Holiday Thoughts…

I have come to realize that most of us are our own worst enemy! It has been a tremendous growth year for me personally. I have battled with the swirling negative thoughts we all seem to think about ourselves when we look in the mirror or do or say something we later regret. The nasty things that pop into our heads and make us think we aren’t enough. I have battled my “will” to stay in the game of self-improvement instead of quitting and chalking it up to “I am the way I am”. I have battled with the belief that I am overwhelmed and that everything needs to be struggle. Yup…I have struggled.

But this month, the last month of the year, as I review my journal and the strides I have made, I am reminded that the ONLY obstacle in my life between where I am now and where I dream to be – is myself. And that’s true for all of us. Our thoughts are powerful. Our thoughts create feelings, those feelings create energy and that energy goes out into the world and reflects the same energy back to us. All the time…without fail. The more you think you don’t have enough and how broke you are – the more experiences show up to prove you are right. The more you think life sucks, the more it will suck. That’s the bottom line…

So, this year, I worked tirelessly to retrain my thoughts. That’s really all it takes, retraining. Like breaking a bad habit. I had to “catch” myself all day long and as soon as I realized I was thinking thoughts that were not in alignment with who I wanted to be or where I want to go, I would change my thought. If I was telling myself things were too hard, I changed it to “I am doing the best I know how, just like everyone else”. If I had a thought that there wasn’t enough time in the day, I changed it to “I have all the time in the world”. It’s amazing what happens when you start catching yourself and taking control of your thoughts. It’s like a light bulb goes off and you start realizing that you have more control over how your day turns out than we sometimes think wone small positive thoughte do.

We can get so caught up in our feelings and running the race that we forget to stop and smell the roses. We rush, rush, rush, go to bed late, get up late and our day spins out of control and then we go to bed with a thousand thoughts swirling around in our heads and we can’t sleep. I get it. I mean I TOTALLY get it! It used to happen to me all the time. Until I took control!

So during this holiday season, when things seem to be moving too fast and we are so hard on ourselves to be perfect, to get it all done too fast, to have all the gifts ready, to have all the parties, and on and on and on…try these simple steps to slow you down…

  1. Take time to breath…5 deep breaths with your stomach (not chest)
  2. Make a to-do list the night before
  3. Bring in the 5 senses to stop swirling thoughts (what can I see, hear, smell, touch, taste)
  4. Say to yourself “I am doing the best I can, just like everyone else!”
  5. Close your eyes and see 5 things you are grateful for – gratefulness changes everything!

I hope you have a blessed, truly fabulous Holiday season with your friends and family!!

For more amazing tools and to learn more about the Creative Insight Journey, visit my bio and free workshop webpage at www.insight4yoursoul.com  – dates coming soon in Napa.

Hugs and blessings,

Victoria

Update for 2013

My goal for the last 6 months of 2013 in Learning 2 Love & Be Connected: RECONNECT, RECONNECT….LET GO AND LET GOD!

So I find myself several months after my last post (7 to be exact) and wanting to update my blog again. I realized a few days ago that I have had such an incredible journey over the last few months that it was time to share my story. So here I am….again in my Learning 2 Love journey…

I took time off from writing this blog and setting weekly goals since last June because it seemed everything in my life was spiraling out of control and there just were not enough hours in the day – or so it seemed. The summer was hectic and life was just moving at an extremely fast pace. And yet somehow it didn’t seem like anything was being accomplished. Just the routine list of getting up, getting ready for work, getting kids ready, lunches or snacks ready, breakfast, out the door, to work, home, cooking, cleaning, bath time, stories, work more, fall into bed. Get up and starting it all over again. Then the weekends came and Saturdays were filled with the grocery shopping, gas fill up, household shopping, laundry, mail, bills, cleaning, and then to bed. Sundays were our running around, visiting family, celebrating events and getting things ready for the week. But I started feeling like something was missing. A deeper connection? A slower pace?

Right around the time I stopped writing this blog, I started feeling this incredibly strong longing in me. A longing that is hard to describe but consumed me when I woke up and went to bed. A longing to finally do what I was meat to do in this life – on this journey. I was suddenly acutely aware of the fact that although I was getting paid well at my job and I liked it for the most part – it was not something I wanted to be doing for the next 5 or 10 years. So then I started thinking “well, then what do I want to be doing”? I was feeling a calling in me to do more, be more and be of service. But how, with what, when?

Opportunities were presenting themselves in terms of starting a “business” of my own. Like Mary Kay or Cabi. I had thoughts of starting my own consulting business where I would offer administrative and project management services since I seem to have a gift in this area. I thought of starting a business for pregnant women services or opening my own pre-school where children learned to pray and meditate from an early age and the list goes on and on. So many thoughts of things I could do but no idea where to start, what I was really being called to do and how to get started?

Feeling a bit lost, I started saying my affirmations again and going through the list of things I was grateful for at night to try and get better connected to God – surely Spirit knows what I am here to do! I started praying and asking for guidance, downloading apps from HayHouse to give me daily inspirational quotes from Dr. Wayne Dyer, apps for oracle card readings, reading books again and listening to HayHouse Radio for inspiration. I knew I needed something but what? I just prayed for an answer and then I started paying attention.

Have you ever been at a point in your life when you just knew some major change was coming? Around September I had this overwhelming sense that I was about to get the answers to all my questions but I could not pin point what it would be. I just had this “knowing” that something was headed my way that I desperately needed. I was feeling like I was at a breaking point: work was overwhelming, our 2 year old became very aware of what she wanted and could verbalize it well, money was getting tighter and tighter, bills are getting bigger and my relationship with my husband was suffering. So once I had this feeling of something coming my way, I suddenly felt relief.

Then as if a miracle blew into my life….I was at a family function where my Aunt was talking about taking her “girls” to Sedona, AZ again in October and mentioned I should go. My mind immediately said “No” as I started listing all of the bills and lack of money in my head. The next day I researched the resort and saw some of the treatments being offered and I couldn’t stop reading…I was excited right away! I found myself feeling like a kid at DisneyLand – so excited that you don’t know what you want to do first. They offered treatments far beyond just massages, etc. They were offering vortex hikes, yoga, psychic massages, readings, healings, nutrition, cleanses, communication classes, detox, you name it.  I sent a note to my Aunt asking about the details for costs, hotel, etc. It turned out, she was helping quite a bit (because she is such an incredible soul) and I suddenly thought “I can’t afford NOT to go! This is my answer! This is my chance to get some clarity. This is where God is sending me to get some answers.”

So, I talked to my husband, got time off from work and I was on my way!

(Post about the details for this trip are coming up)

Blessings,

Victoria 🙂