How to Course Correct When You Are Stuck
Wanna know why I send my newsletters and release my podcasts on Thursdays?
Well, I have had a long standing battle with Thursdays. Thursdays have been my least favorite day of the week. My hardest day emotionally. It’s the point in the week when I can no longer keep pace and the cracks become caverns. I didn’t notice at first. It was my sister who brought it to my attention.
I had called her for the nineteenth million time driving into Struggle Bus City in tears and overwhelmed and I said, “I don’t know why I am feeling like this! My life if great. I have nothing to complain about. What is the deal???”
To which she replied, “Oh I know. It’s Thursday!”
“What, really, Thursday?”
Then I started to look. And well, whataya know. Thursdays. Damn those Thursdays!
Often, when we experience struggle, we get lost in a world of reasons, complaints, and justifications. We try to explain away why we CAN’T do something, forgetting the point and losing focus on what really matters: fulfilling our intentions. We focus on trying to find WHY we are struggling, WHY we feel this way or that, and nearly all of the time we think we know THE truth about how things are! We come to conclusions about our life, we blame others, we blame ourselves, we blame the coffee, the sugar, the wine we drank last night, the bad night sleep, the weather, the dog, the phase of the moon or our astrological sign.
I am as enamored as the next gal with finding the source of my emotions or the reasons I am experiencing the breakdown I am up against. Sometimes that exercise is just what the doctor ordered.
And sometimes we just need to let ourselves BE - for NO reason.
The fact that it was Thursday and that I normally struggle on Thursdays was a distraction from what’s really important - what I am creating next.
Why then did I choose Thursdays for the podcast and newsletter release? It was my way of reclaiming them back and shifting the energy to something I am excited about and would look forward to. It’s how I fell back in love with Thursdays!
Read on to hear how else I shift my focus and find my way back to source, back to my heart, and back to health.
I am so well trained to do what is expected of me and do it the way it was intended, I can easily loose track of why I am doing something in the first place. Take these newsletters for example. I started sending them 10 months ago. In that time, I have gotten more and more committed to giving you all “high value content,” that I started to trap myself in my OWN rules and self created obligations.
My copywriter, Cara Matsukane of Matsu Love (who is a holistic coach herself) and I created a great plan to write six newsletters at a time, three months in advance and plan out the content of each inside a larger intention for each season. I love this idea and over all its been going pretty well - at least imperfectly perfect. Until now. I’m behind our created deadline and the podcast content got recorded out of sync with my plan (my damn PLAN!).
In this case the source of the breakdown is not important. The way out is…
I am currently writing this on Monday, three days before publication date! It is not my planned content (that will be coming to an inbox near you, soon). I didn’t even know what to write for this week until divine inspiration hit me between the eyes and said…
“Tell them your truth!”
I was starting to feel trapped and overwhelmed by creating these newsletters and recording the podcast and all that goes into both. I had lost touch with the real WHY of this work. I had started to get too focused on what I was supposed to do and not on what really matters to me to fulfill on.
My Highest Intention, what I call the Ultimate Intent of my business and my life’s work, is to catalyze magic: to activate and amplify our innate ability to heal.
My ultimate vision for humanity is People living in partnership with the creative forces of life itself, dancing with divinity and beaming love.
Oh yeah. That.
Finding Our True North
The two above created statements have been a work in progress for four years now. While you may not have a created expression of your calling or your life’s work, I guarantee you have a sense of your core values in life and what is most important to you.
I invite you to take some time in the next few days to slow down, connect to the earth, meditate, go for a walk barefoot, or take 5 deep slow soft breaths, and then write out a list of your values in life.
If you could have ANYTHING for humanity what would it be?
If you could wave a magic wand and every person in the world could instantly access something what would it be?
When your heartbreaks for yourself or others what does it break over?
When you watch the news or hear about the condition of the world what drives you absolutely crazy? What pisses you off? What ignites your anger the most?
Under every injustice is a value that you feel is not being upheld or honored. Anger is actually the sentinel of our bodies providing protection and restoring our boundaries when they have been crossed. It also propels us into action when we need to get moving.
What makes us angry, frustrated or disheartened is direct access to discovering what matters to us the most.
For example, the fact that we still imprison human beings and animals ignites a fire inside of me that I can hardly be with when I really let it in. The criminal justice system, feed lots and conventional meat production are areas of society that can break my spirit and my heart wide open.
Under that anger is my highest personal value: freedom.
When I drive in the Pacific Northwest and see the clear cut forests I burst into tears every time. The pollution we dump into our oceans can bring me to my knees with disgust. Under that grief and inside that disgust is my profound commitment for harmony and generosity and love for each other, the planet and the life force that sources us.
Values and health
It has been well documented that people who set and write down goals are 10x more likely to achieve them. I think it is high time we dream bigger than goals and to-do lists and live from our hearts aligned to our highest core values.
From Chinese Medicine we know the heart channels passion and vision. The lungs process grief but also cleanse our body and bring clarity and self-expression. The kidneys process fear and anxiety and when they are strong they ground us, help us to have conviction and stand up for ourselves. The liver is the organ system that manages anger, in turn protects our boundaries and helps us to let go of what no longer serves us.
How then, could living from Love, Truth, Beauty, Fairness, Compassion, Boldness, Courage, Integrity, Authenticity, Curiosity, and Gratitude not empower our health?
Turns out they do. The more autonomy and empowerment we live from and experience in our lives the healthier our immune system, our central nervous system, and our blood pressure.
We can easily get caught up in the business and doing of life. Like me, you may even find yourself living by a set of rules and decisions YOU made up in the first place. I invite you to free yourself from the prison of your own design and take some time to (re)connect to your values and find your way back to your heart and soul.
Use the ideas above to identify at least 5 of your top values and email them to me. I would love to hear what you discover!