I have found lately that HOPE is palpable.

What is it? Why is it such a strong force?

How does it show up in our lives?

I can only speak to my realizations and those of some of my clients and friends but really… I picked up the newspaper today and I saw hope.

The kid who turned away from school and later became a rapper teacher is now helping millions of kids rap-learn subjects that were previously unreachable, and they are loving it!

Saturday, The New York Times August 24, 2024. “His Alter Ego Is Excited About Education”

I see movies like “Inside Out” and “Inside Out 2” that help explain to even our youngest citizens what in the world goes on in our emotional lives and a few ways to get it under control. Yahoo!

Sunday, The New York Times, August 11, 2024 “How Pixar Helped Change Therapy”

I see and hear people shifting their consciousness from desperation and divisiveness born out of fear to hope and a belief in the possibility that comes with naming what is good in all of us and working together to fix what isn’t.

Because of hope.

No matter what the personal belief system is, hope allows us all to find something good and true.

I hate to belabor the COVID experience but mine interested me because it was like having a dark cloud hanging over me for a while.

It seems like a dark cloud has been hanging over our society for a while.

What I noticed when it began to lift was that I hadn’t known just how gloomy it was. It was like having a gray filter in front of my eyes and then suddenly it cleared. I could see the sun.

It felt that way today as I listened to people speaking, read the newspaper, and saw a different bounce in people’s steps.

A new energy seems to be taking hold in people’s interest and participation in our country.

Hope.

I’m glad the fog is lifting enough to see some sunlight. Hope is a great energizer.

If you want to explore how to accelerate your hope let’s talk! Click here to schedule a call!

Where did that feeling come from???

I came down with COVID last week.

I guess it shouldn’t be a surprise as it appears to be on the loose again.

The surprise was remembering the tricky emotional part of COVID-19.

Feelings.

Does anyone remember that?

After a couple of days of feeling poorly and beginning to slowly feel a bit better… all of a sudden, I noticed that I was paying a lot more attention to the nuances of what people said or didn’t say; if they were in touch or not in touch; mulling over a situation and starting to think about it differently.

Oversensitivity or over-focus.

Making things personal that weren’t personal at all.

The truth is all of it was imagined.

It was all a story my imagination concocted.

I began to question these innocuous situations from an emotionally negative or over-sensitive standpoint.

What snapped me out of it?

• I stepped back and looked at the data
• I noticed that how I felt made no sense
• I realized how easily it would have been for me to get totally sucked into how I was feeling.

I refocused. But even knowing all that didn’t work entirely.

It persisted. So, I talked with a good friend and said I believed I was going through the COVID emotion phase and checked out a feeling I was having.

It was based on nothing.

Except that there SEEMED to be enough of a potential something to feed the thought beast.

Fortunately, I checked it out and trusted reality rather than the sticky thought/feeling stuff leading me astray.

How often do we all let our thoughts run away with us? Even without COVID-19?

An idea bubbles up, we don’t check it out and then it becomes a “thing”.

Then if we are lucky, we do check it out, but often people don’t.

Suddenly there’s a problem where there wasn’t one and no one is talking about it.

I am so glad I gave myself a taste of my own teaching and stepped back, evaluated, and followed through. It was such an important reminder that being curious about a feeling is more important than buying it hook line and sinker.

That’s why I created both my Enlightened Communication Through Luminous Living® course and my Divorce Well and Thrive® Coaching program. Communication is key.

Let’s have some fun together finding the best way to have tough conversations or any conversation that means something to you. Those are the tricky ones.

Click here to hop on a call so you can feel like this going into every conversation.

With love,

Liz

Battersea Power Station, London, Wimbledon Screen

This week I did a crazy thing. I flew to London to go to Wimbledon without a ticket to see “the tennis”!

Okay, so you can guess that one of my passions is tennis.

When have you jumped into life and followed your passion?

It might be as simple as baking a loaf of bread, or painting a picture, or walking in a special place, or… you name it… it’s your passion of course!

‘A British friend was in town, and we began talking about tennis. He said “Come and queue up. We do it and we get in!”

I thought, Wow, how crazy! spend a fortune on a plane ticket with no guarantee!

However, I do have a friend to guide me through the process, so I have a more than 50% chance!

After a couple of people said- “DO IT! It’s a chance of a lifetime!” I started planning the trip, added a couple of days in Bath, planned to meet another friend in London on the last day, and I booked it!

The Crescent, Bath, England

Here’s what I learned:

• The most amazing things can happen when you leap outside of your comfort zone.

I’m a big leaper in that way but this was different- filled with things I wouldn’t; ordinarily do, even while leaping, and everything turned out extraordinarily well.

• Following my passion led me to pure relaxation and joy in each moment even beyond the tennis part of the adventure.

Andy Murray, Center Court, Wimbledon

Yes, I got into Wimbledon each day and even got into Center Court to see Andy Murray play, watch the touching tribute in person, and feel the deep love the crowd has for him.

• Taking advantage of following my intuition each day on where to go and what to see, made the trip pure ease.

The road well-traveled can have lovely twists and turns if you listen to your heart. Seeing the important sites and adding some curiosity helped manifest a fun and truly relaxing adventure.

And I’m even excited about going home!

What I’ve learned is that following your passion is the best way to feel joy, to be truly relaxed and completely awake.

What’s your passion? Tell me all about it!

Comment below.

Want to dig deeper into aligning with your true passionate self? Get on the list for the Beta of my online Luminous Living course.  And yes, we get to chat live!

With love and passion,
Liz

What happens when we add the idea of tenderness into our daily lives, our random conversations, our moments of huffing and puffing over something that may or may not be worthy of huffing and puffing?

I was speaking with a client the other day who gave me permission to share our conversation. She was recounting an experience of becoming angry because she noticed a large number of invasive species trees and shared that she found herself agitated and speaking emotionally about it while a passenger on a drive. Actually, getting quite worked up.  

Well, long story short, the anger was at the people who planted the trees and the frustration that the trees were doing harm to other vegetation. 

The idea of tenderness came up because employing the concept helped settle the emotions down and brought a realization around how bad it felt to get so worked up.

Often when emotions get high and are negative in some way, it feels terrible, but we are so busy emoting we miss that we are creating our own suffering.

We had fun with this conversation because the idea of tenderness also led to the idea of compassion. Those poor trees- they were simply planted and didn’t deserve all that negativity. 

Who knows? Maybe they actually were the perfect plant to be living in that area. Some years from now, given global warming, they may bring something absolutely necessary to the changing ecosystem.

The people who were being maligned because they planted them… they are actually not part of the car ride equation. But… self-compassion is part of the equation; tenderness to self… especially when it becomes clear that the only person suffering is the person feeling all the negative emotions and, in this case, possibly the driver.

We took it further.  What is the difference between expressing irritation, anger, rage out into the world and expressing neutrality, kindness, compassion, or tenderness?

Do we want to feed the negativity and blame, that has become pervasive in large expressions of frustration and anger in our society, or do we want to grow ease, care, compassion?

What if we all tried a little tenderness?

Click here for a different kind of car ride – enjoy!

It’s official! The equinox has helped us cross the threshold into Spring. 

Let’s send up new shoots. Get rid of the old dried-up leaves and twigs. Open a fresh eye on the world. Let the still small voice that knows there is something emerging get a bit louder.

All of us feel a bit dug under sometimes. The world has been a chaotic place at times and then a turn of the head or a new fresh day brings order, new hope or even a monumental change in point of view.

It’s time to clear out, refresh, take a look at what isn’t feeling right and tweak it until it does. 

I’ve been struck by the resilience I’ve been witnessing in all parts of the world. We are amazing. Every one of us. 

Recently I made a major move, healed from a serious illness, and continued stepping forward on the journey…  being present and ready for what’s next. 

I believe all of us are making our way. We step over rocks, climb bigger mountains, and take our next steps. If we are paying attention, we create meaning.  

Times of seasonal transition are perfect to take a fresh look. Yesterday I cleared a bunch of dead plants away and cut back the ones that could be saved.  Suddenly there was possibility of new life. I love to see that shift and recognize that we are the shift. We just have to pay attention. 

That’s when I take a fresh look at what is happening in my life, what is happening around me, where I’m putting my focus and why.

We are multifaceted beings, so underlying the activities we are doing are the thoughts and feelings we have about them. 

Here are a few questions to get the ball rolling:

• What do the (activities) mean to us? 
• What importance do they hold in our lives? 
• What are the benefits or the drawbacks? 
• Are they essential or can they be removed?

Sometimes it is good to sort out where we are putting our attention. Sometimes what’s important is to stop a moment and breathe.

Take stock of all that is happening; what you are feeling emotionally and physically; what you are thinking… and see if there is a need for a different point of view or a different course of action with whatever is in the forefront of your days.

Often, a change in focus opens up a completely different feeling about what comes next. 

Spring is the ideal time to take the next step to accelerate YOUR next step.

Choose the inspired life you want to live.

Click here for a guided imagery to take a moment of pause to imagine your next steps.