The Opportunity of Risk

Life will bring to us opportunities to practice risk taking. Healthy, pondered and explored, experience backed risk taking can lead to two different obvious outcomes; failure or success. But there is one other outcome that we sometimes forget about. Taking a risk may end in results we had not considered and may lead us to even greater and more expansive possibilities.

Taking risks also gives us the opportunity to practice utilizing our personal power and wisdom. Bringing these energies to the moment is often what helps us move from a place of stuck to one of action. Risk taking will push us out of our comfort zone and into unknown territory. It will introduce us to new emotions, behaviors and tasks. All of which we will then need to take time adjusting to.

Taking risks brings the opportunity to be more alive within our life. We find that the endorphins that we experience propel us forward. We become more observant, we bring our awareness to the new perspective and we listen more closely to the messages being sent our way. Sometimes when taking a risk presents itself, we cannot see clearly into the next moment, we have to trust our previous experiences. The cloud that surrounds our uncertainty is unnerving, but to not take the risk feels even more unsettling.

Risk taking is often necessary. How we approach this opportunity will help direct the energies we bring, the insights we share, the receptivity we have and the courage we can summon. It takes a daring moment to step into risk. But to avoid all risk only means we are not living life fully. We are compromising. We are not expanding and growing, learning or evolving. Change will always hold a certain degree of risk. But without change we stay small and do not invite our soul to the day. We have different levels to our consciousness and within these levels are the gems to bring to our journey. We uncover new gifts of our passion. We find deeper truths. We explore and release more of what is not serving us.

I would rather make mistakes in my life than remain the same. I am wiling to fail to gain the insight and lessons that await me. I have to trust that in pushing myself, I will learn more about who I am and what I can do. Dancing with the opportunity of risk empowers me and keeps me awake!

Blessings, Lisa

Lessons in the Experience

I have a weekly practice that I have been doing for over a year now. Once a week, usually on a Sunday evening when life is a little slower, I sit with my journal. It is during this time that I reflect on the previous week. I take time to walk through the previous seven days and explore my journey. What were my peak experiences? What were the challenges?

There are tremendous gifts waiting for me in these past seven days. Having a bit of distance from them allows me a different view point. Any emotions attached have settled down. Any distractions have usually moved away. I become an observer of my life in a very objective way.

Now that I can back away I see the entire week with a fresh perspective. The information and insight I gain from this practice gets carried into my upcoming week. I learn where I need to be more patient with myself. I see what is no longer serving me. I adjust in my plans or expand in my hopes.

My inner wisdom is invited to the practice as it has much to offer. It is able to be a witness to my life experiences. It engages my intuition and my insight and explores the possibilities of the week ahead. I become the creative director of what can be. I use my experiences to color and shade my future decisions with the palette of what I have learned, felt, witnessed and made.

I take mistakes and create magic from them. I take disappointments and open them to new awareness. I take celebrations and pull from their energies. I am able to take my own unique and personal experiences and bring the vibrations of my beautiful and vibrant life into the newness of the week ahead.

Blessings, Lisa

Down Time and The Gifts To Be Found

Vacation, rest, pause, or holiday. Each of these words may bring a different image to one's mind. But to the soul they all hold the same energetic vibration; down time! Our soul recognizes that our body and mind is functioning within a world of busy-ness. Sometimes we are just so busy that it hurts! Our soul pokes at us until we cry, "Uncle" and hit the pause button.

Many times I will hear from my clients that they have no time for down time, for "me" time or for any kind of stillness. Yet, they have come to me for support, release, or healing of some kind. Their soul has managed to convince their heart and body that this is a dire need.  It is trying to get the mind on board as well. Our thoughts are incredibly powerful. They will try to justify and rationalize. If we want our thoughts to work in our favor we have to entice our mind.

The mind likes to solve problems. Often, the way around this denial of downtime is to ask the brain to come up with creative possibilities for the hidden down time. Entice it to seek the elusive moments throughout the day that can be embraced. We often think that our down time needs to be scheduled, mapped out and of a certain duration. But the truth is a few moments here and there does the world of good.

Moments spent in traffic can create an opportunity for some deep breathing. Standing in line at the grocery store repeat an affirmation or a mantra until it is your turn in line. Waiting on hold on the phone listening to boring music; stretch your body. Folding a load of laundry; check in with your guides or angels.

Bringing connection to the resources that honor and celebrate your soul does not need to be an act of labor. It does not need extensive planning, purchasing of a group pass or even your calendar. It simply needs awareness and creativity.  Entice your beautiful mind into the equation. Allow it to expand with creative ideas and honored as you embrace them.

Blessings, Lisa

Awareness

Some people spend their days learning more about others than themselves. It is true. For many, it is blindness, avoidance or hesitancy. It is challenging to dig deep and bring our awareness to who we are and why. It is challenging to find our patterns and to question if they serve our higher good or not.

To learn who we really are, beneath the roles and labels placed upon us, beneath other's expectations and even our own, we need to become aware. How do we do this? We pay attention. We listen to the messages of our body, from our soul, and within our heart. We also have to learn to watch ourselves in action, day by day, relationship by relationship and note the patterns to our reactions, the needs we fill, the responses we make and the things we shun.

So much of what we do in life is out of habit. We do it without giving it much thought. For the most part this serves us well. Who wants to give full concentration to putting on our socks or wiping down a counter. But what about the parts of our day that we are on autopilot and we would benefit from bringing more awareness to? Examples would be how we react to our child complaining, the time we spend eating a meal, the critical voices we listen to in our head or the way we receive a compliment.

Habitual behavior and patterns can keep us stuck in life. It is not until we become aware of how they are doing that and decide to change them that we see things begin to shift in our lives. When we make a conscious decision to change and do or approach something differently we alter the energies around us. People may react differently to us. Obstacles seem to move out of the way. We find solutions where we thought there were none.

Change can also be unnerving. The tried and true is comfortable. Doing something new feels risky. We can feel unsettled by the change. That is why being gentle and approaching this slowly, checking in with our self and listening to its needs is important.

With practice and patience we become the author of our story and step aside from the labels and roles that we do not want upon us. We live a life that is authentic to us. We call in our desires and act upon them. We let go of things we no longer identify with and have only been carrying around out of habit. Life becomes freer and feels much more in alignment with our heart and soul's callings.

Blessings, Lisa