Spiritual Wellness

Your Life Force Guide

Blog

5 Reasons Why Self Love Is Essential

By

Portrays Self Love

I never thought about loving myself. Have you?

Not too long ago, my life started to take a nose-dive. We’re talking a downward spiral. I had this knowing that somehow, I was losing the lifestyle I’d been living for awhile. Like it was time to let it go. 😧

In a dark night of the soul, I could actually see more clearly than I’d been able to see in quite a while. I could see that everything I was doing was motivated to take care of others, first. I put everyone around me ahead of myself. It was: first take care of others, first make sure everyone else is good, first love others and then maybe me.

Man. What the heck happened? I fell in between the cracks.

How? I didn’t even notice. 😔

I realized that I was thinking, doing and going for everyone else and what they wanted. It never hit me that doing that was tipping me way over my edge, until it did hit me. I was losing my way. I hit a wall and got burned out.

The crazy thing is, before that time, I considered myself a pretty unlikely candidate for burnout. I mean, for nearly the last 20 years my mantra has been to “feel good and be well”. It still is. How could this have happened?

As a healer, taking care of  soul, mind, body and spirit is pretty much non-negotiable. Tending to these aspects of myself is just so integral to my purpose. Again, how could this have happened? The irony of it all is that despite being a wounded healer, I hadn’t considered my healing journey to be one of self love. Self care, maybe. But love? 🤷‍♀️ 🤔

Well, I guess that’s why they call it “Earth School”. Nowadays, loving myself is central to my spiritual wellness — my well-being.

It may have taken losing me (the ‘me’ I put last 🤨) to love me, but now I can clearly see how essential having self love is. Hooray! It’s as essential as pausing to breath. Feels. So. Good. I can now offer myself support the way I’ve done for others (and still do! 🙂)

In the current pandemic, we’ve all been forced to slow down our lives and re-evaluate what is essential to us. It’s made it feel easier and more apropos to love myself and give myself care. But there are still moments when I think, “ Is self love really that essential?” because right now people are suffering, people are dying, and the economy is entering a severe recession. ❔ 🙋

The answer I always get is: Yes! Self love is essential. Especially now. 

Just in case you or I come down with momentary amnesia and think, 🤔 “Self love? Who needs it?” 🤷 I offer you:

5 significant reasons why self love is essential. 

1. Self love is essential because without it you can’t really grow; you stunt your own growth.

If you think of yourself like a garden, the love that we provide to ourselves is just like water to a garden. It’s the proper nourishment needed so the garden can thrive and bloom fully 🌻. Without the proper nourishment (water=self love) the garden is starved, working hard just to survive. The garden can’t grow to its potential. For the garden within us, our growth is stunted. 

What is reflected in your garden? 

Stop and consider how everything is about growth, creation and change. Then think about self love as the proper nourishment for those things. Self love is essential to us in order to fully bloom and thrive plus to keep things sustainable. Luckily, Self love is an expansive energy. Therefore, practicing it widens our stream. We stretch. We change. We grow. 🙌 😊

2. Self love is essential because it gives you a way to have a fulfilling life. 

How? 

There’s more acceptance in your life when you have love for yourself. This acceptance helps you act in ways that are being helpful to yourself. 

You can find what’s good under any circumstance, because that is a favorable act towards yourself. You’re grateful for what is (not for what is not) and you trust things are naturally unfolding in your favor. You have a sense of trust and gratitude for where you’re at in life. 

So, yeah maybe today did really suck and you know you fell short of where you wanted to be but then you lovingly say to yourself, “I’m gonna get this. Tomorrow is another day. ” For today, you ease into letting it go.

You find what’s good, and there’s a lot of good there.  It’s self love that lets your eyes see the gems!

This is why self love is essential to creating a fulfilling life. 😘

3. Self love is essential because you inspire others to self love, too.

Self love is an expansive energy, so within us it has the power to impact not only us but everyone we connect with. 

The compassion we hold for ourselves gives us the ability to hold the energy for those who may need compassion in their lives (and that’s a lot of us)!

You’re someone who truly cares. You take care of yourself and in your own way, you take care of the people around you, too. You’re willing to be vulnerable but you also keep healthy boundaries.

You’re shining that self love ray of light, even if it’s subtle. Just like laughter and joy spreads, so does the love and compassion you have for yourself. You’re creating a ripple effect.

Self love, starting with you, is essential in order for it to expand beyond you. This is important because it’s creating a more loving and compassionate world. And the truth is, we all really need self love. (📢 Heyyy, shout out to my peeps — my empath and recovering codependent friends, 💓)

4. Self love is essential because it’s an aid to having healthy self-esteem and self worth.

Without self love, you’re prone to being a human doormat, a people-pleaser and a perfectionist. 

None of that works out favorably 😞! Being those things is painful and wilting. They weaken your life force energy. 

But here’s what is life force giving: 🌼 SELF LOVE

When you love yourself, you honor yourself. You won’t stand for people stepping on you. You don’t need to kiss so much ass just to people please and make them happy. You don’t need everyone to like you. You don’t need to be perfect. That’s not real. 

What is real is how real you get when you love yourself enough to be who you are, brilliant and flawed. Love is an expansive energy. It creates the necessary room within our heart to love even our shadow side, right alongside our brilliance.

The ability to love our whole make-up, gives our self esteem and self worth a power boost. Meeting (and accepting) ourselves right where we are, flaws and all, builds on our self esteem and sense of value through the power of our own love.

How are you showing yourself real love?

5. Self love is essential because you need it to be able to restore and heal.

Having self love is like building a special reserve of life force energy. When you give yourself love that is kind, love that’s compassionate, love like the ‘BFF’ kind, you’ll be able to find love for your situation even in the dark times. 

You’ll restore and heal because the love you rally for yourself will eventually illuminate the darkness. 

The light from love will lead you out of the wilderness and restore and heal you. 

Maybe your life is chaotic right now. Maybe you can feel things are going way off balance. Know this: the most sustainable way to get back to center is through self love.

It’s the acts of kindness toward yourself that will restore your balance. And loving yourself during challenging times provides healing space for you. Recognize that any act you take, intended to bring you back to center or strengthen your core, is an act of love.

The gifts of healing include rebirth, renewal, victory, wisdom and many other gifts. With self love you can be open to receive all these gifts. Who says ‘no’ to bountiful blessings?

So you see Courageous Ones, self love isn’t about being “full of yourself” or being selfishly into yourself. Self love is about personal growth, consciousness, awareness, mental health, well-being, healing, fulfillment, acceptance and so on. (This is some courageous stuff.) It’s an essential tool in your spiritual wellness medicine bag. 🙏

Did you appreciate this offering? Follow and connect with me on pinterest, facebook, twitter or subscribe below!

Until next time … ⚡🌈 💜

Be you & Be true, Courageous Ones!

Ki signature

5 Reasons Why It’s Important To Ask “Who Am I?”

By

Joao Silas photography, woman in thought
5 Reasons Why It’s More Important Now Than Ever to Ask Yourself, “Who Am I?”

With all that is going on in our world today, life in the time of Corona, our health and safety are on the line. This is a critical time to be keenly aware of our physical, mental and spiritual wellness. In many ways, the Covid-19 pandemic is showing us who we are and shaping us into a new version of ourselves. It’s almost as though the pandemic is asking all of us “How do you respond? How are you choosing to respond? What role are you playing? What role are you being asked to fill?” 

I’d been planning to write this post before the chaos of Corona hit. Then I wondered if I should cast it aside for another time and write on a more fitting topic. I thought about it some more and came to the conclusion that right now the question of ‘who am i’ is not only fitting but also supports the spiritual wellness we all need so much right now.

This virus pandemic is causing many of us to open our eyes. To awaken. For some of us our eyes are now really wide open. Exhibit A … the toilet paper hoarding 🤪

But seriously, what have you awakened to? What have you noticed about your own response to the pandemic? What about the response of those around you? Who are you in the chaos? 

Below follows a list of 5 reasons why asking who am I? is important to your spiritual wellness, now more than ever. 

1. Because Life Is To Learn.

Life is to learn and it’s particularly aligned so that you can learn about yourself.  The experiences that we undergo mold us and mirror back to us. We start off as clay then the passages we go through shape us. We start off with blank slates then those critical moments that rise and fall in the blink of an eye show us just who we are. 

It’s what you learn in life and how you learn it that leads to the answer of ‘who am I?’ It’s also the case that what and how you learn shifts throughout your life. Therefore, it’s natural that the answer to ‘who am I?’ would change given the season of life you’re in.

If your life learning hasn’t caused you to periodically take stock of who you are then you might not be making the most of your precious lifetime. Learning about ourselves and coming to know who we are, asking ourselves, ‘who am I?’ is a question of spiritual wellness. Because as Teilhard de Chardin believed, “we are not humans having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.” 

2. Because Change is The Only Constant In Life.

Thanks Heraclitus, I’ll take it from here! 👍 Change is the only constant in life and yet they say we’re true creatures of habit. You know as well as I do that it’s more common to resist change than to welcome it. Are you avoiding life’s revolutions or are you transitioning with them? Either way, the force of change is unstoppable. Whether we’re good with it or not, change is going to happen to us. 

The cycles of change are especially formulated times for us to confront how we define ourselves and who we think we are. It’s so important to our spiritual wellness to ask ourselves in times of transition, who am i?  and also who have I been?  Who do I want to be?  This question becomes crucial in winds of change because it’s the perfect time to evaluate whether you want to continue being the you that you know or if it’s time to reinvent yourself.

The answer becomes a significant contributor to your spiritual wellness. 

3. Because S**t Just Hit The Fan. 

When s**t is about to hit the fan and you know it or when the s**t just hit, there’s no doubt it just got real challenging for you. Difficult circumstances arise, some very new, like stuff we’ve never gone through before. How do we know what to do? How do we know how to be? 

Difficult circumstances and challenging times confront the core of who we are. 

It’s understandable if you find yourself scrambling. You might be trying to figure things out quickly and on the spot. You’ve never had to deal with anything this sh***y before. Who you were busy being yesterday and who you need to be today, right now may be pretty different. 

Under the circumstances, it’s one of the best times to ask yourself, ‘who am I ?’. Depending on how you answer, you may find that you have to fill in the blanks. You may find that you need to be someone you’ve never known you could be or maybe you realize that who you are is exactly what’s called for. Either way, this is all for your spiritual well-being! 

4. Because Know Thyself! 

Getting to know yourself is all about asking yourself ‘who am I?’ When you get to a point where  you really know yourself, you may feel liberated and comfortable in your own skin. That’s awesome! But then, as mentioned above, change is the only constant in life. So getting to know yourself is a constant thing, really. 

Asking ourselves on an ongoing regular basis what we value most in our lives, what we enjoy, what brings us fulfillment and so on is so important because there’s a connection in doing that and in our spiritual wellness, a sense of wholeness in our life. Asking the greater question of ‘who am I?’ can be simplified in our everyday moments when we take pause and ask things like, “Wait, do I even like this anymore?”  

As we get to know ourselves better, accepting and realizing that it’s as ongoing as change is,  we feel more positive about our lives, experiencing greater spiritual well-being.

And lastly …

5. Because There’s More To Life, So Dive Deeper.

‘Who Am I?‘ is one of life’s deep questions. When you take the time to contemplate this question in your life the answer will take you beyond the surface. 

Asking ‘who am i?’ leads one to examine their existence and why they’re here. The question of purpose comes to the forefront.

Who am I and what am I doing here? How can who I am help me to be doing what I’m here to do? Exploring this question can bring clarity and direction to your life. It can launch you on the path to your purpose. 

What greater sense of spiritual wellness is there than to know what your purpose is and to be on the right path in life? 

Until next time … 🌈💜⚡

Be you & Be true, Courageous Ones!

Ki signature






Why Use Oracle Cards?

By

A simple oracle card affirming to let your intuition guide you

Why use oracle cards?

Hey Courageous Ones! Curious about oracle cards? Are you thinking of buying a card deck or getting a reading? A good place to start is right here. 👇

If you’re wondering how you can benefit from using oracle cards, check out this list of 10 reasons why you’d use oracle cards — besides fortune-telling fun 😛. 

1. One main reason to use oracle cards is to help develop your intuition.

Your intuition includes your gut feelings and those hits of inner knowing you get but can’t necessarily describe. You may struggle to find the right words to describe this sensation, but you just have a knowing feeling.

Oracle cards help you to exercise this intuitive muscle because they speak to your subconscious mind. From the imagery, to the author’s messages and meanings, to the act of creating sacred space, to handling them in your hands oracle cards create a powerful container for you to work with your subconscious.

With them, you can explore what’s below the surface of everyday thought, take the time to reflect on the cards that you pick and allow for the message of your higher self to emerge. You start to learn how to discern between your egoic thinking and the sacred ideas that come from your wise self.

The oracle cards are a spiritual tool to help you get in touch with your inner world and to get to know yourself beyond everyday thinking, attachments, rituals and routines. Oracle cards are like guides that help you to explore your true nature. 

2. Oracle cards help you have a broader perspective, especially when you need it!  

Truth is, we can fall into narrow mindedness, unintentionally. Without even realizing it we get to this place of comfort and want to stay there. But here’s the thing, that comfortable place is also a place where we can get into “automatic-mode”. In that mode, we’re not curious enough. Instead we’re trying to stay under the radar, not stick out and not rock the boat.

In this mode, we’re not really inhabiting our present moments. In the “automatic-mode” we’re just going and more than likely we’ve got lots of useless chatter in our minds. In this mode, we’re not being aware of what we’re thinking or how we’re thinking. It then gets pretty easy to end up thinking in a box. And “box thinking” ripens the narrow mind. How can truly new ideas come from inside 4 lines of a square?

Here’s where oracle cards can help. They help us to go beyond our “automatic-mode” mindset. They can help to awaken us, pushing our minds outward, expanding our thought process, getting us to think beyond four square lines.

Oracle cards broaden our perspective, assisting us to gain deeper intuitive insight. They can lead us to different ways of perceiving a situation. They validate new perspectives, encouraging us to actually consider what normally would be “too far out” for us.

3. Oracle cards help you learn about the energy that surrounds a situation. 

By assisting you to gain deeper intuitive insight instead of only seeing a situation from an analytical and one dimensional mind, oracle cards help us to tap into the flow or energy of a situation.

With oracle cards, you’ll eventually be able to sense the timing of a particular matter. You’ll be able to know if the situation is the right move at the right time or if the timing is delayed or even if the option is not suitable for you. Depending on the oracle card message and meaning combined with what your subconscious wants you to know, you’ll know the overall energy of the situation. This can be really important when it comes to considering all the options available to you and then making decisions. 

4. Oracle cards can help you sort out your thoughts and feelings on a given matter. 

Sorting out your thoughts and feelings on a given matter is similar to # 3 above, learning about the energy of a situation. As you begin to gain insight on the type and quality of energy that surrounds a particular situation, you also start figuring out how you feel and think about something. 

It’s pretty typical that when we consult the cards it’s done because we’re not sure about something. We’re not sure if now is the right time to start that project. We’re not sure if he or she is the right one for us. We’re not sure if we’re looking at things the way we should be. We’re not sure.

Tapping into universal life force energy for support through oracle cards can be so helpful! Many times we’re seeking clarity when we use oracle cards. We’re needing to clear up muddy water (emotions) and clear the fog (mindset). The oracle cards can help to clear up the view, sort out our thoughts and feelings to a point that we can see what we’re looking at or what needs our attention. From there we have a better idea of how to proceed given the intuitive insight we receive. 

5. Oracle cards can inspire ideas on and about your situation. 

Part of having more clarity means we’re more open to inspiration. Oracle cards can inspire ideas! When we reflect on the cards and their meanings as well as on how we feel and think about all that, we open ourselves up. When we’re open, we are receptive. To be receptive means we’re willing and able to receive, take in stuff.

Stuff like … hmmm … well, like ideas! 🙂 Ideas are like gold. When you have a lot of them you’re truly abundant because whatever “sitch” you find yourself in, you’ll be able to navigate it. When you approach oracle cards as a helpful spiritual tool, they inspire your innate creativity and God-given imagination. You will not have a loss of ideas! Inspired ideas teach you how to fish for life. Oracle cards can give rise to what may be dormant in you, but in the end it’s always within you. In using oracle cards as a spiritual tool, there’s an opportunity to nurture the natural qualities you have.

deck of oracle cards spread left to right
6. Oracle cards are empowering. They can provide nurturing and caring warnings when they are reversed (upside down). 

Oracle cards are empowering. If they’re not, you might be overusing them. How can they be empowering you might wonder. Well, for one, oracle cards can help you feel like YES YOU CAN. They encourage you to believe in possibility! An abundant universe with abundant possibility. They can help you stay hopeful in what may seem like hopeless situations. This is why it’s important that you own a set of oracle cards that speaks to your heart and mind. Just like a good friend, they will be there for you, lovingly (or sometimes adamantly) reminding you of your greatness, your gifts, your power and purpose.

At the same time, oracle cards can also provide you with caring warnings on the track you’re on. Depending on the oracle cards you have they can include reversed meanings. These are often best received as safety signs like the ones we see when we’re driving along a roadway.

The information provided is there to empower you … what information is there for you? How can you proceed or what next step can you take now that you have this information? This is up to you. The universal life force provides signals and signs that are always available to us. The force is all around us and also works through oracle cards to wake up your intuition and encourages you to exercise personal power in your life.

Oracle cards are a helpful spiritual tool that you can use to tap into self empowerment.  

7. Oracle cards offer you a fun self care practice. 

When you play with, learn on and do readings with oracle cards you are creating sacred self care time to be with your inner self, your soul self! If you don’t know about your soul self, oracle cards are a great tool to get to know your interior self. It’s not just about the outside of you, but also about the inside 🙂 Your outward personality is just one aspect of who you are. With oracle cards there’s an opportunity to get to know the deeper you, opening and creating a bridge between heart and mind. 

8. Like an affirmation or a mantra, oracle cards help you know what the most beneficial energy is and what energy quality is best for you.

In doing this, oracle cards can effectively help you stay connected to your higher self, universal life force energy and spirit. It’s easy to get bogged down in the density of the daily grind. Your aura can lose some of its sparkle! This is especially true if you’re a sensitive person. Where oracle cards come in is that they can help you to be aware of your personal energy. This way you’ll know what you need. You’ll know how you should focus your energy. Step back or forge ahead? You’ll know what type of energy you should uphold. Stay positive and loving or let go of a limiting belief?

Depending on what you need, you’ll be encouraged to keep going in the direction of your purpose and highest good. Especially on some of them days, it’ll feel like such a relief to have this handy spiritual tool close by!

9. Like Reiki, oracle cards can help you stay on your life’s path, the direction of your purpose. 

Similar to receiving attunements and healing sessions, pulling cards and doing readings can also function like mini attunements and healing sessions. It’s not the same exact thing, but much of the similarity lies in how they tap into universal life force energy, they’re active practices, and they help direct your personal energy towards your life’s purpose no matter at what point you’re on your journey. Oracle cards can be a great tool to use when you sense it’s time to check in with yourself, just as you might know it’s time to schedule a reiki session for yourself. 

10. Oracle cards let you know when it’s the right time for you to know what you should know! 😂

You might find yourself thinking a lot about such and such. You might be wondering and/or worrying a lot about it or maybe just really curious. So, of course, it’s really natural that you want to know more! Like I said before, oracle cards are a great spiritual tool to gain intuitive insight, but they’re also a great in letting you know when you’re asking too many questions! Too many questions, too many times! 

It could mean that the questions you’re asking are not the “right” questions, as in the questions are not helpful to you. The way you’re asking the question is not empowering. It could also mean you’re too preoccupied with knowing, therefore no information comes through. It’s just not the right time to know, not the right question to ask, the question is not helpful to ask at this time, move onto to something else, you’re not paying attention to what info is trying to get through (which could be totally different than the one-track you’re on 🙃).

The point is this: don’t overuse your oracle cards to the point of obsessing, asking the same questions over and over, like every hour, every day. Don’t be a badger. 🦡 Choose to trust the universe in its timing and highest good for you instead. Trust in yourself that whatever happens you’re alright and have everything you need to make it so. 

In conclusion, I’d say that oracle cards have been a useful, very helpful, wonderful tool to have in my own spiritual healing tool box. I’ve learned so much about my life’s journey and soul purpose through using them. They’ve been like my trusty friends on the journey. I can truthfully say they really help to open your heart and mind to a higher path and purpose. As with all spiritual tools, they are to be used respectfully. So for sure, while they’re fun to use, they should also be considered a serious self development ally. 

So tell me. What sparks your interest about oracle cards? What oracle cards do you love? How have they been beneficial to you? Comment below!

Be You & Be True, Courageous Ones! 🌈⚡💜

Ki signature


10 Characteristics To Following Your Own Path [part 2]

By

natural open space and a backpacker walking a trail
tyson dudley

Hey there! What follows is Part 2 of 10 Characteristics To Following Your Own Path. We’re picking up with #6 below. If you haven’t read Part 1 yet (trait #’s 1-5), you can start here 😉

#6  Like-minded associates : Always be open to welcoming people in your life who are like-minded. There’s no one in the world just like you, but there are others out there who have similar points of view, disposition or a similar desires in life as you. Be open to them coming into your life! They will remind you of who you are when you’re feeling low. They will keep you up and they will keep you going. Their presence encourages you!

Do you know who the like-minded people are in your life right now? 

If you’re wondering where these like-minded people are make it a point to try to find them. Many times, they’re closer than you think.

Think about things like: what you like, what you like to do, what’s important to you, and what you want to learn about. Now think, where do you go for that stuff? Do you enjoy arts and crafts? You might find some like-minded people there! 

I like to take jewelry making classes every once in awhile. Not only do I spend time doing something I enjoy, but I also get to congregate with people I share something in common with. I’ve met really nice people in my classes and while I haven’t met a new best friend (yet), for those few hours I feel at peace being with others on the same wave-length. It’s a positive experience that carries me forward.

As you open yourself to welcoming like-minded associates into your life, remember not to get caught up in what they should look like or who they should be. The important thing is that having them around helps you feel supported along your path. 🤝 You’re lifted up through your like-minded association with them!

#7 Flexibility : “Be clear about your goal but be flexible about the process of achieving it.” – Brian Tracy 

I just love this quote. It continues to remind me about the importance of flexibility. My wish is that it can remind you, too.

In trait #5 Faithfulness, I mentioned how life can get in the way of our wishes and dreams. It’s easy to be overcome by thinking it’s time to throw in the towel. It’s easy to tell ourselves ‘it’s only my heart’s desires; this isn’t going to work’. 

But wait. What if we could be flexible about the process of achieving our desires? What if we could let go of the rigidness? …Pause when you get caught up in automatic responses and predictable reactions when it’s about reaching your destination. 

How can you remain flexible in the pursuit of your joy? 

Adapt. Instead of giving up adapt! What changes can be made to make you better suited to the current new environment? 

Modify. What minor changes can be made to make things more suitable for you? Are there any small adjustments you can make so that you feel empowered to continue on your path? 

Also, leverage energy! Everything’s got a surge to it. Where might you be able to leverage rhythms and flows in order to  continue approaching your path with an open mind? Maybe during Summer you know you’ll be able to accomplish more. Maybe at night when all is quiet you get most inspired. Maybe taking cold showers gets you thinking outside the box.

And the last way I’m suggesting you can remain flexible on your unique path is to ENJOY it! 👏👏 Like, really enjoy this trip you’re on! Stay in touch with the enjoyment part of the path. You’ve taken the first step, Courageous One!  Enjoy what you’re doing, who you’re being and all that you’re learning about yourself!

#8 Perseverance : “Fall down forty times, get up forty-one” –Dr. Kathleen Hall on a Buddhist saying about how to best follow the path to enlightenment. 

Perseverance is the quality that allows someone to continue trying to do something even though it’s difficult. Some synonyms for perseverance are — dedication, determination, steadfastness and tenacity. Purposefulness.

Colonel Sanders went to more than a thousand places trying to sell his chicken recipe before there were any takers. This was when he was between 60 -73 years old! Howard Schultz went to over 200 banks trying to get a loan to start Starbucks and got nothing. After a year of constant rejection, he was finally able to secure the $400,000.00 he needed from individual investors. Sylvester Stallone was turned down a thousand times by agents and was down to his last $600 when he finally met with a company that would produce the movie Rocky. Bethany Hamilton, a surfing prodigy who always wanted to be a pro surfer lost her entire arm to a Tiger shark at the young age of 13. She never gave up on her dream. Her vision was always there. In less than a month, she was back in the water on her board. Today, Bethany is a professional surfer and now she is Unstoppable [📚] .

Perseverance is something you can practice. It develops strength and discipline. Are you practicing perseverance as you follow your path? 

Aha! ☝️ I already know the answer to that. Here’s why. Keeping on the path, continuing to dream, to practice the art of dreaming despite disillusions and set backs, takes so much courage. If there’s something I know about you, it’s that YOU are one of the courageous ones. Most people’s fears are too scary to face. They risk never finding the courage  to overcome them.

Dear Courageous One, keep going! You’ll always delight in discovering how capable you are! You’ll prove to yourself over and again that you can figure things out even though at first you thought you couldn’t. How ‘bout that? (🤭) You endure and you determine solutions. You don’t live with the regret of “never knowing” or if “coulda-woulda” worked because you’re invested in knowing and finding out. That’s walking and talking.

So when you want to throw in the towel, please don’t. Think twice! Practice perseverance and keep the towel nearby to wipe the sweat off your courageous amazin’ self. 

#9 Rest : Grind. Hustle. Work Hard. Kill it.

Ummm, okay, but what about rest? 🤷‍♂️ There’s a lot of grind-hustle-work hard to succeed mentality out there these days. I wonder about the impact this mentality has on society’s well being. 

I wonder if rest will ever be elevated to the status it deserves in society and in our lives. It’s kind of crazy to think that many of us are fighting for the right to rest. Americans have been taking fewer days off since the turn of the 21st century! Why isn’t it the other way around?

Rest allows us to regain our strength, health and energy. It’s done in order to relax, refresh and recover. Rest is restorative.

Many friends of mine are humble achievers. They seem to always have something going and sometimes have a hard time stopping (ahem. me). Does it feel like you always have something going on? You always learning something new, working on a project(s), helping someone out, planning a trip here or there, prepping for that thing? Can you relate? You humble achiever, you! 😃

Sometimes we can be restless. It’s not hard to be. It feels like we’re always ‘on’. Probably because we are. Our society encourages and promotes being “open and on” 24/7.  

I do struggle with resting. I wish I didn’t need as much as I do. I’ll often wish I had more energy or more time in a day or both. I’ve experienced burnout. I’ve suffered chronic health conditions. People dear to me have suffered systemic sickness because they’ve pushed themselves nearly to death without the proper rest. These things make me think more about letting go to rest. I’m still learning.

Rest isn’t something to take lightly, though. It’s essential to our well being and to doing our best work. Rest is not lazy. Research shows that after a period of rest, work performance improves. For creative work rest is especially important. Studies have shown that a higher percentage of creative ideas come during rest breaks, when our minds are free to wander. Relaxing makes you more creative. Overworking actually makes us un-creative. 

So as you follow your path make sure to always make room for rest. The unique path by nature is a creative one! You’ll need to rest in order to generate different creative ideas when necessary. This path belongs only to you! The world needs you well so that you may bless it with all the treasure of your life travels.

#10 Fitness : (mental, spiritual and physical) Fitness in this case means to be fit for a particular role or task. How to get fit is by conditioning and training. Following your unique life path will be easier when you’re in good fitness 😉!

So what’s “good fitness”? 

In this context, it means being fit in the areas of your mind, body and spirit. I love how one of the synonyms for fitness is wellness. Makes so much sense!

You might wonder how you can be fit in the areas of mind and spirit. Well, just take trait #9 Rest. It’s an exercise. It’s the conditioning of the mind and the body to REST. It’s training in resting intentionally and routinely to be suitable for the task before you. Voila! There it is. You’re exercising. 😁

Another exercise of mind and spirit is Trait #5, Faithfulness. Exercising and maintaining the qualities of faithfulness require staying in touch with your heart space. Keep connecting to your heart space. That’s the exercise … of spirit. The exercise of mind is the routine part. The mind helps to make the routine a positive habit.

Looking at it this way, it’s easy to realize that your whole self needs to be up for training and conditioning! 

“Training gives us an outlet for suppressed energies created by stress and thus tones the spirit just as exercise conditions the body” – Arnold Schwarzenegger

Of course, the body and physical exercise are very important. By taking a jog around the block or doing yoga, it helps with motivation. It helps in the ability to keep going. It leads to a healthier state of mind, too. Having motivation, the ability to keep going and a healthy mind state are all advantageous when challenges and obstacles present themselves on the path.

Integrating these characteristics and developing them gives you a leg-up to reaching your unique desired destination. 

It’s my wish that you may incorporate these 10 valuable characteristics in your own life and always  in your own way.

Be you & Be true, Courageous One! Much love …

Ki signature