Every single differing thought, feeling and action puts you on a new timeline.
What’s a “timeline?”
A timeline is an experience events that resonate at a specific energetic frequency and consciousness. You can have “low vibe” timelines based in fear and contraction and you can have “higher timelines” based in love and expansion. Our future is literally being created from the NOW.
It’s incredibly powerful when you fully take that in… give yourself a moment.
YOU HAVE CHOICE.
THERE ARE OTHER "YOU'S" THAT ARE ALREADY LIVING THE LIFE THAT YOU WANT TO LIVE. THESE "OTHER YOU'S" COULD BE HEALTHIER, RICHER, OR HAPPIER.
- Do you feel like you've been living life on a certain bandwidth or loop forever?
- you've been manifesting a better something but it's not showing up?
- Or your manifestation DOES show up, but you can't sustain it in reality?
Timeline Jumping can help you create the life situations that you want.
All possibilities exist in our Universe. Your desire is there waiting for you to focus on it and bring it into view. Where is your energy going? That's why it’s so important, if you really, really, really want something, to stay focused on it and its vibration! Each time you digress from your manifestation by thinking a conflicting thought or getting triggered up into lower vibing energies, you jump onto a different timeline that affects your future.
Your Higher Self arrives at your manifestation before you do.
Think of your manifestation as the lighthouse or the port you are traveling to.
Whenever we set an intention, we "anchor" our energy into a plethora of potential timelines.
Then we, as soul essence in human form, follow that energetic line (like a running rigging line of a sailboat).
Our Soul essence is the wind to put our physical vessel into motion.
And like most sea voyages, the waters can get murky, challenging, and frightening.
Keep your eye on the prize.
We see that speck of our ourselves in the future light up ahead, and we gather all our skills, strengths, willpower, determination, and courage to forge on.
Against the resistance we flow through.
The real secret to manifesting your highest timeline is learning to surrender to:
▪ the current situation as its unfolding
▪ your current energy as its evolving
▪ accepting the gifts, skills, and wisdom you already have
▪ using every resource, you have available to you in a supportive and collaborative way
We often set intentions as something "out there" and forget about all the work that happens in between.
Manifesting is a co-creative voyage from intention to manifestation between you and the Creator; the all-knowing limitless part of you that exists everywhere.
As we learn to surrender to the Divine flow of life, we meet and release those parts that don't resonate with the (LOVE) frequency of our highest timeline.
We meet ourselves as the most beautiful expression of life.
What is the highest timeline you are here to express?
Dorothy Knight is an Author and Spiritual Coach. Her coaching programs have helped hundreds of clients heal unresolved trauma and embody their full potential. She is passionate about empowering her clients towards self-mastery, illuminating the way to fulfilling their soul mission with passion, purpose, and play.
Before becoming an entrepreneur, Dorothy got degree in Journalism New Media from Sheridan College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning. After that, her path shifted into holistic health, and she received her teacher training in yoga. Dorothy is also a certified Reiki Master, Ohana Generational Healer and Conscious Parent Educator. As an author and Soulpreneur, she travels and teaches in some of the most beautiful places on Earth. Dorothy is still a “stay-at-home mom,” running a successful 7-figure business and writing books.
Dorothy is the Director of the HHW Burlington Branch.
She currently lives in Burlington, Canada with her husband and two children.
Website: https://www.5dmom.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/5dmom/
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/the5dmom
If you are anything like me, your logical mind leads most of the time.
Your head dictates your next action, writes out the to-do list and tries to figure everything out on its own. Right?!
We have such a hard time just being in this moment, in the NOW.
One of my favourite philosophies from my mentor Louise Hay is "THE POINT OF POWER IS ALWAYS IN THE PRESENT MOMENT".
I absolutely love this saying and remind myself of it daily because for me it means a do-over.. a reset. At any point I have the choice to choose a different feeling, and this choice will change my state of being, change this moment, even change the future.
In this present moment I get to create new beginnings, new outcomes and a new life.
Which is why I wanted to share a few practices with you, to help you on your journey! I use these in my day to day to help me come back to this moment and get me out of my thinking mind.
HERE IS YOUR SOUL MISSION:
Put an alarm on your phone and have it ring every couple of hours, to bring you back to the present moment. Choose one of these practices or both and take a quiet moment for you.
RESET your thinking and CHOOSE your new state of being. How do you want to feel in this moment?
BREATHE into it and fully embody this shift. And go on with your day!
The more you do this, the more you will quiet the mind and just be in this moment. It only takes a few minutes, it will help you reduce the chatter, the stress and the worry and help you connect to your intuition, your body and your soul.
REMEMBER: This moment is the only one you have so it's so important to be here, to experience it and to feel it.
The adage that if you don’t use it, you lose it, I can assure you, applies to fitness. I confess I have lost it a few times. Happy to report that I also found it again. You do not have to lose it forever. I believe that once you have enjoyed a level of fitness allowing you to participate in desired activities, you may lose it temporarily when life happens, but you will find your way back. If you are like me, this might be a repeating pattern. One that I hope will stop now that I found it again at 62.
One of the benefits I gained from a dysfunctional ten-year relationship was a consistent fitness routine. For four days at home, I would stretch before cardio and for three days at the gym, I would alternate between chest and back, arms and shoulders and squatting my weight to work the quads and hamstrings. My fitness allowed me to hike mountains with a 40-pound pack, paddle a canoe into headwinds for five hours straight, and much more. My adult nieces will complain, “Slow down.” One describes me as pocket-sized with more energy than anyone has a right to have.
After that relationship ended, I lived with my sister in a small trailer. I lost my exercise signals, patterns, routines and gym access for three years. Humans are creatures of habit. Moving into my own house, I dedicated a room to exercise again. Donning my grungiest workout clothes, I refused to shower or change into presentable and fun clothes until I completed my yoga, stretching and a cardio routine. This tricked me into a consistent habit. Cardio then was my exercise bike or mini trampoline called a Cellerciser designed with NASA technology to prevent astronaut’s muscles from atrophying in zero gravity. It protects your knees and back with a high-quality design and materials. I have used that since 2006, and it is still my favourite way to take breaks from my desk and reach my daily goal of 10,000 steps. Barbara O'Neill's video "Muscle Knows No Age” speaks to the health benefits of rebounding. People have purportedly even had their eyesight improved.
Years later, after letting go of my two-story bungalow and exercise room, I landed in a one-bedroom apartment in The Hood (Alberta Avenue in Edmonton.) Exercise gear became a part of my living room decor. As my clients increased, my desk-jockey life meant more sitting, zooms, editing and writing, which meant exercise now had to be a multi-tasking activity. I adore a good movie while I bounce or swing some kettle balls. After several days with 3,500 steps or… gasp… even fewer steps, I told myself that anything I could do on my phone had to be on the rebounder. Once implemented consistently, I was up to 5,000 steps sometimes before 8:30 AM. It made it so easy!
When finding your way back to your desired fitness levels, choose good quality gear keeping safety and enjoyment in mind. Setting the phone down, I can use one finger on the balance bar of my trampoline to balance for higher jumps or bum kicks. It would sit in the corner of my living room, taunting me when my step count was low. My two-pound hula hoop sits on the edge over the springs, handy for some quick shimmies during a movie. I also used a blue Bosu ball that resided behind my trampoline.
On one long desk day, I moved the Bosu to interrupt my path to the kitchen. Just having to balance a bit, bouncing on and off wakes up my brain to realize I just needed a movement break. I am NOT hungry. Our brains dull like a citywide power outage after 30 minutes of sitting—a few minutes of walking or bouncing can light up our brains like fireworks. The Bosu also challenges me to maintain my ability to balance. As we age, we often experience a decrease in our ability to stabilize. With its sturdy flat bottom, this half ball has been great for training my muscles to keep me upright when something may make me stumble. In one of my “lost fitness” phases, I recall feeling irritated when my stride to step on, and off sidewalks was jerky, requiring a pause and concentration, even wavering to catch myself. That “loss of flow at a measly six-inch curb” served as a wake-up call sending me to find my routines again.
Now, having moved once again into an 8’x23’ tiny home, I am aware and on to the tricks of my comfortable habitual self. I need to build new habits. My son installed my chin-up bar, my yoga mat comes out every morning between my kitchen counter and table, and my trusty Bosu Ball sits at the foot of my bed.
Even more critical, our large leg muscles stabilize us when we lose our balance. One of the main reasons older people break hips is less due to fragile bones and more often due to weak quadriceps and hamstrings. Broken hips are the number one thing that robs people of their ability to remain in their homes and forces them prematurely into assisted living. One simple thing to do is squats. Start at any age; begin easy, and take it slow. I used to squat with weights equal to my body weight on a bar, and all through chemotherapy in 2003, I squatted 60 pounds to move those drugs to every cell in my body. My philosophy then was that if I were going to take those drugs, I would make sure the chemicals moved to every corner of my cells. There is nothing like squats to warm you up and pump your blood. An easy, safe way to integrate squats into your day is to take hold of your kitchen sink with both hands and lean back to sit on an invisible chair.
Day one, do one. Try two squats if your quadriceps and hamstrings are pain-free two days later. Build up until you’re confident enough to do a high wall squat, then build up your stamina to do lower wall squats by placing your back against the wall, and slide down until your thighs and shins are at right angles. Find a fitness professional if you want to test your balance strength, so they can help you safely try if your quads and hamstrings are rock hard or jiggly and soft. You want the rock-hard! Strong leg muscles go a long way to help you catch your balance, possibly protecting you from a broken hip, as discussed above.
In summer 2020, a Mount Carlyle guide took our group up the most scenic route. It also had the steepest altitude gain. Forced to admit I was not fit for this trip, my breathing was good from my trampoline, but my leg muscles were complaining that I had ignored squats far too long. I once again became motivated because I refused to give away thousands of dollars of hiking equipment just because of that trip. I am hiking this year. I only made it to Carlyle because Mac, whom my friend called donkey legs, would jog ahead, drop his pack, and jog back to take mine, relaying my gear up the steep inclines. If you are missing a former enjoyable activity, do not rush to give it up like me. Make a plan with a health and fitness coach to restore those muscles. Many studies show we do not need to accept aging. Check out bio-hacking research. In 2021, I was too slow with my commitment to fitness, and lockdowns were a hindrance. In December 2021, I committed to chin-ups, yoga, and push-ups and raised my step quota to 12,000. I have missed yoga three times since December 13. I started unable to do even one chin-up, and in a month, I could manage three in a row.
Push-ups started slow too, but I’m now up to 15 with excellent form. I follow Ben Greenfield for ideas and am planning this summer's hike to Ribbon Falls in Kananaskis and creating my plan for the more strenuous British Columbia’s Mount Robson hike next year. Take it slow, be safe and find exercise routines that appeal to you, work in your environment, make the time AND make it stare you in the face when you tiptoe to the fridge. Tripping over my Bosu Ball works for me. It holds the same taunting power as my trampoline. Even desk jockeys can maintain their fitness with some planning and dedication.
Reference links in the body of the story above
Cellerciser Link: https://bp321.isrefer.com/go/cell001/Spunky/
Barbara O’Neill Video Link: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7yIXOToHqUo
Bosu Ball Link: https://www.bosu.com/
Ben Greenfields’s 10 Top Hacks: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmroGxffMEM
Learn more about Rusti:
Rusti L Lehay, a global editor and book and writing coach, created over 40 articles guiding writers to authordom. Witnessing writers find and speak in their own voice to serve the real boss, the audience, not the editor, is one of Rusti’s greatest joys. She offers bi-monthly online writing STAY-Treats and monthly lounges and teaches weekly creative writing classes. Her primary mission is to inspire, provide value and make writing fun and easy.
Links: https://linktr.ee/rustilehay
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I saw back to school commercials this past weekend!
It happens in early August every year, but it still feels a little shocking every time, doesn't it? I mean, I've barely made it through my bottle of SPF let alone think about books and backpacks!
Thinking of September though made me think about Happy Healthy Women and everything we offer. I started asking myself if we are ready, since it's always that day after kids go back to school that many women feel like they are able to put the pedal to the metal in their businesses, and we have to be prepared to serve!
The good news is - we are SO READY, and while it's totally fine that women wait until September to get all of that rolling - I have some...ahem...insiders advice.
For the sake of your mindset, your revenue, and your budget...you may not want to wait until September to get your business wheels in motion for the 4th quarter.
Here are two big reasons why:
1. The Momentum Train: September is like New Years for Entrepreneurs. There's an instant shift where everything starts to get back to routine and energy starts to buzz to a different tune!
Here's something to be aware of, especially if you're new in business. What I have seen in the past with some, is that they START to get things rolling in September, and then need a few weeks to get organized before they open up the floodgates to their products, services and programs.
Perhaps they have to fine tune their program, freshen up the branding, or find groups to start holding workshops in. While these are all things that are important - they are the things that have to get done BEFORE business gets into momentum and starts making sales.
Wouldn't you rather be READY for that business at the beginning of September and increase your year's revenue?
2. More Bang for Your Buck: In September - prices go up in all industries. Summer sales disappear, early bird rates end, and new things are launched!
While September is a great time to take that course you've been meaning to take, get involved with that new mastermind or finally attend that retreat that rolls around every fall - it's a good idea to check in with the investments required now as opposed to a month from now.
Getting things locked in now will:
A) Likely save you money
B) Help you feel like you're in control and have a plan for September rather than feeling like you have to START in September
C) Get YOU making money faster, as chances are these investments will help you grow your business!
Where Happy Healthy Women is concerned - we've been dropping little hints around these pieces, but for those looking to get more involved with HHW and all that we offer - here's the inside scoop on our programs and pricing over the next couple of months.
1. Leadership Program Pricing goes up this September 1st - so if you've been thinking about locking arms with us and being a leader on our platform of over 16,000 women, you can lock in our current rate for the next 6 months to a year.
If you're reading this in time, we have info sessions this week and will be sharing more on these programs - Thursday August 11th and Friday August 12th.
2. Our next (and final for 2022) Beautiful Business Cohort begins September 16th and spots are going fast. If you're looking to level-up your business and yourself to CEO status, this is for you!
3. Early bird rates for our Manifest Magic Fall Retreat are in effect until August 31st! Same amazing retreat, but an opportunity to save by registering this month instead of next!
With everything we have set in motion, rest assured that if you're looking to move to the next level in all areas of your beautiful business and life, we are so ready for you!
My biggest advice? Take advantage of August and lock arms with us for an incredible fall!
In Happiness & Health,
Natalie Colalillo
Founder & CEO Happy Healthy Women
Instagram: @happy_healthy_nat
Online courses have become a very popular way for coaches, consultants, and other experts to create additional revenue in their business. Some use courses as their main business model and choose to sell a signature course that can range in price from hundreds of dollars to thousands of dollars. Others sell one or more mini-courses at a low-ticket price point, or they may choose to create memberships where they offer a variety of mini-trainings and workshops on a particular topic for a monthly fee.
And really, why not? By 2025, it’s predicted that the online education industry will be worth $325 billion… Yes, BILLION! Woah!
Even though there was an obvious surge in the popularity of online education in the pandemic, the industry shows no signs of slowing down! That’s good news for course creators.
However, while courses can help you create more revenue in your business, here are 5 other ways creating a course can help you exponentially elevate your business and your brand.
Launching an online course can help you:
1. Raise your authority - Offering a course can help you position yourself as an expert on a particular topic. By showing up as a teacher and sharing your expertise, you automatically build trust and credibility with your client/customers and turn cold leads to warm leads.
2. Build a deeper connection with your audience - When you commit to teaching someone something new, you naturally become more in tune with your learner. This can offer you valuable insight into how you can better support them which leads to you being better able to offer them what they want instead of what you think they need.
3. Boost your reach - Reach is the number of unique people who see and interact with your content. Courses offer you the opportunity to serve more people with less time, energy, effort, and resources.
4. Enhance support to your current clients - While some offer a course to replace their 1:1 coaching or service, there is tremendous opportunity to use courses to offer more support to your client without you increasing face to face time.
5. Increase Accessibility - Online courses can be purchased and completed by the participant on-demand. This offers a great deal of flexibility for the participant which increases customer retention, course completion, and brand loyalty.
With so many benefits to creating a course, it’s not a surprise that many coaches and consultants have transitioned to offering courses in their business.
Will this be you?
Tracy Sherriff is a Curriculum Operations Expert who helps coaches, service-based professionals, and other experts successfully scale their business online with high-touch, high-impact courses and programs. You can connect with Tracy by visiting her website tracysherriff.com, or finding her on Instagram @tracy.sherriff
Remote work is a good flexible opportunity for most professionals, but there are many ways where it could be better for women.
Working from home is important for women across the board, but the details matter. In fact, Catalyst discovered that women were twice more likely to downsize their career opportunities due to their lack of access to flexible work arrangements. Though the setup provides women with more control over what they want to do, studies also reveal that they can get more overworked as they juggle multiple responsibilities at home.
If you’re an entrepreneur who wants to empower and improve the health and well-being for the women in your company, here are the remote work benefits that you could look to provide:
Working women are more prone to overworking in remote setups, making it difficult to squeeze a workout into thier work day.
While it can be tempting for everyone to lounge around the house after work, your company can encourage your employees to get up and get moving through fitness benefits. Our article on ‘How to Manage Your Health and Fitness Goals at the Office’ provides tips that are still applicable at home, such as planning and prepping your whole week. Companies can do this by scheduling meeting-free hours every week, and enabling female executives and employees to make room for a company-paid virtual fitness class.
Pre-menstrual syndrome? Menopause? These are just some of the health concerns that working women have to face.
Unfortunately, without support these health conditions can affect productivity, even when women are working in a remote setup. For companies that want to keep their remote female employees happy, Wheel demonstrates how virtual healthcare services can address these specific concerns by increasing your employees’ access to world-class clinicians, mental health support, and diagnostic services. With this increased access to healthcare, your business can achieve up to 70% savings in operating expenses, and ensure gender-sensitive healthcare support for female employees.
As a female entrepreneur, you probably understand the importance of having a clear path for career advancement as a woman.
Given that women are more likely to invest in their careers through remote work opportunities, companies can increase their potential by providing free online educational programs. In fact, Fortune reports that about 14% of workers are already benefitting from online skills and training courses that were covered or reimbursed by their employers. The skills needed to perform the same job could change by 40% in 2025, so both employers and employees can benefit from upskilling the workforce through these online educational programs. Through these opportunities, women can enjoy greater stability and even achieve more progress in their careers.
Financial well-being can affect employee mental health and performance, but many employers tend to overlook this aspect.
Financial well-being is very important for working women. Insurance company TIAA discovered that the retirement savings of women are 30% lower than those of men. Women experience many missed saving opportunities due to career breaks, so companies need to invest in their retirement planning through financial education. Companies can offer virtual financial seminars that can teach women how they can budget and grow their retirement funds. On top of that, your business can also pay for financial budgeting apps that can help them allocate their money properly.
Your company will grow stronger if you prioritize empowerment. Through these remote workplace benefits, you can uplift your fellow women and be rewarded with a happier, healthier, and more productive workforce.
Discipline: is it controlling or is it a path to freedom?
People tell me I’m disciplined. I used to resist this quality, but now I'm learning to embrace its beauty.
Often discipline is viewed in a negative connotation – like it’s a punishment or a restrictive way of being or that it’s about making us do something instead of wanting to do something.
Is this true?
To help me answer this question I did a bit of internet research and came across an article in the Huff Post that talked about how thousands of years ago the sages of ancient India formulated the Dharma Code, a system for making enlightened choices in everyday life. The fourth Dharma principle is discipline and the way the ancient sages defined discipline is the "focused effort that leads to personal transformation". I love this definition!
I believe personal transformation is about reaching our goals, getting what we desire, creating the life we want, and up-leveling ourselves, our careers, our health, and our relationships. And this personal transformation leads to us to feeling good about our choices, feeling in alignment with ourselves, and a deep inner knowing that we are doing the right thing for us.
The other part of the Dharma principle of discipline is “focused effort”. What does this mean? I look at it as creating structures in our life that will help us bring about personal transformation. If this sounds constricting to you, I’d like to offer that it’s actually the opposite. Structures provide us a way of doing things; they’re a mental construct for organizing our brains and all the thoughts going through it. Structures give us a way to organize the chaos around us. I know when I’m in chaos I feel overwhelmed, anxious, full of self-doubt, frustrated, irritable, or resentful. And who wants to feel all that?
Structures help in the formation and keeping of habits which in turn lead toward a way of being. When we have a certain way of being every day, when we follow the structures we have created for ourselves – this leads to a disciplined approach to doing things. And a disciplined approach to doing things leads to personal transformation.
Discipline allows us to gain control of our own lives. I believe we all have agency over our own lives and a disciplined approach to things will help us achieve that agency.
Stephen Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, says “discipline generates great freedom in our life, allowing us to manifest our purpose”. Purpose – isn’t that what we’re all here to find and do?
And that leads me to the most important part of my thoughts on discipline. To obtain personal transformation and commit to focused effort, we need to be in tune with our purpose, or as Simon Sinek calls it, our why. We need to keep going back to why we want something. Whatever that why is, that’s the critical piece.
Interestingly, the Latin etymology of discipline comes from the word discipulus, which means ‘pupil’. I love this because to me this means becoming a pupil of ourselves. I think tapping into our why enables us to learn about ourselves. Creating structures and habits and discipline in our lives provides us with new ways of looking at ourselves, of determining what is important to us, and of showing us what we are capable of! Being pupils of ourselves, being aware of how we respond to things, looking to create a better version of ourselves, learning new and different things about our bodies, our minds, our spirituality – this is the best gift we can give ourselves.
***
If you are looking to create more discipline in your life, and more importantly want to be clear on your purpose, then I invite you to work with me and learn about how I can help you live a genuine, fulfilled, and aligned life. Apply to work with me today.
***
Vera Ilnyckyj is a Life Coach, Podcaster and Writer, whose mission is to help women shine their light more brightly. She’s passionate about helping women heal their heart to allow them to gain clarity about what's important in their life, connect with their purpose, and take action to live a genuine and fulfilled life. Apply to work with Vera in her one-on-one coaching program.
Vera hosts a podcast, Practical Wisdom from a Life Coach, which can be found on all podcast platforms.
She is also a Trailblazer with Happy Healthy Women.
Connect with Vera on Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn and learn more about her at her website.
Have you ever written yourself a love letter?
I stumbled on this letter I wrote to myself last Fall after going through huge growth and expansion, and I wanted to share with you as it made me smile.
When I wrote this love letter, my intention was to clarify:
~ What I wanted to work on within me,
~ What I was ready to face, and
~ What I wanted my next level to be.
As I read through the words, lots of emotions come up as I realize how far I have come. I have opened up spaces within me and released emotions that were so locked up and stored in my body they were holding me back without me even knowing it.
There has been so much healing within me and so much still left to do. And this letter is a huge confirmation of the work that I am doing on myself and the journey I am on.
It all started with an intention to transform and ended up being so much more.
______
Dear Beautiful Rach,
I am so proud to be standing in your shoes today.
We have come a very long way and still have so much to accomplish and so many versions to become. You just keep getting better and better! I am in awe!
As we embark on our next journey there are a few things we need to look at.
1. Who do we choose to become for this next level?
2. What will becoming this bring us?
As we keep growing and evolving, our next step is to fully embody our authentic self.
This means that we will stand in our truth always and feel all the feels. The high positive emotions and the low negative ones as well. We will feel all of them.
Going forward, all emotions are a go. No more dissociating to protect yourself, we will keep pulling back the layers and identifying the blocks, the hurts, the pains that caused you to completely shut down. The more you can feel the hurt, the more you can feel the love. We are ready for this next level.
By embodying these emotions, I am giving you permission to feel, to take the time you need with each shadows and each light. We are opening ourselves up to expand even more and remember, with each breakdown comes a breakthrough.
You are strong and courageous beautiful and when you doubt, look back at all of the challenges you have overcome and all that you have accomplished. You are a divine warrior queen!
Let this strengthen your connection to your source within and your intuition, let it guide your every move. You are diving into the sensations and what it means to be completely in alignment with your authentic self and your truth.
Being your highest self means being in your fullest expression, that is our next level of this beautiful life.
I am so blessed to be doing life with you!
I love you
xo
______
HERE IS YOUR SOUL MISSION:
Pull out your journal, find a quiet space and think about the person you want to become in 3 or 6 months from now. Who is this beautiful being? And what do you need to start changing to embody and grow into her? Write yourself a beautiful love letter, letting the pen flow and your heart lead. What do you want to say to yourself? Be open and raw! You are the only one reading this letter!
I am so holding you tight right now and sending you so much light!
Much love,
Rachel xo
Rachel Benton is a Licensed Life & Embodiment Coach and a ThetaHealing Energy Practitioner. She helps women build their business in complete alignment with their truth and intuition and guides them to create a soulful life that FUELS and IGNITES them!
Rachel is also the branch director for Happy Healthy Women - Cambridge - Join the Facebook Group
Connect with her today:
Website
Instagram: @rachelbentonlifecoach
I don’t know about you, but more than once I have had someone say to me:
“Don’t be so emotional!”
Or
“You shouldn’t feel that way!”
Or
“Just get over it!”
And for so many years I felt shame when I heard it.
I felt shame about my seeming lack of control, my apparent too-muchness, and my inability to fit into the logical mindset that my surroundings seemed to prefer!
And so I did what so many of us have done - I hid!
I pretended I was always fine - and that nothing ever bothered me!
Anytime an emotion would come up I would do everything I could to push it back down. I would bury it so deep that eventually, I thought I forgot it was there!
And I thought I was walking through life the way I was ‘supposed’ to.
But there is a funny thing about emotions - they can not be denied forever. Eventually, I found myself living in duplicity - my exterior world looked fine, and people would have even described me as happy. I had become proficient at wearing “the mask.”
But my interior world was completely different - inside I felt shrivelled up, resentful, and numb. I had no idea that when I closed off my ability to feel some of the more difficult emotions of hurt, anger, and disappointment I had also closed off my ability to feel joy, contentment, gratitude, playfulness etc.
I remember first hearing that emotions were…good - that allowing ourselves to feel them was healthy and was the path to beneficial action!
I was suspicious but also strangely drawn to the idea!
The more I learned the more shocked I became - shocked that what I had thought was my weakness was actually my strength.
Imagine my surprise when I learned that emotions are the vehicle we use to travel down the path from the “problem” to the “solution.”
That they are the fuel that gives you the energy to move forward, and that they were the creators of clarity not the authors of confusion!
I learned that emotions only last an average of 6 to 90 seconds in the body - and that it is only when we attach thoughts to the emotions that we then made them last longer - potentially trapping them in our body.
And so I began to pay attention to my emotions, and I started to listen carefully to the thoughts I attached to them.
And finally, I began to ask better questions!
Questions like:
“What is this emotion trying to tell me?”
“What does it show is important to me?”
“What does this emotion need me to valid and witness?”
“What changes does it tell me I need to make?”
I learned to ride my emotions like a wave and that on the other side of the wave was calm clear relief and important information about what the best action would be in whatever situation I found myself in!
And so maybe today you need to be reminded that the emotions that you feel are good, even when they are hard to have, maybe today you need to be reminded that it is ok to feel them, that they are your gifts - each emotion has wrapped within it important information about what you need, what you value, what you prefer, and what brings your pleasure.
Take the time to experience all of them! Learn to talk with them and ask them questions about their purpose and about what action they are taking you to!
Give yourself the gift of fully experiencing the emotions that show up in your life! You may just find yourself pleasantly surprised by what happens when you do!!
Download your July Affirmation:
Meg is a Life Coach, Hypnotherapist, and Podcast Host (The Art Of Being H(YOU)man) that is passionate about walking with people who want more out of life than just the status quo!
She believes that life doesn’t have to work out exactly the way we think it “should” in order to be enjoyed and that people don’t have to be perfect in order to be loved.
She believes that we all have the voice of truth inside of us but sometimes it can be hard to hear. And most importantly that we must live between the tension of accepting the things we cannot change and taking massive action on the things we can!
Meg creates spaces where women can slow down and process all the things that are influencing and controlling their lives - their everyday thoughts, emotions, and the stories they have been telling themselves.
Spaces where they can look at their inner world, gain valuable insight and then reclaim their personal authority, and make conscious decisions that transform the way they experience their lives!
Through one on one coaching, group coaching and workshops Meg helps women show up in the world with more love, and less ego, more compassion, and less judgment, more vulnerability, and less shame, more emotional agility and less fear!
Meg lives in BC with her husband of 22 years, two teenage boys and their little dog Charlie.
To learn more about Meg visit her website www.megheppner.com
Tips on Wooing the Muse
First, you have to turn off the editor. No, first, you have to turn on your writer’s eye. I’ll talk about when to turn on the editor later. In her book Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg says writers live twice. All artists and creatives live twice. When they learn to work around the impediments of busy day-to-day life, they use their second life to search out inspiration potential. The frenetic pace so many find themselves in often steals subsequent moments and blurs second sights, rendering them unavailable for later recall.
There is a way to arrive prepared when you allow time for creativity. Don’t worry if you lack regular time for your chosen art form. You might find the end of a day or a hectic week invites you to sit and switch on your other self. The self that doesn’t wear the hats of an employee for a regular paycheque, busy solopreneur, mother, father, wife, husband, partner but the space to be just you communing with your muse.
Arrive Ready for Your Creative Time
A technique for writing prolifically that I’m about to share with you builds on Goldberg’s idea. You must turn on your writer’s eye to see things twice (you do not need mind-altering substances to induce this). Call forth your curious eye and allow it to probe things with the concentration of a magnifying glass. Aim to make this focused double vision a ritualistic habit. A terrible thing will happen if you examine everything more than once; you’ll have a blog post, a poem, a music composition bubbling up, a story, or a writing idea for everything you look at, hear, or experience. This will be a good thing if you can also finish the things you start in a timely manner. (If you can do that, I’m taking pointers, thank you!)
Now take it one step further. If you want to write profusely, insist on the necessary action and write your second sight down. That’s the voice of your muse tickling your ear via the sustained curiosity of a creative. It’s the action I expect of myself when I see things twice. I challenged myself to utilize this technique for one year, and it enabled me to write more than 300 poems, begin several short stories, plan outlines for six books, finish five personal essays, and focus on a book project. All writing starts with the seeds of an idea that stay with you, begging for more attention. Remember, these seeds need a firm place to sit while they wait. If you try to trust memory or the muse to deliver them again, they only lose their shape and strength, becoming invisible.
Begin to See Your Creative Flow Times
You’ll recognize your own writer’s eye when you begin to pay more attention to any one event or sight. Write your observations down if it lingers on the diminutive woman across the street in the bright pink hat leaning against a bus bench. Writing it down is the tool to later coax your muse into a consistent partnership. You become the instrument of the muse when you make the time for second sight. Then, more than just an implement, you become adept at channeling those whispered conjectures into syntactical marks on paper, where they can later multiply into your chosen genre or social media content. Once you are actively writing your second sight down, it becomes a habit, and the pressure is off. Blank moments staring at your screen or doodling on your paper are history. Would your mind tarry like mine did when a check filled out with the shaky hand of age came across my desk at work with the spouse’s name crossed out? Do you pause and ask the possible reasons why an older man would cross out his wife’s name? Then stop and write it down! It may become your best blog post or marketing copy, an extra character sketch in a novel, or the basis of a short story. Also, please pay attention to past events as they tumble through your mind. Take a moment to ponder each for its value as writing fodder.
If you’re at a desk where you sell your time and can’t occasionally attend to your matters when something intrigues you, establish one little comfortable corner for your muse. For example, keep a notepad or scrap paper handy beside your work computer monitor for quickly recording enough of any concentrated moment to conjure up a replay later. Ensure this spot is where your eyes connect with numerous times during your workday. If your job requires you to be mobile, carry a mini-cassette recorder in a pocket or some of your paper on a clipboard that you can keep close at hand. It only takes seconds to write your observations down. Scribble enough of the thought, curiosity, and image to return to it when you take writing time for yourself on a lunch break, on a park bench, at your home writing desk or in your favourite chair.
Unless you have an incredible memory and ability to recall the emotions and details of the moments that impacted you, you might end up chasing wispy memories of a neglected muse in your writing time. The muse is capricious and unreliable and does not give repeat performances unless you capture enough of the moment on paper to entice the muse to stretch the ideas further. You’ll see that you can reliably and consistently woo the muse.
Routines Equal Discipline and This is a Good Thing
Now, establish a reliable routine for your captured thoughts to travel to your home writing space. This gathering scrap method works wonderfully whether or not you maintain a regular writing time. When you get home after your work commute or evening out, take your pile of scraps, small notepad, or whatever you used and place them to meet you when you next sit down to write. Use the Boy Scout’s Creed to banish writer’s block. In Becoming a Writer, Dorothea Brande emphatically states the importance of cultivating the habit of putting words to paper the moment you sit down to write. With secured thoughts and images on paper clamoring for your attention, you can fearlessly claim time to write with the anticipation that you have ideas to play with even before you sit down.
When you arrive at your writing place, you can invite inspiration to play with you and your ready supply of second-sight moments. Alternatively, some writers like to take their notebooks to cafes or libraries, feeling they write their best away from home. Julia Cameron in The Right to Write suggests you utilize many different workstations throughout your house, maybe even your community, as some will elicit more success than others, depending on your mood. Every day, I arrived first at my pen and paper desk right after breakfast. Now that I mostly fast, it’s my yoga mat first, then my gratitude journal, followed by writing before I look at any devices. Regardless of what time of day you write, it’s best to arrive fueled up on physical sustenance if hunger will distract you. That way, a growling stomach can’t derail your creativity. Unleash your first thought and let it travel through you to your creative place. Do you have more words to add to it? If not, move on to the next piece or idea.
All Creatives Are Like Magpies
Sometimes a scrap thought might take a week or two, even a month or more, before further inspiration makes it appeal to you. Margaret Atwood shares, "Writers are like magpies; they collect endless scraps and shreds – things that they don’t think would be useful but suddenly are.” Most ideas eventually link to another thought, and the words begin to dance, sometimes feverishly. After a short time of sifting through your notebook, an image or phrase will jump out or beg more in-depth attention. Let the first thought that does get your mind dancing move out your fingers onto your notepad or on the keys to float in pixels across the screen. Do try the magic of working with a favoured pen in hand on paper, especially if your habit is to go straight to the keyboard usually. An often-neglected mind-body connection seems capable of harnessing creative energies more than an electronic mode of writing. Listen to Dr. Caroline Leaf on Tom Bilyeu’s Impact Theory, where she explains the science of what happens in the brain when we write by hand. The whole show is valuable on controlling your age through your brain processes and she talks about writing by hand and the brain at 38 minutes in the show.
Write whatever comes to you; ignore and banish any voice that says anything less than, “This is good. This is an idea that shows potential.” Switch to your word processing desk when one of your captured moments expands and ignites into flowing prose or verse. Instead of arriving there blank or empty-handed, counting on inspiration to agree with your timing, the tools you’ve used to hunt and gather inspiration everywhere deliver you primed to write. If you haven’t already, equip every coat pocket, purse or wallet with a notepad, small pen or pencil. Somehow, people are okay if we write something down during an interaction but being on our devices during interactions can often be construed as rude. Plus, writing by hand does activate those different parts of our creative brain. This will enable you to tether inspiration as it dances in front of you and, like music boxes, make beautiful noise when later wound up to their full potential and opened. Use these tools as bait to successfully lure the muse to join you as you unfold ideas and scraps of thought. Flirting is a tool used in the single world to attract a potential mate. There’s nothing wrong with using similar tools to attract and keep your muse’s interest piqued.
When to Persist and When to Walk Away
Look it over when you have used up every word and image on your scrap paper and reached the end of the thought line for that particular trigger. If you’re not ready for an editor-like voice, turn the page or close the document saving it in a file of rough drafts. Many writers advise only to let the editor peek at your work after it sits for a two-three day span but while you still have an attachment to a piece. Then you can defend it but work companionably with the editor. Be careful to invite the editor to appear when it’s best for you. Some people can edit the minute they have a rough draft and maybe even finish a poem in the first sitting. Not me. I’m sure I would write far less if I invited the editor in too early.
Two or three days later, when you return to rough drafts, you may find more of what originally inspired you. You may see ways to take your piece deeper and add more detail. Never delete or crumple a piece, but add it to your writing files. Remember what Atwood said; it might be useful later. Enjoy the personal satisfaction that you are succeeding at writing abundantly by using your second sight consistently. You’ll find that some of these “rough drafts” hide a few diamond chips, and with further attention to detail and the mechanics of good writing, they often become much more. If you’re ready, look at earlier writing, and change a few steps and the rhythm of the thought. I revise best when I have a specific goal in mind and flip through all my rough drafts to find one that fits my current mood or plan. But this requires turning on the editor, and that’s a whole new topic. So whether you’re single or partnered, now that your muse is a constant companion, your bed might be a little fuller when you fall reluctantly into rest periods. You might even keep a pen and paper beside your bed. I can almost write legibly in the dark now.
Reference link in the body of the story above
Dr. Caroline Leaf: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXDWkx2jmeQ
An app to turn your computer into a typewriter: https://getcoldturkey.com/writer/
Learn more about Rusti:
Rusti L Lehay, a global editor and book and writing coach, created over 40 articles guiding writers to authordom. Witnessing writers find and speak in their own voice to serve the real boss, the audience, not the editor, is one of Rusti’s greatest joys. She offers bi-monthly online writing STAY-Treats and monthly lounges and teaches weekly creative writing classes. Her primary mission is to inspire, provide value and make writing fun and easy.
Links: https://linktr.ee/rustilehay
Choosing the right course topic is critical to the success of your course launch. With the wrong course topic you run the risk of not being able to attract, convert, or even retain the right students and clients.
The consequence: little to no sales, frequent refund requests, and a whole lot of wasted time and energy on your part.
So how do you choose the right course topic for your course launch?
1. Get clear on your business vision and mission. Many entrepreneurs underestimate the importance of having these statements as a guide post when creating new offers. What are you and your business trying to create in the world? That’s your vision. You also need to get clear on your mission. Your mission is how you and your company will live out and achieve your vision. If you skip this step you run the risk of creating a product that is out of alignment with your bigger purpose.
2. Narrow your audience. When you really niche down and know who you want to help with your course, you’ll be better positioned to create something that will be easier to sell AND will make your curriculum easier to write.
3. Take the time to talk to really know your audience. You probably know market research is extremely valuable when it comes to making decisions on what to create. The key to good market research is asking the right questions and more importantly, being open to really listening to the answers. Too often experts teach what they think needs to be taught instead of what their audience really needs to overcome their most immediate challenges.
4. Choose a topic that solves a problem that requires an immediate solution. Adults are more likely to engage in learning that solves a TODAY problem. They aren’t solving a problem they had yesterday that is no longer creating barriers for them, and they aren’t engaging in learning to solve problems they MIGHT HAVE in the future. They want to solve the biggest problem they have in their life RIGHT NOW (but hint… they may need your help in identifying what that problem actually is).
5. Choose a topic that requires people to DO something. Problems don’t get solved by passively sitting and taking in information. People need to engage in learning that gets them taking the RIGHT ACTION at the RIGHT TIMES for the best result.
6. Choose a topic that has a measurable outcome. People need to know exactly what they will get, have, or be when they finish your course. You need to choose a topic for your course that has a specific outcome with measurable performance criteria so they know if they actually achieved what they set out to do or not.
Choosing a course topic can feel very overwhelming, especially when you have so many things you could possibly teach. Keeping these five things in mind will get you closer to choosing the right course topic and have you one step closer to putting your offer out into the world.
Tracy Sherriff is a curriculum specialist and operations consultant who offers an all-in-one solution for entrepreneurs, coaches, and service-based professionals to successfully scale their business online with high-impact, curriculum-based courses and programs. You can connect with Tracy by visiting her website tracysherriff.com, or finding her on Instagram @tracy.sherriff
Have you ever embarked on a soul journey? A journey that has completely cracked you open and shifted the course of your life?
I have been on this journey these last few years and it has taken me to different depths of myself, meeting my ego every step of the way.
Trying to surrender but controlling the outcome.
Feeling my emotions but resisting at the same time.
It's definitely been a process of letting go and stepping more and more into my truth.
What is the difference between your ego and your soul?
Your ego is that part of you that likes to control. It is the voice in your head and the chatter that you hear all day long. Its driving force is fear and it will do everything in its power to keep you "safe" from what it believes is harmful to you. It doesn't realize that it keeps you suffering and keeps you stuck. It so doesn't want you to feel pain that it binds you into fear so that you can't move forward and you stay within your comfort zone.
Your soul is that part of you that makes your heart beat, it's that life force within you that wants the best for you. You hear your soul in-between the ego when you find peace, that split moment of quietness between the chatter. It is the whispers that you hear with the great ideas that come out of nowhere, that feeling of knowing that you could be doing something or the guidance you get, encouraging you on your journey. Its guidance system is our emotions, it's the vibration we feel on a daily basis that guides us towards our best path forward.
As I embarked on this journey, I realized how powerful my ego was. Fear guided me every step of the way and I listened. Its voice was so much louder than the whispers of my soul and the doubts just gave it so much strength.
It truly was a 3 step forward, 5 step back kinda dance!
My intention behind it was to strengthen my soul and my intuition, to really get connected to that part of myself and let it rise within me and lead me forward.
I wanted to flow with life rather than struggling through it!
And as I took the time to tune into my heart and listen to how my soul communicated with me..
It awakened the feminine part of myself that loves to dance, flow, nurture and create!
It unleashed a part of me that wants to be seen and heard!
It healed parts of me that kept me playing small!
As I grow this part of myself, I am realizing more and more how it is so powerful and so important to take the time with your soul and build that relationship within.
Ask yourself questions:
Is my ego leading my life or my soul? (In other words, am I letting fear control or love?)
If I were to admit to myself and the world what my soul longs for right now, what would it be?
Are you afraid of initiating the changes that your inner voice is asking you to make? Why?
Be very honest with yourself.
Without this relationship, we are always living in our heads, completely limited to what the outside world thinks, never connecting to our bodies, our life force, our emotions. WE MISS THE TRUE BEAUTY OF BEING HUMAN!
HERE IS YOUR SOUL MISSION:
Take a nice deep breath in and set your intention. (ie. I want to connect to my soul and hear how it communicates with me) And NOW LISTEN. Start noticing the different ways your soul is guiding you towards your intention. Don’t doubt it or think it’s a coincidence, believe in your inner wisdom and follow the guidance. Let yourself be led from your heart rather than your head.
This soul journey has changed my life and I hope to inspire you to meet your own soul and to start developing a relationship with your truth and your authentic self.
Your body is always talking to you, take the time to listen!
Much love,
Rachel xo
Rachel Benton is a Licensed Life & Embodiment Coach and a ThetaHealing Energy Practitioner. She helps women build their business in complete alignment with their truth and intuition and guides them to create a soulful life that FUELS and IGNITES them!
Rachel is also the branch director for Happy Healthy Women - Cambridge - Join the Facebook Group
Connect with her today:
Website
Instagram: @rachelbentonlifecoach
