Self-Awareness

And Then There Were Eight

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Thank you so much to all of you who wrote to me after I sent out the piece, “One.” I felt far less alone after hearing from you! If you missed that piece, you can read it here . . .


And Then There Were Eight

Last Saturday I went to my first meeting of the Women Entrepreneurs Santa Fe Network. And now I know 7 more women in Santa Fe!!! And, we have so much in common. Of course there is the obvious – we all have our own businesses. All very cool businesses, I might add. And, several of the women are new to Santa Fe in the last few months.

I am far less alone today than I was one week ago. This morning I had coffee with Cinny, an artisan dressmaker. She introduced me to a wonderful new bakery and coffee shop, Dulce. And now I know who will begin my custom wardrobe in the near future!

Ah . . . the process of bringing new dreams into reality . . . Sometimes I’m very impatient. I think I’m not interested in the process of making new friends. I just want the result of having new friends.

Yet somehow sharing a bit about the process with you has reflected back to me the sweetness in the process – the baby steps, the daily victories, the subtle shaping of a new life, a new me . . .

So, what about you? In what areas of your life or work would you like to bring more of what you were born for into reality? How can I inspire you to savor the journey?

Post your comments, insights and progress below.

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I’m so excited – the new website is live!!!
Win a solo retreat in Santa Fe (A $1900 value)!!!!!

We have been hard at work for months and are so happy to share the new beautiful, spacious website!

We were sad because we were not able to bring the comments on the blog to the new site when we made the move. I have figured out a way to remedy that!

Between now and Jan 1, 2015, if you will take the time to look at the blog and make a comment on 10 or more of the blog posts, I will enter you into a drawing for a facilitated solo retreat with me in New Mexico.
Read all about the retreats at: http://annstrong.com/retreats/

We will announce the winner of the retreat in the Jan 7th newsletter . . .

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My book, “Thriving Work” is now available
on Kindle at Amazon for just $3.99:
Click here to order

Affirming New Ways of Being

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I’ve never been sure about the whole affirmation thing.

On the one hand, I love affirming my good. “I am at my ideal weight.” “I consistently bring in more than $9,000/month.” “My wonderful guy is looking for me as I am looking for him.”

On the other hand, the affirmations more often than not sound like lies to me. I am now at my ideal weight, yet it took me years to find my specific way. Sometimes I bring in more than $9,000/month and sometimes I don’t. And, I would love to believe my guy is looking for me, yet I’d much rather he find me!

A poster I’ve seen in many Santa Fe bathrooms helped me see that I do much better with new ways of being rather than new affirmations. The poster says: “Help Save Water! Saving water is always in season.”

Having lived in Denver most of my life and being a hippie Earth girl in my soul, I have always conserved water. Yet, I noticed that I have started conserving in several new ways since I moved to Santa Fe and read those posters.

For example, I often conserve heat by working with a hot water bottle in my lap. I heat the water several times a day. In the past, I dumped out the cool water and filled the tea kettle with new water. After reading the posters, I automatically started dumping the water in the water bottle back into the tea kettle – reusing the same water all day. And now, each morning when I give my cat, Jasmine, fresh water in her water bowl, I water a plant with the “stale” water.

What "posters" might we create for ourselves that help us naturally create new ways of being?

What “posters” might we create for ourselves
that help us naturally create new ways of being?

I’m amazed and pleased that simply reading a poster caused me to naturally and easily change my way of being. How can we use this idea to create new ways of being that support our ideal life and work?

Let’s play with this.

I know that one of the keys to maintaining my ideal weight involves practicing kundalini yoga twice a week. And so, I do. Almost every week for six years. Without question. Without affirmation.

I’m not yet consistent with the activities that lead to consistent income. I do know what activities make the difference. The first is tangible: make group invitations and talk with people one-on-one about working with me or taking one of my programs. The second is energetic: keep my focus on serving without attachment. Daily, weekly, consistently.

The one that is most mysterious to me involves my guy. And, I would imagine it is similar to the activities for consistent income. Spend time out in the world, around people each day or each week. And, focus on connecting with men without attachment. I will have to let you know how that one goes!

So, what about you? In what areas of your life or work would you like to create new ways of being? How can I inspire you to begin now?

Post your comments, insights and progress below.

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My book, “Thriving Work” is now available
on Kindle at Amazon for just $3.99:
Click here to order

Creator/Owner Mindset: Naming the Glory of You

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A few years ago, my coach at the time, Jeff Patterson, created an important distinction for himself to support him in expressing himself and his fullest contribution.  He gave names to himself at the far ends of the spectrum of low expression and contribution and high expression and contribution. 

Needy Man and Miracle Man.

He knew exactly what each meant to him and he kept his focus on living his days as Miracle Man and having compassion for himself when he showed up as Needy Man. 

Jeff was an amazing role model for me.  Being coached by Miracle Man called forth more from me than I knew was within me.  Learning how Jeff worked with Needy Man taught me to love myself more, no matter what.  And yet, in all the time I worked with him, I couldn’t come up with my two distinct names for me.  I knew that my equivalent of Needy Man was Scramblin’ Ann but my Miracle Man equivalent eluded me.

The more I tried to find my glorious name, the more I could feel my mind “searching my brain’s hard drive” rather than receiving it from my heart.  So I let it go and wrote my first book with Jeff’s coaching support.

I coached several clients to name theirs.  I told them about Jeff’s success and disclosed that I had only half my equation, yet I could feel the power of having both names. 

Melancholy Monica and Magnificent Monica. 
(Names of clients have been changed for their privacy.)
Scardy Cat and Lover Girl.
Contracted Shelly and Expansive Shelly.
Barely Betsy and Goddess Elizabeth.
Slave and Queen . . .

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Ah, the feeling of experiencing myself
as Radiant Grace . . .

And just a few days ago, out of the blue, I received a gift from my heart: Radiant Grace.  How amazing is that – the name Ann means grace.

Scramblin’ Ann and Radiant Grace.  Oh my goodness, can I feel the difference in my body, my energy and my heart!!!

What about you?  What distinctions bubble up for you?!?

Post your comments, insights and progress below.

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On the Way to Experiencing the Divine . . .

If you are feeling disoriented or lost and sense you are being called to a deeper relationship with the Divine, let’s have a conversation to explore if the one-on-one Align with Source coaching program would be a good fit for you.

– – – – – – – – – –

Mindfulness: Why Am I So Happy?

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In his new book, “The Millionaire Master Plan,” Roger Hamilton writes about his own practice for creating his day each morning.  He shares eight questions that he asks and answers himself every morning.

I have been playing with his questions.

My favorite, by far:
Why Am I So Happy?

This question presses me to find my happiness and gives me infinite opportunities to name it.  I’ve also noticed that I am becoming more aware of happiness as my natural, innate state, even when I temporarily feel unhappy about something.

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How could I be anything but happy as
I stare into the face of this pure Beauty?

How great is that?!?

What about you?  In this moment, why are you so happy?

Post your comments, insights and progress below.

Thank you for playing with me today!

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Align with Source coaching

If you are ready to start a business, go to the next level with your business, change careers or radically transform your life, let’s have a conversation to explore if the one-year, one-on-one Align with Source coaching program would be a good fit for you.

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My book, “Thriving Work” is now available
on Kindle at Amazon for just $3.99:
Click here to order

Transformation: A Question Frees Us

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What’s the difference between a question and a statement?  Why do we care?

While writing a new piece for my next book, I began to notice a subtle and perhaps life-changing difference between questions and statements. 

My first book, “Thriving Work,” includes 33 affirmative prayers/poems.  I love them.  They remind me where to focus.  For example, “I see with new eyes.” Yes I do.  Do I?  Well, I would love to see with new eyes.  Yes, seeing with new eyes is better than seeing with old eyes . . .

Hmmm . . . this statement takes me to a lot of internal conversation about seeing with new eyes.  I haven’t been aware of going there.  Now that I am, I notice that my thoughts seem to be heading toward self-judgment and argument.

new eyes

What is possible when I see through new eyes?!?

And, “new eyes” seem to be a one-time event.  There, I now see with new eyes.  Good.  Done. Check.  What’s next?

So, what if we instead try a question?  How may I see with new eyes?  Who would I need to become to see with new eyes?  What would it take to see with new eyes? Why might I like to see with new eyes?

Do you feel lighter, more expansive with the questions?  I sure do.  And, I feel hopeful and energized!  What is possible when I see with new eyes?  What else is possible?  How can I continue to see with newer and newer eyes?

What if I continued to ask these questions?  As I feel into that, I am pulled forward.  I am creating an entirely new future, not based on repetitive cycles of the past.  I don’t know this future, yet I love the freedom in the inquiry.  I love feeling the hope of experiencing more of me.

What about you?  What is your sense of being with questions? How does being with this question shift your perspective and experience?

Post your comments, insights and progress below.

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My book, “Thriving Work” is now available
on Kindle at Amazon for just $3.99:
Click here to order

Spiritual Awareness: Who Are We as Divine Wholeness?

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Take a deep breath.  Who are we as Divine Wholeness?

Divine: of God, sacred.  When we divine (verb), we experience insight, intuition. 

Wholeness: full, complete. Not broken, damaged or impaired.

If we are Divine Wholeness, what of our humanness?  Such a delightful and annoying question! 

Some days I cannot comprehend why we would choose all these earthly contrasts rather than hang out in our infinite home in the spiritual realm.  Other days, I feel moved to tears by this extraordinary experience of life in my body, here in this incredibly imperfect, perfect world.

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I’ve noticed that I take many variations of this same scene – lots of land
and even more sky.  I think it’s one of my ways of staying in touch with my
humanness the – the earth – and my Divine Wholeness – the infinite sky . . .

It certainly lightens my perspective when I remember to remember that I am first Divine Wholeness.  And, it really lightens my experience when I become present enough to experience my Divine Wholeness.

What about you?  What is your sense, your experience: Who Are We as Divine Wholeness? How does being with this question shift your perspective and experience?

I’d love for you to post your comments, insights and progress below.

Mindfulness: How Might We Stop Judging?

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How might we stop judging?

Let’s back up for a moment.  Why might we be interested in releasing judgment?  Hmmm.  Who do we judge the most?  Even when we judge others, isn’t there an element of self-judgment?

What’s the cost of judging ourselves?  Well, what’s the cost of an internal war?

“Oh, it’s not that big a deal.  Everybody judges, right.  It’s just human nature.”  What if that’s true only as long as we believe it’s true?

How would my life be different, how would your life be different if we stopped making ourselves wrong?  About anything.

Seem impossible?  Maybe even wrong? Ah, there we go . . .

pink flower

I love to take my cues from nature.  Would
this wonderous one judge itself? I think not. 
Maybe that’s the secret.  A judgment is simply
a thought.  Why don’t I think a different thought?!?

I’m not posing these questions because I no longer judge myself about anything ever and now I think you should stop too.

I’m asking because I’m in this inquiry and I’m wondering if you’d like to join me?  How does it feel to you?  It’s an amazing inquiry for me.  Maybe it’s not right for you.  Or maybe it feels intriguing to you, too.

If you’d like to play, what if we noticed when we judge ourselves or made ourselves wrong, and then asked ourselves, “How might this be right, great or perfect that I just don’t see yet?”  And then, holding it lightly, be on the lookout for what we hadn’t seen before . . .

Feel free to post your comments or insights below.

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Would you love on-going inspiration for the Third Chapter of your life?

I highly recommend my friend Rolf Evenson’s new digital magazine,
“Boomers Rising.”

Boomers Rising is the world’s leading digital magazine for “encore entrepreneurs” inspired by a vision of passion, prosperity and purpose.

Some of my favorite articles:
– Confidence in Your Business
– Top 10 Food Lies that Keep Us Sick and Fat
– The Tribes We Lead
– Lessons Learned on E Street (Think Bruce!)
– The Illusive Obvious

You can read it on your iPhone, iPad or Android.

Check it out HERE.

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My book, “Thriving Work” is now available
on Kindle at Amazon for just $3.99:
Click here to order

Conscious Choice: The Energy of Freedom!

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What greater freedom is there than truly being me?  And you truly being you? Me in my artsy energy, you in your adventure energy; me loving to eat delicious food, you loving to cook delicious food; me wilting in summer heat, you living for it; and our list goes on . . .

Human/Divine, strong/scared, selfish/selfless, playful/self-conscious, flawed/perfect, you get the idea . . .

I love our US holiday of July 4th, Independence Day.  Our forefathers had a vision of being independent of certain constraints.  And yet today, our country and our world face challenges that our forefathers could never have imagined.  And still, each of us has the opportunity to choose our own freedom in any given moment.

While each of us has a list of certain things that will help us to be free – losing 20 pounds, getting out of debt, getting a new job or relationship or car, making more money, healing our broken leg or broken heart – there is a much more immediate way to be free.  In this moment.

Simply allow yourself to become immersed in the energy of freedom.

fireworks

Ooooo, aaaaah, the energy of freedom!

What does freedom feel like to you?

For me, I’m without concern and judgment, slowed down, excited and alert, and at the same time peaceful and present.

If it’s challenging for you to feel into it like that, then remember a time when you felt fully yourself, fully alive.  Once you remember the event or activity, then remember what it felt like.

That’s the energy of freedom.

No new car purchase or more money in the bank necessary.  Yet, interestingly, the more you live in the energy of freedom, the more whatever you require or whatever you’d like then tends to show up!

Happy Freedom!

Feel free to post your comments or insights below.

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I want to turn you onto my friend Rolf Evenson’s
new digital magazine, “Boomers Rising”

As baby boomers with generous entrepreneurial spirits, we face significant challenges. What to do next with our lives? How to make it work financially? How to create a life that allows us the freedom we crave, while offering opportunities for connection and creative engagement?

Join Boomers Rising Magazine to be an active part of the solution.

Boomers Rising is the world’s leading digital magazine for “encore entrepreneurs” inspired by a vision of passion, prosperity and purpose.

Some of my favorite articles:
– Confidence in Your Business
– Top 10 Food Lies that Keep Us Sick and Fat
– The Tribes We Lead
– Lessons Learned on E Street (Think Bruce!)
– The Illusive Obvious

You can read it on your iphone, ipad or android.

Check it out:
http://www.boomersrising.com

==========================

My book, “Thriving Work” is now available
on Kindle at Amazon for just $3.99:
Click here to order

Allowing Flow: Present and Curious

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Awhile back, in the middle of a tense conversation with my sweetie, I could feel my mood going lower and lower.  Instead of engaging fully in what was quickly becoming an argument, I instead got curious.

What would it take to not go to a low mood?

Instead of firing back my good argument, I sat quietly, looking at the clouds.  Really looking, being present to the wonder of the clouds.  All of the sudden, my argument became irrelevant.  In an instant, I lost interest in proving my point.

I told him I didn’t need to go on, that I could let it go.  And I did.  Just like that. My mood immediately bounced back up.

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Some of my best friends are trees and clouds.  The
more time I spend outside, the more present I become.
The more present I am, the less I get upset with the
“small stuff.”

What had happened?  How did I access that beautiful miracle?  I became more interested in a high mood and connection (to the clouds, to me, to him) than in “winning” an argument.  I held the situation lightly and became present to the moment.  In the preciousness of the moment, the argument made no sense.

When we begin to notice more consistently that our innate well-being is always available, we naturally begin to make more choices consistent with it.

So, what about you?  What does this bring up for you?

Feel free to post your comments, insights and experiences below.

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Are you in the Denver area?

Want to spend an afternoon diving into your strengths? 

Or diving a bit deeper if you’ve been playing with yours for awhile?

We have a few spaces left in an experiential StrengthsFinder workshop on Wed, June 25.

Is one of them yours? Come play with us!

http://www.annstrong.com/strong-you-strong-life

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My book, “Thriving Work” is now available
on Kindle at Amazon for just $3.99:
Click here to order

Conscious Choice: Mild Preferences Free Us

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All suffering comes from our need to have things a certain way.

I can hear your protests.  I can hear them because I’ve had them, too.  I still sometimes have them.  “I’m suffering because of this illness or physical pain.”  “I’m suffering because someone I love died.”  “I’m suffering because I don’t have enough money.”  And our lists go on.

When I feel sick or experience pain, even chronic pain, it is my thinking that causes the suffering.  “I shouldn’t be in pain.  I’m tired of this.  When will I feel better? I can’t take another minute of this . . .”  When I accept what is, when I allow things to be as they are, rather than how I think I need them to be, then the suffering stops.

I may still be uncomfortable with the pain and that too will shift.  When I have a mild preference for being pain-free, then I create more space for the pain to ease or for me modify how I do my day even while experiencing the pain.

beautiful middle aged woman

Mild preferences move us toward accepting what is. 
As we accept what is, we eliminate suffering.

When we feel out of control, we tend to have strong preferences.  We become very attached to those preferences and when they don’t happen, we feel even more out of control.  Quickly, we spin into a downward spiral.

If instead, we can use the feeling of being out of control as the signal to dial back our preference to mild, we then begin an upward spiral.  “It would be great if I felt better,  And, I don’t feel so good at the moment.  And, this is what I can do even while feeling this way.”

Mild preferences move us toward accepting what is.  Because the preference is mild, I’m fine even if I don’t get what I prefer in a moment.  My own personal experience in working with dialing back my preferences to mild: what I would prefer often naturally comes to pass.  I suspect this happens because I don’t have such heavy, attachment energy involved in the mix.

So, what about you?  In what area of your life might you like to play with dialing your preferences back to mild?

Feel free to post your comments, insights and experiences with your strengths below.

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Curious about living and working from your strengths?
Strong You Strategy Consultation

I have a gift for three fortunate people!
Are you one of them?

You may be one of them if:

–  You have taken the StrengthsFinde (SF) assessment and know your top 5 strengths or would like to take it now and learn your top 5 strengths.

–  You have a big vision or an inkling of what’s next for you, yet you’re frustrated by lack of progress or challenges.

–  You know instinctually that you’ll bring your big vision to reality by strengthening your strengths rather than trying to fix your weaknesses.

To receive this gift, be one of the first three people to email me with your top 5 SF strengths and a couple of sentences about your big vision and challenges.

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My book, “Thriving Work” is now available
on Kindle at Amazon for just $3.99:
Click here to order