Have these holidays added years to your life or taken them away? Lol! No, seriously, the holidays are a melting pot of emotions and balancing acts and are definitely not all rainbows and butterflies! Basically, like life in general, you take the good with the bad. And, like life in general, there are lessons to be learnt! So, what lessons have you taken from your holiday with the kids? Here are mine:
When we find just the right balance it’s like experiencing a zen moment. But, be even slightly off balance and things just don’t seem to work. I have always believed that life is about balance. Without it you fall (and fail). Taking a look at where our lives are out of balance is the first step in working out the kinks that are causing us to be out of alignment.
You need balance in every area of your life. In your diet, your self-care, your work life etc. Balance is really the foundation for your life. Any area that is off balance has a negative effect on the rest of your life.
For me, at the moment, it would be Health. Not that I’m unhealthy, just that the balance is off. I eat healthy, but not quite enough. I exercise, but not quite enough. And when I don’t manage to keep these areas balanced it affects me in so many ways. I can feel something is out of whack, something is missing. The result is grumpiness! And, that’s totally understandable when you’re out of balance!
What area of your life is out of balance? Don’t say none, because we all need to work on balance, every single day. We are literally balancing on a tightrope, and that will never change. Life is multi-faceted! It’s meant to be that way, but it means finding your equilibrium in order to find your sweet spot. You have to keep yourself in check, keep pulling yourself back in line.
This year has been a year of dedicated personal growth for me. It’s kind of like making taffy (and I’m the taffy!). I’ve been stretched and twisted, molded and shaped. I’ve also had some sweet goodness added in to the mix, just to make it all worthwhile. Personal growth is an ongoing process of reaching for more. For more understanding, for more skills and insights and for more joy in the process of life. It is that realization that every day has a new lesson, that you never ‘know it all’. I love that! To me, the constant growth is part of the beauty of it. I’d like to share some of the quotes that have inspired me in this crazy year if 2020.
These quotes have reached out and spoken to me, giving me inspiration to share ideas with you. This is what this blog is all about, finding inspiration in life, and sharing it with you. It is my way of contributing to the energy that is put out into this world every day. These quotes are food for thought, always in a positive way. Let’s take a look!
I’ve got those butterflies again! It’s that time of year. Christmas holidays, road trips, new horizons and new adventures! But, besides just having a good time, do you believe that travel is important for personal growth?
Many of us do a stint overseas after school. We head off to experience how the ‘rest of the world’ lives. As we soak up the differences in language and culture we learn that there are different ways to see the world. We open our minds, and our hearts, by diving headfirst into these experiences. They make us richer, more well-rounded, and happier! We feel more connected to this life experience because we have found a commonality! And, we also learn to understand our differences better because we have exposed ourselves to the way others live.
We enjoy all these experiences, but I don’t think we often realize that travel is actually important for our personal development. Instead we’re kind of just going along for the ride.
We all go through our internal struggles with ourselves. Our self-doubt. Questioning everything that we do. Whether we are good enough, pretty enough, brave enough. We are in a constant state of ‘talking ourselves down from a ledge’. Trying, from a place of concern for our own best interest, to keep ourselves ‘safe’. For this reason it has become so important that we ask ourselves the question ‘What is Self Talk?’. And, am I using it to empower myself?
With just over 6wks to Christmas I thought that’s a good amount of time to spread that love! Our hearts are full at Christmas time! Full of love and the spirit of giving. Why not share the love and kindness just that little bit further? Let’s find ways to bring joy to those beyond our fold. Let’s spread the love and kindness this festive season! Together we can come up with some fun and inspiring ways to share the joy. I have included some ideas in this blog, you will find some fun ideas to print out and stick up around your neighbourhood or school. Share them with your community! Then take action. Let’s make this a Christmas to remember!
There are many people that contribute towards our daily lives. There are people behind the scenes that go unnoticed but, without them our lives would not run as smoothly. Like the bus driver that gets your kids to school safely, and on time, each day. Or the person responsible for taking away your rubbish every week. There are people that teach our children. There are people that feed our hungry. So often these people are not recognized for their efforts. What can we do to make a difference?
How about we start with a list of people that we can make that extra bit of effort to show our appreciation for. If you want to add anyone in a particular industry, please add them in the comments! We want to include all of these amazing people!
I mean ALL THE TIME! But, what are your dreams really? And what significance do you place on them? When I was a little girl I wanted to write. I mean, I loved anything to do with words. You could often find me walking around holding a book out in front of my face so that my peripheral vision would ensure I didn’t walk into walls. I read, I wrote, I loved poems and plays and English class. And then, reality struck like a bolt of hard-core lightning and I gave up on my dream.
That awful thing called ‘growing up’ started to happen to my perfectly innocent and fairytale-induced life. No, seriously, I am a major romantic! I think at one point I genuinely believed in fairies. Why wouldn’t you? When you are young you want to believe in the beauty of life. You want to believe that love conquers all, that there is gold at the bottom of the rainbow and that unicorns exist.
There is a vast difference between being alone and being lonely. Loneliness is a feeling of separateness, a feeling of emptiness that can be overwhelming. Being alone doesn’t need to feel like this. In fact, being alone should be a time to reconnect with yourself and reassess your priorities. A time spent entirely on your own life questions, goals and aspirations.
I love spending time alone because I find life can become too ‘noisy’. There is so much going on around us every day, in society and in our own homes, that we sometimes need to take a break from it all. We forget that we are more than the 9-5. More than the School Lunch Prep and the Birthday Party planning. Spending time alone gives us an opportunity to remember our own wants and needs. It’s self-care at it’s finest.
For many people being alone brings on negative emotions. When this happens you need to ask yourself why that is. Why are you afraid to be alone with your own thoughts and emotions? To me this is an indicator that there is something that you need to work through. There is a reason why you don’t want to hear the thoughts in your own head.
Let me ask you this. Do you find your own self talk often turns towards the negative? Do you rip yourself to pieces because of the way you spoke to your in-laws or the fact that you just can’t seem to give up the junkfood? Or, are there things from your past that are troubling you, that flood into your consciousness when you are left alone? Does time alone leave you thinking about all the reasons your life isn’t what it should be? Do you come down hard for all your shortcomings?
Let me start with the process of soul searching that I found myself going on as I started the process of finding my why. You would think your why would be obvious, and in some ways it is, but it requires a deeper level of questioning. A ‘big picture’ kind of thinking. On the surface my why is easy, it is my family! Family time, as much as I can get of it! When you think about the shortness of this life experience and the way we spend our time, the percentage of it that is spent with the one’s we love is a sad statistic indeed! So, yes, a big chunk of my why is family. After all, they are the ones we do it all for! They are the ones that matter at the end of the day. They absolutely should be our why!
But, my why also goes deeper than this. It goes to the core of who I am and what matters to me as a spiritual being. One of the main reasons that I started this blog, was because I believe that many of us feel misunderstood and alone. We have a message in our hearts that we want heard. Or, we don’t quite know what our message is but we know it’s there waiting to be uncovered. We feel like we are walking this path alone.
I wanted to share my personal experiences and lessons on personal growth, to be there to let you know you are not alone. To walk you through the questions and struggles and help you realize that every step forward, no matter how small, is growth!
I believe that when we have a nagging inside us, a voice that needs to be heard, that we need to sit up and pay attention, that it’s time for a change. It’s time to reassess our priorities and where our heart is at. One of the greatest tragedies in this life is the masses of us that are not honest with ourselves and our true identities. That haven’t learnt to understand their Why.
