Your Monday Minute - Get into Gratitude

It's November! The holiday season is officially on its way with Thanksgiving as the kick-off! You might be surprised to learn that November 1st is actually the first day of the Celtic New Year. To me, it is the perfect time to begin a practice of gratitude and start your 'new year' off right! 

By the time the holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas are upon us, we'll already be basking in the glow of gratitude and thanks-giving. But why is Gratitude so important? Because when we live in a state of gratitude we are happier and healthier. It's a fact. Even Web M.D. says so!

Watch this week's Your Monday Minute for more on the power of gratitude. Then, join in on my 30-day Gratitude Challenge on Facebook or right here on the blog. Just post what you're grateful for each day! 

A weekly series reminding you how much you matter! This week, hear how practicing gratitude makes you a happier person, plain and simple! Learn more and join in on 30-days of gratitude!

But don't take it from me. Try it for yourself and come back and tell us about it. Joining in? I invite you to leave a commit by leaving a comment below! I love you!

C'mon Get Happy!

Imagine yourself, just 30-days from now, being happier than maybe you've ever been before? Would that be wonderful? 

"Engaging in a practice of gratitude for just 30-days actually raises your Happiness Setpoint." 

I'm closely paraphrasing Marci Shimoff from the incredible The Hidden Riches event that I attended this past weekend. If you want more happiness in your life, how easy is that?!! 

This is what the feeling of happiness looks like to me! What does it look like to you? 

Many Americans begin making regular posts on social media in the lead-up to Thanksgiving, but then stop cold turkey when the holiday passes. (That pun was totally intended!) Why not commit to starting this practice and keeping it up long after November ends? While you don't need to share your gratitude with the world, announcing your practice out loud and in print makes you feel more accountable. 

Plus, writing it down, whether on Facebook or in a Gratitude Journal (which doesn't have to be pretty - sticky-notes work as well as anything else) allows you to look back on darker days when you may need help lifting up your spirit.

I invite you to follow my posts on Gratitude and Happiness during the month of November on Facebook and Twitter to help you stay focused on your own happiness. I'll share tips to really step into experiencing gratitude on the deepest level of your being. This one simple thing could change your life forever. 

5-minutes a day is an easy way to a happier life, isn't it? 

Leave a comment and commit! 

Do you practice gratitude? Tell us how! Ready to begin? Leave a comment and commit - it's harder to let it slide if you've told the world you'll do something (and me, because I'll be checking in with you!).  

Connecting with Source through Movement

Do you feel disconnected? Disjointed? Unable to focus and achieve peace of mind and calmness of the body? Are your moods up and down and left and right? Do you find yourself snapping at others and feeling tired?

Among everything else that contributes to those feelings, you're probably experiencing a disconnect in your relationship with Source. Source, Source Energy, God, the Unified Field, the Universe... these are all different ways of calling the same thing - that which is all... all things, all life, all energy. 

A "Passion" that comes up for many clients is this desire to have a deeper relationship or connection with God. We want this because we want, more than anything, to feel good.

You can pray more, you can read the bible or other religious text, or a deeply moving devotional, or you can move. For me, my connection with Source Energy is strongest when I turn inward and flow through movement. 

If you want to have a deeper connection to Spirit, you have to move your body.

Your body is the package in which your spirit has chosen to manifest in this incarnation of itself. Your body is the house of your spirit, the house of your soul and the house of God, because God-energy flows within and throughout us. 

Cherish the house of your soul. Care for it, love it, and when you want to hear the voice of God clearly, move your body to silence your mind. 

My favorite way to do this is through a slow-flowing yoga with beautiful music in the background, or Kundalini Yoga - an intense form of yogic meditation. "Yoga" in Sanskrit actually means "union." Some sources translate it as a "union with the divine," and this is exactly what it feels like for me. 

How about you? Do you meditate to achieve a deeper connection with Source? Or are you still in the "thinking about it" phase? Wherever you are, it is exactly where you are meant to be. Please, share your thoughts and comment below. 

Your Monday Minute - Self Love in 3 Simple Steps

Love, self-love, is my religion

Your level of success in life stems entirely from your level of self-love. "Success" is a word that is completely objective, by the way. To me, a successful life is where you feel good most of the time, you are happy and experiencing love, joy, fulfillment and an overall sense of well-being. 

Many of us settle for happiness in one area of our lives at the cost of another - a successful career at the expense of a happy home-life or vice-versa. When you practice self-love, success naturally follows in all areas of your life because you don't even know how to settle for less. 

This doesn't mean you won't hit bumps in the road of life, but with a deep sense of love for yourself, you'll recover from them faster and more easily. 

Because we've been conditioned to believe that loving ourselves is narcissistic and selfish, many of us don't even know how to do it. But don't worry, I'm here to help. Find out the 3 keys to beginning your practice of self-love in today's Your Monday Minute! 

Self-love is the pillar to a successful life, so why is it that so many of us don't know how to do it? Start your self-love practice with three easy steps!

Your Monday Minute - Get Off Your Bum!

Welcome to Your Monday Minute - a weekly reminder about how much you matter! Creating a life that you love is all about feeling good. Feeling good requires a little bit of effort, but honestly, not that much. Watch this week's short video and get inspired to move! 

Inspired? Motivated? Have Olivia Newton John's Get Physical stuck in your head? Me too!

About 4 months ago I got serious about getting into better shape. It could be that a certain milestone birthday is approaching or simply that I finally gave into the fact that when I get physical exercise I feel better, but I finally started exercising regularly for the first time in my life (unless dancing for hours on end several times a week during my University years counts).

Like any endeavor, exercise is something that you'll never find the time for; you have to make the time. Because I'm a mom of 3, I choose to get up early to get my workouts in before the kids are up. Since I have an early-riser, this means waaaaaaaaaaaaaay earlier than I ever actually want to get up, but since it makes such a dramatic difference in how I feel, I do it anyway (usually). 

The yoga that I do every morning is just 7-minutes long. Unfortunately, I can no longer find the video at chopra.com, where I found it, but there are plenty of short routines all over YouTube. When I wake up early enough, I add a Kundalini Kriya (also easy to find on YouTube - there are plenty!) to the mix and feel amazing afterwards. Spotify and Gabrielle Bernstein help me with my music selections!

How to you work exercise into your daily routine? Don't have a routine? Start one today and come back in a week or two to tell us how you're feeling! 

Authentic Choices

Lately, I've been struggling with a choice. There is so much to consider and as big decisions tend to do, whatever I decide will effect more than just me. 

So, how do you make a choice? Do you stay in your head, weigh the pros and cons and think through your decision? I used to do that, too. Over the past few years, however, as I delve deeper into my spiritual practice, The Passion Test and meditation, I've begun using my heart as my guide. 

Some call this intuition. I am one of the some. But it is even more than intuition - it is concrete knowledge which exists both outside of and within ourselves.

Everything in the world, when broken down into its smallest form, is energy - even thoughts. Therefore, all of the knowledge I require to make a choice resides in the unified energy field, the Universe. God. The divine holds the key and the divine resides within us and all around us. 

Because of this divine and dynamic connection, when we make a choice through the use of meditation to allow ourselves to hear our inner voice, the choice is right for everyone involved. 

When you connect with that space within a choice so that it is authentically and lovingly the pure right decision for you, it is by natural extension right for all of those in your life who are effected by that choice. 

It is impossible for it to be a bad or wrong choice for anyone involved. The lessons that will be learned are what we are meant to learn to become more of who we are meant to be in this life.

Once one accepts this truth, the burden of making the "right" choice is lifted. All that is left is to connect to the divine, willingly accept the answer that comes through and take the next step. 

Are you struggling to make a decision in your life? Share it with us. Sometimes writing allows your mind to rest and lets your heart speak your voice. Leave a comment or share this post with my thanks. 

Welcome to my New Website!

For the past few weeks, my affirmativethought.com website has been off-kilter. I'm a creative, not a technical type, so since I was busy with other things, I just let the weirdness that was happening go for a few days. Before I had to bother with support, I was able to log in and update as usual. 

Little did I know, I had been hacked. No matter what I tried, I could not restore my site back before changes were made (that redirected mobile users to a decidedly naughty website), so I decided it was a sign to start fresh! So, here we are. The new site will allow me more flexibility to grow and for you to grow with me. 

I am here to serve women - we are the foundation of our families. So, by extension, I want to serve couples and families as well. The site is currently a work-in-progress, like we all are! It should be fully updated by mid-October, so watch for expanding services as I step more deeply into coaching services with a greater emphasis on couples, families and spirituality. 

Monday Minutes will continue to be a staple, as I believe there may be no greater thing than for women to truly love and embrace who they are and recognize how much they matter. By taking the very best care of yourself, you take better care of the people you care for and about. 

Let us be a living demonstration of love and together, forge a happier world. I love you!