Recently in Self Love Category

If you had asked me if I was a gossip and if I gossiped before yesterday, when I kicked off the Inner Mean Girl 40-day cleanse with about 6500 women, I would have given you an emphatic "NO!" I don't talk bad about people. I don't watch snarky reality TV and I (except for the occasional glance at People magazine at the airport) don't read tabloid magazines. I gave that all up along my spiritual path these last 10 years... or so I thought.

And then yesterday, on Day One of our 40-Day Cleanse, gossip tried to sneak up on me. It was like I could feel it coming on like a cold, you know when you first get that itchy throat and then all of the sudden before you know it, you have full blown snot coming out of your nose.

During an evening phone conversation with a good friend of mine, Catherine, a person who I also consider to be impeccable with her word, I relayed to her an experience I kept having that involved another woman. I asked her a question with total integrity... to try and figure out what my block was, nothing to do with the other woman. "What am I doing to create this situation?" I asked. She answered with the truth, "Nothing, the two of you just aren't supposed to be connected."

And that's when I started to feel the energy of my Inner Mean Girl looming in the background, sitting in the darkness getting ready to pounce, like an energy that wanted to jump in, take charge and "Go Rouge."  I felt this urge to ask Catherine, "Well why do you think that?" and I could feel that urge coming from this longing place inside of me... like some dark recess that wanted to be filled.

And then on the other end of me was my Inner Wisdom screaming, "Don't do it! Don't ask that question! You will just invite the Inner Mean Girl in and she'll take us down the Rabbit Hole!" Now I wish I could tell you that in all my great will power, I resisted the urge of my Inner Mean Girl and followed my Inner Wisdom... but that's not how the story goes.

The words, "Catherine, why do you think that we aren't supposed to connect?" came blurting out of my lips but in slow motion, like my Inner Mean Girl was yanking toxic taffy out of me...

UGH!

Like a rock hitting the pit of my stomach I felt the toxin of those words and it was like I could see this big movie marquee in lights flashing "GOSSIP! GOSSIP! READ ALL ABOUT IT!!"

Now here is where I did turn things around and tap into the power of this 40-day Inner Mean Girl Cleanse.  I had AWARENESS that what I was about to engage in, what I honestly started to engage in, was toxic self-sabotaging Gossip!  It what I am now dubbing "Sneaky Gossip." This variety of gossip didn't look like blantantly talking poorly about someone or putting someone down, but make no mistake about it, in some way I was trying to make myself feel better by talking about someone else, and that IS gossip.

So I used the self-love tool of Awareness that I learned, and that we teach in Inner Mean Girl Reform School, and that SARK taught us about on our launch call, to take back the power of my words from my Inner Mean Girl - ripped the steering wheel of the conversation right out of her hands - and said to Catherine, 'You know, you are right. It's okay we aren't connecting. I think what she is doing is great. And I am on the right path for me."

And in that instant you know what happened??? That hole that had been trying to be filled by my IMG with gossip, instantly filled with self-love from the Good Talk, and I felt GREAT about me and totally unattached to everything else. Way better than I would have felt if I had gone down the toxic rabbit hole and continued spewing ick from my lips.

This experience of Sneaky Gossip caused me to write a Facebook Post asking people this question:

If gossip was a color or a substance coming out of your mouth, what do you suppose it would look, feel, or taste like?

The answers made me smile and cracked me up - and I've included a few of them here so that you can get a better handle on when Sneaky Gossip is sneaking up on you!  Even when the gossip is super subtle, you can still feel the toxin leaking from your lips...

• Like eating too much cotton candy, looks like it might be tasty buts feels yucky and sick.
• Boogers
• When I was a kid (in the 80s) they had a toy called "slime" and it was green and came in a little plastic garbage can and it's sole purpose was that you took it out of the can and held it and it was cold and wet and slimy. That's gossip!

I invite you to join me and over 6000 women and growing as we give up Gossip and 5 other of the most self-sabotaging habits of our Inner Mean Girls! Imagine the impact we can have on our lives and on the world.

To join us for the FREE! cleanse, go to http://www.meangirlcleanse.com

And to get more scoop on this SNEAKY GOSSIP check out our Video Blog about what Gossip really is...

My whole life for as long as I can remember I have had a deep and primal internal drive whose job it has been to propel me forward... into the next job, house, or project. This drive was like a motor with the power and throttle of a speed boat, almost always on, sometimes in neutral (not often) and never completely off to just float in the water. It was constantly moving under the surface to do better, be better and have better.

I received a lot from this motor, for years it had been necessary for my survival. It propelled me out of a small-minded suburb... into college, later graduate school, then up the corporate ladder, out to California and eventually it catapulted me into the courage to leave my six-figure job to pursue my passion to teach, write and speak about self-love (a passion I only found on one of those rare occasions I let myself float with the motor off.)

But somewhere in the past three years, I began to see the cost of the continuously running motor, and I began to see the deeply ingrained patterns that ran me ragged...

COST: I had become the gas station slave to my life (and this motor),,, I worked harder and more than I had to because I had to fuel the motor with MY energy. This meant I had to work almost all the time. Sure I could take short breaks but I had to be ready to go back to fueling because eventually the motor would need more fuel, and as the gas attendant I was the only one to do it, in my mind. My internal psyche was hard wired to believe that I had to put the energy into my book, courses, websites, or whatever wouldn't generate the energy needed to sustain my life and my business. I had tons of faith in the universe to provide me opportunities, to show me the way and to be there when I fell... but I did not trust (or know how to trust) that it would do the majority of the fueling for me.

PATTERN: I have to drive and strive in order to survive. This "Carrot Chasing Pattern", and all Carrot Chasing Patterns keep us always chasing 'tomorrow' for the day 'when' XX will be true. Up until my early 30s, I had chased the carrot of happiness, the belief that a new house, job or anything external would make me 'happy.' At the age of 33, when I finally gave up that carrot and got that happy had to come from inside of me, I started chasing another carrot... I have enough of XX to finally relax, breathe, let go. For me that looked like beliefs - many subconscious, some not -- like "If I got XX book sales, or get on national TV or have XX amount of money then finally I wouldn't feel this massive pressure to strive, drive and make my life, my dreams and my intentions happen.

But the truth is that just like my happiness, the day that I will finally feel like I can relax, let go, breathe and trust that I am indeed taken care of will never come from an external measure like money, time, or achievements. It has to come from inside of me first. If I believe somewhere inside of me that I have to drive and strive to survive, I will continue to push myself until I fall over in exhaustion (which I have.)

We all have these self-sabotaging patterns, beliefs and habits that drive us, that take us away from what our hearts and souls truly want, the problem is that most of us have no idea that they are the one fueling that motor that never seems to shut off. The way I found this striving/driving carrot chasing pattern - and the way I find most of my patterns is through one of my 40-day self-love practices, this one called the Summer of Self-Love, designed to teach women, including ME, how to release the self-sabotaging pattern and pressure off of having to do, be and have it all... and replace it with the self-loving habit of "Receiving"  

 
On Day 7 of our RECEIVING practice, my power boat hit a brick wall. I awoke with an excruciating pain on my left side. I NEVER get sick, but on this day my body said different. I sat up, ouch! I got out of bed and couldn't stand straight... I crawled back into bed, totally confused.

I looked over to my partner Noah's nightstand and his deck of Doreen Virtue's Angel oracle cards lit up as if to get my attention (oracle cards are decks of cards in which each card contains a message, piece of wisdom or inspiration.) Now, I NEVER use his Angel cards. But then again, I was having a NEVER kind of day, so I reached over (ouch), opened the box, held the Angels in my hand and asked, "Angels, what do I need to "do" to RECEIVE today?" The card I pulled was, no kidding, "CLEAR YOURSELF... ask the angels to absorb any toxic energies you have absorbed." Hmmm. that made sense! I clearly had some toxins stuck in my kidneys making the left one hurt like heck.

Over the following 2 days, I visited my acupuncturist, drank weird herbs, slept, got angry that I was sick, blamed myself for being sick (yes, I get mad at myself for being sick), and the evening of third day, at the urging of my girlfriend to just let myself be sick, I finally surrendered and gave myself permission to ENJOY being sick, in bed. Within 24 hours, I realized three things:

1. 1. I had been getting the message to slow down since we started the receiving practice, but I couldn't find the throttle to turn off the motor. I didn't know how to slow down to the speed the universe was asking me to, so I smashed myself into a brick wall (aka ouch side pain.)
2. I have had a pattern for my entire lifetime that I no longer need, and that I am finally ready to release. My pattern, tied to my basic survival, was that if i wasn't striving or driving then I was not surviving. I released that pattern and in it's place, I installed the belief that I am a finely tuned instrument in the universe's orchestra, and I know that as such I am always taken care of. I will play my best, take care of myself so I can play with the most power possible, and that is very different energy than striving.
3. I love floating. I remember as a kid, that I had a hard time learning how to float, I always sank. I think I had a hard time trusting that I could float on my own. So one of my favorite things to do at our summer cottage became to get on one of those big plastic floats, float in the lake in the sun, knowing that I was held by the float and it by the water. Only then could I relax. I was only 7 - patterns start early!
   

We all have patterns that keep us from receiving... that keep that striving, driving, surviving, motor running.

I INVITE you to ask yourself these two questions to uncover and transform your patterns so that you too can learn a deeper level of trust and open yourself up to receive.

1. What is/are the underlying motivation, fear, or belief that keeps you driving, pushing, striving, always doing, or trying to make it happen? Think back through your life and look at the circumstances and experiences. You will find you answer there. Pick one pattern and make the choice to shift it. Once you bring it to awareness, the universe will meet you to help you make the shift.

2. Can you float? And do you? Do you spend ample time floating, and do you trust the universe to hold you up when you do? What beliefs and patterns can you shift or embrace to give you more floating time and more access to the universe fueling your tank?

I will leave you with this thought... a wise, happy and wealthy man once told me that the key to success was to spend your energy getting to a stream that was already running and then allow that stream to carry you. People who work way harder than they have to, and put too much pressure on themselves, he said, those are the people who spend all their energy trying to create their own stream.

So this summer, I invite us all to paddle over the stream that is running fully with the energy of the divine feminine and masculine, and let them be the fuel that powers us as we play as finely tuned instruments in their symphony of life. I'm here on my float, trusting, paddle on over!

www.summerofselflove.com 

On June 22nd, I along with hundreds of women started on a 40-day virtual retreat called the Summer of Self Love... our mission? To take the pressure of having to do, be and have it all off... and to apply instead the power to RECEIVE all the love, happiness and peace we work so hard to attain.

You see, we are achievers... we've been bred to believe that we have to do, do, do, and we do, we are great doers! We get more done than most, and we do it well. We have big hearts and lots of energy so we give a lot - to the people and things we love and care about. BUT the truth is that we are NOT great receivers.

We work harder than we have to.
We are more comfortable doing than being.
We are pros at driving and striving, novices at relaxing and allowing things to unfold.
We believe we have to make it happen.
And we are tired.
Exhausted.

Isn't there a different way?

In the past three years, I have been on my own personal mission to find this way... as a woman dedicated to bringing more and more self love to myself and to the world, I am convinced that we have created lives that are unsustainable (and not self-loving... and while we all want to take care of ourselves, we find it almost impossible.

The truth is that the hippies of the 60s really had something right - all we really want in life is peace, love, happiness and freedom. It's why we all work so darn hard, isn't it. But what I have discovered over the past three years is that we never fully open to receive all that we work so hard for. Why? Cuz we are blocked.

Following are seven blocks I discovered after spending one year and 40 days learning how to receive. As you read each one, notice which you employ the most, and then use the questions at the end of this posting to start transforming your non-receiving pattern into a self-loving Feminine Super Power of RECEVING:


7 WAYS WE BLOCK TO RECEIVING...

1. Chasing the Carrot Syndrome. Always living for the day I will be X. Happy, thin, in love, etc. You are always in the future. You are future focused, not present focused. It's like being at the best 4th of July Fireworks, and thinking about your Christmas presents - you miss the fireworks, and feel unfulfilled.
2. Force vs Power. You rely totally on your man powers to make it happen, instead of your feminine super powers. You control. You are always moving and doing, because you are used to pushing. And when you are always pushing there is no space for anything to come in. This is like the woman who goes out search for a man, instead of putting out the vibration for him to come into her life. She has a plan, a strategy, she's on the dating sites, she uses a lot of her own energy to make it happen. She doesn't listen to her intuition or have any sense that there are things outside of her control. Now compare that to Sophia Loren, who uses her feminine power to the millionth degree. She just stands there, vibrates off energy, and attracts men to her, little effort, no sweat... even at the age she is today! Talk about Aphrodite energy.
3. Energizer Bunny Syndrome. Cannot Turn Yourself Off. You are always going going doing doing so again there is NO space for anything to come in. And you are the one doing it all, till you drop. Ex. You have a mind that always moves. You can't relax. In fact relaxing makes you twitch. You don't know how to "be", and maybe even see the value in 'Being', after all how much can you really get done if you are being? (hint, alot!). You may also be the type of person who thinks they can't meditate. You are addicted to doing.
4. Disconnected from Source. There is an abundant universe that wants to give you many many gifts. When you think you have to do it all on your own, when you don't have a daily practice where you connect to source, when you don't operate on faith, or are over attached to outcomes, you are out of the flow, and you are not receiving all you could. When you cut the flow off you have to work way harder.
5. Atlas Syndrome - Over-responsibility. You take everything on because you can do so much but then you end up with the entire world on your shoulders. You see something that needs to be done, so you do it. You volunteer even though you are already busy. You overcommit and then stress out because you have so much to do (although you always get it done.) Often, you think you are the only one that can do it right. You pride yourself in your maniac multi-tasking abilities. And then you get mad and burnout, because you know what, carrying the weight of the world on your shoulders is too heavy, even for you.
6. Master of the Universe Complex. You try to control it all. Organizing it. Covering all the possibilities. You don't let anything fall through the cracks, and you'll work extra long and hard to make sure everything nothing can go wrong. Trust, Surrender, Accept, are not words you live by. You may be prone to stuffing your feelings... don't have time to fall apart. You would rather know exactly what is going to happen, plan for all possibilities. You really aren't into allowing things to happen. Stepping into the unknown is not your favorite thing to do.
7. Closed Heart - to yourself or to others. Your heart isn't open fully to give or receive love. You've built Fort Knox around your heart. You've learned to protect yourself. Vulnerability is not your strength and you aren't even sure if you would want it to be. No one, not even you, gets totally into the softest parts of you. And when it comes to loving yourself, lets just say that if people could see how mean you are to yourself, they would call the authorities.
   

WHICH BLOCK DO YOU HAVE... then ask yourself the question?

1.     What is the benefit?
2.     What is the cost?
3.     What is the truth?
4.     What is the consequence of admitting the truth?

I invite you to become aware of which of these blocks show up in your life... the entire 40-day practice of the Summer of Self Love is built to open up these blocks. You can learn more about the practice at www.summerofselflove.com

The other day I was talking with one of my long-time clients... a fellow recovering achievement junkie like myself, who was totally stoked about the new job he landed recently - a promotion, more direct reports, more money and more travel - but realized that once again he was falling back into old achievement junkie patterns. So I asked him to run down his entire day for me. He ran me through his entire treadmill routine... emailing before brushing his teeth, no time for meditating, yoga or breathing much for that matter, skipping lunch (no time) or eating it while glued to the computer screen, maybe getting in dinner before 7pm and finding little time for fun and friends without his fifth appendage (his iphone) distracting his attention and pulling him into the vortex of 'to dos'. Other than the people he worked with, he and his computer were having his most intimate relationship.

What struck me in our conversation was that this entire cycle of achievement junkie behavior (which admittedly I used to fall into myself) started from the moment that he opened his eyes. It starts that way for all of us. From the moment we open our eyes, the choices we make in how we spend the first hour of waking determine the flow of the rest of our day... and determine whether that day becomes one that nourishes our body and soul treating them like the temple they are, or whether it becomes another day that our bodies and souls become slaves to all the 'to do's' of the day. Even if those to dos are things that we enjoy, is being a slave through them really want we want?

So I got curious - that's what us coaches do, we ask silly questions to see what pops up. I asked my achiever client and his workhorse body, tell me the first 3 things you do as soon as you wake up. I was super curious about what he was putting into his body before he even stepped out the door... this was his answer:

1.  Coffee. I make a cup of coffee and start drinking it. Okay, check caffeine and adreneline taken care of.
2. Cigarette. I go outside and have a smoke. Okay, check, breath, albeit full of nicotine and toxins, but breath none the less.
3. Computer. I go to the computer, check email and surf the net. Great, information filling the brain, check.
   

 
The three C's! Wow. We took a moment to pause after he answered the question, and I asked him,"So what do you notice?" Another vague but sneaky coaching question. And his answer, "I am fueling my body with toxic junk before I ever leave my house. No wonder I crash about 11am, have more coffee, skip lunch alot, and then by 4pm I am dead tired, and have no energy for fun, friends  or taking care of me."  I pointed out the fact that he had infact made his body into a sweat factory. And he agreed, 'It's like here you go body have some porridge and get back to work!"

The thing that I love most working with achievers is that once they realize that something isn't working they will jump full in to making a change.

So I invited my client to join us all on the
My Body is My Moving Temple 40-day self love practice, and went on to invite him to make his first order of self love practice to change the first three things that went into his body everyday to...

1. Breakfast Tea. My acupuncturist told me that putting something warm into your body first things was the best way to tell your body, hello, its time to wake up. Welcome to the day. He also told me that coffee was the devil to your body temple, and even with clients who smoked, he asked them to give up coffee first. That says alot. Turns out that my client already had lots of great herbal tea and a good tea cup (the cup is super important. get one you love. My cup says I LOVE ME on it, of course!). I am a big fan of Mighty Leaf teas, Gypsy Tea and Yogi Teas myself... Licorice is my fave! By breakfast tea, I mean herbal, not black liquid.

2. Breath.  Sans toxins begotten from puffing on the smoke stick. Just sit, set the timer on your stove, Iphone or blackberry for 3 minutes and breathe. In and out. Everyone can do this, no training required. You can get fancy and do alternate nostril breathing, where you plug one nostril while leaving the other open and then switch. Or you can do more advanced yogic techniques like breath of fire. But most importantly just close your eyes and breathe!

3. Breakfast Shake. I've already written about how trading in my breakfast sausage for a breakfast shake has changed my life... in fact i am sipping tea and a shake right now. I do them together. Fill it with super foods. Its portable. All you need to do is shop for food, get a blender and you are good to go! An achievers dream. 

BONUS... I also added a fourth part of this self love practice, and that was taking a half day every week with no computer, no iphone, and only personal phone calls. He chose Sunday mornings til 2pm. A good choice, I myself have Christine Morning every Sunday, and it's better than chocolate!

My client accepted the invitation of 4 B's instead of 3 C's for fueling his body temple every morning. And on Sunday, after 2pm, I got an email saying he was 2 days in, successful! Gosh, I love achievers!

So now, you and YOUR body temple. Here is my invitation to you.

1.  Write down the first three things you do each morning.
2.  Write down the first three things you fuel your body temple with each morning.
3.  Make a conscious choice to change whatever fuel you are putting in that is not treating your body like the temple she/he is.
4.  Listen to this weeks Self Love Studio interview with Dr. Deanna Minich on Fueling Your Body Temple. You'll learn lots about your energy system, about cravings and about what you put in is what comes out. My favorite line from her book is this...

THE BOTTOM LINE IS THIS...
EAT THE ENERGY THAT YOU WANT TO BECOME!

I've never been a big breakfast person, but over the years I developed certain A.M. habits that seem to fit my sensibility and my body needs, or so I thought. The whole-wheat bagel with butter and agave. The scrambled egg whites (okay well sometimes just whites). The organic turkey sausage patties, never links, from Whole Foods. Yummy vanilla granola with a dollop of Nancy's organic yogurt and a squirt of Agave. Way better diet than the Coco Puffs and Snap Crackle Pop I was brought up on, and way tastier than the Cream of Wheat my mother tried to force feed me during the cold winter months growing up in Chicago.

And then I met Shakaya Breeze (her name even sounds like a shake!) I am not sure how it even happened. What started as a phone call inviting me to be on her super duper wellness tele-series as a guest -- which I did and loved --  turned into her daring me to try her raw shake recipes and drink my breakfast. All this before she even knew that I had been contemplating doing a cleanse and a 40-day self love practice called My Body is My Temple. I took her challenge as a sign from the universe that something needed to change. And I didn't like it.

I told Shakaya, "Sure send me the recipe and I will think about it..." while at the same time underneath my calm and graceful consideration of her invitation, my inner self was screaming in my head, 'Are you flipping kidding me?? Drink our breakfast. No way. We don't do that. We will starve. Our stomach will go crazy by 9am. Only crazy dieters drink their breakfast. We need solid food!' My inner self, scared to death of starvation, kept going, "You don't like raw food. It makes you sick. Every time you try it you feel funny. Shakes are good for people with different body types than you." Now she was getting rational, sneaky.

The truth is I was totally freaked out about the idea of drinking a shake every day for breakfast. Which is exactly why in the end, I took Shakaya up on her invitation (remembering that I love living by invitation!) One of the big reasons I decided to do the 40-day self love practice of My Body is My Temple is because I wanted to challenge all of my beliefs about food. I wanted to rewire any food patterns that were no longer serving me. So even though I didn't want to admit that I had negative food patterns running my life... when my inner self went bezerk and started spewing fear all over the place at the idea of giving up solid yummy staples in exchange for a shake I had no choice but to face the truth. It was time to trade in my breakfast sausage for a shake.

And here is what I learned:

1. I won't starve. Turns out I can get just as much if not more protein plus other good things for my body by slurping through a straw.
2. Super foods. Who knew they existed? Chia seeds. Maca powder. Cacao chips. Coconut water. Kiwicha. I found an entire new section in the grocery I never about. These foods go right in the shake and are like super powered with energy that go directly into my cells, making my temple really happy. There's no super food in sausage!
3. Shakes are meant to be chewed not slurped. I put apples, cacao chips and other things that let me kind of chew my shake, which tells my brain something different than if I just drink it. So it does fill me up. Don't know why it works, just does.
4. Makes traveling easier not harder. I had to go to NYC for 7 days and was a little concerned I would have a problem doing my shakes, but then I found "NAKED"... not me naked, but the brand of shake. Can pick it up at lots of convenience stores, groceries, etc.
   
5. It's faster and it's portable. Enough said. 21st century woman, of course i love this.

It's been way over 40-days now, and I am happy to report that after my 40-day practice of ONLY having my breakfast shake / 7 days a wee, I committed a very self-loving act... I changed my practice to 6 days of breakfast shakes, and one day of whatever I want for breakfast, usually on Sunday. Today, Sunday I had a poppy seed danish, a latte, and what else, but two breakfast sausages!

I invited Shakaya to be my first interview on the My Body is My Moving Temple series on Self Love Studio. To get the free download of our interview, visit http://www.selflovestudio.com

And if you dare to trade in your version of sausage, here are three fabulous Shakaya Breeze recipes...

BEVERAGE
 
CREAMY-DREAMY CHAI-LATTE-CHINO
TRY TO CONTAIN YOUR EXCITEMENT! This is better than STARBUCKS! I've never drank coffee, but this is so AMAZING it will DELIGHT your tastebuds and soothe your nerves.
 
1 C raw Cashews
2 C Water
1 frozen Banana
4 pitted Dates or 2 T Honey
1 t Vanilla Extract
A few pinches of CARDAMON, CINNAMOM and NUTMEG
Blend away to HAPPYLAND...;)
 
 
BREAKFAST 
HAPPINESS IN A BOWL
 
1 C Almond Mylk
½ C Goji Berries
½ C Chia Seeds
2-3 T Agave Nectar or Maple Syrup
pinch Sea Salt
pinch of spices like nutmeg, cinnamon or cardamon
drop of Vanilla ~optional
 
Pour the mylk into a favorite bowl and add sweetener to-taste along with salt, spice and vanilla.  Add goji berries and chia seeds, stir and let set about 15 minutes until it is like tapioca. This is comfort food for the soul and will spread a smile across your heart!

DESSERT
SHAKAYA'S KEY-LIME MOUSSE PARTY FOR ONE PARFAIT
 
3 Limes squeezed
2 Avocado ripe and pitted and peeled
4 T raw Honey
A dash of Vanilla
1 C fresh or frozen Berries
 
PROCESS everything but the berries until creamy and smooth.  Layer in a pretty glass with berries in the middle and on top.  Garnish with a sprig of mint. Sooooo sweet and tangy, this dessert is a delicious little guilt-free splurge, and you deserve it!

Only a week into the My Body is My Temple self-love practice I've come upon the most disturbing realization.... I've been scheduling my body out of my life for years. No wonder I don't ever feel like I have 'time' to do the things I need to take care of my body... it's only when she acts up or doesn't perform that I pay any attention to her at all.

WOW! Sitting here with this realization of my self-created self-love sabotage, how I wish that I could blame the fact that I never have time for my body on some all-powerful Calendar God who has taken control of my calendar, making it impossible for me to find me time... and making it inconvenient at best to find time to take care of this thing called a body. But the fact is that it is I, me, Christine, who over and over again seems to schedule myself right out of my own life.

That became crystal clear to me last weekend when I found myself at my acupuncturist office on a Saturday morning. I really needed to be in that office four days prior, on Wednesday when the immense pressure and tight stress that had been sitting in my shoulders for days, suddenly moved its way into the entire right side of my body, from my finger to my toe, causing my arm and leg to feel like dead weights vs. healthy active limbs. But when I looked at my schedule and compared it to the open office hours, there was no space for me. My calendar was full of commitments to other people... all great stuff, and all things I love, but all things that meant there would be no time for my body until Saturday.

So my temple and I did the best we could, asking my generous guy Noah to give us spontaneous massages before bedtime, just to do something with the stuck energy sitting in our body. And on Saturday, I made it to see Dr. Feng, After many needles, he said what he often says to me, wise man that he is, "Christine, you must take care of yourself too. When you give and give to everyone else you will have nothing left for yourself.' "Yes, Dr. Feng," I thought, "I have heard that before." But this time I went on to think, "Well, why is it that those words never make it past the Taoist zen of his office?"

And then the Calendar God spoke... or maybe it was my Inner Wisdom that responded, "Uh, because you never schedule yourself into your life. You schedule yourself out of your life, by scheduling everyone and everything else in first." Ahhh! Ancient Chinese Secret! Yes, I get it.

Seeing my life through this new self love lens of "My Body As My Temple" suddenly I got something that I had been missing about this sage advice from Dr Feng.  While I was vastly improved on taking me time to do something I enjoyed, I hardly ever took time explicitly for my temple.


The 40-day self love practice of "Taking Care of ME" that I did from January through Feb 13th had made an impact: I improved at taking ME TIME when it came to 'doing' something I want to do. I could read a book, or start work a little later without guilt.

So much so that on Friday, I went on ABC-TV to share how I take and find ME-TIME. From Tiara time, to Narnia time, to The World Is MY Oyster time, we shared a lot... check out the clip here, and see the real results of what I got from that previous self-love practice.


Scheduling time to take care of my body, to do the things SHE wants and needs, hmmm, that hardly ever makes the list. In fact it only seems to make the list when my body and her needs have reached the place of dire straights. Like, my toenail polish is currently half missing... my dentist appointment rescheduled twice.... my refrigerator on it's way to barren... and don't get me started on the underwear again...

And wait, the self-sabotage becomes even more clear... when I walked out of the treatment room at Dr. Fengs on Saturday... I approached the receptionist and said with pride, "I would like to schedule my next appointment with Dr. Feng" (thinking to myself, okay Calendar God, we are going to schedule this temple first!)...

"In fact," I went on to say with pride, "I would like to schedule my WEEKLY appointments for the next month to support My Body as My Temple self love practice."

Her face smiled, my face smiled, both full of happy at the thought of my body receiving such love. And then... my Iphone emerged with news that announced, "You can't do Tuesday, you can't do Thursday, you can't even do next Saturday... you have no body time availability to see Dr. Feng for a week and a half!"

How can that be I thought as I looked again and again at the days and times, asking that poor receptionist at least 10 times, so when again are your office hours? Again and again I searched, and there was nothing. And that is when it struck me...

Christine, you have scheduled yourself right out of your life!

And you know, as much as I hate to admit it, that statement is true. If I am honest, then I have to admit that I have never made my body a priority. It has always been a "thing" I needed to take care of.... And usually only after it acted up in some way. You think I would have gotten to see Dr. Feng if she hadn't started acting up this week. Honestly, no.

And that makes me sad.
1. That I would think of my body as a thing vs a temple.
2. That I would call her an 'it'. And
3. That I haven't made her ME TIME a priority.

Well thank goodness for this 40-day self-love practice, My Body is My Temple!!! Because now I am actually aware of a pattern I didn't really understand. Yes, I am much better at taking ME TIME, but wow, I still have some shifts to make in ME TEMPLE TIME.

So you know what my first action was after I sat their frantically trying to find 'time' on my Iphone calendar while the very very kind receptionist watched me, "I surrendered. I said, okay, next week is what it is. And, the week after I start my ME TEMPLE TIME with Dr. Feng weekly. And I scheduled my body right into my calendar for the entire month of April! And then, wait, I went one step further, I came home and instead of picking up my computer and going right to work, I laid in bed and let the magic of Dr. Feng Temple Time soak in. I am shifting... more self-love on the scene!

I love this 40-day practice, and I invite each of you to find your own epiphanies and share them on our Madly in Love with ME Facebook Fan Page. We are in this together!

Here is to each one of us knowing that our temples need ME TIME that isn't about "doing" anything but taking care of her...

And may we always remember to take care of her, before she has to get ornery and draw our attention to the fact she's been neglected.

GUEST BLOG - Welcome
Christine Hassler

Romance. We are all suckers for it (yes even you guys--you know what it leads to!) Images of romance surround us: the couple holding hands at Starbucks, the gazillions of bridal magazines you breeze past on the way to buy toilet paper, or the frolicking couples on billboard perfume ads. Newsflash: real people don't do this.

Since most twenty-somethings are entering their first serious romantic relationship, expectations of what it's supposed to be like are fueled by advertisements and Hollywood rather than real-life experience. And this is where the guys have my utmost sympathy. Unless you have a screenwriter following you around, it is nearly impossible to live up to the moves of the latest Hollywood Heartthrob. Let's examine one of the most popular aaahh-inducing lines in a movie: "You complete me" from Jerry McGuire. He even says it in front of a room of the woman's closest friends! After that, the two embrace in a "you-are-my-soulmate" hug.

I bring this line up because I see so many twenty-somethings craving a relationship in the hopes that it will complete them in some way -- make them happier, relieve some kind of stress, keep them on par with their peers, or please their parents. The most dangerous thing you can expect or do in a relationship is to hold onto the expectation that the person you are with is there to do something for you. That is not the point of a relationship. A healthy relationship is defined by two independent people who share a love for each other but are not dependant on each other.

Whether you are currently swaying to your own beat, sashaying between different partners, or waltzing with one person in particular, it's important that you take the time to dance alone, to understand your personal rhythm, before matching yours to another. Take some single time, especially in your twenties, to learn who you are sans a plus one. You have the rest of your life to share a tube of toothpaste with someone else so enjoy these years of being on your own -- savor it. Living your own life, making your own decisions about your future, and dealing with the "real world" is a plate-full. Serious relationships can make it more difficult for you to figure yourself out, and not knowing who you are can do damage to future relationships. You will probably change more in your twenties than during any other decade in your life. The person you are at thirty may have a vastly different opinion about what you value in a partner than who you are at twenty-three. So date yourself. Fall in love with yourself.

Okay, so if you are still aching to register at Crate & Barrel, will some statistics make you feel better about staying single and feeling "complete" on your own first? Know that Americans are getting married later and later in life. A USA Today analysis of the new census figures shows that just 23.5% of men and 31.5% of women ages 20-29 were married in 2006. In 1970, 19% of births were to women 25 and up. Now, over 50 percent of births are to women 25 and up. Think of it this way: ideally you'll get married and have a long life together. You'll be with this other person for decades, maybe even over half a century, so what's the rush?

And if you're bummed because you are receiving more wedding invites than junk mail these days? Just go and enjoy the chicken dish at your friends' weddings. I know it can be stifling, frightening. It may even make you want to bash your head in with the complimentary champagne flute. To make matters worse, your family starts dropping hints about settling down. Or maybe they say you have plenty of time, but you feel like time's running short. Just take a deep breath, swallow the last bite of wedding cake, and know that when the time and person is right, it'll happen. Don't compare yourself to other people, even if they are your friends. It's your life and your schedule.

And if you are in a relationship, just be sure that you are conscious of continuing to develop your own sense of identity. Sure, a relationship takes compromise, but maintaining your own sense of individuality and independence is important. Do things alone, enjoy time with friends or on hobbies without your mate, and continue to invest in your own personal growth. The best relationship is when two people that complete themselves come together to enjoy each other. Look for your "soul-match," not a fantasy "soulmate" who will complete you in some way -- that's your job!

Confused about whether or not you complete yourself?

Here are some signs of personal completion:

• Whether you are single or in a relationship, you cherish your alone time. You don't feel lonely. You actually enjoy doing things on your own. A movie or dinner alone does not scare you.
• You can be around other couples by yourself without feeling jealous or sad about not having a significant other (or not having your significant other with you).
• The idea of being in a relationship sounds wonderful, but it is not something you obsess about everyday. If you are in a relationship, it does not consume your daily thoughts or activities.
• You have a clear sense of who you are and what your values are -- another person would not be able to sway you to sacrifice or change the things that matter to you the most.
• You realize you are responsible for your own happiness and do not look to anyone else to make you feel a certain way. You have no expectations of what a relationship is supposed to do for you.

I realize these signs are not exactly the making of a greeting card or Blockbuster Romantic Comedy; but I guarantee you, if you learn how to complete yourself in your twenties, you will eventually attract your "soul-match." Remember, we attract a reflection of ourselves, so consider working on completing yourself as an investment into upping the quality of your lifetime companion.

Based on the book 20 Something Manifesto. 
Copyright  2008 by Christine Hassler. 
Reprinted with permission of New World Library, Novato, CA. 
www.newworldlibrary.com or 800/972-6657 ext. 52.


Christine Hassler left her successful job as a Hollywood agent at twenty-five to pursue a life she could be passionate about. In 2005, she wrote the first guide book exclusively for young women, entitled Twenty-Something, Twenty-Everything: A Quarter-life Woman's Guide to Balance and Direction. As a life coach, she specializes in relationships, career, and self-identity with a counseling emphasis. As a professional speaker, Christine leads seminars and workshops for audiences around the country. She has appeared on The Today Show, CNN, and PBS. She lives in Los Angeles. Her website is www.christinehassler.com.

I have always been a big believer that how you feel on the inside is how you feel on the outside. And when it when it comes to my spirit and soul - I get an A+. 9 years of personal exploration, a daily practice and a lifetime commitment to being connected to and serving a source much bigger than I. The core of my being, my spirit and soul feel pretty good.

However, when I go from the spirit/soul level to the inside of my physical and very human body, my grade slips because I do really love red wine and cheese. But I still give myself a solid B... and getting better every day as my body becomes my temple over these next 40 days.

But now let's go two layers out -past the epidermal layer to the layer that sits on top of it... my underwear, and Houston we currently have a problem!

I have always believed that feeling good from the inside out included how the clothes under my clothes felt. Old and comfy grandma-like underwear... feel old, comfy and tired. Mismatched or uncomfortable bras and panties... not operating or looking my best on the outside. And we won't even mention the ones who've become faded, holey, or a relic from history.

Think about it... when you put on your best underwear or your super fun panties don't you feel fabulous?


And when you put those, let's just call them 'other' underwear, do you feel any kind of good at all?

Yesterday, I found myself looking through my underwear drawer noticing that my supply had dwindled to two pairs of 'feel good and sexy,' three pairs of 'fun and free' and many pairs of 'other.' Which I might not have noticed, had I not been getting dressed to go to an appointment with my personal stylist at Nordstrom's. I thought that I had chose a cross between feel good and fun undergarment, up until I found myself in the Nordstrom's dressing room removing my jeans and shirt to slip on a designer dress, and to my complete horror... I discover I have a hole in my panties! Ahh!!!

Not big, not even that noticeable, but a hole in my panties. The panties on my temple! And my temple says to me, in the most loving voice (quietly so no one else could hear thank goodness), "Really Christine, this is an unacceptable adornment for a temple... and for you. Where is the self-love? I am calling for an Underwear Revolution!

 

After successfully finding and buying the cutest black and white spring dress, I beelined myself to the lingerie department. What I quickly realized is that I had just walked into a huge jungle of underwear! Trees and tress of panties, bushes of bras, and the occasional tiger striped slip lurking in the distance. I was overwhelmed!

Nylon. Cotton. Rayon blend. G-string. Boy short. Full panty. Lace. Bows. Seamless. White. Bright Pink. Multi-colored. And I won't even get into the bushels of bras! All I wanted was some fun, super-powered panties and now I found myself feeling like I used to feel when I would go to buy wine... staring at the rows and rows of bottles, feeling rather uneducated, not wanting to make a mistake, and ultimately just closing my eyes, trusting my intuition and hoping for the best!

Something in my intuition said not to approach buying my fun super-powered panties this way... that it would pay to take some time to make choices that would make MY temple happy, which may or may not be the same for another woman.

I didn't buy a single pair of panties that day... but I did come up with some rules about what my temple wants from the fabric that sits between her skin and the clothing the world sees. I am going to sit with these proclamations... do a little more research... and then when I am ready, wave the flag to start the Underwear Revolution.

1. My temple wants to breathe - she doesn't want to be suffocated.
2. My temple wants to feel super-powerful - not like she is wearing a diaper.
3. My temple wants to be fun and free - not dowdy and constricted
4. My temple doesn't like things crawling into crevices they don't belong - she likes things in their right place, that feel good.
5. My temple wants to have choices about how she wants to feel on any given day - sassy, super powered, fun, sensitive, sexy, sporty, free.
6. My temple wants to be adorned with beauty, always, and appreciates the care and self-love I put into every piece of fabric I put on her, as much as she appreciates every morsel of food I put in her.

I am SO enjoying the conversation I am having with my temple about our Underwear Revolution. And it feels so much better than the way I would have approached this before: Picked a few underwear from the rack, not paid attention to the $$, hoped for the best when I got home, and probably been half happy and half disappointed... ultimately creating guilt for spending too much money, stress from not knowing the right decision to make, and judgment about how I should know better to repeat this not self-loving pattern.

It's only Day 4 of the My Body is My Temple Self-Love practice, and all ready I have more self love! Who would have thought you could get that from a pair of underwear!!

Okay, maybe I AM addicted to 40-day self love practices, but hey, there are way worse things to be addicted to! This addiction actually brings me more LOVE vs. less, so I say, let's keep the 40-day self-love practices going all year long.

I am just coming off of a 40-day self-love practice of Receiving, and the one that preceded that was the 40-day Taking Care of ME practice that many of you have been doing the last 40 days. We started on Feb 13th and finished yesterday, March 25th by everyday waking up and asking ourselves, 'What do I need to do to take care of ME today?"

So what is next? When I asked this question I got inspired by two things... 1. Last year, one of five 2009 themes was "My body is my moving temple." I spent a whole year trying to bring that into reality and ended the year with a B-.  I want more! And 2. At the Madly in Love with ME Celebration on February 13th, I asked two transformational artists to perform something that embodied the energy of My Body Is My Temple, so that women could literally FEEL what that would be like. My friend Kalila danced an amazing temple dance, and Lone Morch created this amazing movie, My Body As Temple which you should so check out on our you tube channel.

This all leads me and you! to

the "My Body is My Temple" 40-day Self Love Practice

which is the perfect practice to do now! We just celebrated Spring Equinox last weekend which is all about renewing and replenishing. Spring is a time to start shedding all that extra energy we were holding on to to keep us warm and cozy during the Winter months. In the Ayurvedic tradition it's one of the main times to do a full body cleanse. And lets face it, Spring is the time right before bathing suit season, so many of us may have our bodies on our minds.

My relationship with my body has never been my strongest relationship. For me it's not that I hate her, it's that I forget about her. Like I can go months without looking at my toes, feeling my calf or noticing that I have this appendage called an arm. I take my body for granted, as if she is always going to be there to be the workhorse I have always expected her to be. As an achiever I have driven her past the brink of exhaustion on many occasions to 'get the job done' and the truth is that I have treated her more like a piece of machinery at my beck and call than as the temple that she deserves to be treated as.

The other truth is that without her, I would be nothing. I don't exist on this planet without her. My spirit needs this form to be on this earth. None of the passions, missions, dreams I have can be accomplished without her. And although I like to think that I am in charge of her, the truth is that very quickly, if I don't adore her the way a temple deserves to be adored, she will be in charge of me, and I won't be able to do a darn thing about it.

Just think about any time you didn't feel good physically -- from a canker sore to a cold to a much more serious condition - you were at the mercy of your body, and the only way to change the situation was to treat her well.

Well, what if we treated her well before she revolted and got sick?

What if we treated her well, despite our judgments on what she 'should' be?

What would it be like if we treated our bodies like temples, and everyday that was the lens through which we made choices?

I am not sure what the answer is to that last question, but I want to know, and that is why today, I say YES! to this new self-love challenge...

 
The year I left my corporate job in 2007, I named "The year of receiving"... I always pick a mantra for the year based on the quality that I really want to bring into my life and my self. While I had always been great at making it happen, a skill very valued in the man-powered corporate world, I knew that to thrive as a an entrepreneur and a visionary leader I had to learn how to let things happen, I needed to activate my feminine super power of Receiving.

Three years later, even after a full year of learning it, I still find the Feminine Super Power of Receiving one of the hardest to explain, which seems weird to me on one hand because it should be as simple as saying, it's just like accepting a present from someone. They give you a gift, you say thank you. But that doesn't seem to quite cut it. It's like my achiever brain doesn't register something when I think about receiving in the biggest context of that is how I live my life. "What do you mean receive? Do I just sit here on my throne like Queen of Sheba letting my subjects bring me gifts?" Not exactly. And then you couple that with my social conditioning that it is better to give than to receive and then all those frayed guilt synapses I've spent years rewiring start to sparkle just a bit.

So in the absence of being able to appropriately explain the Feminine Super Power of Receiving to you, I did what any good achiever does, I decided to do something about it. But unlike my former achievement junkie self, I waited until I was 'invited' to do something about it.

After finishing my 40 day taking care of ME practice on February 13th, that little but mighty voice inside my head, who I have come to know and love as my intuition said to me... let's try Receiving again. At first my ego was a little bruised, "What do you mean? I spent an entire year learning how to receive? Do you mean I have more to learn?" An undeniable YES! was her answer, and now I sit here roughly 20 days since I began, and here is what I have learned...

You'll spend less energy and you'll receive more if you wait for an "invitation" vs. pushing to make it happen.

Several months ago one of my dear friends Catherine told me that she had proclaimed a new life rule (she does this on occasion)... and this time her new life lens was 'I wait to do anything until I am invited.' And I thought to myself, "Well that is nice, good for you! And that is a non-apply to me." It was like one of those moments when you kind of get what someone is saying and on the other hand kind of don't but in either case, know you don't really want to know more. Of course what I realize now is that what she shared with me was just sheer brilliance, I was just not ready to see it

Fast forward to two weekends ago, early into my 40-day Receiving when I attended the Sister Giant conference in Los Angeles put on by Marianne Williamson... an event mind you that I was 'invited' to come to another friend. I guess I should have seen the writing on the wall.

This other friend is a master at the invitation... although I didn't know it at the time because we've only know each other a few months. When I say she is a master at the invitation what I mean is that she let's things come to her. Opportunities arise, she notices them, she says, Yes or No, and then she moves into them. She's lived her whole life this way she tells me. And this time my achiever brain goes, "Huh, I think there is something to this invitation thing!" Both she and Catherine expend tremendously less energy than I do. No toil to 'make it happen' or 'get it all done' or 'be in the right place at the right time' or 'have the right plan'... and yet they are both successful, they are both happy and the truth is that they are more free to enjoy their lives than I am.

It's not that they aimlessly float around their lives waiting for someone to invite them to a party or tell them what they want to do. They have a knowing and a focus on what they want. They are women of action. And they accomplish great things - from raising daughters, to writing best sellers, to choregraphing beautiful dances and changing people's consciousness - no small feats! But they do it with a grace and ease that until now I know I have lacked, and that I believe that I have officially not believed worked as well as my tactic of push, push, make it happen.

living by invitation only

I lived by invitation for the entire weekend at Sister Giant and the magic that happened for me was profound - I had experiences and met women that I never would have if I had been up to my old achiever ways... and it all unfolded for me.

I am currently still living by invitation which has continued to bring more magic... and questions... but I will save those for another blog.  For now, consider yourself the 40-day receiving practice and living by invitation only.