Rise and Shine: It’s Risk Time

When was the last time you took a risk? I’m talking crazy-town nerves, a tribe of tummy butterflies and sweaty palms. Taking a risk can be exuberating and frightening all at the same time, but it may be just what you need to get your sexy back. Maybe you’ve been debating about relocating for a promotion or starting your dream business. Whatever the risk you’ve been holding back on, listen up, because I’m going to break down how taking a risk will wake you up and cause you to feel more sexy, productive and passionate.

Truly wake up
Taking risks is exhilarating. It will wake you up out of your everyday routine and slap you in the face with a glass of proactive make-t-happen juice. It will show you that you can (and just did!) conquer your fear. When I put my two weeks in at my day job to come home and start my business full- time I was all kinds of scared. I was leaving security, insurance, retirement and paid holidays. But that is one risk I would take every single day because it woke me up when I conquered my fears.

Get your sexy back
When you face your fears and rediscover your buried skills and strengths, you suddenly come to the realization that you’ve got it goin’ on! You enter into self-discovery mode, causing new insight to arise about what kind of person you really are when the going gets tough. I think you can agree when all this positive self-love energy is flowing, the sexy waters are no longer stagnant.

Amp up your productivity
When taking risks, you must have the desired outcome in the forefront of your mind causing you to amp up your productivity. When your focus is heavily weighed on such an important next step, goals are necessary, and following through on them is even more imperative. I’m not anywhere near perfect; I certainly haven’t always been queen of following through, but with every big risk I have taken, my priorities and productivity have had to line up in order for my desired outcome to come to fruition.

Rouse your passion
When you decide to put your big girl panties on and take that risk, you remind yourself of what you stand for and what you are born to do. Thus, passion is presented to you once again, after who knows how long. Your passion is roused, and you suddenly find yourself talking for hours, brainstorming, and daydreaming.

I encourage you to look at the risk you’ve been pondering long and hard. I admit, risks are frightening, mainly because you are exposing yourself to the chance of a bad result of your decision. Heavily weigh your options, and hush the fear. Perhaps you’re reading this and you know without a doubt that this is a step you are ready to take. You want to be awakened, sexy, productive and passionate again. I am here to tell you I have done it, and although I don’t know what will come next, the awakening I have experienced is worth doing it 100 times over.

Share the risk you’re contemplating (or have taken recently) with me in the comments below! I’m all ears.

Photo credit: Quinn Dombrowski

Love’s Rules to Living Life

There will always come a moment in our lives where we ponder the question, “Why does this work for others and not for me?” This moment is often closely followed by our cry of, “What the heck!”

Then we might try to force ourselves into fitting into a mold that we deem acceptable and appropriate. Who can we really blame for creating all these rules and regulations about how life should look?

We can call out all the usual suspects: society, church, school, parents and pop culture. But the culprit is always our fear. Fear feeds us illusions of inferiority and inadequacy. Fear tells us we are not good enough. Fear insists we compare and judge. Fear deceives us into thinking that if we attack others somehow we will feel better.

It doesn’t matter what suggestions fear makes; in the end, we always end up feeling worse and completely lost.

Lucky for us, love has a better, much gentler way. Love does not try to suffocate us by giving us a million suggestions. It merely says, “Try this one. It will work.” Love does not try to stuff us into a box. It says, “This fits you just right.” Love does not send us off into many directions. It yells, especially if we haven’t been listening, “Go this WAY!” Nicely, of course!

The more we listen to love and live by its rules, the brighter and lighter life will feel. Love’s method of living life is simple and kind.

Here are my top three Love Rules I give to my clients to help them dethrone the fear in their lives and bring in the love.

Love Rules

Rule #1- Authenticity

Why would love want us to be like anyone else? What could possibly be better or sexier than the person that you are? Nothing.

We spend too much time letting our fear block us from being our true selves, forgetting that we are fabulous and amazing just as we are. Be your true self! A great way of tapping into your truth is by learning to stay still and meditate. If we can’t stand in our truth long enough, we will easily topple over when fear comes along and tries to push us down. Fear WILL come along and push us down.

Rule #2- Have a personal relationship with love

The word “love” can be replaced by any word that works for you. It doesn’t matter what you call it. Make it your own relationship with something or someone higher than yourself. It can even be a higher You. Whatever works for you!

Fear’s rules will have us focusing excessively on what words we use. “She called it, God, but what does that mean?” “He called it Universe, does he mean God?” Who cares what it means to other people? Find what works in your life. Use a word that works for you.

Then work daily at building that relationship. A popular way my clients build their own relationships with love, or whatever they choose to call it, is through meditation.

Meditation also helps us reinforce Rule #1 because it allows us the space to stay still. The more you can cultivate space and silence, the more you can listen to love’s quiet whispers.

Rule #3 – Share the message

Love is all about sharing and fear is all about hoarding. Fear likes when we compete, and when we feel scared that if we have something others won’t have it, or vice versa.

Love on the other hand, says, “There is plenty for everyone!”

When you live by Rule #1 and Rule #2, Rule #3 is easy and super fun!

You can share the love however you please.

Maybe you become a yoga teacher who goes to church, or maybe you are a pastor’s child who loves meditating, or maybe you are a psychotherapist who loves tantra. Maybe you are a mother learning to be more patient with your child, or you could even be a social worker who dislikes traditional therapy but loves entrepreneurship, meditation, Jesus and helping others. See how there are endless possibilities?

Sharing our love through our work, our creative projects, our businesses, our friends, our families and our communities is essential in ending fear’s reign over our world.

Be brave about who you are and what you love.

Share your truth with a strong but loving voice.

Express your highest self in all moments.

Shine your light, so others may also find their way back to love.

The time for the usual suspects is over. It’s time to call out the real problem, “Can the real problem, please stand up?”

Fear has governed our lives for too long. Now it’s time for love to rule!

Clarisa Mompremier is a life coach and a writer who is dedicated to helping others design a life full of love, fun and milagros aka miracles. She graduated with a master’s in social work and is a teacher and student of “A Course in Miracles.”

Photo credit: Lindsay

Follow Your Heart Instead of Your Head

Want the best year of your life? Then follow a tour guide that’s on fire. Get out of your mind and into your passion. Get affected. It’s where you long to go and where you belong. This year, follow your heart – instead of your head.

Most of us have been taught that it’s “safer and more practical” to listen to our heads instead of our hearts. I’ll tell you otherwise.

The mind makes rational decisions based on history. The heart connects to something mystical and dynamic. As we enter changing times in the world, it’s wiser to listen to a guide that does not require stasis. Love can blast past facts and provide a security that transcends all circumstances.

Believe me, I know what it’s like to make “rational” decisions and ignore your “irrational” heart.

I ached to be a writer. I loved freedom and expressing my joy through words. But I made a “practical decision” and chose to be a lawyer, going all the way with honors from Harvard Law School. I practiced law because I thought it could provide a stable income and allow me greater freedom. This made “sense” on paper. But that’s because on paper, I had no emotions or needs. Yet in daily life – where I lived out my mind’s tidy plan – chaos prevailed.

I was a young litigator in a huge law firm and I billed my life in six-minute intervals. I worked 80 hours a week, and lived on Diet Pepsi and adrenaline. Senior partners would dump case files on my desk on late Friday afternoon and casually scribble “Get this to me by Monday morning.” My knees would buckle with frustration. I had never been less free. Then, at home, my personal life assaulted me like a neglected garden, rampant with decay and weeds. I was so tired I’d stare into space.

When it finally got to the point of true depression and even, secretly, not wanting to live anymore, I knew this was not a “practical” path. I had thought my real desires were unsafe. Turns out that living a life — without real desire — is unsafe. I left the law to save my life.

Finally, when I started to follow my spirit, I began to see the shocking limitations of the mind. I realized I had negated my most holy desires, merely based on “thoughts” I’d had about how life worked. I had chosen everything I did in my life based on filtered information. I trusted ideas I’d heard all my life, about how “creative people didn’t make money,” “how hard it is to start a business,” and more. But my spirit urged me to discover my own life and data. My heart compelled me to step beyond my mental ideas of life and discover the reality of my own possibilities and even destiny.

I have to tell you, all these many years later, I am floored, humbled and awed by my experience. I tentatively dared to walk past some limiting thoughts in my own life. And my desires evolved into a calling and a ride I could never have imagined. I wrote the book I longed to write – “This Time I Dance! Creating the Work You Love” and got it published by my dream publisher Tarcher/Penguin. I began teaching at world-class retreat centers. And through my writing, facilitating and coaching, I have opened the door for tens of thousands of others to live their excitement and their mission on earth.

My heart led me to walk past every limitation and fear that had ever held me back. I found courage sliding down the rabbit hole through the portals of a meaningful life. I had no idea that meaning could change everything. I suppose it’s what seekers feel who sit with gurus in India or walk mesas with a shaman. I thought I was just giving myself permission to write in this lifetime. I didn’t realize I was changing the axis of my earth, the pivot of my moon, the way I breathed and how I spoke my name. My life will never be the same again because I dared to pursue my love of writing. I want this for you. I want you to taste your real life, the life that awakens your powers. I want you — this very year — to step into a life that makes sense.

What do you really want this year? Don’t pick a packaged goal, a homogenized goal, a safe desire. You may not have time for accommodation. Choose what you really want. It doesn’t have to be all or nothing. You don’t have to quit your job or marriage today, or pack your bags for Paris. Following your heart can start with your toes. Dip one in the water. Write on Wednesday nights. Take a weekend retreat. Leave the office early and walk your basset hound. I’ve had clients who stayed at their jobs and pursued their passions on the side. The moment they started giving energy to their real desires, they found more peace in their current careers and improved their health and relationships. Following your heart isn’t about taking unnecessary risks — but necessary ones. It’s about inviting the real into your life and organically taking the steps that arise.

Choose to listen to your heart and obey with your intelligence. Choose to experience a life on fire. If you have come here to make a difference, your experience will be different. You were born to be so much more than someone who writes safe little goals on a list of paper. Let this year be the year you return to yourself. Let this be the year you heed your heart. Let this year be the year you hunt, chase and dive into what you really love.

For more by this author, visit ThisTimeIDance.com.

Photo credit: Shandi-lee

5 Tips For How To Be Spiritual About Your Money

Money always has two frames of reference: the big, all-encompassing world and the individual, YOU-specific version. Neither version gives us the information we need to have a successful relationship with our money, because both shift the discussion to blame and doubt, rather than promote financial peace and balance.

How much does it matter what is really going on “out there?” We might grumble, “the economy did this to us,” but that is an abstract villain — everything that happens in the economy is caused by humans. The economy and government are groups of human beings. We can choose to see ourselves as victims of a dehumanized system, or acknowledge that we live in a society where stuff goes wrong ,and we can participate in setting things right.

Once we quit blaming the external environment, then we tend to blame themselves. We move to self-condemnation and punishment for our poor financial decisions. But the blame game doesn’t absolve the individual any more effectively than it did the corporate and governmental entities that helped get us here. Blame doesn’t actually solve anything, and it doesn’t necessarily motivate us to higher awareness.

Bottom line, the situation that puts us in the least spiritual frame of mind is when we literally can’t pay our bills. This is the circumstance that gets the least attention because it’s also the scariest for most people to acknowledge. It’s not macro-environmental . . . it’s YOU. There’s no group to appeal to, no self-congratulations that you bought a purse at Target and not Coach; it’s fundamental, life-or-death, meeting basic needs. Immediate security is the issue.

The thing is, the scariest circumstance provides the greatest opportunity for spirituality. You don’t have the choice of thinking about things later because the problem is so immediate. You get to see, firsthand, how things can unfold when you quit looking outside of yourself for security. And you get to see how secure you can feel without doing a darn thing about the outside world.

The spiritual money journey is the choice to move beyond the fear. Every money circumstance in your life can be perceived from two places: the external world and the internal world. The external world is judgment, anger, blame, worry and a million other negative emotions. The internal world is comfort, support, forgiveness, hope and love. Here are some steps to get you there:

1. Name your fear. Get specific about fear and keeping drilling down. Once when I only had $50 in my bank account, I started panicking because I believed that I didn’t have enough money. So I got specific: For what don’t I have enough money? I discovered it was about groceries; I had enough until my next deposit for basic bills, but I thought I needed groceries for the weekend. So I drilled down further: Did I really need groceries? Come to find out, when I searched my cupboards, I had all of the makings for lasagna. Never let your non-specific worry or fear take hold of you without questioning it pretty thoroughly, because you’ll find that many times it’s completely unfounded.

2. Quit the comparison. You probably don’t want everything in Oprah’s life, but you might want some things. Use your desires to be a detective about yourself. What is it that is so attractive to me about having a beach house hideaway where I can have 12 people stay at a time? It’s the sense of gathering, community and retreat. How can I get that now and feel those things prior to (or instead of) getting a beach house? Your money power comes back the minute you realize you can have what you want BEFORE you get the thing you thought would bring it to you.

3. Support yourself. No one ever felt better about their money life by punishing and condemning themselves for past mistakes. In fact, you can’t BE spiritual at all until you’re ready to let past mistakes and decisions go. You have to forgive, and be hyper vigilant of that internal voice that tells you bad things about yourself. Every time you have a negative or punishing thought, ask yourself if your best friend would ever say that about you. And then be your own best friend.

4. Bring good energy. Once we dismiss the external world as the reason for not having what we want in the moment, we start to focus on the internal world of energy, emotion and thought. By the same token, we can bring that “internal world” energy to our external world dealings and start to bring the group mind into alignment with higher thought. When I had financial difficulties, I chose to bring positive energy to my dealings with creditors and found those interactions to be some of the most helpful and joyful of the entire ordeal. Imagine hanging up the phone after speaking to the IRS and smiling because the service rep was so darn nice to you! But I started it, with my intention.

5. Give yourself credit for the journey. When you make a choice to lose fear and behave more spiritually about money, it would be great if that once you made the choice, everything fell into place. But it doesn’t; you’ll have good days and bad, and you’ll experience fear and worry along the way. Just remember, you can never return to the place you started; even if you feel like you’re back-sliding, take comfort in the fact that you can never slide all the way back to ground zero. If you are persistent in returning to your choice to build your spirituality around money, you will attain higher levels, even if you can’t see the progress right away.

Money can be a challenging area to integrate into a spiritual practice because of all of the real-world repercussions of not having enough. But I promise, if you choose the spiritual path, you’ll see it’s also one of the most rewarding journeys you can take.

Mindy Crary, MBA, is a CFP® practitioner and financial coach who helps people become a lot more educated (never inundated) about not just money — but the whack job behind it. She offers free classes and spiritual money guidance on her website Creative Money.

Photo credit: Julie Falk

Be Willing To Suck (At It)

My father once told me that God gave me the talent to be an artist.

Art was my passion.

My dream was to get a Bachelor of Fine Arts in fiber arts. My work during those college years was presented in a show and is in a book about handmade felt. Oh, how I could get lost in that creative place for hours, days, weeks and months!

But I gave up my desire to be an artist in 1978.

I clearly remember thinking that if I couldn’t be the best, why bother? I wasn’t willing to not be the best. My ego won the game. My soul lost.

Seth Godin asked these wonderful questions in one of his blog posts: “Is perfect important? Do you feel the need to fail privately, not in public? How long can you wait before it feels as though you’re succeeding? How open are you to receiving criticism?”

These are thought-provoking.

I phrase it slightly differently. You have to be willing to suck. What does that mean exactly? It means you are:

-Willing to appear stupid.
-Willing to be disappointed.
-Willing to be embarrassed.
-Willing to show up and take action.
-Willing to accept whatever comes back to you -– be it praise or criticism.
-Willing to be vulnerable.
-Willing to do what you love no matter what anyone thinks.
-Willing to break the rules.
-Willing to be fearless.
-Willing to risk feeling shame.
-Willing to do what you want to do, not what others want you to do.
-Willing to look underneath shame and acknowledge the universal belief with which we all struggle, from time to time that tells us, “I am not good enough.”

Brene Brown, Ph.D,. is a research professor at the University of Houston’s Graduate College of Social Work. While studying shame, vulnerability, courage and authenticity, she has learned that shame is best defined as the fear of disconnection. “If other people find out _________ (fill in the blank with your fear), I will be rejected.” Brown postulates what is underneath shame is the same old fear or belief, “I’m not good enough.” There it is again, rearing its ugly head.

And I see it on a daily basis with my clients. There is always a fear that holds them back from doing something they are passionate about. It shows up in a variety of flavors: “I’m not smart enough, thin enough, experienced enough, beautiful enough, or rich enough.” The true belief underneath these false thoughts is fear is of being vulnerable. I believe this is what stops us from fulfilling our soul’s destiny.

Some people have a strong sense of self-worth. They feel worthy of connection and love. What Brown found was that these people have a sense of courage. They are willing to be imperfect. They know how to be compassionate with themselves and others. And what I loved most in reading Brown’s work is the evidence that these people, with a strong sense of their own worthiness, are authentic. They are willing to let go of who they “should” become and just be themselves with all their flaws.

I want to share this idea with you: Be willing to show your warts, your flaws and all your imperfections and love those parts of yourself. They make up who you are. You’ll discover that people love you much more for being exactly who you are because you were willing to be vulnerable enough with us to share that part of yourself with us. That builds a bond of trust.

What’s fascinating about vulnerability is when we move through it, without numbing ourselves with food, alcohol, the Internet, shopping, TV or other ways to distract ourselves from feeling, we actually become happier and more connected to those around us.

When we numb-out a stressful feeling, we numb-out the good feelings as well – happiness, joy, play and fun. The antidote is self-love. Practice random acts of kindness towards yourself.

I think I have an Annie Hall quality to me. It’s the spacey part of me that will shortcut my mind and blurt out something outrageous at the wrong time. Or I might ask the dumbest question you’ve heard in a long time. It’s a quirky side of me that I have found funny and endearing. It has taken a long time, but I have now fallen in love with “her.” I embrace her.

Just know that what makes you who you are is your whole self, not the façade and not the “Little Ms. Perfect.” Be willing. Be courageous. Be fearless. Be vulnerable.

How do you do that? Try looking back on times in your life when you have experienced adversity. Where were you courageous? Where were you willing to ask for help when you were vulnerable? Where did you take risks? This is how you know your own level of resilience. You can count on yourself by remembering how you got through it. This will help you find ways to be proud of yourself. Learn to take risks and expand your comfort zone. The more you do, the more you live up to your full potential.

Lots of very successful people have embraced this idea.

Steve Jobs said, “I’m the only person I know that’s lost a quarter of a billion dollars in one year … It’s very character-building.”

Over the years, I have developed a philosophy regarding success: The more times I strike out, the more chances I have of hitting a home run. I call it my “Hank Aaron” philosophy. I am willing to take a risk, to not do it perfectly, and to keep upping my game.

Hank said, “I have always felt that although someone may defeat me, and I strikeout in a ball game, the pitcher on the particular day was the best player. But I know when I see him again, I’m going to be ready for his curve ball. Failure is a part of success. There is no such thing as a bed of roses all your life. But failure will never stand in the way of success if you learn from it.”

Now, 34 years later, my soul is calling me back to art – back to photography – a new form of art that I want to practice. The game is not over yet.

Here’s the difference: I am now willing to suck at it because I love it.

Sherold Barr is a life purpose, business coach, and freedom fighter for women who want to find their calling, master their fears and complete the impossible. She’s writing a digital manifesto called “The Top 10 Things I Wish I Knew Before I Was 30: a baby boomers manifesto to Gen X and millennials.”

Photo credit: Cavale Doom