your personalized version!

One of the reasons I love Natalie’s work is that she and I both are passionate to help people learn how to succeed, without the struggle and heartache most people stay stuck in. Both Natalie and I have been in the trenches and are teaching what worked for us, not some theory about what we heard works, but real life-tested ideas.

My success in various businesses would be fleeting and meaningless if it were not for teachers along the way that helped me create fulfillment not just bank balances, and purpose not report cards and titles. Marianne Williamson was one of those teachers.  I first stumbled on to her work over 20 years ago and have been enjoying her wisdom and turning to her guidance ever  since.

In Natalie’s words:

If you haven’t come into contact with this woman’s extraordinary work, you’re really missing out!

I’m talking about Marianne Williamson who, besides being a NY Times best-selling author and lecturer, has been a spiritual friend and counselor to Oprah! YES – Oprah!

If you’d like to be enlightened by her wisdom, read below for seven of her best lessons for instant happiness:

1- Forgiveness is not always easy. At times, it feels more painful than the wound we suffered, to forgive the one that inflicted it. And yet, there is no peace without forgiveness.

2- Miracles occur naturally as expressions of love. The real miracle is the love that inspires them. In this sense everything that comes from love is a miracle.

3- We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be?

4- Love is what we were born with. Fear is what we learned here.

5- The new midlife is where you realize that even your failures make you more beautiful and are turned spiritually into success if you became a better person because of them. You became a more humble person. You became a more merciful and compassionate person.

6- The key to abundance is meeting limited circumstances with unlimited thoughts.

7- Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.

Enjoy!
Natalie ~ Mind Movies

How many hats do you wear in your life?

In a world where you hustle from one commitment to the next, keeping all your plates spinning can be a constant challenge.  Usually we look at this from the view of a work and life balance as if they are two separate and distinct compartments.

The tasks competing for your time can be overwhelming, especially if you make endless to-do lists.  But maybe there is an easier way to look at your life and make juggling your many plates a little easier.  Forget viewing everything as equally demanding of your time or a long list you must endlessly prioritize.

Instead, look at the demands on your time from the view of the many different hats you wear. Start to catagorize demands on your time into these different roles rather than separate responsibilities.

What are all the hats you wear and roles you play in an average week or month?

You have the major hats you wear. These might be roles like:

  • Boss
  • Wife
  • Mother
  • Employee

But you probably also put on a number of other hats each day, week or month that you should add to the list.

  • Volunteer
  • Dog walker
  • Counselor for friends
  • Health consultant for family
  • Family maid service
  • Yard maintenance
  • You might even wear different hats with different people; list them.

Make your list as complete as you can, including all the hats you wear–whether chosen or out of duty.  Start to notice how much time each week you invest wearing these different hats. You may find that although one of them is extremely important to you, you don’t put that hat on nearly as often as another you really don’t enjoy wearing.

Then turn to your heart and ask which of these roles are your heart’s priorities. Pick your top three to five hats that you wish to wear, no matter what!

If your time investment is not aligned with the top five roles you desire to play, then it is time for a reset!

From this vantage point of roles you can start to assess if there are hats you wear that someone else could just as easily put on, freeing your time to wear the hats that matter.  It also allows you to lump many seemingly insignificant tasks that take up a lot of time into roles that matter and roles that do not.

Often I have been perplexed when a well-meaning friend has offered to help me by doing something that on the surface seems like it took a great load off my list; however, I resisted.  I now realize when I look at my responsibilities from this new angle that they were taking something that made sense from shortening my list, but was one of the hats I love.

By assessing your competing responsibilities by which hat your wear to do it you will find yourself free to make easier choices that lighten your load AND enliven your life.  When you put hats on that make you smile and inspire you more often then you have more energy for the rest of your work-life.

Balance can be restored by negotiating with others to pitch in on the hats you don’t enjoy, hiring help, or just putting those hats on much less often.  Your confidence will also be boosted as you tend to the things that matter; because we all know when things that matter are well everything else is so much easier.

The final take away is sometimes in order to juggle this work-life balance issue we try to do multiple things at one time. My advice is to drop that tactic, focus on what matters, who matters, and what really counts.

You always look better wearing one hat at a time.

 

importance of the feminine voice

When the feminine finds her voice

Our world will be healed, our lifestyles will be sustainable, our communities will thrive and our relationships will be enlivening only when the feminine is valued, nurtured and has a voice.

Although this blog speaks to women, eventually strong women lead to men and women valuing the feminine in each of us.

And this is where balance can be found. Since the 1960’s women have developed and honored our own masculine traits. It was a difficult and bold change from our fore-mothers. Although we still have a long way to go, women now have more power and influence in our world than ever before in recorded history.

Yet, we journeyed here at a severe cost to our internal feminine compass. 

It is incumbent upon women in this new era to raise our feminine while continuing to honor and develop our own masculine.

It is essential we find our voice in ways that encourage the masculine in our men, rather than demean them. Balancing our own masculine and feminine natures – and requiring the men we choose relationships with to do the same – will create new co-empowered relationships in our homes, communities, work places and government. 

In her book “Mutant Down Under”, Marlo Morgan asked the aboriginal wise woman/grandmother which was more important in their culture – men’s work or women’s work? 

It took multiple translations back and forth before the grandmother replied, “I understand her words, but her question does not make sense.  Both men and women’s work is essential for the survival of the tribe.” 

Look at our school systems, our health care system, our economy, the environment and our government.  The survival of our tribe is at stake!

We must start with our inner world. And it will come as no surprise that a constant reminder to find your inner roadmap (its joys, its detours and potholes) becomes loudest when raising a child. For women having our daughters enter adolescence can truly be a wake up call to our own unprocessed issues about being a woman. Of course, there are many other paths that call for us to wake up as well — the death of a loved one, divorce, illness, and most other significant changes in our “plan” can do it.

The survival of our human tribe depends on women learning to influence the fabric of our culture from our deep inner feminine wisdom. We must walk away from the trance of our culture and remember our place in the circle of life. We must remember our worth, so we speak our truth and inspire ourselves and our men to bold acts of integrity and soul-filled businesses, governments, and economies.

It is within our grasp.

Embrace Your Inner Warrior

One of my great joys is to support other women and share with you their successes, passions and work.

Below is an excerpt from an upcoming book by my friend, Mickra Hamilton. I was so moved by her writing that I am sharing it with you here. It may introduce to you a side of yourself you have forgotten.

“The Return Of The Sacred Feminine”

I sit at this moment drowning in emotion. Consumed by a grief that is so deep and ancient I hardly know what to do with it. I feel both sad to the core and sick in the stomach at a realization that is coming to the forefront of my awareness. This realization has been boiling gently under the surface for a very long time. Certainly all of this lifetime and I suspect many of those that I have experienced in alternate strands of time.

I knew from the time I was a young girl that I was a warrior, that I exhibited strength beyond that which was portrayed by the superheroes in the movies. I knew myself to be a powerful and competent creature that was unlimited and unstoppable. Unfortunately while the younger me knew that to be true everyone else had forgotten. The knowledge of the sacred feminine warrior had been lost.

Oppressed, perhaps purposely to keep us from remembering that we are all one.

Somewhere along the timeline of history stories were created to separate women from their strength, to remove the vast power to lead and to heal that was innate to their very existence. Cultural expectations and stereotypes were developed that became so deeply ingrained that they would not likely be overcome for many generations, if that was even possible.

The programs of powerlessness, self-doubt, shame, guilt and fear embedded so deeply in the collective feminine psyche that all but a very few were unable to see through the illusion and rise to reclaim their power. Those who did were branded as heretics, fallen women or just plain crazy. They were judged at every turn as they stood alone but they didn’t care because they had seen through the programs to know the truth.

The truth was that they were strong and incredibly competent, that they were amazing leaders and powerful agents for change.

They remembered that they were the nurturers and the creative beauty in the world. They realized that they possessed a strength that could not be taken away, an internal compass that vectored them on a path that would change and eventually heal the world.

They put their heads into the wind with discipline and a determination that produced oneness of focus; following a single pointed vision. This decision to live their truth and create a shift in the lives of all women in humanity was one that did not come without cost. More often than not they felt alone, abandoned by their family and peers, criticized by even those who appeared to be supporters and yet they never gave up. They worked tirelessly toward the goal of creating long lasting change. The goal of one day living in a world that honored the sacred feminine for the beauty and unconditional love that it brings to humanity.

We honor these powerful women who did not back down, who did not give in and did not give up. We are on the verge of a massive revolution, a shift so great that it will turn the world as we know it, upside down. We are moving into an evolutionary turning point so vast that we are unable to even fully comprehend it in this moment.

We will quickly move into a new era, one that is filled with hope and equality, a time that has often been dreamed of and written about. What approaches swiftly is a beauty so great that it is difficult to look upon, a love so deep that it is endless, a power of such magnitude that it will shatter the programs that run so deeply in the human collective psyche. The war drums have sounded, the sacred feminine warrior has returned to earth and nothing will remain the same.

 

Mickra Hamilton, AuD. is Director of Wellness at Physiologix Wellness Institute.

Are you free?

Are you free? Independent? Sovereign?  What does it mean to be these things?  For some it can mean being alone and lonely.  For others it can represent a burst of life force and spontaneity.  For yet others it is in rebellion or pushing away from someone or something.

Today in the United States we are celebrating our nation’s beginnings as a free state.  While enjoying the festivities, I encourage you to look at your own definition of independence and then assess your own internal nation-state.  Where do you hold yourself hostage?  What parts of your life would you like to emancipate?  What can you do today, this week, this month to feel more self-reliant?

Be bold.  The beginning of anything important never started with meek and mild attitudes or timid actions.  Where do you want to be and what do you want to be doing?  More importantly who do you want do be? Use the energy and momentum of today, stand on the shoulders of great people who were willing to risk it all to be free.  “Freedom is not worth having if it does not include the freedom to make mistakes.’ ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Take steps today to free yourself from whatever is holding you back from letting your light shine.  Be your own fireworks!

A little Thelma & Louise in you?

Sometimes we secretly wish we had the guts to get up and go, throw caution to the wind, say no with so much force that there is no question what we mean, and to be in control of our own destiny–even if just for a temporary road trip.  That is the reason so many of us related to Thelma & Louise 23 years ago and still do today–not because we have done what they did, but because we secretly have wanted to!

Do you remember the first time you saw this movie?  Did part of you want to scream out “Hell yeah!” at the same time another part of you possibly squirmed and was shocked at Thelma and Louise’s audacity?   Which part is winning in your life?  Do you live the majority of each day doing what you choose and being who you truly are?  Or are you living the life you have built, feeling a little trapped by the role you have become?

If you are not saying, “Hell yeah!” to most of what you do then you are building an internal Thelma or Louise.  She may not take off on a wild road trip with her best friend and shock the world, but you can guarantee she is sabotaging your days and nights in more ways than you imagine.  She may make your life difficult and those around you too–until you honor the parts of you excluded by your role as a top lawyer, the PTA President, or the yoga instructor.

If you want to explore the role you have created for yourself and the parts of you you have disowned take my Feminine Balance Quiz or sign up for my upcoming Feminine Balance Retreat.  It is easy to start to reclaim these parts of yourself and life from a more authentic you, with support and guidance.  Once you do, there’s no stopping what you can do!