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Rumi the poet says “As you live deeper in the heart, the mirror becomes clearer and cleaner”.  

It took me many hours of pondering this quote to figure out what it means to me.  

What I have discovered is, the more I dig into my childhood wounds and clear them, the easier it is becoming to see what is my issue, or someone else’s.  

I think this is what Rumi was referring to.   

For most of my life, I took everything so personally that I was one big walking open wound.   
People scared me, because I was so susceptible to being hurt by them.   

Most of the time now, I can see, even when under attack by someone else, whether I have done something which warrants their attack on me (and I have pretty much decided nothing we do ever warrants an attack) or whether the attack is a product of the other persons childhood wounds they haven’t cleared yet.  
This is a beautiful space to be in.  

When you don’t take things so personally, it becomes so much easier to love people when they are hurting, even if their hurts are showing up as an attack against you.   

It takes some work.  Some unbecoming of the person you are.  A whole bunch of truth telling, and self discovery.   But I am here as proof that it is so worth it.   As you grow into your new more authentic self, you spread love instead of fear.  And you begin walking the path to heaven on earth with a sparkly clean and clear mirror.    

Do you know your gifts you bring to the world?

Not that long ago I literally had to sit down and make a list of things I’m good at.  I had been trying to fit myself into someone else’s mold in order to impress another person.
Even though I know and preach about ‘being yourself’, I had lost myself by focusing on my weaknesses instead of my strengths.  

So I googled it, but google didn’t know my strengths either.

The list had 3 columns.  The first one was ‘things I’m good at’, the next column was ‘things other people think I’m good at’, and the last one was ‘things I do that light me up or cause me to lose track of time’.

It was so hard.   It took me the most part of a week, going back to the list and adding something as it popped up. 

By the end of that week I had a new sense of self.   I had put myself back into my own mold with a new clarity and focus on what I had to offer instead of where I was lacking. 

If I hadn’t of lost myself first, I never would have sat down to make that list.  But that list set me on a new path of doing the things I enjoy and want to get better at.   

It also helped me to let go of the ideas and thoughts that were dragging me down.

I recommend doing the list.   It’s not easy but it’s worth it.

Over and over and over again we reiterate how things are uncertain and how life as we know it has changed.

I’m fascinated to watch how we are reacting to this.

I don’t know what it’s like to be you right now and I don’t want to make assumptions as we are all solving problems at different levels right now.

But I’ll let you know how I am reacting..

I am scared, and emotional, and lonely, and resistant, and confused, and struggling, and fragile, and powerless.

And at the same time I’m a little bit brave, a little bit hopeful, a little bit “seize the day”, and a little bit excited for how things can be rebuilt and restructured.

I feel a little bit of shame for some of those feelings, and a little bit of guilt for not being able to do it all.

I want to find the humour, I want to find the grace, I want to find the hope, and the silver linings, and I want to find the confidence to do the right thing.

But as I have written several times in the past… wanting something only emphasizes how we are separate from it.

I go back and forth between all of these emotions from the moment I wake up, and by 4:00 I feel like I’ve run a marathon.

I’m learning a lot about myself, and I’m learning about other people right now.

I have seen new friendships and bonds as we figure things out, I have seen greed and ego rule, I have seen some “look out for number 1”.

I have seen conflicting loyalties, I have seen things I don’t want to see, and I have seen “look out for each other and help each other” (more of this please).

We are in this together, but we each still have our own story.

Be sure to listen because there are a lot of stories driving everyone’s experience, and they need to be told.

We live in a first world country… but sometimes we forget. 

As Seth Godin pointed out, you can buy a can of beans for $0.75… if you are buying anything more than that, you are no longer price shopping.

Which means, you have choices.

Which also means you are living in abundance.

Nobody reading this is only eating beans.  So why then, do we sometimes fall into scarcity?

How can our glasses ever look half empty?

The good news is, scarcity is simply a mind set from the story you’re telling yourself.

It’s focusing on not enough money, not enough time, not enough resources, support or love.

If it shows up in one place, it’s going to infiltrate other areas of your life too.

Maybe it comes from comparing yourself to others, possibly it comes from comparing yourself to where you think you should be….always it’s rooted in fear.

I googled the antidote to fear and it came up with answers such as faith, presence, and action.

Faith means knowing it’s going to be ok and that the universe has your back.

Presence means to stay in the moment and check in with yourself to make sure you are ok (are there any sabre tooth tigers chasing you?)

Action might mean rebudgeting your finances, or your time, or your attitude.

The biggest cure for a scarcity mindset is constant appreciation of everything you already have.

Appreciating the abundance around you… it’s not hard to find.
It’s all in the story you sell yourself.

So tell yourself the truth, you are blessed to be living in these times.

And know that if it gets really bad, you can survive on 3 cans of beans per day (which is only $825 per year)… and even then you can still choose what kind and flavour.
PS.  I am building a course to teach big hearted people how to become whole hearted and fulfilled.  Sign up below to join my private email list and I will drop you a line when there are more details.  

You know the people who say one thing and do the opposite?

The ones who always have the right thing to say at the right moment, but don’t have any follow through?

These guys mess me up.

I’m a really good listener, which is a good thing until I come across someone who isn’t saying what they mean, and meaning what they say.

I also realize that I can be over enthusiastic and helpful with other people, so I will be helping them do something they have since decided not to do, but haven’t had the courage to tell me they changed their mind…because I’m so helpful.

A horse will always tell you what’s on his mind by where his feet take him.  
If he simply looks away when you’re working with him, it’s almost guaranteed he wants to get away.

I’ve been trying to apply this to people on moms recommendation.

Instead of listening and believing every spoken word, I take a step back and look at what their feet are telling me.

The old saying actions speak louder than words comes in pretty handy here.  

When someone tells me something and then does the opposite, I’m learning that the real truth is revealed by watching their feet.

If you tell me you want to be here, but you’re always over there… that’s the truth.

If you tell me you want to quit something, but you’re always doing it… that’s the truth.  

If you tell that you want to start something, but never start… that’s the truth.

Until someone’s feet line up with their words they aren’t serious about what they’re saying…yet.

So I wait for the sign.

I’ve learned that the majority of people never get aligned, but the ones who do…watchout!  

They are the ones who are really making things happen.  

You feel a tug on your heart.

Maybe it only shows up once in a while, maybe certain events, conversations, or pictures trigger it.

But there is no denying it when it happens.

It’s there for a reason and it’s trying to get your attention.

Whatever is in your head, needs to manifest into the world.

Just for today… stop and listen.

Listen to what your heart has been trying so hard to tell you. When the tug shows up again and again it’s the one you should follow. That’s where the magic lies.

Just for today let’s ask ourselves how we can embrace our journey whole heartedly.

This is hard because we want to protect our hearts from rejection, failure, or heartbreak while moving forward.

I have been carrying a lot of tension in my body lately. I’ve injured my shoulder, and my energy has been in the toilet because I have been bracing myself against life instead of embracing life.

I feel the resistance and fear and it is manifesting as stress.

We have all been told the rules so many times…gratitude changes everything, acceptance is key, the reason you’re suffering is because you’re focused on yourself, don’t get attached to outcomes, stay focused on your journey, etc etc.

The trials that life throws at us test our application of those rules.

Just for today lets repeatedly ask ourselves how to embrace the journey whole heartedly and believe that it is all happening for us and our greater good. Maybe, if we are lucky, we will figure out the application along the way.

If you want to level up in life, it requires “more curiosity and less arrogance; more humility and less need to be right; better questions and fewer answers.” Keith J. Cunningham.

These are things you can never be enough of. More means more. All of the time.

Enough said.

It’s very scary to feel alone.

When the kids were very young I used to have anxiety attacks that would literally leave me shaking and crying in the corner if I was the only adult around after they went to bed

I was so afraid of not being able to handle things if they went wrong and I imagined all sorts of worst case scenarios. I was scared of fire, scared of storms, scared of intruders, and so afraid of being alone and not knowing what to do.

Looking back I think the biggest cause was being disconnected.

When you start to know and feel the power of connection in your life, you never feel alone again.

You are connected to your higher self, and to the universe. Instead of feeling like you don’t know how to handle things, you begin to realize you actually don’t need to handle the things.

Being connected gives you the answers when you need them, the strength when you feel weak, and the comfort of knowing that you don’t have to rely on your own inexperience or humanity to make it through anything.

You can always surrender and ask for help. And it always appears in one form or another.

Somehow everything always turns out ok.

Connection is one of our needs. You can find it by tuning in to your higher power, being in nature and by listening to the signs the universe is constantly showing you.

You are never alone, even when you are all by yourself.

Just for today let’s assess what’s working in our lives.

So often we carry on repeating the same things over and over without checking to see if they are helping our cause… or hurting it.

We need to be careful not to get caught up in doing our work just for the sake of achieving a certain result. But we also need to make sure that the results we are getting align with where we want to go.

Just for today let’s notice the results we are getting. If they don’t line up with our mission, let’s try something different.

When it comes to your self worth you can’t compartmentalize it. When you allow bad treatment in one area of your life it spills over.

Sometimes it’s really hard to put the brakes on and walk away from disrespectful behaviour because we think the end goal is worth it. That might be true.

But what you give up along the way has a very high cost.

We don’t need to get better at working with difficult people, we just need to find the right places and the right projects that align with our values. That’s when things fall into place beautifully.

It’s not helpful to complain, you either choose to accept the behaviour or you don’t. You just need to be aware that there is always a cost and decide if it’s worth it.

I’m learning that for me, it’s not worth it.

You just can’t make decisions out of fear. Fear is a result of the story you’ve been telling yourself and it is never the truth of the situation.

Instead of avoiding or shielding yourself from the fear, you need to move forward in spite of it.

You need to be brave.

Maya Angelou says that courage is the most important of all of the virtues. And Power vs. Force says that courage is where you shift from low vibration into high vibration.

Courage is a big deal.

I realized while listening to Tony Robbins yesterday is that you can’t have courage without fear.

I usually muscle my way through the fear by being brave. But I don’t welcome the fear to give me a chance to be courageous.

If we never had fear, we would never have courage.

And we would never have hero’s.

Welcome the fear. Not only is moving ahead in spite of the fear courageous, it is where hero’s are made, and its where you cross the line into a space that most other people won’t.

And if you keep moving ahead in spite of the fear, over and over and over, the world is your oyster.

Deep inside our soul knows we are whole and capable of anything.

But above that, our human side sees and feels our limitations.

The dichotomy between the two causes all sorts of mixed messages and struggle.

I have wondered why some people hate themselves and I’ve come to the conclusion it is because the spirit knows no limits, and the human is all about limits.

When you lean too far into the human side the gap between your spirit and humanity becomes larger – and you begin to feel limited.

The limited feeling creates the “not enough” feeling inside of us.

The more “not enough” we feel, the more we focus on it and so begins the negative self talk and beating ourselves up.

I find all sorts of different ways to beat up on myself for not being enough.

Just this morning in my meditation I was beating myself up for not seeing an opportunity that was presented to me at the very moment it happened.

I was in a spiral trying to control the situation and I spent the first 30 minutes of my meditation in a mental frenzy.

When we are limited we act out of scarcity. This makes sense because we are limited and think there is “only one” chance and we blew it.

But when you connect back to spirit, as I was able to in the last 30 minutes of my meditation, then you realize that opportunities are plentiful. I feel grateful that I have seen the opportunity now and it is rewiring my brain to see them in the future also.

When I feel grateful then I am looking at the situation differently.

Instead of beating up on yourself and spiralling down into fear and scarcity, you will see the situation as evidence that the Universe is helping you and supporting you.

And it is always helping and supporting you.

Your job is to trust it.

Your job is to fully connect to your spirit, as strongly and as consistently as possible… until you know in every cell of your body that the limitations of your humanity is an illusion.

You are limitless. What is not to love about that?

We heal in layers.

When a new layer pops up, it takes a while to recognize it.

These layers are never ending. Somehow we never get to fully know ourselves. Over and over again we find out new things about ourselves and surprises that we didn’t know were there.

We are complex and complicated. Usually we don’t have clarity on why we do what we do.

I’ve learned never to become too confident, the second you do new things show up that surprise you.

Don’t be surprised when someone doesn’t show up the way you thought they would – they likely have no idea why either.

The best we can do is the best we can do. The healing never ends.

If someone had told you 12 weeks ago that most businesses would be closed, all public events would be cancelled, the kids wouldn’t be in school, and the chief medical officer would be calling all of the shots in our country, what would you have thought?

And yet when they cancelled the Calgary Stampede and high school graduation this week, we didn’t even bat an eye.

And that is how quickly we adapt. In 6 weeks our whole world has changed, and even if we don’t fully accept it, we expect it.

This is fascinating to me, and I love our ability to adapt.

I’m looking forward to the next part, which I am starting to see emerging now.

This is the part where our strong will to survive kicks in.

This is the part where we as humanity, take the cards we have been dealt and we play to win. We look for opportunities, ways to thrive against the odds, and we continue to grow no matter what.

I am looking forward to seeing how this part plays out.

Inside each of us is a light.

It comes from your essence and shines out through your heart.

It’s gentle but powerful and sacred to each of us.

Because this light comes from your spirit, your ‘you’ who is underneath all of the struggle, it shines brightest when you are authentically living life the way your heart desires.

You can feel it deep down inside you when you are in a quiet and safe place.

Are you living in a way that lets your light shine?

Society shames us into fitting in.

We think as adults we are immune to it, and to an extent we probably are, maybe because we stay safe in our bubble.

When we try to step out of that bubble, there is a lot to contend with, and shame plays a big role.

We want to be ok with who we are, what we have chosen, and how we got to this point in our life. But the truth is if you are human you’ve made some choices along the way that you aren’t proud of.

You’re not alone.

When we look at what our culture finds acceptable, or not, and we are making choices that align with our culture, we feel even worse for the choices we made before we cared or understood the consequences.

This is where shame enters, it’s a dark and ugly place to be… but you don’t have to carry it around with you.

Brene Brown tells us that empathy makes shame evaporate. That means finding someone who will empathize with you instead of judging you to help you heal. This is why joining support groups can be life changing.

I think compassion plays a huge role also.

Several times I’ve looked at my choices and wallowed in shame. I only see the action but not what preceded it.

I forget that I was a different person then, we are a new person with every new thing we learn, every aha moment, and every wound we heal. So it’s helpful to go back and remember what led me to those choices in the first place.

When I get to the crux of it, every single time it was hurt and unhealed wounds that were driving my behaviour.

Just because I’ve healed the part of me that allows me to make a healthier choice now, doesn’t mean I wasn’t doing the best I could before I figured it out.

Brene Brown also teaches us that we can only love others as much as we love ourselves. I resisted this statement when I first heard it because we all think we love others more than we love ourselves.

However, when you begin to see yourself and your choices with love and compassion for the person you were, you can open your heart to others who are doing the best they can. When you remove shame and judgement from yourself, then the people who were a mirror for you become a place of understanding.

Turns out Ms. Brown was right about that.

If you want to love someone else with “all you have”, then you have to heal so that “all you have” is as whole and as much as possible.

What other people say about you is not about you, it’s about them.

If they think your talented, handsome, intelligent, or cute it’s either they recognize those things in you because they can see it in themselves.

If they think that you are bad things, it’s most often because they haven’t admitted to themselves how they are exactly what they are accusing you of being (this one sucks when you catch yourself accusing others).

And because what other people say about you is not about you, the only validation you need is from yourself.

Getting your self worth caught up in looking for approval outside of yourself from others is pointless because it only tells you about them.

Being caught up in other people’s disapproval of you isn’t helpful either, because it’s also not about you.

All you can do is keep focussed on your work. What matters to you? What can you do about it? How can you do better?

P.S. Oprah is incredible.