Life Mapping with Monika & Everett

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Consistent Action: Practice is not a one-time event

I am as guilty as the next person.  I want instant results.  I exercise for a few weeks and wake up fit and fine.  I mediate for 3 days in a row and I want that calm and peace to stay forever.  But there is a reason they call it a practice.  Like one of my yoga teachers is fond of saying – “its a yoga practice, not a yoga perfect” We all struggle with how to bring these ideas into our lives as part of our way of living.  That our meditation, our journaling, our healthy living practices become as much a part of our lives as brushing our teeth.  But, if you are like me, it’s hard to stick to it long enough for it to become automatic.  We have a million real reasons – fatigue, mood swings, etc. Then I remind myself that when I stick to my routine I have less of that lethargic feeling, less mood swings, I feel better, 100%.  And then there is the really hard and powerful stuff we want to create in our lives – love, career, happiness, health and wealth.  How are we doing the daily things we need to do for ourselves to manifest those bigger life goals.  It’s all about changing our minds so our lives will follow.  And we all need support to stick to it and not fall back into old habitual patterns that don’t serve us.

 

Truth be told, if you listen to the stories of successful people, it was 10 years of consistent action before they became an overnight success and were recognized by the masses for their achievements.  It’s also a mindset that says something is easy or hard.  Consistent action is as easy, fun or difficult as you make it in your mind.  I reminded Everett the other day that his body loves working out.  He is so happy and feels so good after a good work out.  How does he/ how do we make getting that feeling a priority so we make time despite our competing priorities.

 

And the other side of that is to celebrate when we are consistent and give ourselves love and grace when we aren’t as consistent as we want to be.  Life  is fluid and so is what is needed from us each day.  Love yourself enough to be consistent with what is important and to be flexible and discern what is needed now and to forgive yourself for being human, tired, stressed, vegging in front of the TV instead of doing whatever you think you should be doing.

 

There is one more thing I want say about consistent action and creating powerful practices in your life that allow you to manifest what you want.  One thing that I have found that supports me in keeping my word to myself is to have a supportive community to hold me accountable.  Its often a role I play as a coach with my clients.  They know that they have a session with me and that is enough to push them to do the next thing.  So Everett and I are creating with our Life Mapping community to be a supportive accountability group for you.  I know it’s one more place to go check in– but we are hoping that it will become so helpful that you will check in every day and post your goals for the week and give your friends updates and they will give you encouragement.  I am looking forward to learning about your goals, dreams and vision for your life and supporting you to manifest it a little bit every day as you create the practice of consistent action.

So join our free community and let’s build a place that supports us holding each other accountable to making our dreams come true.

Join Now

 

Fear or Peace? It’s Your Choice

Today’s Question: Do we allow the ego to control and create fear and chaos or do we control our mind and develop the discipline to create and manifest the pictures and the life we truly want.  The one where life is good, we are healthy happy and whole.  The life, where we are at peace.

I vote for peace.  In our world, it may be difficult to find time or space to quiet yourself and release other people’s energy or your own anxiety to find peace.  Everything is moving faster each day and we feel the need to speed up to keep up.  The challenges in the world, in our personal lives, all seem overwhelming at times.

When you are stressing your body and mind to the maximum, there is a consequence.  You get sick. There is breakdown and less functionality.  It is inevitable no matter how amazing you are.  The body needs nourishment.  The body needs rest and time to heal.

How do we find balance and harmony so that we are taking care of ourselves while we take care of business?  My dad was fond of saying, “You can’t take care of anyone until you can take care of yourself.”  How wise those words became as I grew older and matured and began to understand the layers and depth of what that meant.

As we approach the spring equinox, renew your commitment to your own self-care routine.  Be sure it includes care for your nutrition, care for your need for physical activity, rest, and quite time alone for the spirit to find peace.

 

Join Monika for the Spring Equinox Life Mapping Session.  RSVP Now.

Deer Teaches the Power of Gentleness

Today a beautiful deer, a fawn, was in my back yard.  She was searching for food.  And where she wanted to go was a cat crouched in the leaves by the garage.  I watched them from my kitchen window.  She made a noise as if to ask the cat to leave and allow her into the space.  The cat moved and then she nosed around the leave and found food.  She hung out in my yard for some time.  I guess she felt safe.

Seeing this encounter took me to my Medicine Cards book by Jamie Sams and David Carson to see what deer represented.  It reminded me that Deer, specifically the fawn, teaches us the power of gentleness.  That gentleness has the power to touch the hearts and minds of wounded beings who are trying to keep us from the Sacred Mountain (connecting to the Great Spirit).  We have the opportunity to embrace the energy of gentleness, love, and compassion to melt the fear and transform the demons that confront us, both those physically in our path and those in our minds that create fear.  Where there is love and gentleness, no fear can exist.  I was reminded that Deer teaches us unconditional love, a love that has no strings attached.  That when we love others and ourselves just the way we are, we need not push or force anything, our demons will melt and be transformed by our love.

Part 2:  Love & Relationships

In this blog, I want to share my own relationship journey.  I hope you will be encouraged and inspired to know you can attract someone who is perfectly compatible with you.

As a spiritual and intuitive person, I spent a lot of my life checking out each person who came across my path for their purpose and to get the lesson and blessing from that relationship or interaction.  So in my youth, I fell in love easily and frequently.  Sometimes I knew it was a passing fling.  Other times I wasn’t sure.  And there my mother was to support my thinking that relationship no matter how long or short, served a purpose in our lives and when that purpose was accomplished you should release that person with love for all that you gained, learned, and experienced and move to the next lesson.

As we age, we learn.  So after my divorce and some fun and not so fun dating experiences, I moved to a place of surrender about my next life partner.  I decided not to worry about it but to have fun.  I changed my prayer/mantra from a detailed list of qualities I wanted in all my relationships both business and personal to “I don’t know what I need, so please send me a man who is perfectly compatible with me”.  And I just decided to have fun with my male friends.  My self-love journey supported me from settling for any relationship and moved to me accept that I was not going to be in a romantic relationship until it was time.  And I had plenty of love in my life. I worked on continuing to open my heart, accept myself, and enjoy life and be happy

with my current reality.  All things I had worked on for years, I put my renewed attention there again.

Then I met Everett one winter night in my neighborhood bar after hanging out with one of my best

friends.  It was a group of strangers who introduced us and pulled us into conversation about dancing

and where the best places to find social dancing were in Cleveland.  They were trying to convince this guy, Everett, that Cleveland was a good place to live and that he just needed to find the right people.  That’s how I got roped into the conversation. We laughed, we danced, we

exchanged information and promised to keep in touch. We had a lot of fun that night.

I was friendly and we started hanging out as friends and I showed him some fun places around town as he was new and on and on…  And I noticed who he was as a person, his values and character.  We had fun together.  And in different moments, I felt challenged as my heart opened to meet his.  It was surprising, and a little scary too.  I thought after all this time… OMG!  And I took it slow and worked to keep my eyes open and move in the best and most authentic way possible.  For what seemed like the first time in my life, I consciously waited for him to set the tone and the boundaries and for him to make the first move, and the second, and the third.  I didn’t put up walls.  I didn’t make up a story – good or bad about where this was going.  I stayed in the moment with what was real.  I patiently waited to see what and how things would unfold.  For my women readers, this was really critical in allowing him to choose me and pursue me and for me to see what kind of man he was vs the man I wanted him to be.  This was in extreme contrast to my old habit of trying to MAKE things happen.  I’m just saying.  And at each step of the way, he proved to be a person who was sincere, capable, a man of great integrity, with values that aligned with my values, lifestyle and spiritual beliefs.  Over time, we began to talk about what kind of relationship we wanted to have.  He was very clear, “Clear your dance card.  I know you have men that take you places and do things for you.  Give me a chance and I can do all of those things and more.”  Mind you, we had not had sexual relations yet.  This was also a change for me, that he initiated.  We talked night after night over coffee.  We got to know each other.  One night he asked me to write down my deal breakers.  The things that if he did them, would end or do irreparable damage to the relationship.  He moved closer.  We started falling in love.  The intimacy and sex was great!  He began to introduce to me his world and family and the people who were most important in his life.  Eventually we committed to each other and later he asked me to marry him.

So I want you to think about the questions below and check in on where you are with yourself, your current life partner or any potential life partners.

  1. Are our values aligned, not just in words but in actions?
  2. Do our goals align in ways that create synergy?
  3. What am I bringing to the table that will support our partnership?
  4. What are they bringing to the table that will support our partnership?
  5. Do we each have the capacity to work together?
  6. Will it be fun? Enjoyable?
  7. Is there alignment in our values, lifestyle, and perspectives? Are we compatible in how we think about and use ourselves, our resources or create new resources to get what we want? Are our material wants, desires and approaches compatible?

These are important questions.  They need to be answered based on us observing each other’s actions, not what we think or aspire to do and be, not what we say we are about, but what we really do based on our actions.  I say we because this is true for you and the prospective life partner.

No judgement but a true discernment about “what is” right now.  I spent years in a relationship based on potential.  I thought my first husband and I were working our plan only to find out he was just dreaming.  His words said he wanted to build an empire.  His actions said he wanted to go to work, come home, drink a beer, relax and watch the game.  This was a huge mismatch to my own ambition and an anchor.  My current husband, is adjusting to the fact that he is only working one job for the first time in his adult life and has joined me to work to take our plan to the next level.  Our life together is easy.  We work things out and come to agreement quickly.  There is harmony and peace and joy.  He is perfectly compatible with me and we are creating a life together that we both love.  There is alignment in our values, vision, lifestyle, and commitments.  We have both done our inner work and were moved to a place of surrender just as the Universe brought us together on that fateful night.  And we were both open to the exploration.

Part 1: Self Love

Its Valentine’s Day this week and there is so much to say about LOVE that this will be a week-long blog fest.

First, LOVE of self.  My dad used to always tell me as a young woman, you can’t love anyone until you love yourself.  I didn’t get it.  I was looking for love to “complete me”.

So what does it mean to love you?  How do you know you love yourself?  What should you be paying attention to?

When you love yourself, you move away from self-judgement.  You lovingly look at who you are, your attributes and your challenges, places where you are hurt and places where you have joy, you get “real” with yourself in a most loving way.  And then you accept where you and who you are and your journey up until this  moment.  It is only then can you begin to discern any parts of your spirit that you want to heal.  With acceptance, you can begin to discern what attributes you want to keep and grow with and what things about yourself you want to change.  When you look at what you want in life and your goals, you can see what is helping to create the life you want and what gets in your way.  And you lovingly begin to move into action to become the amazing human being you were always meant to be.

I remember creating a mantra about the kind of relationship I wanted to attract.  I was healing from a dysfunctional one and putting the power of thought and language and vision into action.  I remember standing in the bathroom every morning and every night after I brushed my teeth and saying:  “Monika, I love you just the way you are. “ Then crying. I’d then say: “I am in mutually beneficial relationships that are respectful, loving, sensuous, sexual, caring, gentle, joyful, ….” And I had a long list.  And I would cry.  I said this every day until I began to cry less.  I said thie every day until one day, I said it without crying and began to embody the words.  I said it until I began to see the changes in me and in my relationships in business and friendships.  I kept saying this mantra for years, until I noticed how happy I had become with myself and who I had become.  I worked through the heartache and let it go.  I worked through the disappointments and let them go.  I worked through so many things that needed to be healed so I would be healthy enough to be in a healthy relationship. I “cleaned my plate” as my husband calls it and got ready for the kind of intimate relationship, the kind of life partner I truly wanted.  But first I had to become a person who embodied the attributes that I was looking for in order to attract that kind of person.  I had to change.  I noticed, I had a more positive attitude.  I noticed less judgement in my words and thoughts and I developed the ability to catch myself.  I noticed I was settling less.  I noticed a change in approach to how I allowed others to treat me.  I just didn’t accept anything less than.  But it wasn’t with anger or any frenetic energy in my spirit or words, it was just as matter of fact as me saying the sky was blue.  I’d say “This isn’t going to work for me.  Can we do X?  This will allow me to Y and you to still get what you want or need.”  I learned to love myself.  And I was happy, truly happy.

What is your self-love process?  How are you healing and finding your way back to your true self?