Watching the sunrise on my recent retreat…
I have a hard time being still. Stilling my mind is even more difficult. A constant stream of thoughts runs through my mind, especially at night, unless I’m reading something really engaging (thank you, Outlander).
During the day, I’m so busy that I’m not great about settling down and just being… allowing myself to move into the stillness so I can shift from the chaos of my thoughts to clarity.
Journaling helps me immensely. And yet, sometimes I need to do something more than that.
So, twice this year I’ve traveled to the ocean for a 3-day retreat. Both times I’ve returned renewed and with absolute clarity of vision and the steps I need to implement to make that vision my reality.
I’ve ‘retreated’ at home – but it’s simply not the same. There’s too many distractions, too much pulling at me, so that I just can’t ‘be’ to unearth what wants to be heard and honored within me.
I know that taking the time away to reflect and get crystal clear on where I am right now, on what I want next (as much as what I don’t want), and then committing to that once I return home is critical to my growth – both personally and professionally – and that it leads to a lot more joy and abundance in my life and business.
Would it be easier to not go? Sure it would. After all, I have a full family life that I’m managing here outside of my business. But I also know that it is absolutely worth moving mountains to do it – both for myself and my business, as much as for my kids to witness my honoring something that’s important to me as a person, separate from being Mom.
So, what about you? Do you take time to retreat – at home, somewhere else? How often? Do you go alone or do you retreat in a supportive group?
I’d love to know ~ please comment below … đ
I’m loving RenĂ©e Peterson Trudeau’s new book Nurturing the Soul of Your Family, and this passage in particular really resonated with me… enjoy!
Upon Arrival, Proceed to Baggage Claim
An Excerpt from Nurturing the Soul of Your Family
Relationships of all types can be challenging. In particular, family members, partners, and children often develop a sixth sense for how to push our buttons. For myself, to become less reactive, Iâve had to slowly become more self-aware, compassionate, loving toward myself, and attuned to my needs â which has made me a much more emotionally present parent and partner.
Some of the keys are to show up in our relationships with a soft and open heart, a healthy perspective, and a full cup rather than a half-empty one. Before we can do that, however, we have to examine ourselves: we have to release and heal old self-limiting beliefs by understanding what weâre holding on to and why.
We all have emotional baggage. Ever heard the phrase âthe issues are in the tissuesâ? Our beliefs, scars, and old patterns from our family lineage, childhood, culture, education, and birth order all significantly affect our worldview and habitual ways of being. These, in turn, guide how we show up and relate to our family members.
Some days we get easily triggered. Maybe our child not putting their dirty clothes in the laundry room sends us over the edge, while other days they could break the front door and weâd just roll with it. Our state of being has the most impact on how we respond to external circumstances. Some days we receive the gift of observing when weâre stuck in an old pattern or way of seeing things, and other times we just feel stuck, or else constantly critical or judgmental, thinking of our partner or children: âIf theyâd just listen to me, weâd all be happier!â
When this happens, look inward to see if you have any unclaimed baggage. For instance, when my son, Jonah, was about to turn ten, he and I went through a really difficult patch. Heâs a beautiful, passionate, mature, intense kid, and as he reached adolescence, his level of defiance at times overwhelmed me. A simple request to finish homework or put his dirty dishes in the sink could invoke an emotional tsunami. Since I have a tendency to be controlling, our interactions were a Molotov cocktail.
After a particularly hard stretch involving lots of crying jags (mostly mine), I called Terri, a parent educator, and asked if my husband and I could see her for a session. I was exhausted from the stressful interchanges and needed help. After I explained our situation, Terri turned to me and gently shared, âYou are going through mourning â Jonah is no longer a child. Heâs an adolescent.â Terri went on to highlight some of the science around early-adolescent behavior and how best to support my son; in short, offer love and acceptance, not solutions and tips for improvement. After that illuminating session, things got much easier in our home â not yellow-brick-road happy, but the crying and yelling diminished greatly.
In part, the improvement occurred because my husband and I tweaked our language and gave Jonah more freedom, but mostly things changed because my husband and I shifted ourselves internally. We realized we were holding unrealistic, supersized fears that were causing us to be overly critical; our heads had become filled with visions of our out-of-control nine-year-old turning into a sixteen-year-old heroin addict. We were âparenting from the futureâ and from our own fears and wounds, rather than from the present moment, which was what our son most needed. This aha moment and shift in our awareness are what created the big shift in our family dynamic that we needed. Often we have to break down in order to break through.
# # #
Life balance coach/speaker RenĂ©e Peterson Trudeau is the author of the new book Nurturing the Soul of Your Family. Thousands of women in ten countries are participating in Personal Renewal Groups based on her first book, the award-winning The Motherâs Guide to Self-Renewal. Visit her online at www.ReneeTrudeau.com
Excerpted from the new book Nurturing the Soul of Your Family ©2013 Renée Peterson Trudeau. Published with permission of New World Library http://www.newworldlibrary.com
I’m so impressed with my 8-year-old daughter Chloe’s ability to express herself through writing and art. Here’s a piece she created that was published in her school’s newsletter this month.
She’s inspiring me to get back to my own roots of writing fiction… and it made me wonder…
What things did you do as a child that you loved that may have fallen by the wayside? And how might you bring them back into your here and now?
Please share in the comments đ
As 2012 comes to a close, I’m wondering how you’re feeling about this past year and what your expectations are for 2013. If you’re inclined to share, please leave your comments below… đ
I love attending live events, for the learning, networking and most of all, for those ‘aha moments’ that always pop. I choose to attend very few events each year, so I’m always very cognizant of getting a big return on my investment of time, energy and money. Attending Lisa Sasevich’s Impact & Influence event didn’t disappoint.
Here are three of those aha moments I had from attending I&I that I hope you’ll find of value too:
1. In terms of money, you can only receive what you allow yourself to receive.
So consider how that may play out in your own sense of worth, in both the level at which you invest in yourself as well as the level at which you ask others to invest in you.
For example, if you invest in a $2500- program, are you asking your market to invest in a $2500- program with you?
On the other, more common, hand, are you asking your market to invest in you at a price point that youâre not willing to invest in for yourself?
Where in your business might there be this incongruence?
2. When you feel like you need to add another element to a program (to ‘justify’ a higher price), add more transformation instead.
You may have heard me say before that people buy based on emotion, not necessarily on logic.
When youâre writing your copy for your offer or speaking about your offer, you want to spend 90% of your words on the transformation that people will get as a result of engaging your services.
You can think of it as the transformation, or the outcomes, or the benefits, that someone will receive as result of being in your program, buying your product or siging on to work with you one-on-one.
3. “I already know that…”
Whenever I attend an event, I make the effort to pay attention as if everything was new, which enables me to see the holes that are present in my business. And when I find that “I already know that…” I ask myself, “Am I doing that?”
From this event, it was evident to me that yes, I have all the pieces working that were covered at the event; now it’s time to up-the-ante on them all.
Where can you up-the-ante on one thing thatâs already working well in your business?
I’d love your thoughts on any of the above – feel free to leave them below…
As I enjoyed celebrating our freedom here at the lake yesterday, surrounded by family and friends, laughing and reminiscing together, in my mind, I went back in time for a moment…
…to when Chloe was 4 months old, and we lived in New York, and we bought one of those small easy-set pools so I could ‘swim’ with her… and then when she was 6 months old and we spent a week at the lake at my parents’ cottage and I cried the moment I laid her on the little beach down the hill from the cottage, and how I smiled so much it hurt when she went into the water in her little float that first time, feeling overwhelmed with gratitude for being able to share this very special place with her.
As much as I had always wanted to spend my summers at the lake like I did from the time I was 3 months old until I was 22, I had to get a ‘real’ job after graduating from college instead of another summer job waitressing. Nothing was more motivating to me to figure out how to create a lucrative business of my own designed around the life that I wanted than that first brief visit here with my daughter.
And by the next summer, I had secured a waterfront cottage for us for 4 weeks, which James, Chloe and I enjoyed together, and Chloe and I spent another 3 weeks with my parents at their place with James joining us on the weekends. (Each year since, we’ve added a week or two (and our son Jack), and seven summers later are enjoying 11+weeks together as a family.)
That was also the first summer I embraced this concept, offered to me by my mentor, coach and friend, Andrea Lee…
To double your income, the first thing you must be willing to do, is do LESS THAN HALF of what youâre currently doing.
Gulp. At first, I thought, there’s no way I could possibly work less. I had an 18-month-old who took a few 30 minute naps a day at best, which is when I worked…
But I knew intuitively there was something to this and there was no better time for me to test it out than during the summer.
So I did – for 7 weeks I sent my ezine each week and that was pretty much it… and you know what happened?
I made more money during those 7 weeks than I had in the previous 6 months. Amazing.
Thus, that concept has become one of the principles I’ve built my business on since.
This one can be a bit hard to grasp – it was for me, since I grew up with a work ethic grounded in an Irish immigrant great-great-grandfather who landed on the docks in Boston and started the legacy of a long line of longshoremen on my father’s side, including my dad, the same day.
I’m inviting you now to consider it though… what can you do less of or not do anymore at all that will empower you to create more income?
I guarantee there is something that you could let go of today that will start you on the path of more income today.
This concept, and others like it that have made a huge difference in the success of my own business, are part of what I’ll be sharing with you in our intimate gathering at my Online Business Breakthrough Workshop 2012.
I’ll be sharing with you specifically how to cut your workload in half while doubling your income, so if this is calling to you – then go ahead and reserve one of the last few seats available here:
http://www.obbw2012.com
(If you have ANY questions about OBBW, just hit reply with them and we’ll get right back to you.)
Then watch for a message from me on Friday, as I’m going to offer you an opportunity to create or strengthen the foundation of your online business so you can create the same kind of FREEDOM I have in my business.
’til then…
Cheers,
~ A
Recent Comments