Making decisions is one of the most empowering things we can do for ourselves. In fact, feeling truly satisfied with our life starts with making intentional decisions. 

When we operate on autopilot we are living based on decisions that we have made in the past. From simple things such as the way we like our coffee, to more complex things like who we spend our time with–once we repeat these things several times, they start to become “our usual”. 

This is really great when it comes to healthy habit formation because removing the decision making actually keeps us on track. We decide once and then begin to repeat the same thing intentionally each day until the action becomes automatic.

What we need to be cognisant of is the fact that living based on decisions we made in the past might not be conducive to the life we want to live now.

The things we started out doing on purpose can become unintentional over time and then we start to see unintentional results in our lives. 

When you think about changing something in your life (which involves making a decision), what comes up for you?

Do you have thoughts like:

• I have to do this
• This is just the way it is
• This is what I’m used to
• I’ve made that decision already, there's no turning back now
• This won’t make a difference, so why bother?
• I don’t want to let them down

Take a moment to consider if these thoughts are true. They may feel true. Especially if they have become ingrained in your belief system by thinking them repeatedly for several months or years.

When we are young, our parents, teachers and other trusted adults make most of our decisions for us. In this way we are conditioned by the people around us and by society. We take on values and ideologies and start living from a place of “shoulds”. The result is that we begin to perceive our options as  limited, almost like living in a bubble.

Everything starts being filtered through our worldview and if we don’t take a moment to stop and see the bigger picture, then we miss the opportunity to see a world of limitless possibilities.

Taking a step back gives us the space to think consciously about our lives and our decisions, so that we can start living with intention. 

Are you open to taking your power back?

To start making decisions with thought and deliberation?

If the answers is yes, here are some power thoughts to get you started:

• I have a choice
• It’s okay to make changes in my life
• I get to choose what I believe
• Making decisions for myself is not selfish
• When I make decisions that are right for me, the other people in my life benefit

I challenge you to do a life audit. To look at each area of life and ask yourself, “would I choose this again”.

You may be surprised at how satisfied you are with your life just the way it is.

Whitney Coupland is a Certified Health and Life Coach. In her coaching practice, Whitney works with those who want to improve their health while still enjoying their life. You can connect with Whitney by visiting her website WhitneyCoupland.com, booking a free consultation or finding her on Instagram @WhitneyCoupland_

Character strengths are the building blocks of positive psychology approaches (Peterson & Seligman, 2004). Instead of focusing on one’s shortcomings and dysfunction, an awareness is cultivated of using and developing their strengths to stimulate the helpful behaviour and attitude required for productive change (Niemiec, 2017).

Although others also count, the character strengths of creativity, perseverance, forgiveness, self-regulation, and hope play a determining role in successful and sustainable habit change.

#1 - Hope

Firstly, the motivation to pursue a habit change is inherently based on hope, and optimistic future-mindedness that provides sufficient incentive and expectation of a reward to invest effort in achieving it. 

#2 – Perseverance

By definition, habits are routines or patterns of behavior that are ingrained and difficult to change. Most often, they are attached to their own incentives, such as avoiding discomfort or pain, seeking distraction, and looking for external validation. Therefore, success requires perseverance and the ability to moderate and control one’s impulses and emotions (self-regulation).

Persistence in overcoming obstacles and restarting after failures is the mainstay of any worthwhile change process, while resisting the urge to give up and revert back to one’s old ways.

#3 - Forgiveness

Acceptance and forgiveness of one’s weaknesses is vital when facing and managing setbacks, relapses, and sticking points. Without the capacity of self-forgiveness, building and sustaining new habits is onerous and less likely to succeed. In other words, self-forgiveness gives us the capacity to pick ourselves up, face criticism, and defy the odds.

#4 - Creativity

While other character strengths may also play a role in building healthy habits such as perspective, honesty, zest, kindness, gratitude, and social intelligence, the fourth and final strength highlighted here as integral to most instances of personal change is creativity. This means to be adaptive and inventive when identifying and trying new solutions to old, established problems, like unhelpful habits. By seeing and doing things in different ways, one can circumvent or break through sticking points and blocks and “trick” the mind to adopt the new habit more readily.

Recommendations

By doing a few simple exercises every day, a person can develop the character strengths that will enable them to form and sustain habits more successfully. Research has shown that regular practice of just one activity from the list per character strength will have a significant impact on each character strength, with an amplified effect on habit formation.

Hope

1. Write your successful movie script – Imagine yourself exactly where you want to be in 10 years, engage all your sense, and write about your experiences.

2. Curtail news intake – Minimize distraction and negative influences to create a quiet and constructive space of possibilities. 

3. Visualize your successes – Picture achieving something you have dreamed of for a long time, how it will feel at that moment, and how your life will change as a result.

Perseverance

1. Read about a role model – Choose a real, historical or contemporary person who you have admired and followed. Learn about their strengths, habits, and values, and apply as much as you can to your own life. 

2. Learn to make positive self-appraisals – The most common self-limiting beliefs that are holding us back from developing positive habits that lead us to our dreams are that we are not deserving, worthy, or capable of success and happiness. Practice being kinder and more appreciative to yourself, and acknowledge your strengths.

3. Repeat positive affirmations – Write short, powerful statements that articulate your vision and strengths and repeat them out loud often.

Forgiveness

1. Write down your positive qualities – Self-forgiveness is the mainstay of compassion for others and for finding the strength to pursue positive change. Don’t beat yourself down but focus on your strengths and opportunities. 

2. Put yourself in another’s shoes – The difference between sympathy and empathy is the vantage point. In empathy, we are able to sit with the other person and engage with them at their bottom while shining the light up.

3. Do compassion-focused appraisals – Don’t judge yourself and others but employ unconditional acceptance from a place of compassion and understanding.

Creativity

1. Put time aside for creative activities – Don’t just hurry from one routine or established task to another from one day to the next. Make space for something you may have wanted to do for a while but didn’t have the opportunity, patience, or courage to try.

2. Expand your knowledge in a new area – Make it a goal to learn something new every day, not just in your established areas of expertise, but in something peripheral or brand new. 

3. Explore new things in your current environment – Your surroundings are full of gems that you probably never notice. Engage mindfully with your environment and use all your senses to create new experiences, insights, and connections.

Conclusion

If you do some of these things for a few weeks, you are highly likely to notice the positive change in your character strengths of Hope, Perseverance, Forgiveness, and Creativity. Together, in harmony, your ability to introduce and sustain new habits will also increase and you will be more adaptive and resilient to changing external demands.

References

Linley, P. A., Maltby, J., Wood, A. M., Joseph, S., Harrington, S., Peterson, C., Park, N., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2007). Character strengths in the United Kingdom: The VIA Inventory of Strengths. Personality and Individual Differences, 43, 341-351. DOI: 10.1016/j.paid.2006.12.004

McGrath, R. E. (2014). Character strengths in 75 nations. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 10(5), 407–424. DOI: 10.1080/17439760.2014.888580

Niemiec, R. M. (2017). Character strength interventions: A field guide for practitioners. Boston, MA: Hogrefe.

Peterson, C., & Seligman, M. E. P. (2004). Character strengths and virtues: A handbook and classification. New York: Oxford University Press.

Swart, J. (2020). What do the character strengths of coaching students tell us? Wisdom Magazine, 2. Retrieved from URL.

Amritha is a Forensic Scientist-turned-certified Health and Habits Coach. She helps working professionals break bad habits and build new sustainable ones. They learn to stop procrastinating and take small consistent actions towards managing their time and productivity.

Amritha is enthusiastic about sharing her wisdom as a trailblazer at South Surrey, BC

Join her free Facebook group here where she answers your questions and you learn and grow with like-minded people.

Connect and chat with Amritha on FB and IG at @lifecoachap

One of the hardest truths to accept is that we are more powerful than we could ever imagine!

Instead, we often seem to hold on to the idea that we are not capable, that we are somehow flawed in some important way, or that we must simply submit to whatever is expected of us!

Believing those things can often keep us in situations and circumstances that are safe and comfortable. But life is meant to be more than simply safe and comfortable!

Life is meant to be explored and enjoyed, life is meant to give us the opportunity to grow and stretch, it is meant to give us the opportunity to see what the human spirit is truly capable of!

But that can only be our reality when we step into our power - when we realize that we are the authors of our story and the creators of our own experiences!

So how do we begin the journey of writing our own story?

We begin to write our own stories when we validate our feelings, experiences, needs, fears, and desires.

All too often we walk through life dismissing ourselves.

We say we ‘shouldn't’ feel a certain way, or we ‘shouldn’t’ need this or that.

We deny our fears by say hiding them by being busy and distracted.

We second guess our experiences by casting doubt on what we saw or heard - opting instead to believe the version others tell, making them feel comfortable and supported.

All this leads to living a life that doesn’t feel like ‘ours.’

So today begin to be the author of your own story, begin to check in with yourself and acknowledge what you are feeling, experiencing, needing, fearing, and desiring, begin by validating that anything that comes up for you as important information that you need in order to create the life you want to have!

“Great Stories Happen to those who can tell them” - Ira Glas

Own the fact that your life is yours to create - and as you observe your life and begin to tell your stories realize that you have the power to tell the story in a way that empowers you, that creates opportunities for you, that challenges you to be and do your best!

Your story can be a great story!!

https://bit.ly/3Co0APZ

XOXO

Meg

Meg is a Life Coach, Hypnotherapist, blogger 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

 Whether it’s taking on a project like starting a blog on a new platform or implementing a new way of eating for your health, getting started can feel overwhelming. You’ve likely heard it before: “getting started is the hardest part”. But why?

The way that we think about starting something new is very powerful. Our thoughts are what create our feelings, and because as humans we act based on emotion much of the time, those sentences running through our brains carry a lot of weight. If we allow our brains to run on autopilot, the thoughts that naturally arise may not be the ones that are best for helping us move in the direction we want to go. And so, we can end up with unintentional results. 

We want to think thoughts that elicit a feeling in our body that will have us take action toward our goals. The feeling of overwhelm is not one of those productive feelings.

So what kind of thoughts are causing such overwhelm? Things like:

I don’t know where to start

There are so many things to consider

I want to make sure I get it right

I don’t know the steps involved

This is going to be so time-consuming

Should I bother

Is it worth it

I don’t have the (tools, resources, expertise) that I need

I’m not ready

Maybe this can wait 

Let’s break these thoughts down into a few categories:

Confusion: 

Thoughts like “I don’t know” leave us feeling confused and not sure how or where to start. Confusion can lead to things like over-researching, information overload, and analysis paralysis.  What confusion doesn’t do: help us move forward with confidence. 

Some great questions to ask yourself when you are feeling confused:

What if I did know?

What is my best guess?

What would I tell a good friend in this situation?

What would my coach or mentor say?

These questions can get your brain focused on possible solutions.

Perfectionism:

Thoughts like: “there’s no point in doing this if I don’t get it right” are sign you may be on the perfectionist train. Perfectionism has it’s benefits, such as, producing quality work and doing a great job for our clients. However, it can be paralyzing and prevent us from getting our value out into the world.

Everyone has to start somewhere, and when we start something new, there will always be room for improvement. Having the courage to put yourself out there and do something new is where it begins.

Some useful thoughts to use when you are feeling like a perfectionist:

Even my B grade work has the potential to change someone’s life

Imperfection is relatable and can work in my favour 

Indecision:

We often don’t realize that when we fail to make a decision, we are in fact deciding to stay where we are. Questions like: “should i bother?”, “is it worth it?”, or “is this the right time?” can really hold us back. These thoughts provoke feelings of anxiety or even complacency, which are not useful in brining us closer to our desired outcomes. Indecision takes up mental space and sucks our energy. Give yourself a deadline, make the decision, and relief will follow.

If you find yourself in indecision, a useful thought is:

Any decision I make will give me clarity on what I truly want

Confusion, perfectionism and indecision lead to the thought “this is too much” which creates overwhelm. You may notice that you are fidgety, unfocused, or that your breathing has become shallow. These physical signs give us insight into what is going on in our brains and the types of thoughts we are thinking. 

So, what can we do about it?

1. Get in the right headspace: what thoughts would be useful in this situation? What would I need to think in order to feel motivated to start? Make sure your thoughts hold true for you. A far fetched or unbelievable thought will not elicit the emotion you are looking for.  
2. Feel into the emotion that motivates you: you will know your new thoughts are serving you when you actually feel the vibrations of motivation or excitement in your body. Hold onto this feeling and take action from this place.
3. Make a plan:  this will involve making decisions, breaking larger projects down into smaller tasks, scheduling time for each component, and committing to following through.

Starting is the hardest part, but, if we can get our brain working for us rather than against us, then we are off to the races!

Whitney Coupland is a Certified Health and Life Coach. In her coaching practice, Whitney works with those who want to improve their health while still enjoying their life. You can connect with Whitney by visiting her website WhitneyCoupland.com, booking a free consultation or finding her on Instagram @WhitneyCoupland_

A self-audit starts with the circle of life. The purpose is to establish where you are right now in every area of your life, what you value most, and where you want to be. When you understand and address an area that needs a major change, it means you have identified a desired outcome or goal in that area. 

We often audit work performance or expenses, but how often do we audit our life?

A life audit is carried out by The Wheel of Life exercise. It is a very common and effective technique used by professionals to help get a “helicopter view” of life areas. The Wheel of Life is also an effective tool to change habits. It also helps to overcome problems of stress by addressing the imbalances in a person’s life.

The eight most common main areas of life are:- 

Family and friends – the relationship you have and the quality and quantity of time you spend with members of your family and extended family.

Business and career – Anything related to your career, profession, business, education, and professional vision and purpose.

Health – A broad category that includes eating, fitness, pain and disease, injuries, and mental health; anything related to your body or mentality.

Finances – Anything related to your wealth, financial situation, money matters, and attitudes and beliefs about money.

Romance – The relationships you have or want to have with romantic partners.

Personal development/growth – It is about who you are, your relationship with yourself, where you see yourself in the future, and what you need to get there. It also involves your sense of guilt or fear or purpose.

Fun and recreation – Leisure activities you do to enjoy life.

Physical environment – How you perceive and experience your living, work, and other spaces that you spend time in.

All these life areas are highly interconnected. Problems in one area can spill over and affect others. For example, when having family issues, such as a struggling relationship with a spouse, it could affect one’s work, self-esteem, time, energy and relationships with their friends, with stress and health again going hand-in-hand.

Having this in mind, go over the different areas of your life listed above and determine where you are on a scale of 1 to 10. Your first number represents your current assessment of the time and attention spent on the particular area. The second number indicates the time and attention you ideally want to spend on the same life area in the future.

The difference in the numbers implies the gap that is a gauge of the priority for change in a specific area to ensure that underlying concerns and considerations are addressed and not symptoms.

Amritha is a Forensic Scientist-turned-certified Health and Habits Coach. She helps working professionals who don’t find the time for themselves or who have lost their momentum on things they want to pursue, to break bad habits and build healthy and sustainable ones to consistently achieve their goals.

Amritha is enthusiastic about sharing her wisdom as a trailblazer at South Surrey, BC

Join her free Facebook group here where she answers your questions and you learn and grow with like-minded people.

Connect and chat with Amritha on Facebook

Instagram @lifecoachap

Or write to amrithap2108@gmail.com

It's always amazing to me, how easy it is for me to self-sabotage!

How quickly I can see what is missing and point out what I am lacking!!

Unfortunately the same is true with the amount of love I believe is in my life - too often I focus on the love I think I am missing, feeling an emptiness that I assume can only be filled by the love and validation of others.

But we all know that we find the things that we are looking for - so, when we look for what is missing that is what we find.

Every time I spend my energy focusing on my perceived lack of love I build a wall that blocks out the love that is available to me!

"Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it." - Rumi

And every time I spend my energy making others responsible for making me experience the love I crave I place a burden on my loved ones that is too heavy for them to carry. (And when others place that responsibility on me it is a burden too heavy for me to carry as well!)

Things change for me when instead of looking for more evidence of missing out on love I began to break down the barriers I had built against receiving it.  I am constantly surprised at how much love my life is full of when I change my focus and when I begin to accept that I am already loved beyond belief!

Breaking down barriers starts in a surprisingly easy way!

It all starts with changing the questions that we ask!

So often we get answers we don't like because we ask questions that take us in the wrong direction.

We tend to ask:

"Why don't I deserve love?" instead of "How can I show love for myself right now?" or "Where can I see love right now?"

When we ask the question 'why don't I deserve or have love in my life' our minds simply get busy finding the answer - and the answer not beneficial! We find answers like: "I don't have love in my life because no one cares about me, or I am unlovable, or because I (fill in the blank)"

But when we ask a question like 'Where can I see love right now' we notice the kindness of a stranger, or the smile that the cashier gave us, or the small act of service a loved one did for us!

Different questions give us different answers which then allows us to see and feel different things!

So as we enter February - the month of LOVE - here is an affirmation we can use to open our hearts to the love that's already there for us to accept:

"I allow myself to feel all the love I need. I break down any barrier that I have to the love available to me!'

https://bit.ly/3Go935V

To learn more about Meg visit her website www.megheppner.com

Societal messages, both overt and subliminal, make us believe that there’s some prize for being thin and beautiful and that we should strive to meet that ideal.  Society drills this message into our heads, reinforced by the beauty, fitness, and diet industries.

To feel better in our bodies, we need to remove things from our lives that make us focus on our appearance and feel badly about ourselves—things like TV, beauty magazines, and social media feeds.

1)Get rid of your scale.  Removing the scale from my home was one of the best and most liberating things I ever did!  If this thought makes you feel too anxious, then try just taking a break from using it.  I understand this can hurt, but think of it as if you were cleaning out a wound so it can heal properly.

2) Stop using the word “fat” to describe your feelings and start articulating your real feelings.  For example, instead of saying, “I feel so fat,” you might say something like, “I feel so overwhelmed.” By acknowledging your real feelings, you’re in a better place to give yourself some compassion and realize that restricting, overeating or being “thin” are not answers. 

3) Connect with your body through movement compassionately and enjoyably.  When we continually push ourselves to go further, faster, and longer, it takes pleasure from physical activity and can leave us injured.  Skip the gym and take a walk instead.   As you walk, try to notice as many pleasant things as possible by using all your senses.  Enjoy the fresh air, sun, trees, the smell of freshly-cut grass, and the feeling of the earth under your feet.  Take your time and enjoy it!

I’m the owner of Stephenie Farrell, Coaching & Wellness.  I help empower women to create freedom, health, success, and inner peace through community support and coaching.

As an Intuitive Eating Counsellor, Coach, Energy Therapist, & Yoga Instructor, I help women reach future goals that aren’t food or body-related.

If you’re interested in exploring more of this, connect with me online:

stephenie@stepheniefarrell.com

https://www.facebook.com/CoachStephenie

https://twitter.com/coach_stephenie

https://www.instagram.com/coachstephenie/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/stephenie-farrell-coaching/

https://www.youtube.com/c/StephenieFarrellTheBodyConfidenceCoach

"The world isn't fair."

That's what we've been conditioned to believe. That life is "hard”, and you have to "hustle" to make ends meet. That's the false paradigm that keeps us stuck in a system of modern-day slavery of service to FEW, the elite.

Where is your energy going?

Worrying about money takes ALOT of your energy. It also keeps you stuck in the old paradigm of lack mindset. Money is only a form of "currency"; it flows and is abundantly available for you.

You're not required to co-opt into anything that doesn't resonate with your soul, inner guidance, and well-being. Like EVER. You have complete authorization to override this reality.

Have faith and know, that you absolutely CAN when you embody and create from your Soul, your new reality.

Tune UP your intuition.
Ground IN your wisdom.

Every single differing thought, feeling and action puts you on a new timeline.

Timeline Jumping can help you create the life situations that you want. 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. 

And the resistance will always show up right BEFORE a timeline jump. Because Timelines are like bandwidths.

Think of yourself as an airplane. As you gain altitude (your ascension process) the cabin pressure inside the aircraft remains stable so you can sustain being in higher elevation seamlessly.

Timeline jumping is no different. If the energy within you isn't anchored into itself to rise with another bandwidth, you cannot sustain it and can only hold the highest frequency available to you (that's why healing work is so important).

As many of you know, I have recently moved my life, my family and my business to Costa Rica.

It has been the boldest timeline jump I have ever made and it only took six months to manifest my paradise. Many people ask me how me about how I manifest, and timeline jump so seamlessly. There's no denying that these jumps do not come without challenges!

It's the energetics of manifesting. You are the master of your manifesting mojo; if you get distracted from your intention and its energy signature, your vibration dwindles; you drop your manifestation from showing up.

There are other "you's" that are already living the life that you want to live. Everything is only a matter of WHEN and aligning with the frequency of that timeline.

Do you feel like:

-You've been living life on a certain bandwidth or loop forever?

-Or 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?

Every single differing thought, feeling and action puts you on a new timeline.

All possibilities exist in our Universe. Your desire is there waiting for you to focus on it and bring it into view.

MANIFEST YOUR PARADISE BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE HERE TO DO.

Join me for your most epic timeline jump yet👇
Timeline Jumping - An Embodiment Experience!
https://dorothyknightreiki.ca/timeline-jumping

Dorothy Knight, known as “The 5dmom”, is a best-selling author & embodiment 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,” homeschooling her two children while running a successful 7-figure business and writing books. 

She currently lives in Costa Rica with her husband and two children. Dorothy is the branch director for HHW Tamarindo.

Website: 5dmom.com

dorothyknightreiki.ca

Instagram: @5dmom

So I don't know about you, but I haven't always been a big fan of affirmations!

I saw them as a nice afterthought, but not something that was massively impactful!

Maybe your experience has been similar to mine - I see the affirmation, I think something along the lines of "Oh I love that!" I print it up, put it somewhere, and then never look at it again.

No wonder I thought they weren't impactful!

But recently something has changed for me!

I decided to give affirmations another try - to really make it my intention to use them in a way that was impactful.

And so I created a spiritual ritual around my affirmation.

I had no idea how powerful this would be!! I had always used affirmations as something I did while I was brushing my teeth (anyone else have their affirmations taped to their bathroom mirror?) but for me, that just never worked. (By day two I was forgetting all about it and after a month I was peeling the affirmation of the mirror lol!)

Creating a spiritual ritual around my affirmation met so many of the needs that I had because it caused me to slow down and actually feel the affirmation - instead of it being something I had as a fleeting thought, slowing down and creating a space to really focus on it allowed me to feel it in my body!!

And that's when it began to integrate into who I am.

Now taking that moment to stop, pause, and reflect on my affirmation is one of the most important parts of my day!

Curious about what a spiritual ritual that includes an affirmation would look like?

Well, here's what I did:

1. Decide how much time I wanted to dedicate to it and where in the day it fits - I'm an overachiever so my first thought is always way more than I can comfortably sustain. It's important to think about how much time you can give to your spiritual ritual and how it can fit into your life. I started off with 5 minutes. It works best for me either first thing in the morning when I am waiting for my coffee, or just after the kiddos in my house go to bed.
2. Create the atmosphere - there was something about reading my affirmation while I was brushing my teeth that just didn't do it for me! For me the atmosphere is important, it shows my subconscious (which is what we are trying to influence with our affirmations) that this is something to take seriously and to pay attention to! The atmosphere that I created might be different than what you prefer so be creative and think about the things that make you feel good, comfortable, and safe and incorporate them in whichever way you feel fits. I am a big fan of candles, oils, and music so that's what I use!
3. Breath - most of us walk around unknowingly taking little half breaths. Rarely do we do a deep inhale and a long satisfying exhale. Before I read my affirmation I take at least ten deep belly breaths before I read my affirmation.
4. Read the affirmation - taking the time to slowly read the affirmation, to reflect on its truth, and to begin imagining how it is possible for this to be true in your life made the affirmation feel real to me, feel possible instead of just another sentence that I was reading. Then I ask myself what action could I take today that would be in alignment with the affirmation? It's amazing how often if I pause here, my mind gives me an answer.
5. Finally I end with Gratitude - I spend time thanking myself for taking the time to do this, I spend time thanking my subconscious for listening and accepting the information, and then I thank the Universe for the grace it gives me every day as I live this life!

So Soul Sister, maybe you've tried the affirmations thing and it hasn't worked for you - that's ok! But maybe you want to give it another try - and maybe you want to incorporate it into a spiritual practice. If you do I offer you the affirmation I am using this month:

"I prioritize the things I value and live in alignment with what I truly want."

https://bit.ly/3n5aZcR

I would love to hear about your experiences with affirmations and how they have impacted your life!

And if you decide to build your own spiritual ritual I totally want to hear about that too!!!

Sending you so much love,

XOXO Meg

www.megheppner.com

Meg is a life coach, Hypnotherapist, blogger and event host 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 is also on the Board of Directors for Happy Healthy Women Global

Meg lives in BC with her husband of 21 years, two teenage boys and their little dog Charlie.

To learn more about Meg visit her website www.megheppner.com

Using gratitude as a tool for happiness has been mainstream for years. Long-term studies support gratitude’s effectiveness, suggesting that an appreciative attitude contributes to success in work, health, and recovery.
Fostering a deep appreciation for your body and what it can do, is a crucial step in healing your relationship with food and body image.  Building body confidence is much easier when you can learn to appreciate your body for what it can do.

When you practice giving thanks for our body, instead of complaining or worrying about what you lack,  you give yourself the chance to see all of life as an opportunity and a blessing.

It’s a matter of where you put your focus and attention. Pain and injustice exist in this world, but when we focus on the gifts of life, we gain a feeling of well-being. Gratitude balances us and gives us hope.

There are many things to be grateful for: colourful autumn leaves, legs that work, arms that can hug, warm jackets, the ability to read, roses, butterflies. What’s on your list?

Some Ways to Practice Gratitude

• Keep a gratitude journal. List things you’re grateful for in relation to your body and your life. You can make daily, weekly or monthly lists. Just keeping that journal where you can see it will remind you to think in a grateful way.
• Make a gratitude collage by drawing or pasting pictures.
• Practice gratitude as part of your nighttime routine.
• Make a game of finding the hidden blessing in a challenging situation.
• When you feel like complaining, make a gratitude list instead. You may be amazed by how much better you feel.

Notice how gratitude is impacting your life.  As you practice, an inner shift begins to occur, and you may be delighted to discover how content and hopeful you are feeling.

Stephenie Farrell

Body Confidence Coach

www.stepheniefarrell.com

We all want to grow and learn and make a positive impact in the world.

We long to do something important with our lives and for the most part, we know that it starts with ourselves - we change the world by changing how we show up in the world and how we interact with the world.

But it can be so easy to tumble down the rabbit hole of judgment. Unfortunately, nothing stops our growth and our impact like judgment.

And that is because what we judge we can not understand.

The minute that we say "He's a liberal" or "She's a conservative" is the moment that "understanding" comes to a halt.

(Or maybe a better example right now would be "He's a pro-vaxer"/"She's an anti-vaxer!")

When we decide to place a label on someone or something, we often do so with an undertone of approval or disapproval attached to it. It becomes very difficult to understand the things (and people) that we disapprove of.

The whole idea of disapproval is that it is something foreign to you or outside of you. And we all know that is ripe and fertile ground for an "us against them" environment.

As human beings, we tend to react to things that are foreign to us or outside of us in 3 different ways:

The first way we can react is to quickly reject that person, their behavior, or their ideas. For many of us this means that we don’t want them around us, we don’t include them in our friend groups and if they are family we spend as little time with them as possible. They become the them to our us. When this get’s played out on a bigger stage we see countries going to war, we see racism, we see refugees with no place to go. And we begin to use language that vilifies and depersonalizes them until in the worst cases we are ok with their complete destruction. I know that sounds extreme but how many of us watch the news and see exactly this type of behavior.

The second way that we can react is by accepting the difference as long as it’s not brought to your awareness. It’s like saying “Ok it’s fine that we are different but I don’t want to hear about it and I don’t want to see it.” This happens when we go home for thanksgiving and we say “I’m just not going to talk to Uncle Bill about politics" or we say to our partner “Since we’re not married my parents are going to make us sleep in different rooms” even though you have been living together for years. It’s saying we are fine with people being gay but we would never be friends with them. The list goes on and on....

The third way we respond is by removing all the differences and saying, “Well we are all the same.” We saw this when Black Lives Matter came on the stage and asked us to see something we didn’t necessarily want to see...so many people responded with “Well, all lives matter.” And in removing the differences we remove anything that was uncomfortable and that we could have learned from.

Now if you respond in one of these three ways you will notice something very interesting.  You’ll notice that in each way of responding you are right. In the first two, you are right and the other person is wrong. And in the third one, you’re both right. Oh yes, that ego is one tricky son of a gun.

But there is a fourth way of responding. It's a difficult one but it will provide you with so much spiritual growth and such a rich and abundant life experience. And that is to look at things and to look at yourself through the lens of the other person - with such a deep curiosity that when you look back at your own behavior it looks strange to you.

Let me give you an example in a story that I heard:

There was a therapist that was going to go work in an Indigenous community. And when he arrived he looked at how they raised their children, the children ran from house to house acting as if each house was their own, they spent most of their time unsupervised and playing outside. When the kids misbehaved every adult felt the freedom to discipline them.

And the therapist thought - “Oh this is a huge problem. These kids are not grounded in their families, they lack connection with their mothers and fathers, they are allowed too much freedom and not enough structure” and on and on.

But the longer he stayed in the community and the more he got to know the people that lived there, he began to see the world through their lens until finally, he had some understanding.

And then when he looked back at his own community he thought “How strange it is that we live so isolated from each other, that we don’t allow the influence of other people to penetrate us, that we build so many fences and so many boundaries - perhaps that is why I have always felt so alone.”

This story is so impactful not because it glorifies one way of living over another, but because it causes us to look through more than just our own natural lens to see the world through another’s eyes and to allow what we see to pierce us and to cause us to grow!

So today ask yourself - which of these four ways of responding do I normally choose? And how would I become a more beneficial person in the world if I decided to remove my judgments and to see the world through the eyes of another the best that I could. How could I gain a more clear picture of reality if I also chose to see and accept my own strangeness as well?

Want to know more? Listen to The Art Of Being H(YOU)man Podcast - Episode 8 Accepting Other

Meg is a life coach, blogger and event host 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 is also the current Branch Director of South Surrey/White Rock for Happy Healthy women.

Meg’s currently running events are:

The Self Love Series (March 2021 to June 2021)

The Art Of Being H(You)man Series (January 2021 to April 2021)

The Goddess Talks (All of 2021)

Meg lives in BC with her husband of 20 years, two teenage boys and their little dog Charlie. To learn more about Meg and her business, visit her website realexcellentliving.com