Some Criticism Hurts. This is Why.

When you put yourself in the arena of life you run the risk of criticism.  Most times it is easy to let criticism just roll off your back.

But sometimes the criticism hurts. And our immediate reaction is to lash out or retreat within.

The other day I received criticism that stung.

While I wanted to lash out, I retreated instead. I didn't retreat in peace. I spewed and sputtered in my head for more time than I would like to admit.

That was no way to spend my time. So I decided to look at it at another angle.

First, I simply acknowledged that I was angry and hurt and my ego felt a little bit bruised. I just love how simply honoring my uncomfortable feelings makes them smaller.

Secondly I reflected on two things I know to be true.

Meanspirited comments usually have more to do to with the giver than the recipient.

When we are coming from a place of love and self confidence there really isn't any room to be mean.

Instead of being stuck in my own bruised ego, I could show some compassion.  While this was a person who is close to me, I really had no idea what was going on in her heart.

I could have stopped there and been done with the whole thing. But if I really wanted to learn from this experience, I needed to look at part two of what I know to be true.

If something someone says hurts you, at some level you believe it.

For example  if you told me my dark brown hair was ugly, I wouldn't even give it a second thought. My hair is blonde. My dark brown ugly hair is a lie.

Being brutally honest with myself I realized  a part of me did believe her comment. In fact I am afraid of being the way she described me.

I am not saying her comment describes the essence of who I am.  Her comment reminded me to bring love and compassion to myself.

Loving ourselves more will turn all meanspiritied comments into lies.

Blessings,
Virginia

Self Love

 When my alarm went off at 5 am, I wanted to ignore it and get another hour of sleep. I came up with wonderful reasons why I deserved/needed/ had to have another hour of sleep. I caught myself when I equated an extra hour of sleep as an expression of self love.

Getting up at 5am to write, meditate and then exercise is an expressions of self love. Committing to my morning routine, especially on the days I don't want to, expands my self love.


The media is infiltrated with mantras and how to posts on achieving self love.

Buy yourself flowers.
Take long bubble baths.
Say loving things to yourself.
Don't judge yourself.
Forgive yourself when you mess up.

 We have heard them all and they are all worthy endeavors.

However I believe, real self love happens when we do the hard thing, the thing we really don't want to do or the thing we don't believe we can do.

Self love is putting on your sneakers and getting outside for a run when all you want to do is stay in bed.
Self love is putting down the darn phone and having a real live conversation with the person in front of you. Self love is sometimes skipping the ice cream and sometimes having the ice cream.
Self love is only having one serving of the chips instead of the whole bag.
Self love is signing up for the class, the race, making the appointment or going on the date.

Showing ourselves what we are capable of  makes us grow and that is what self love is built upon.

Friday's Feng Shui Is Back

I teach courses on Feng Shui and I also incorporate it in my coaching practice. It is a wonderful tool in creating a more tranquil life.

This is the ninth and final Bagua Map lesson. The bagua map shows you where the nine areas of your life (guas) are located within your home. In each lesson I give you tips on how to enhance one of your guas. This lesson explores the Love and Marriage gua which is located in the farthest right corner of your home.

Love/Marriage is a no brainer as defined by the general population. Yet I invite you to explore it further than Hallmark. Love for yourself sustains you way more than heart shaped boxes and diamonds.

A deep love for yourself means you stop beating yourself up. You celebrate your successes, even the small ones. You honor your voice and your unique way of seeing and being in the world. Most importantly you treat yourself as love itself because,

You Are Love

When enhancing this area try this:

* Always start with an intention. I like this simple prayer, " Dear God show me how to love myself more so I can show up to life as love"

* Keep it clean and get rid of the clutter.

* Pinks and reds are great colors for this area

* Make sure the decor is  in pairs.

This area is outside of my home. I marked the corner by burying a rose quartz. In that area is our fire pit.

Because it is outside, I enhanced the wall adjacent to the area by painting it pink and hanging this picture.

Remember Feng Shui is pronounced FUN Shway. Have fun making your home a mirror to your wonderful life.
With Love,
Virginia

Monday's Course in Miracles

My daily spiritual practice includes studying the Course in Miracles. Each Monday I share a quote from the text.

Every decision you make stems from what you think you are, and represents the value that you put upon yourself .  ACIM

Monday's Course in Miracles

My daily spiritual practice includes studying A Course In Miracles. Each Monday I share a quote from the text.

You have so little faith in yourself because you are unwilling to accept that perfect love is in you.

Tuesdays Tips: The Voices in Your Head

We all have them and often they are not kind.  Thoughts that say you that you are not good enough, smart enough, thin enough, clever enough, or 'fill in the blank' enough can easily take over and eradicate all of the goodness that is YOU.

I have a few tricks to tame those thoughts.

1. Louise Hay's mirror work.
       Every time I look at my reflection in the mirror I say some version of" I love you Virginia." First thing in the morning I add, "Today is going to be the best day ever." When I am feeling vulnerable and scared I change Virginia to Gin Gin. My Dad called me Gin Gin. Referring to myself as Gin Gin  reminds me that, although in heaven, my dad is still with me.

2. Take yourself lightly.
     Each day,sometimes more than once you will find me dancing like a goof nut. If you are breathing you can dance. When you are done dancing, laugh at yourself.  On prom day my daughter asked if I would run out to get her hairspray. I had just gotten out of the shower and had slathered Nivea all over my face. Without even looking in a mirror, I tossed on clothes and sped off to CVS.  I saw four people I know, the store was packed and the handsome man who looked at me received a flirtatious comment. When I got into he car I happened to catch a glance of myself. The right side of my face had white blotches of Nivea cream that I hadn't rubbed in. I laughed until I almost peed.

3. Name the pesky voice and talk to it.
      I call mine Negative Nellie. I have written numerous letters to Negative Nellie and I talk back to her. Naming and conversing with that pesky voice reminds me that I am NOT my thoughts.

4. Talk to precious, adorable little you.
     I keep an adorable picture of myself at 7 right next to my computer. I look at that picture as I write, pay bills, or peek at social media. If that pesky "not enough" thought pops up all I have to do is look at adorable me.

I am more than enough . You are more than enough .

Blessings, 

Virginia

Love

As I have noted previously, each new year I pick a word instead of making any resolutions. I try to use the word as a backdrop to everything  I do, say or think. Note I said TRY. I fall short quite often. Yet, as each year ends I am amazed at how much the word I chose enhanced my life.

This year I chose LOVE. I try to ask, as Robert Holden, suggests, "What would Love do in this situation?" It has been an amazing process, as Love always answers when I stop to ask and listen for the answer from within.

I have also been practicing more self love. As an extremely busy single mother of teenagers, I sometimes leave my needs out of the equation of daily life. It is a funny thing, self love. Our culture limits it to bubble baths and dark chocolate when it is so much more.

So what does self love look like?

Here is something I have learned so far, just three months in.

* Sometimes self love is having tea with a difficult emotion. You know, the one that keeps returning and you don't want to feel. It doesn't feel so loving . Yet when I let it be and actually feel the crappiness of it all,  it starts to dissipate.

*Self Love means hanging out with that feeling a bit longer to ask "What do you want to teach me?"

*Self love means waiting patiently for the answer.

The answer comes and it is always centered around more love.

Friday's Feng Shui: Start with the clutter, 10 Tricks

I am dedicating Friday's blog to all things Feng Shui. I love utilizing Feng Shui in my own life and in my coaching practice.

Feng Shui is a 3000 year old Chinese practice of how our environment effects us physically, emotionally and spiritually. The goal of good feng shui is to arrange your space so energy can flow freely. While the principles of Feng Shui are important. They are not as important as to how you feel in a particular room and how your space is being utilized. I once had a ping pong table in the middle of my living room. It was perfect feng shui because my family spent an entire winter playing together.Feng Shui is not a one time fix because life is always changing and energy is always shifting.

As I have stated in a previous blog posts, getting rid of clutter is the most important aspect of Good Feng Shui.

10 Tricks to Getting Rid of Clutter

1. Keep the kitchen counters clean.
2. Set a timer for 15 minutes. Clean something. Stop when the buzzer rings
3. Make your bed
4. Something goes out before something comes in.
5.Before you leave a room look back and see if you can pick up.
6. A place for everything
7. I keep a red basket in the kitchen for stuff I can't deal with at the moment. I go through it every week.
8. Teach your children to pick up after themselves. (But know 80% of the time they won't ha)
9. Take baby steps. Tackling your entire house in a day will overwhelm you.
10. Take time for yourself. Clearing out brain clutter and filling your soul is the most loving act you can do.

Spring Colored Glasses

When I look outside at the melting snow, the mud, the brownish green grass, and the many things I never picked up before the snow fell, my heart skips in joy. The knowing that spring is arriving makes my soul sing, and my step lighter.

As I was admiring the many sprigs of green in my garden and noticing just how much snow had melted since yesterday, I had an AH HA moment.

                 To the naked eye, all of this dirty snow, murky grass and mud is actually quite ugly.

                         It is beautiful because I know that soon it will burst into gorgeous colors.

If I can have that much trust in my landscape and my perennials why can't I have that much trust in my own life?  What if  my inner landscape of  muddy, dull, 'forgot to take care of '  were signs of spring too?  What if I didn't put those things on any kind of a timetable but simply helped the process with the absolute knowing that something beautiful would follow?

                     Even better what if we all saw ourselves through the lens of 'spring is coming' ?

Blessings,
Virginia

One Breath

I just finished Pema Chodorn's book Living Beautifully with Uncertainty and Change.  It was great and her message was both profound and simple, just like life.

She challenges her readers to make three commitments:
         1. Do no harm.
          2. Help others
          3. Accept life exactly as it is at this very moment.

WOW!

What resonated most with me as I read her words was the gentleness. She calls us to be gentle with ourselves when we mess up. I am notoriously hard on myself. Being kind and loving to myself in my thoughts has always been a struggle. If I commit to something or someone and fall short, I spend way too much of my precious time beating myself up. Pema's words encouraged me to simply recognize the shortcoming, breathe and leap again in commitment. In that breath there is no room for guilt or shame or self incrimination. AMEN!

Recognize. Breathe in. Breathe out. Commit again. Don't get into the story.

I can do that.