Are you a women for whom life is changing or has changed in ways you weren’t expecting? Or are there situations you aren’t sure how to handle, and you are trying to find your way?  Maybe you are facing starting over after divorce.  Or maybe you are grieving the loss of a loved one.  Or maybe you have changed careers or moved across the country.  Whatever it is – it’s a major life transition and you want answers on how to get through.  You know that your own personal growth and spiritual growth are critical to making the most out of your life now. This article offers some tips from a personal life coach for women to help you move through and beyond divorce or other life transition to a life you love – your authentic life.

As a mindfulness coach, I help many women in transition find their way through and beyond difficult life transition.  The focus of our personal life coach work together is meaningful personal and spiritual growth including learning mindfulness practices for more mindful living in order to lead a more authentic and joyful life.

Here are the best recommendations from my work as a life coach for women that you may find very helpful when you are in a life transition.

1) Take time for yourself.  It is time to ramp up the self care during your life transition!  Women are notorious for ignoring their own needs.  The best way to support yourself as a woman in a life transition is to practice excellent self care.  This means caring for all aspects of your physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual self.   Give yourself adequate rest, relaxation, good food, proper exercise, meditation, and plenty of support from friends and/or a professional such as a life coach for women.

2) Slow down.  Even though life may be coming at you quickly, and demanding decisions, you will find that by slowing down just a bit, allowing yourself to be more mindful and present, taking time for a few deep breaths , living in the moment – you will make better decisions.  There is no reason to rush into critical decisions that will impact the rest of your life, such as where best to live or work.  Take your time and be gentle with your adjustment process that is natural to life transition.

3) Self acceptance and self love.  Women tend to be hard on themselves and expect themselves to know just what to do and how to fix any situation – perfectly.  This just sets you up for feeling shame or fear about your process of finding your way.  When things fall apart, it takes time to find your way again.  It may look messy for a while as you try out a few ideas or walk around in the fog during a life transition.  You can save yourself a lot of misery by understanding that you are exactly where you need to be, taking the actions you need to take in order to transition to the next part of your journey.  Let it be messy, because it will be whether you let it or not.  Allow yourself to make mistakes by trying things out slowly.  Don’t put everything at risk with each decision, such as moving cross country without living there for a while to see if it’s right for you.  Try things out and don’t worry when it doesn’t work out as you hoped.  This is how we learn!  And you are in a major learning phase of life.  As a life coach for women in transition, I have seen that the growth into self acceptance is the most powerful process for starting over after divorce or loss, to create an authentic life you love.

4) Stay open to possibilities.  To live in the state of possibility means being open to the concept that everything is working out for your good.  It also means you are willing to expect to receive the many good things which are coming your way.  Life is flowing and will carry you along.  You can relax and let go and trust.  You can practice mindfulness, mindful living, and true self acceptance as often as possible.

The good news in life transition, as difficult as it may seem, is that we are designed to change.  We are designed to feel challenged and lost and find our way again. We are resourceful and creative and Life is on our side.

When I came across the quote below from Victor Frankl this morning, I decided to take it into meditation so that I might absorb it more fully.  When I read this quote, it seemed to resonate with a chord deep inside me.  In this article, I share from my meditation, mindfulness practice, and experience as a life coach for women about a mindfulness practice for developing our emotional IQ and becoming a giver of light.

“To give light one must endure burning.”
—- Victor Emil Frankl

For me, I feel that giving light and love is my highest calling.  As a Life Coach for Women I am always striving to be a giver of light and support my clients in developing their own awareness of being givers of light.  When I am in a pure space of Presence and allowing the Light to shine through me, it is that sense of Oneness that feels right and clear and open.  It is what I believe is our True Nature.  And we are meant to share the beauty of our true nature.

What we find is that there are all degrees of being able to experience the light and Presence.   There may be a bit of fogginess or confusion that makes it a the light seem less bright and also harder to share with others.  Then there are times when I can’t sense the light at all.  When there are hurts or fears or doubts, the light seems dim or hard to experience.  By working with these emotions, I have come to know that when fearful, I have somehow allowed thoughts and emotions to cover up my access to the light.  I can be both aware of this, and also unable to find my way back to the Light easily.

A mindfulness practice called Awareness of Emotions that I recommend in my work as a life coach for women and practice daily myself, is very helpful in returning to the Presence so that I may be a giver of light.  It is the process of going deeply into completely experiencing the physical components of an emotion.  When we focus attention on the physical sensations in the body of fear or sadness, and remove the focus from thinking and thoughts, an opening occurs, a softening in the heart.

Our egos don’t want to believe this, but mindful sitting with the discomfort in the body, the tension, the tightness, the restlessness, with attention and compassion for our authentic experience is a doorway into the Light. By lovingly bringing awareness to the upset (without the stories), soon we find the warmth that is the Light has always been there within.

This is not an easy mindfulness practice.  It can be extremely intense to feel fear or emotional pain in the body. And I believe that Victor Frankl gave a good description of this practice, saying we  “must endure burning”.  That is why Frankl’s quote struck a chord within me.  In order to be a giver of light, I know I must endure the burning of facing and loving my own pain to be able to be a giver of light.

Many women suffer from lack of self confidence and low self esteem and it frustrates them to no end.  They want to do more, speak up more often, and feel better about their presence in the world.  Basically, they want to audition for, and land, the lead role in their own lives!

Often the root cause of lack of self confidence is the messages we received in early childhood, somehow given the message that we are never worthy or good enough.  Since these are things that happened in the past, we can’t change those events.  But, with support for self acceptance, we can heal the wounds from those events.

What needs healing is the emotions that we feel whenever we want to take confident action, but something stops us.  Suddenly, we’re triggered into a place of fear, doubt, or even shame at the idea of stepping up and taking action.  What is often not realized is that  it’s the physical sensations in the body that are aroused from childhood wounds that have never been healed.  The event requiring confident action is the the trigger of the same body sensations you felt as a child when you were somehow made to feel unworthy.  So perhaps when you want to take self confident action, you notice your chest tensing up, or your stomach feeling sickly, or your heart racing.   The body is where we want to focus our attention for healing.

Rather than try to resolve the lack of self confidence on the mental plane – with explanations, justifications, better self talk, understanding, different stories, or new mental imagery – I am suggesting that we face the deeper issue, the physical sensations that come with the sense of unworthiness, low self esteem, or poor self confidence.

The physical sensations that go with the concept of unworthiness are so deep and so unpleasant, we’ll do just about anything not to experience them.  We might avoid any event that would trigger it (don’t even audition for a role in your own life) or distract ourselves from it (I’m really too busy to try out.)  or fight it (I’ll just push through this so other people think I’m brave, while telling myself I’m really a coward).  Fighting the sensation can look like courage sometimes, but sometimes just disguises the fear of feeling the awful feelings of shame and fear.

As a life coach for women I suggest a mindfulness practice I call Awareness of Emotions, which takes you into experiencing the body sensations, pure and void of all the mental judgments and evaluations.  When we can simply observe and experience the body sensations, allowing the body to feel whatever it feels without judgment or trying to chase it away, no matter how yucky it feels, we will begin to grow into true self acceptance.  And self acceptance completely undoes the notion and feelings of unworthiness.  The realization of “I accept myself just as I am,” means you can have whatever body sensations you have without labeling them right or wrong.  We can begin to learn from the body.  It really is just an energy source that wants our attention.  When we no longer fear our own sensations, we will not need to run or avoid or fight to cover them up.  Instead we can enter into the flow of sensations and accept them just as they are.  And as we do that, we discover the reality of an openness, a calm, a Presence that is very loving and peaceful – just waiting to be discovered through our awakening.

We are meant to be free to act, speak, and flow with life without judgment of right or wrong, unworthy or worthy.   We begin to see that all of the judgments are unreal.  What IS real is you, your aliveness, all your body sensations, and your free expression.

Blessings for your awakening to experience true self confidence for women through self acceptance!

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The Feminine is the embodiment of heart energy.Her key qualities are compassion and the ability to accept and honor the process of whatever is happening.Perhaps this is often easier for women because we are physically and emotionally programmed to honor the cycle of conception, pregnancy, and birth to welcome and include whoever may be born from that long, mysterious process.

Contrary to the idea that women are overemotional, the Divine Feminine is well grounded emotionally and has the capacity to bring all of her energy to exactly where she is in the moment.Feminine energy accepts the paradoxes of life and has the ability to hold them within her heart simultaneously.Feminine energy connects deeply with the Earth and all of her children, feeling for and with them. Read more of Qualities of the Divine Feminine From “The Courage to Be Yourself” by Sue Patton Thoele

Tis the season to be jolly!  Jolly crazy that is, when it comes to all the tasks before us, especially women as we approach the holidays.   In this article, you will be encouraged to go through the holidays more mindfully and with less stress so that your experience is one of greater peace and joy.  Isn’t that the true meaning of these holidays – Giving Thanks & Peace on Earth?

So how is it that women find themselves anything but peaceful during the holidays?  We are normally busy doing for others, right?  Well, it’s just that we find that during the next few months, it will be “Doing-for-others on steroids”.  Yes, it’s shop ’til you drop, but we’re not talking about fun outings to buy new clothes.  We’re talking about major grocery shopping, and gift buying galore for family, friends, coworkers, neighbors, and even our cherished service providers (don’t forget the dog walker!)

If this is the year you’ve decided to trim back and not buy so many gifts, you’ll still find yourself writing cards or baking something nice for many of the people you love.  Which brings up all the other extra activities that women DO during the holidays – travel arrangements, preparing the house for guests, meal planning, cooking, baking, etc.  Oh and did I mention decorating?  Pull out all the boxes from the attic or garage or basement, select, and place.  And then there’s the tree…….( Don’t forget taking it all down and putting it away, too. )

Well, you know we do all this because we enjoy it.  That is true.  We love creating warm and loving environments for our families and friends.  And we love the parties and gift giving.  It’s all good, right?

Or is it?  How about some tips from a Life Coach for Women on how to keep it from being ‘all stress’.

1) TAKE TIME FOR YOURSELF EVERY DAY. This is not the time to stop your exercise routine.  And it’s certainly not the time to slack off on your meditation.

2) SLOW DOWN!  Even if it’s just a tiny bit. Practice mindfulness, living in the moment, by slowing down as  you do each holiday task.  Focus and stay in the moment of what you are doing, not jumping ahead to the list of all the things you must do next.  This way, you will really reap all the benefit of enjoying the season.

3) REMIND YOURSELF EACH DAY OF WHY you are doing the preparations and shopping, etc.  If you are not doing these things out of love and joy, then stop.  Maybe there are some things you could let go of, or replace with things you WANT to do from love.

4)  LET GO OF PERFECTION.  There is no such thing.  Need I say more?

5) LIGHTEN UP AND LAUGH OFTEN.  If you can, make it a practice to laugh several times each hour.  Even if you are laughing at how silly it is to try to laugh every hour.  This is a life coach for women mindfulness practice you won’t want to quit.

Blessings for a peaceful holiday!

It’s important and valuable to have a life direction.  However, there seems to be a lot of confusion about how to create or connect with your personal inspired vision for your life.  In this article, I hope to provide some insight in just what a life vision comprises, and the qualities of a life vision that will inspire and motivate you and others around you.

There’s some confusion around the concepts we call vision, purpose and mission statements.  What I’ve come to realize is that a life vision is much more expansive and powerful than either purpose or mission.  Purpose and mission are necessarily more narrow and tend to include aspects of measurement and comparison or judgment.  Whereas, vision does not.  Vision does provide direction, but it open and takes you beyond the land of measurements.

A vision is actually a “view” or image of what truly inspires you.  It’s a big picture of the greater possibilities for your life.  When you create your life vision (or rather get in touch with it, because spiritually, it is already there waiting for you to access it) it becomes the inspiration for your every action and focus.  It is the view that will help you create powerful goals and action plans.

A life vision is unlimited because it isn’t a finite landing place.  It’s more of a powerful launching pad.  It will contain possibilities for expansion and growth and development as it fosters new ideas and openings.  And most importantly, a powerful life vision will inspire you and others to take action.

Furthermore, a Life Vision is a powerful picture or image that when held in mind it actually transforms the state of mind of the viewer.  It has the power to expand the mind into the realm of great possibility and inspiration.  It energizes and uplifts your state of being into the higher realm of possibility, joy and creativity.  It also takes you out of the realm of right and wrong and judgment and comparisons.  It brings everyone into a space of present moment creativity.  It isn’t a “future” reality.  It can be seen and felt here and now.

Here are three steps to help you begin to access your life vision.  You can use these for any aspect of your life – health, relationships, career, spirituality, etc.

1) First, enter into a meditation that brings you out of the realm of your day-to-day concerns and into the space of presence and peace.  This is the space where we can here the voice of our higher selves.

2) Let yourself begin to imagine the highest possibility for your life, letting your creativity expand into pictures that you can actually see, taste and feel as they come alive in your imagination

3) Write down what you see – describe the picture.  Describe the view of “how it is” in the realm of possibility.

To help you with this, here is a portion of my life vision.

I see that through my work as a personal life coach for women, clients are powerfully supported for personal and spiritual growth and transformation, so that they may face life’s challenges with courage and wisdom and create their lives with meaning, vision and joy through mindful living.  I see the positive spiritual growth of women living more mindfully and joyfully as a ripple effect, spreading out to bless others – children, spouses, friends, parents, co-workers, communities, the world.

Enjoy creating your new life vision!

Forgiving can sometimes seem impossible. Some crimes just are so egregious we really struggle to find a way to forgive the perpetrator, right? If someone is so completely “wrong” then why should I forgive him or her? What if they just keep doing the same awful things again and again – how can I forgive that?

Take a moment to think about what the word forgiveness means to you. What is your definition of forgiving?

The New Oxford American Dictionary that is built right into my MacBook defines forgiveness as: to stop feeling angry or resentful toward (someone) for an offense, flaw, or mistake.

Now let this definition sink in a minute. Forgiveness means to stop feeling angry. What a great idea that is! What if we re-phrase the question “Can I forgive him/her?” and instead ask “Would I like to stop being angry?” The answer is almost always YES! Of course, this is easier said than done. Forgiving may require learning new skills to process anger until we are left with peaceful feelings – but it’s worth it!
Read more of Forgiveness: The Ultimate Act of Self-Care

Wishing you a Mindful Mother’s Day! Whether you are spending time with your Mother, with your children, with your spouse, with your friends, with your pets, at work, time alone, or all of the above, you may find the following meditation practice helpful in experiencing greater joy and peace, no matter what your mothering experiences have been. This practice can be particularly helpful for those who have some pain associated with motherhood, perhaps loss of a mother or loss of a child, or painful relationship issues.

This is the practice of Metta, which means Lovingkindness. What better way to describe the qualities of true mother-nature? Loving…kind…nurturing. To begin the meditation, take several slow deep breaths and let go of mental and physical tension on each outbreath. Make a conscious choice to set aside judgments, release all past stories about being a mother or having a mother and embrace the qualities of this meditation, even if it is just for now.

This abbreviated version of the original Metta meditation is simple, sweet, and powerful. We start by mothering ourselves, blessing ourselves with lovingkindness so that we have lovingkindness to share.

Slowly and peacefully, say silently or out loud:

May I be safe.
May I be happy.
May I be well.
May I be free.
Read more of Mother’s Day Mindfulness Meditation

The Feminine is the embodiment of heart energy. Her key qualities are compassion and the ability to accept and honor the process of whatever is happening. Perhaps this is often easier for women because we are physically and emotionally programmed to honor the cycle of conception, pregnancy, and birth to welcome and include whoever may be born from that long, mysterious process.

Contrary to the idea that women are overemotional, the Divine Feminine is well grounded emotionally and has the capacity to bring all of her energy to exactly where she is in the moment. Feminine energy accepts the paradoxes of life and has the ability to hold them within her heart simultaneously. Feminine energy connects deeply with the Earth and all of her children, feeling for and with them.

The following list of feminine qualities – the vision of ourselves the Divine Feminine whispers in the stillness of our hearts – is by no means complete. You will be able to add many of your own.

THE DIVINE FEMININE IS….. Read more of Qualities of the Divine Feminine From “The Courage to Be Yourself” by Sue Patton Thoele

Having trouble finding the perfect item for someone special? Need a thoughtful hostess gift? Looking for a way to share cheer at the office without exchanging one more round of Santa mugs and reindeer ornaments? Read more of Mindful Holiday Giving