Listening to your heart...and french toast!

Received from the 'Notes from the Universe' today:

"The only way to get what you really want, is to know what you really want.

And the only way to know what you really want, is to know yourself.

And the only way to know yourself, is to be yourself.

And the only way to be yourself, Donna, is to listen to your heart.

I do,
The Universe

Thoughts become things... choose the good ones! ®
© www.tut.com ®

French toast every now and then might help, too, Donna. "

What's your heart telling you about your business today?

Love

Donna.x

You Simply Must Practice

In the final module of the latest class, one of our participants came up with this GEM of a quote:

“You simply must practice, there’s no better way” Said Christopher Robin to Winnie the Pooh.

Couldn’t have said it better myself!

Love

Donna.x

"Being in Service of"

I am reading The Soul of Money by Lynne Twist. She has a vast experience and deep understanding of people and money through direct and intimate experiences over four decades of fund-raising and work in four major global initiatives: to end world hunger; to protect the rain forest; to improve health, economic, and political conditions for women; and to advance the scientific understanding of human consciousness.

In her first 45 pages, Lynne talks about the deep, soul-felt reasons that she does what she does. Those reasons seem to impel her forward in her life and career. She feels deeply committed.

Here are some of her phrases that may stimulate a sense of recognition in you and trigger a desire for a further look at your 'being in service of' statement. I will rephrase them into statements.

I am here to help myself and others discover startling truths about our human nature and human potential.
I open my heart with deep commitment to compassion and love for all.
I am a shining and visible example of the power of commitment to............
I am in service of the principles of personal transformation and empowering self-inquiry.
I am becoming a powerful instrument of what's wanted and needed for the affirmation of human life.
I help people to reconnect with their own higher calling, or soulful longing, to be the kind of people they want to be.
I provide a safe place and opportunity for people to discover and engage in their greatness.

In the beginning of her career, Lynne probably couldn't have verbalized these inner urges/feelings as well as she does now. She may have changed the words as she allowed the feelings to come up and be observed. She does admit to changing many of her beliefs as time passed and this book is really about changing our core beliefs about money and the impact that it has on the world's social, economic, and political development. Lynne Twist's wide perspective on this and much more is not to be missed!

We are each a unique and valuable piece of this puzzle we call the World. Without each and every one of us, the world would be incomplete, a lesser place.

Love,

Barbara

International Happiness Day - July 10!

More info at: http://www.InternationalHappinessDay.com

I thought you all would like to know about the first International Happiness Day. Their tag line is “ Happiness is an inside job”, which I love.

The goal: Get 1,000,000 people or more to choose to experience deep inner happiness starting on July 10th. 194 countries will be participating!

There is great power in joining with the energy of others to make a difference. This should raise our vibration and that of the Earth substantially.

See you, feel you, on July 10 as we make a commitment together to be happy!
This is a ‘no-brainer’ for me!

Love,

Barbara

You Do Not Have To Be Good

Wild Geese by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.

You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes, 

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, 

the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place 

in the family of things.

from: Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, Volume One

This is your natural way, and mine.

Love,

Barbara

To say Yes to this, say No to that

As you are finding Your Natural Way, you will find philosophies that 'fit' your way of being and others that frankly, do not! I was chatting to a client today about 'motivational' e-mails and how they always make him feel bad! My personal style is inspiration, not motivation - if you have to push me to complete something, why am I doing it at all?

Anyway, if it's not Your Natural Way, if it's not feeling good, if it's not feeling easy...bin it! Why keep reading things that make you feel bad? Remember that Your Natural Way is absolutely valid for YOU. Not everyone in the world will agree, and nor do they need to! And the more you cull the things that DON'T work for you, the more space you will have for things that DO work.

Love

Donna.x

Radical Responsibility

Radical responsibility - what does this mean? Sounds kind of scary! Well, it is both liberating and scary, I guess. We know that to be responsible is to pay your bills on time, to pick up the children on time, to walk our talk, to be truthful, to commit and follow up, and more. Here is the dictionary meaning of responsible.
1. answerable or accountable, as for something within one's power, control, or management...

Radical responsibility is accepting that you are 100% answerable and accountable for everything that is happening in your life. That would mean that everything in your life is within your power, control, or management. Further, that would mean that you have chosen and can continue to choose in each moment, how your life expresses through you in the world.

Nothing happens to you. You are not a victim of circumstance. Somewhere, someplace, sometime, you chose that circumstance. No blaming someone or something else allowed. It all comes down to you.

Kind of liberating and scary, eh?

Love,

Barbara

Useful or Useless?

I love hardware stores and gadgets. I can spend hours browsing through building stores looking at everything that would make a job easier, from knee pads (mine are purple!) to fruit ripeners to plant moisture measurers. I'm fascinated by what the human mind can conjure up. I just know that someone was in the middle of a job and a light bulb went on as they thought of that tool to make their life easier.

We seem to naturally move toward what is easier for us. I use a tool for making decisions and choices easier. I ask myself, " Is this useful or useless?"

Is it useful or useless to buy the multi-tasking tool that is so cool looking and easy to store but the handle gets in the way when you use the screw driving attachment? Is it useful or useless for me to subscribe to 5 different newsletters on marketing my coaching business? Is it useful or useless to focus on what feels good and move in that direction? Is it useful or useless to buy my dog booties to keep her feet warm when she hates anything touching her feet? (they are soooo cute!)

Give this little tool a try. I find it very useful!

Love,

Barbara

'You' Are What You Are Selling

"All the resources you will ever want or need are at your fingertips. All you have to do is identify what you want to do with it , and then practise the feeling-place of what it will feel like when that happens. There is nothing you cannot be or do or have. ... There is nothing holding you back, other than your own contradictory thought. And your emotion tells you you're doing that. Life is supposed to be fun - it is supposed to feel good!...Savour more: fix less. Laugh more; cry less. Anticipate positively more; anticipate negatively less. Nothing is more important than you feel good. Just practise that and watch what happens..."

- Abraham/Hicks  March 2003

How many contradictory thoughts have you had about getting clients? Is that nasty word 'should' part of your self-talk? 

Take a moment and close your eyes and get the feeling you have when you remember why you are doing what you are doing. Hold that for a moment. What could you do to hold that good feeling longer? What action could you take now that would make you feel good about you and your business? How does that feel in your body compass?

'You' are what you are selling. And when you feel good about yourself and your business, you are very, very attractive to clients. How more natural and easy can it be?

Love,  Barbara

Your Natural Self

Many of us were brought up to think that being an adult means doing a lot of things we don't want to do. This does not have to be true. We can fulfil our responsibilities and still evolve by being  true to ourselves,  clearly focusing on what is meaningful and natural to us, and following that path. It's about you being you and being comfortable with that.

Being true to ourselves allows us to have more clarity around our intrinsic gifts and how to use them in the world. We can listen to our bodies for cues as to whether we feel comfortable with what is happening so that we can choose to stay or to make a change. We can notice our feelings about a situation and the people we are with, and decide whether to be there or not, or listen to our intuition about how to change it. We can detach from outcomes and find the gifts in our experiences. Then, we will have a conduit into our own profound wisdom - that which is true for ourselves.

This is not selfish. This is self-centred in the best possible way. This frees us to be all we can be. This allows us to fully contribute those attributes that are uniquely ours. This allows us to listen carefully to others with a reduction of self-talk in the background, because we are listening to only one voice, our own. This is living from the inside out. This is freedom. And this is the place from where we can be truly responsible and do everything we choose to do, in our natural way.

Love,

Barbara

"The question isn't who is going to let me, it's who is going to stop me."

- Ayn Rand    author of Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, and more.

From Abraham Hicks Daily Quote (sign up at www.abraham-hicks.com)
Everyone doesn’t have to be the same. Most say, “Well, it’s so much easier if we’re all the same.” And we say, it is not easier when you’re all the same; conformity is the thing that thwarts you most. That massive wanting to get you to conform—to all think the same way and want the same things—is what is causing the revolt that is happening within you. You are determined to be freedom-seekers in a Mass Consciousness society that is determined to make you the same.

Excerpted from a workshop in Asheville, NC on Saturday, October 25th, 2003

All Is Well
Abraham Hicks

Be the freedom-seeker in your business. You don't have to be the same as everyone else.

Love

Donna.x

Is it Easy or Not?

I thought of Your Natural Way when I read this blog post by Stacy Brice:

Some relationships simply aren't meant to be, for any number of reasons. You'll know one of them when things are hard, all the time, or even most of the time. Great relationships are full of ease. And while that's not to say that great relationships never have rough spots to be worked through, it's because they're fundamentally easy that working through the rough spot is - you got it!- easy (or, at least, easier).

When it's just too hard, and everything you do seems to be a mistake, see the sign for what it is...a chance to make things in your business better... and get off that gerbil wheel you've been running on. Graciously (and quickly) say what's so to your client, ..... part company, and move on without giving it another thought! Better clients for you are waiting to avail themselves of your mad skills and overall fabulousness! 

-Virtual Moxie, April 16, 2008 

Forcing things through acts of will are a habitual not natural way of being.  

What relationships are you struggling in? Would you and your client be better off working with someone else?

What would it feel like to let go of that struggle? 

Love,

Barbara  

   

What I know for Sure

What do you Know for Sure about your business?

What does the voice of inspiration whisper to you?

Hint: this is not the loud voice in your head that says 'you suck'!

When was the last time you took the time to connect with your inner wisdom?

Because, you know, you have all the answers...it's just a matter of being still enough to hear them.

Love

Donna.x

What's the Point of Meeting People if You Don't Stay In Touch?

Let's say you go to one networking event every week, and you meet 20 people at each one.

80 people a month.

Of which, only 2 were ready for your services right now.

What about the other 78? You just write them off?

Or do you keep in touch with them, knowing that you can be of service to them...and when they are ready, the chances are good that they will look to you?

You don't have to bombard them with phone calls or e-mails, you can simply stay in touch with them from a place of service.

If you're not sure how - look at how you like people to stay in touch with you, and how much more likely you are to buy from them months (even years) down the line when they have been in touch and in service of your needs.

Love

Donna.x

Who Would I Be If I Weren't Somebody Else?

Stephen Covey says:

"To begin with the end in mind means to start with a clear understanding of your destination. It means to know where you are going, so that you better understand where you are now and so that the steps you take are always in the right direction."

This is not me. Statements like this have always intimidated me. I don't really understand them except on an intellectual level. My destination has never been clear. The view has always seemed a bit obscured. I thought I should know where I'm going and suffered a lot of guilt and self-judgment as a result of the seeming randomness of my life. Imagining myself in different jobs and roles never gave me a lift or a sense of destiny. I felt as if this was a great failing on my part to be so much like a paper floating on a stream. Who would I be if I weren't somebody else?

When I relaxed into my more natural self, I realised that I had been doing what I was meant to do and being who I was supposed to be from an early age. With the 'shoulds' pushed aside, I could see myself more clearly. As I made choices based on my values instead of on what somebody else was doing, I discovered my natural way. Living a value-driven life allows me to make choices from my own context and the somebody I become is truly me - naturally! And the path before me is less of a minefield and more of an easy journey of self-affirmation.

I am somebody and that somebody is ME!

"You are always in a universe of choices. Any moment of your life can go in any direction you choose."

-Luis Alberto Urrea in The Hummingbird's Daughter

Love,

Barbara

The Obligation to be Yourself

Eleanor Roosevelt:

Remember always that you not only have the right to be an individual, you have an obligation to be one.

I Don't Want Your Happiness, I Want Your Money

How do you react to that subject line? Do you feel a warm fuzzy feeling toward me? Do you think 'yes, of course, let me get my credit card'? Or do you feel a little taken aback, somewhat soiled, even revolted?

Obviously it's fairly rare that someone will say that (or write it) aloud...but if that's their intention, can you feel it anyway? Can you feel when someone just wants to sell to you, whether you want or need their product or service or not? Do you buy from those people?

Have you checked which side you are 'coming from' intentionally lately? Do you want the money, or do you want people to experience what you do and have their lives improve as a result? I am not saying you can't make money by just being after the client's cash - double glazing salesmen do it all the time - but it is much easier to 'get' a client if you are serving them, not your bank account.

Love

Donna.x

Always Serving

What are you 'in service of' in the world? What is your driving ideal? What would you love to change about the world?

Did you know you are ALWAYS serving that ideal? Not just with your clients, but with yourself, your family and friends, everyone you interact with.

This doesn't mean you need to become a pulpit basher! But it does suggest that if you are conscious of what you are serving, you will be able to serve consciously and more effectively...always. All Ways.

Love

Donna.x

Easy Gardening

If you take a look at nature, grass doesn't 'try' to grow, it just grows. Flowers don't struggle to bloom, they just bloom. The sun doesn't try to force itself up in the middle of the night, it comes up with ease when the time is right for it to do so.

What could you and your business learn from this? What are you 'trying', 'struggling' or 'forcing'? What would you change if you saw it as a natural process? There may still be some action, after all, we need to sow the seed, feed and nurture the plant, and create the right conditions for it to happen.

But there's no trying, struggling or forcing involved.

What is the next natural step for your business?

Love

Donna.x

Being Yourself is a Lifelong Experiment

Here at Your Natural Way, we run courses and group coaching programs that run for 4-12 months, but we don't expect that in that time you will stop learning about yourself. After 3 years of Your Natural Way, I am still deepening my learning about MY natural way and finding ever easier and ever more fun ways to be fully myself.

Humans are like onions...layers.

Keep peeling back the layers of the authentic you. For always.

Love

Donna.x