What Do You Focus On?

We all create a narrative about how our day, weeks or years of how our life will go.

It’s as though how our life will turn out, is out of our control.

Things happen to us.

That too is a narrative imposed on you, if you believe you have no control over how you’re life will turn out.

I was talking with a wife, mother and dog lover the other day.

She’s going through a hard point in her life and she was focused on all the things going wrong and not in her favor.

Those things hadn’t happened yet, but her belief in the narrative that it will go south was loud and clear.

This was a moment I chose to offer a different perspective.

I said, “you have as much of a chance for all those terrible things to happen as you do having all the opposite things to come true.”

You can choose to live in the crap you tell yourself or you can step outside the box and envision other possibilities.

When you choose to live in the BS narrative that life is going to turn out not the way you want, you are less empowered to make different choices. You are choosing to have life deliver mediocrity.

When you spend a bit more energy in dreaming of something different. More worthwhile to you, you not only give yourself a break from the stress, tension and fear, but you also invite in a bit of what your heart desires.

Life is truly what you make of it and what you make starts with your dreams.

What do you want to create in your life?

Sound Like You?

I work with heart centered people who value a growth mindset.

They are dedicated to making changes in their life that are sustainable, value driven and the changes they make are rooted in habits which reflect themselves in who they are choosing to be.

They aren’t focused on a singular outcome, but rather focused on living an integrated life.

They see challenges along their way as an opportunity for growth rather than a barrier to their success.

They are also counter cultural to the outdated belief that they can “pull themselves up by their bootstraps” but instead value the support and encouragement from those who are in their corner.

They make the choice to invest in themselves not out of believing they have a problem that needs to be fixed, but rather view themselves as an evolution in progress.

They are big believers in their dreams.

Does this sound like you?

What’s Your Mood?

Have you ever heard that the feeling of nervousness is the same as excitement?

The only difference is how the person perceives the pleasantness of the energy in their body.

You have a choice in how you feel.

The energy that shows up in your body is just information.

When you choose how you interpret and perceive the energy, you make the choice of putting a specific label on it it which informs your brain of how to take action.

I was in a middle school the other day and the school secretary was buzzing a late student into the building.

The school secretary asked the student, “do you have a game today”?

The student answered “yes”.

The school secretary asked the student, “are you nervous or excited about the game”?

The student responded and said, “I’m excited, but I used to be nervous before games. The first couple of games I would feel really nervous about how I would play and how the game would go. Now I just have fun and look forward to it.”

Yes, this student is young, but to possess this flexibility in mindset is invaluable as this child ages.

He was able to reframe his nervousness into excitement and now he looks forward to competition.

He’s gained confidence in the experience of performing in his sport.

This is a life lesson we can all learn from and even adopt in our own lives.

As you can see, the experience of how a person feels is subjective to the person experiencing the sensation.

But, you can certainly empathize with the person’s experience because we’ve all had some time with sensations that don’t feel good to us.

Our dogs also have similar sensations in their bodies too. While we never know exactly how they may feel, we may be able to infer based on how a dog is showing us through body language changes.

We are not perfect and we may miss a signal here and there.

Labeling dogs puts an identity on them they didn’t ask for or consent to.

Much like us when we are labeled incorrectly, we feel judged, ridiculed or disrespected.

Why do we feel we can label our dogs because we feel unpleasant in our own bodies and lash out at our dogs?

Our dogs know how to be dogs, maybe we need to give ourselves some grace and take the time to learn about them in a modern way.

Making the choice to shift and be flexible with how you feel, you can change the course of your moment and even your day.

Consistent practice can be transformational!

I’ll invite you into observing the energy that shows up in your body and see how you choose to experience the energy’s pleasantness. And, decide for yourself if you want to change how you label it for yourself. Bonus, see how you shift your label of how you feel and see how it impacts those around you, including your companion animals.

Looking for support? I have a few openings!