Holistic/Spiritual Life Coaching and Healing

Manifesting Dreams

What Lights You Up?

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What lights you up?  What brings a smile to your face, straightens your posture, makes you lean forward and ready to go?

Our dear friend and colleague Micah Blacklight discussed activating your creative spirit on a past Soulful Living Show. He emphasized finding ways to embody a space that lights you up, which serves yourself and others. This light-you-up spot is the “happy point, the juice.”

The phrase “what lights you up” contains many wonderful elements. Let’s unpack four of its treasures, so we can use them to create an extraordinarily fulfilling life.

As a note, know that the “lighting up” can come from within or without. Internally, we may get sparked by a thought, feeling, memory or energy state. Externally, we might connect with a person, place, event or thing.

What lights you up has all of the following elements: 

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Opening the Heart and Mind

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Two things are required to awaken in this lifetime: opening your mind and your heart.

As you open your heart and mind, wonderful things happen to you.

With an open mind and heart, life becomes a wondrous adventure, one of continuous learning and creating.  You are able to be more in the moment ─ and notice more of the synchronicities that surround you.

On the other hand, when the mind and heart are closed, our view is limited. These blinders reduce emotions to constrictive ones, like fear, doubt, and anger.

It’s essential to open both the heart and mind. A too-open heart can cause you to be naïve and overly trusting. You lack discernment and can be the fool rushing in where angels fear to tread.

On the other hand, if your mind is open but your heart isn’t active, then you may become overly mental and analytical. You know things but are lacking a feeling about them.  Feelings may be hard to fathom and identify. You can grow detached from life and love.

As a note, for this article we are speaking of the mind that connects with source, not the physical brain, which filters the mind’s thoughts and energies. The mind uses the brain to communicate with the physical body.

We are also speaking of the spiritual heart here, not just the anatomical heart. The spiritual heart is a bridge to the soul and spirit. It opens us to the timeless realms ─ this connection then sends a transmission so we can be more in our body and present to our experience.

Here are a few suggestions for opening your mind and heart.

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Asking the Right Questions

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Are you asking the right questions?  Perhaps more basically, are you asking ANY questions? Asking the right questions is critical for success in work, life and spiritual growth. As coach and holistic practitioners, it is central to our work as well.

Let’s explore why questions are so essential to living fully.

We often discuss ways to be more hopeful and live a grounded life,  one filled with joy and fulfillment.  Let’s start with a useful question: What gets in the way?

One of the signs that a person is off-course is living too much on autopilot.  That means letting the unconscious and others direct your life. It means being run by habits and routines, continually putting out fires in order to complete to-do lists ─ and starting all over again tomorrow.

Here’s another question then: How do you get out of this Groundhog Day kind of existence? How do you stop the momentum of hurry and worry and break the cycle?

In order to bring in more hope, aliveness and wisdom, pause and start to question. In other words, be aware of whether you’re just reacting and continuing on uninterrupted.

Take a breath… Explore what’s in this moment, as well as take in the big picture.

Here then are three ways to start asking good questions:

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The One-Step Miracle

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What’s a miracle hidden in plain sight? It’s so close you might miss it, just a step away. The miracle is that no matter where you are, whatever you are doing, wherever you might want to go, you can take the next step.

Just as there is a next moment in time, so is there is a next step in space. And as time and space come together in your awareness, you get in sync, in flow.

Your next step can launch the journey of a thousand miles, which metaphorically and literally can be the journey of your life.

Our Move

When we were about fifty years old, we wanted to move to a new location. We decided to move to a small city on the Central California Coast. It was much more scenic than where we lived at the time and it felt like the right place for us, although we had no roots there.

This was a big step of course. And it took many little steps to eventually move, including selling our house and moving our home and business. And it took a lot of patience and trust for it to all come together.

But each step counted and took us eventually to the desired outcome.

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How to Have a Fulfilling Life

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To be successful is wonderful. That includes being abundant. Ultimately, you need fulfillment to be deeply satisfied, continually renewed and enriched.

Let’s examine what is fulfillment and how to “have” it. (Hint: it’s not something you can possess, and the more you try to grasp it, the more elusive it becomes.)

Fulfillment is a process, a journey. It’s finding more meaning, purpose and positive feedback in your life. It brings you to a deeper, more ever present place. To be fulfilled, you draw from your past, hope toward the future and ground it all here right now. Let’s look at keys to your fulfillment.

Your Power

As Roman emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius said, “The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts.” We can make those thoughts soul-infused with our presence.

By monitoring your thoughts and feelings, you can create a higher set point, the internal reference on how you view the world.

The old default set point is …

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Do You Accept Yourself?

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Do you accept yourself, warts and all? The first part of this question might get an immediate yes, but there may be a pause when it comes to accepting your blemishes.

Accepting yourself means acknowledging yourself as you are. Like justice, it just is. You just are. This entails some figuring out of who you are and being okay with the different parts of yourself.

To get clarity, let’s first identify what self-acceptance is not. Self-acceptance is not…

* …blaming and putting yourself down

* …inflating yourself

* …denying what is happening to you

Before we suggest ways to accept yourself, consider this: Psychologist Carl Rogers observed, “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I change.”

Paradoxically, then, to become a better you, you must first be okay with who you are now.

In EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) terms, “Even though I have this [issue], I deeply and completely accept myself.” Then the tapping realigns the thought with the energy circuits.

If you can accept yourself, even with the warts, you’ll bring peace of mind and cultivate a mindful wisdom.

How then do you accept yourself? Here are four ways:

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Gamechanger: Living with More Joy and Ease

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How do you see your life? Joyous or stressful, easy or hard; creative or monotonous? Of course life is not black and white, either/or. Yet we can choose to live more joyously and easily, as a conscious decision.

We often default into hurry and worry as a result of life’s challenges. This lends itself to a negative focus, something inherent in us, a primitive protective measure to keep us safe.

But unless we are in a truly dangerous situation, it’s not worth being on guard continuously, for that only creates undue tension and stress.

So how do you inject more joy and ease into your life? It will bring more light and lightheartedness into your life. Let us describe four keys, which – if you follow them – can be a gamechanger for the quality of your everyday life.

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How to Manifest Your Dreams and Desires

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Manifest Your Dreams

All of us have dreams and desires – it’s part of being human. Our dreams and desires make us feel alive. They inspire us to grow and awaken our creative spirit. This highlights the importance of learning how to manifest your dreams and desires.

Our dreams give life meaning and provide focus for life’s journey. Oprah Winfrey put it this way:

The biggest adventure you can take is to live the life of your dreams.

What do you want? What makes your heart soar? Maybe you want more abundance, a fulfilling career, better health, supportive relationships, and more.

All of these desires are healthy. Your dreams and desires also highlight the importance of learning how to manifest. And for this, you need a plan.

Imagine …

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Life Purpose: The Ultimate Focusing Tool

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Let’s see how your life purpose can be your ultimate focusing tool. First consider how do you deal with life’s ever-increasing pace of change?

The growing problem is that we are inundated with information, choices and constant “breaking news.” As a result, we become driven by distraction.

It’s like carrying too many objects and moving too quickly.  We are trying to stay afloat and get through the day – not a fun way to make a living, much less a life.

By just trying to get through the day, we get bogged down in one thing after another. Where did we start and where are we going? Awash in hurry and worry, we feel like we are treading water. We are trying to keep up, but for what purpose?

The Solution

How do you offset society’s ever-quickening pace? Discover and live your life purpose. It’s really the ultimate focusing tool.

It guides you on where to go, your destiny. You then feel energized and alive. You know that you are here for a reason, which you are playing out and advancing each day.

With a sense of purpose, life’s everyday stressors are put into a bigger context. They become part of building you and your character, so you can express your purpose.

Here are four key points to consider for using your life purpose as the ultimate focusing tool:

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Your Life Purpose, Your Life: The Life Purpose Paradox

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What is the purpose of your life? Your life purpose is all-important, yet seemingly elusive and abstract. It seems at once urgent yet obscure. It’s difficult to express, at least initially.

Yet with all its mystery, your purpose it’s what you are here to do and accomplish. It’s what makes your life more meaningful and significant.

Your life purpose gives your life a broad, overarching theme. It may focus on your love of music or humor. It may be raising awareness on social or environmental issues. It may be improving online or offline communication It may be building things, or performing with a greater purpose. it may be serving as a role model for others.

Close range it may seem hard to figure. Yet a wider lens can be revealing.

Your life purpose could be seen as a paradox. A paradox is defined: as “a seemingly absurd or self-contradictory statement or proposition that when investigated or explained may prove to be well founded or true.”

To explore this lofty yet practical topic, here are some things to consider:

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