When You Stand at the Mirror, Do You Look Deeper Than Your Reflection?

What do you see when you look in the mirror?  Do you look beyond your eyes, your nose, your mouth?  If you are living an inauthentic life, looking at yourself too long may make you uncomfortable.  Your mind knows the truth about you, are you ok with that?

Hiding secrets (not whether or not you had a cookie but whether or not you are living a lie) creates destructive conflict in our bodies.  When there is too much distance between the outward picture and the inward reality, it takes a toll on us internally.

My wish for the world is tolerance.  It's important to have values and bring up our families with those values in word and in deeds.  But tolerance has to go hand in hand with our values.  The big lies will crush us!!  What we hide to fit in and belong can make us dislike ourselves.  And our relationship with ourselves is the most important one we have.

It's not easy to go through grade school and high school where people joke and mock for reasons big and small.  We can teach tolerance but when you add together peer pressure, group mentality and the fact that no one's decision-making process has fully developed as teenagers, there are a lot of negative variables involved that push against tolerance.  We all need to find an anchor, a parent or guardian, a trusted mentor or counselor, to give us a place to recharge and regroup.

Being proud of who we are is a skill that can be developed.  Loving ourselves exactly as we are is being authentic.  Finding a safe place to work through feelings of unworthiness is a key factor is our personal success.  

If you aren't proud of yourself, do you know what's blocking you?  I suggest making a list of what you have done in your life that you can be proud of.  We all have enough reasons to be proud, we need to focus on them.  

Have a great day!

Xo

Conni

Today's Mantra:  I intend to list reasons I have to be proud of myself.

Mantra for Every Day: I choose to send love to all; receiving love back multiplied in infinite proportions, creating and nurturing pathways of love.

The Need to Conform vs The Luxury of Being (and Loving) Yourself

Job interviews are tough.  We want to meet the criteria of being a team player while standing out and being unique.  I'm an individual, but not too much of one.  I love to be a part of a group, but am willing to be the leader if necessary.  Putting our best foot forward doesn't mean we are soulless drones, nor do we have to be rebels.  But to a certain extent in job interviews and in life we have to outwardly conform without losing ourselves in the process.

We learn that it's not OK to totally let down our guards.  It can be exhausting!!  Social media changed the game, freely sharing intimate details of our lives, but there was a backlash.  The parents of the social media generation began to caution their children - what you put online will stay with you the rest of your lives.  Be careful out there is cyberspace.  

If we share too much, it's awkward.  If we share too little, we are boring.  It's easy to understand why so many people don't fully love themselves when we are told to share only certain portions of ourselves in case our true identities are too different or unlikable.   

That is why loving ourselves must begin internally.  We are the only ones who know every thought, every action, every mistake.  When we love ourselves exactly as we are in this moment, we are able to project confidence beyond external perceptions.

I think about a mother giving unconditional love to her child, "yes, rain or shine, even when the world is against you and you have made mistakes that some would judge as unforgivable, I will always love you."  Then, I turn it around and say those same words to myself.  

We all make mistakes.  The bigger the life, the bigger the spotlight on our mistakes.  Knowing that we are enough, owning the past and learning from it, will allow us to enjoy the possibilities of life.  The goal is to enjoy life without being paralyzed with fear that people wouldn't like me if they really knew me.  

There's a hole for every peg, and we deserve to know we fit.  Because we are beautiful human beings. We are worthy and deserving of being loved.

Have a great day!!

Xo

Conni

Today's Mantra:  I choose to love myself exactly as I am in this moment.

Mantra for Every Day: I choose to send love to all; receiving love back multiplied in infinite proportions, creating and nurturing pathways of love.

"Boyhood" Is a Boy Reacting to Decisions of the Adults Around Him

When I think about my childhood, I'm kind of glad it wasn't being filmed.  Bad haircuts aside, what becomes obvious in retrospect takes longer in real time to understand and react to.  If we all could be the observer in our own lives, would it help or hinder our decisions, big and small?  And how long would it take us to learn from our mistakes?

Like watching a horror movie, I thought, "get those kids out of that house" several times when painting the picture of a perfect family seemed more important than the family members themselves.  Beautiful houses, beautiful vacations and advanced degrees don't add up to happiness.  What happened to the kids of the college professor?  I hope DCFS checked behind the laundry detergent!!

Defining ourselves always includes what happened to us in our formative years, it just does.  We have to process the trauma of our pasts to have our best futures become possible.  We have less control as children, but as adults, freedom is attainable.

In my mind, I played the "what if" game.  What if the biological dad just buckled down and "manned up"?  Would he have been angry and resentful that he had to compromise his hopes and dreams, even though he eventually did anyway?  Having the freedom of choice as to when he had to buy the minivan may have made the difference between whether or not he lived a life of bitterness.  The choice between being a rock star and insurance actuary is just painful and unfair!  (No offense.)

Feeling as if we have some control over our decisions makes life feel more gentle.  That's what empowerment is.  The act of forcing a buzz cut on a boy who isn't even related to you hurt my heart to watch.  Not cool, dude!!  

Who knows the definition of a good parent?  Wishing for a better future for our kids is part of it.  Getting out of bad situations is important.  What about feelings?  I think, with some brainstorming, the mom could have made some space (figuratively and literally) for her children in her future.  "Can I have a drawer, a box, a corner, please?"  We all just want to belong.  As kids move onto adulthood, hopefully they took with them the lessons they learned.  A pickup truck and a camera can be the beginning of a great life, or the first step in repeating the mistakes of the past.

Meditation, yoga and other mind-body work allows us to create the space to act as an observer in our lives as we live them.  It opens up a way to decide whether or not decisions are good for us in the moment.  It's a way to make better choices.   

Have a great day!

Xo

Conni

Today's Mantra:  I intend to learn from my past mistakes.

Do You Hope For The Best?

I was reading a book a few weeks ago ("The Other Mind's Eye" by Allen Sargent) and it talked about hoping for the best versus expecting the best.  When we hope for the best, our thoughts are less concrete.  When we expect the best, we make plans.

Here's the inside scoop:  having a plan for what we want to happen, then figuring out what we gain from it happening (a sense of belonging, security, unconditional love) then planning to put ourselves in situations where we can feel those feelings before we meet our heart's desires is the secret of "The Secret".  Since there is no perfect childhood and we are all humans, no one has every basic human need met to its fullest extent.......most of us want more.

If you felt secure and loved unconditionally as a child and have never had cause to question it, you've probably already met some of your goals.  If you started life without unconditional love and security, or you had trauma in your life causing doubts about feeling secure, your first step needs to be reconnecting to that sense of knowing everything is ok.

So let's all begin to expect the best life has to offer, instead of hoping for the best.  In our minds, we can take a first step toward our goals, and begin to feel the feelings of what success and happiness mean to us.  We all deserve good things to happen to us.  We have to believe that about ourselves.

Have a great day!!

Xo

Conni

Today's Mantra:  I expect the best.

Mantra for Every Day: I choose to send love to all; receiving love back multiplied in infinite proportions, creating and nurturing pathways of love.