Consistent gratitude is one of the most powerful tools that you can use to propel yourself into a brighter tomorrow. Gratitude isn’t a magical shortcut, though. It doesn’t necessarily create any changes outside of yourself. What it can do, however, is open you up to other opportunities.

As you become aware of the multitude of blessings already present in your life, you may begin to focus on abundance more and more. This can set you on a path to a mental state rich in optimism.

This transformation takes place as you begin to express genuine gratitude to others, and start feeling gratitude for everything in your life that brings you joy.

Become Receptive to Abundance 

A great way to increase your awareness of the abundance you already have is to start a gratitude journal. You don’t have to wait for something great to come into your life to appreciate it. Instead, just open your notebook once a day and take a few minutes to write down everything you’re...

Intuition is a tool that all of us have. Some people suggest that it’s mystical power. Others would suggest that it’s merely our subconscious trying to tell us something. Regardless of the source, we all have that little voice that tries to tell us things from time to time.

As we get older, we often learn to ignore that little voice. We turn to logic and focus on being practical. But we’ve experienced a lot over the years, and there is some part of our brain that has accumulated a tremendous amount of wisdom. Listening to that little voice can be a good thing. 

Last week we talked about ways to determine if we are acting from a place of intuition or insecurity. So how can we develop our Intuition more to be able to step away from those insecurities?

Try these techniques to develop your intuition:

1, Meditate for a few minutes each day. One characteristic of intuition is that it has a soft voice most of the time. It can be challenging to notice it if our minds...

Life-changing decisions can be so intimidating. You spend days and even weeks juggling between the options in front of you. All you really want to do is make the best decision, but it's stressing you out. Your gut instinct tells you to go one way, but you still hesitate.

Indecisiveness can make some situations more difficult than they actually need to be. But what's causing your indecisiveness?

You're probably allowing insecurity to cloud your judgment and cause you to second-guess your intuition. Don't worry - it happens to everyone.

Here's how you know intuition is guiding you in the right direction: 

1.     It's constantly on your mind. Your intuition pushes you to constantly think about the impact of a decision. It's difficult to get the thoughts off your mind when deep down you know the right thing to do.
   •  Avoid underestimating the power of your intuition!

2.     You feel sad when you go against your intuition. You usually feel relieved when you...

I embrace everyone I encounter. Being open to people’s differences encourages a sense of community.

Having a sense of community means being open to collaboration. I know that sharing thoughts with others is a great way to arrive at ideal solutions.

Working with others allows each person to contribute their strengths. The collection of attributes builds a team that is stronger than each individual member. I embrace the value that other minds bring to the table.

I learn to remain humble when I expose myself to the strengths of others. I realize that each person brings something special to this world we live in. My openness to learning about what someone else offers reminds me to acknowledge their worth.

When there is a community of friends around me, I feel safe. Knowing that there are people to rely on gives me the confidence to go confront tough situations.

I contribute to the sense of togetherness by showing appreciation to others. I take the time to let others know that...

I follow ‘Leonie Dawson’ who follows ‘Meet Me at Mikes’. Meet Me at Mike’s shared a taking stock exercise, and Leonie loved it and so she shared it. When I saw it, I also loved it and I am sharing it with you today. This will now be my new weekly check-in. Don’t worry I won’t bore you each week (just this week) with what I am up to, but it is a great tool for reminding ourselves what we accomplish and the changes we are making.

I love the sharing of ideas, I love how we create, collaborate, tweak and build on what we see around us. It is one of my favorite things about the Create with Me! Sessions. I love seeing what everyone is working on, I love trying new things. I have found so many great new art supplies, and suppliers, from those times together.

Taking Stock

Making: I have been working a lot in my art journals, making new pages, trying new techniques.

Getting: One exciting thing I got this week was the Oracle of the 7 Energies Deck by...

This past week in our Morning Calm Program we were talking about personal power, and I wanted to share some ways that we as women tend to give our power away. As much as it feels good to give, that's never true for your personal power. 

• Being Passive

The only time it is acceptable to be passive is when you really don’t care. Letting people treat you like a doormat will drain your energy. Have enough personal power to stand up for yourself. Otherwise, people will keep on putting you down. 

Practice saying no to the little things and it will get easier for the big things. Let your voice be heard. This can sometimes feel scary, again try with smaller things, like what you would like to eat for dinner, and work your way up to the larger things.

• Giving Your Inner Critical Voice Mind Space

Be aware of your consciousness because that's the critic that will drain you the most and keep on taking. If you find this becoming problematic,...

Do you feel like your emotions are complicated and confusing? If you struggle to understand why you feel or react the ways you do, you might benefit from using a journal. Journaling can help you appropriately identify and express your feelings to increase self-understanding. 

Once you learn to identify and deal with your feelings in acceptable ways, you have truly mastered self-understanding. By simply jotting down what's going on with you and how you feel about it, you can get a handle on your emotions.

Writing your feelings in a journal helps increase self-understanding in four ways:  

1. Journaling compels you to think about and process a particular situation or occurrence. When you write about an event, you automatically process the event through words and description. Recording the situation in writing can lead you to notice details you hadn't noticed when the event took place, thus increasing your insight about the situation.

• While journaling, put aside other...

Not feeling well? Kind of blah and wishing you had something better to say about the day than a mumbled ‘fine’ when someone asks you how you are? The solution might be simpler than you think.

Our attitudes really are everything. When we’re not feeling great about our lives or how the day is going, everything can seem to go wrong. The problem is, life isn’t a steady thing. You might have one really good day followed by another equally bad. With so many things outside of your control from the weather to politics it might seem impossible to ever truly feel good about anything.

The answer lies in your thinking. By being able to think positively, you will find your entire outlook changes. 

How do you develop the habit of positive thinking?

Rephrase

The obvious answer is to use more positive words. Instead of saying something negative, either out loud or in your head, try to find a better way to say things. For example, work isn’t grueling so much as it...

Authenticity is to be true to one’s personality and character. It means you’re willing to show the world who you really are. You’re willing to live the life that you were meant to live. Authenticity is the ability to show your uniqueness to the world.

There are very few authentic people in the world, but you know them when you see them.

We’re naturally drawn to authentic people. We feel comfortable with those that are willing to be themselves.

Use these strategies to live a more authentic life and show the world the real you:

1. Know your values. What’s important to you? Make a list of every quality you think is important for a person to have. Now, put that list in order. What are your five top values? When you know your values, the authentic choice in any situation is more obvious than when you don’t know your values.

2. Stop doing things you don’t want to do. You still need to pay your bills and take out the trash. However, you don’t...

Valentine's day was yesterday and for many people this day is emotionally charged. Maybe you are single, widowed, divorced, or maybe in a relationship that is unfulfilling. There are so many reasons for Valentines day to be emotionally charged. There are a lot of expectations around Valentines day.

So, if you spent yesterday feeling unloved. Know that the only person that matters is you. Self love is the most important. Be kind to yourself, allow yourself to feel your feelings, but also know that ultimately you are the only one who can make you happy.

How can you be happy if you don’t love yourself? Having a high degree of self-love makes it easier to take good care of yourself. If you love and respect yourself, others are more likely to respect you, too. When you love yourself, you’re more gentle, kind, and considerate with yourself.

Life can be hard. It’s even harder when you’re hard on yourself. Ideally, you are your biggest fan in life.

Use these ideas to...