What have you outgrown?

On this journey of expansion, personal growth, we read, we study, we try new things. We take on new practices like journaling and meditation, yoga and mindfulness. We attend workshops and seminars. We stretch into new avenues of creativity.

And … we let go. If we don’t, it is very likely that we will burst!

Everything – absolutely everything – on this human plane is temporary, or in Buddhism, impermanent. Even those practices, relationships, ideas we pick up along the path of growth which are life transforming in the moment, eventually cease to serve us in the same way. Sometimes we alter them and they continue to serve; sometimes they must end.

Give yourself a moment to review the “tools” you use today in service of your personal growth. For each, ask yourself:

How have I outgrown this?
What change would double its impact now?
Is it time to release it?

Purpose – With a Spiritual Twist!

When I think about myself as a “spiritual being having a human experience”, I hear a whole different dimension to the phrase “life purpose”, which speaks to the impact that I want for my human life on this earth. While you may not see yourself as a “spiritual being” having a “human experience”, I suspect that your spiritual belief system has an impact on your choices in this lifetime.

Today, I would like to invite you into a broader question about purpose. When you let purpose be impacted by your deepest, most sacred beliefs, what shows up here:

What is your human life purpose?
What is the spiritual purpose for your human existence?
What changes when you focus on your spiritual purpose?

Now, maybe, it’s all the same for you! And you and your spirit are fully aligned. How awesome!

What are you avoiding?

Have you noticed how much energy it takes to be in avoidance? Sometimes it’s the littlest things: pay the bill, call Mom, schedule a dentist appointment. Yet we delay, avoid, put in on the list – again. And we think about it, talk ourselves out of doing it, wish we didn’t have to do it, get fully contorted emotionally imagining what it will be like. And we avoid – again.

Yet I know that you, like me, have also experienced the freedom of having “it” done! That freedom shows up as excess energy, lightness, happiness, feeling good about ourselves. Today, rather than wonder “Why do I avoid?” – I commit to action and invite you into the same. Consider these easy steps:

  1. Make a list of what you are avoiding
  2. Next to each item, put the number of minutes it will actually take to do each item
  3. Pick one and do it!

What do you notice now?

Baby Steps

Call to mind one project, one situation, one “unresolved something” that is stealing your time, attention and/or energy. Got it?

Vision it complete. Are you there?

Now, list as many baby steps between “now” and “complete” as you can.

What step is yours to take today?

What are you juggling?

When it comes to juggling the people, activities, projects that fill the trajectory of your life:

  • Do you throw lots of balls in the air hoping you’ve thrown some high enough to disappear for awhile?
  • Are you overly cautious, carefully selecting which balls to toss and limiting your options sometimes unnecessarily?
  • Have you got this juggling skill perfected with the “just right” set of objects spinning?

If you don’t know … even if you do … gift yourself with a few minutes to ask:

What am I juggling now?
What is so high in the air I’ve lost sight?
What am I about to drop?
What do I want to add?

Now what?