Are You Living or Existing?

Do you jump through hoops to please people?

What do you do when someone tries to make you feel uncomfortable about being you or living your dreams?

• Do you stuff what you feel and toe the line? This may be what you’ve been taught to do from infancy. An underlying fear may be that if you don’t fit in, you won’t survive.
• If someone says you’re stupid, does the crowd-pleasing clown emerge. Or did you learn to dumb down and hide your brilliance?
• If the family wants you to follow their traditions, do you do whatever it takes to belong, be loved and not make waves? Even if it means you just get crumbs of love. Even if you’re drowning in what floats their boat.

You’ll never be able to please others enough as they’ll keep changing the hoop they want you to jump through.

Do you desire to live, I mean really live? That includes not living to please other people. Instead, do you make choices that make you feel happy… and do you even know what makes you happy?

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Are you not living your truth, what’s in your heart, because you’re afraid of or uncomfortable with possible consequences and what others might think?  
Instead, discover what makes you happy, and take time for you, your goals and your life. 

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If you’re just getting by, living to please others, you’re existing instead of living your best life.

To live more fully, stop giving your power away.

Some ways you can give away your power are:

• Trying to please others and being worried about what they’ll think. Instead, follow your inner guidance, your heart, your gut.
• Living in worry and fear. Instead of thinking what’s wrong or what could go wrong, think about what’s right or could go right.
• Talking about others; blaming and complaining about them. Instead, take responsibility for your actions and life.
• Feeling sorry for yourself; maybe feeling damaged from your past, regardless of circumstances. Instead, look at but don’t feel disheartened by “what is,” and make new choices and actions.
• Avoiding situations or not telling the truth. Instead, speak up – at least to yourself!
• Making excuses, aka reasons, not to live your dreams. Instead, stand up for your passion and take action, even small steps. If it doesn’t work one way, do it another.

Don’t make yourself wrong, feel guilty or have regrets about what you haven’t done or your past. What you learned brought you to where you are today.

Instead, make a decision to make new choices. You are so powerful that when you say, “I choose,” you set forces in motion to redirect your life.

Talk with your soul to discover the best path for you:

1. Go within and ask your questions.
2. Listen and write your answers.
3. Ask for clarity and/or action steps to take.
4. Take action – consistently.

Take a moment now to breathe and do these four steps.

The Beginning

Edited excerpt from my Soulgoals’ post, May 19, 2011

Copyright © 2022 Soulgoals, All rights reserved.

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Is it time to let go of your fears and past and reclaim your power?
Contact me for a complimentary
Do What You Love Break-Free Session by phone.

virginia@soulgoals.com

I work with people who choose to share their gifts or business in a BIGGER way but don’t know how, feel stuck or would benefit from new tools or support. Or maybe would like a more fulfilling life.  I help them be richly compensated doing what they love by aligning with their Soul’s goals. 

Email me at:
virginia@soulgoals.com

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TIP of the Week: How To Skate Through Life

Wouldn’t you rather skate through life than be burdened by it?

My dream this morning gave me a roadmap how.

Let’s say you wanted to ice skate in winter, but there wasn’t a place to do it.

However, you had a place where water could be added to create a pond.

So, you filled that space with an available water source.

Gave it time to freeze.

Now you can skate.

Makes sense. But what does this have to do with anything?

Where’s your focus?

Mulling over problems is how we believe we’re being responsible, but that’s looking in the wrong direction for answers. Habits can be hard to break. You have choices. You could:

• whine about not being able to skate because there isn’t a place to do it.
• blame wildlife for drinking the water that could’ve frozen.
• feel sorry for yourself or tell your story so others can feel sorry for you.

Regardless, you still can’t skate.

You can’t have a problem without already having the answer!

If you keep looking at the problem and feeling bad about it, you won’t see the solution.

You have a place within, your Essence, that already has the solution – the space for the pond.

If you’re open to receive, your inner guidance will fill you with answers – your available water.

If you allow answers time to transform from fluid to solid – thoughts and feelings materialize. Focus on good feelings.

Here’s where Resolved for Results Mastermind Principle #3 comes in handy:

I trust my Self and listen to the voice within.

Breathe. Listen.

What if you stay loyal to the what-if-it-doesn’t-work thinking?

Same ole, same ole. Success goes up and down like a see saw. Frustration, anger, blame, struggle, complications and disappointment. Familiar? Here’s what else you can do.

TIP of the Week: How to Skate Through Life Notice how you greet situations.

Is it with fear, doubt, discouragement or other negative feelings?

Instead, focus on any positive experiences you’ve ever had about this.

If you don’t have one, imagine how you’d like it to be.

Before a sales presentation or any transaction, remember ones that went great. It doesn’t matter if you’ve put your foot in your mouth a hundred times before. But once, your long lost uncle bought a candy bar you were selling in grade school, and you felt happy. Go to those thoughts and feelings.

Feeling weak in the knees because you’re about to talk with someone? Recall moments of empowering interactions.

If you’re used to feeling the other shoe is going to drop, feeling good may seem downright unnatural. With practice and positive results, you’ll feel more comfortable.

Feeling good IS your natural state. Forget what you may have heard otherwise. That was misery wanting company

STOP GIVING YOUR POWER AWAY & LIVE YOUR DREAMS

“Why can’t you be more like ­­­­­­­­­­your cousins?” was one of my mother’s mantras. Translated: who you are isn’t good enough. A funny twist is when I told this to my cousin, she said her mother implied she should have been more like me!

My mother passed away in 1988, and I still remember her mantras verbatim. Early programming is powerful. It creates the voice that chatters in the back of your head.

Families share attitudes, perspectives and behaviors. The next generation perpetuates how they’ve been raised by passing it on to their children – until someone like you decides to wake up and make more conscious choices.

This pattern is referred to in Exodus 34:7. “Visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

You can break the patterns. It starts by becoming aware of them and making new choices… and realizing you are more than good enough.

Here’s another of mom’s favorites: “Where did you get those crazy ideas? You certainly didn’t get them from anyone on my side of the family.” Translated: there’s something wrong with you and the way you think.

The underlying message?

You’re making me uncomfortable, so stop it. I might have to think or change. That ain’t gonna happen if I can help it. It’s easier for me to lay guilt or blame on you rather than look at myself. A tool I know to keep you in line is to shame you into humble submission. So I can try to control the way you think to make it more like what I’m used to.  So I can maintain my false sense of empowerment.

This isn’t a fault of my mom or anyone else (and we’ve all done things like this in the past). She replicated what she was taught and did the best she could.

What do you do when someone tries to make you feel uncomfortable about being you and living your dreams?

Do you stuff what you feel and tow the line? This may be what you’ve been taught to do from infancy. If you don’t fit in, you won’t survive.

If the family says you’re stupid, out comes the crowd pleasing town idiot. You learned to dumb down.

If the family wants you to follow their traditions, you’ll do whatever it takes to belong and be loved. Even if it means you just get crumbs of love. Even if you’re drowning in what floats their boat.

Remember, you’ll never be able to please others as they’ll keep changing the hoop they want you to jump through.

In the early days of protest, the Yemenis chanted: “If, one day, a people desires to live, then destiny will answer their call.”

Do you desire to live, I mean really live? That means, not living to please other people.

Are you not living your truth, what’s in your heart, because you’re afraid of the consequences?  Instead, take time for you, your goals and your life.

If you’re existing, just getting by, you’re not living.

To live instead of exist, you must stop giving your power away.

Stop giving away your power by:

• Trying to please others and being worried about what they think. Instead, follow your inner guidance, your heart, your gut.
• Living in worry and fear. Instead of thinking what’s wrong or what could go wrong, think about what’s right or could go right.
• Talking about others and blaming them. Instead, take responsibility for your actions and life.
• Feeling sorry for yourself, regardless of your circumstances. Instead, look at “what is” and make new choices and actions.
• Avoiding situations or not telling the truth. Instead, speak up – at least to yourself!
• Making excuses, aka reasons, to not live your dreams. Instead, stand up for your passion and take action, even small steps. If it doesn’t work one way, do it another.

Don’t make yourself wrong, feel guilty or have regrets about what you haven’t done or your past. What you learned brought you to where you are today.

Instead, make a decision to make new choices. You are so powerful that when you say “I choose,” you set forces in motion to redirect your life.

Use your power to live, really LIVE. 

Talk with your soul to discover the best path for you: 

1. Go within and ask your question.
2. Listen and write your answers.
3. Ask for clarity and/or action steps to take.
4. Take action – consistently.

Take a moment now to breathe and do these four steps.

The Beginning

SPEAK UP: IT’S TIME TO LIVE YOUR LIFE – PART 2

A Tarantula Living Its Life As A Tarantula

It takes courage to see through intimidation. 

There’s a real danger that Yemen will fall to al-Qaida, and their President Saleh uses this to try and control people through fear. The people’s choice: repressive regime or the bogeyman? 

In spite of this potential terror, there are those who no longer are willing to be repressed. And they don’t believe these are the only choices. 

Tawakkol Karman, a female Yemeni activist and writer reported: “We cannot let the bogeyman of al-Qaida and extremism be used to stall historic change in our country; Saleh invokes this threat in an attempt to cling to power, as if he is the only one capable of bringing stability and tackling terrorism. It would be foolish to believe his lies.” 

It reminds me of the empty warning, “no one will ever love you like I do.” Settle for less or be left with something worse or nothing. 

Are you afraid of living your dream? 

What if you try and don’t succeed? 

What-if-the-worse-happens is a tune that plays like a broken record on the shadowy grooves of fear. 

Here’s a mishmash of some of my clients what-ifs: “If I fail, I’ll end up penniless and ashamed, living under a bridge with my dog in a soggy cardboard box, scorned by family and friends saying, ‘I told you so.’” 

What what-if influences you not to live your dreams? What are the odds it will happen?

As Mark Twain said, “I’ve lived through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened.” 

You’re not born with fear. You learned it.

The movie The Tale of Despereaux is a lesson on how to train an optimistic mouse to be mousy. (Spoiler alert – they didn’t succeed.) 

The Mother instructed: “You can’t be a mouse if you don’t learn to be afraid… There are so many wonderful things in life to be afraid of – if you just learn how scary they are.” 

The timid older brother adds: “Sometimes they just need to see the older ones do it. No one starts out afraid.” 

Guidance given to the parents: “He won’t be afraid unless you allow him to be afraid.” 

What are you afraid of?

Controlling others through trying to shut them up doesn’t just  happen on the other side of the world. We do it to ourselves. 

We’re all bullied by limiting perspectives and illusions that we believe are true. 

For example, do you avoid any of these? 

• Confrontation – so you steer clear of people and situations?
• Contacting someone and being rejected – so you procrastinate?
• Telling the truth – so you tell little lies as a cover up?
• Taking action to live your dream – so you settle for existing rather than living? 

Avoidance is another way you terrorize yourself. It’s a way of shutting you up and shutting you down from really living by keeping you in your place. 

It’s time to speak up and be heard. LISTEN to your heart and soul. 

If you want others to listen to you, start by listening to yourself! 

Here are seven steps to help you LIVE your life: 

1. Breathe deeply in a relaxed way.
2. Write your ideal life.
3. Write what your life is like right now.
4. Ask your soul for clear communication.
5. What steps can you take to align your ideal and what is?
6. Take consistent action – even if it’s one small step at a time.
7. Choose to make changes gently, with grace and ease.

 The answers may differ from what you now think.

At first they may not make sense. You may glimpse a piece rather than the whole puzzle. You may see an image rather than words.

Don’t judge them. You’re opening communication and learning your language. If you’re not sure what the answers mean, ask again.

Take a moment now.

Ask your soul to speak up: LOUDLY so you can hear; CLEARLY so you understand without a shadow of a doubt.

The time to be afraid of the bogeyman is gone.

A rose proudly shares its beauty, even though its life is short. A tarantula boldly lives its life for what it is – a tarantula.

It’s time to live your life to the fullest. Empower yourself by asking your soul to speak up – and listen.