Ready for A New Story? by Pixie Hamilton

We all have “our stories.” We walk through life, emotionally and mentally responding to what happened today, yesterday, and every day in our past.

Our stories are so seemingly unique, personal, intense, defining, and all-encompassing.

Some of us are alcoholics. Some are recovering. Some don’t drink.

Some feel overweight. Some feel absolutely fabulous.

Some of us are gay. Some of us are heterosexual. Some of us may not know.

Some have been abused or raped; some feel unloved; while some have known nothing but glorious harmonious relationships.

Some of us are white, some are of color.

I could go on.

Are we really that different?

Not really. Our “stories” and earthly experiences today, in the past, and what’s to come, simply do not define “who we really are.”

What does matter is that we each are woven into this sacred and wonderful fabric of life, love, and Oneness.

Our stories may not allow us to feel very good, worthy, or loved, but we ARE loved, unconditionally because a divine, pure, and unadulterated love resides in a sacred space deep within each of us.

Imagine that. We all have a part of us – a sacred space – that is untouched and unscathed by any hurt, wound, or rejection…a loving space that is totally separate from our earthly experience or “story.”

I go into that space.

I breathe…deeply. I release my breath.

I inhale again. And release.

My breath is all that matters.

With my breaths I release my story. I release my fears, my anger, my hurt, and all mental and emotional noise and chatter that invades this space.

With each breath, I have no ego. I choose my divine self instead.

I am now deep in that space where I feel free, at ease, surrounded and comforted by warm light. I am not alone. I am strong. I am protected. I am creative. I am happy. And, I am at peace because I know that I am loved.

My mind is blank. My story fades. It’s gone.

Silence and stillness surround me. The feeling is magnificent. I remember now, and recognize “who I really am.”

I remember – yes, I remember – that I am, first and foremost, a divine spark of absolute Goodness and that love is available to me every moment of every day.

Prosperity for All– Not just the lucky, strong, or hard-working by Pixie Hamilton

“You are the owner of all that you perceive. But you can’t perceive apart from your vibration. Feel your way, little-by-little, into a greater sense of abundance by looking for the treasures that the Universe is offering you on a day-to-day basis.” ~ Esther Hicks

Prosperity is derived from Old French “prosperite” and from Latin “prosperitas” and translates to “doing well.”

To me, “doing well” is NOT about money or material wealth.

Prosperity goes much deeper. I can’t see prosperity. I can’t touch it. But I know it. It stems from a deep contentment in life and my highest purpose.

Prosperity is in every single moment, constantly adding value to my life and those around me. The value manifests in terms of serving, forgiving, accepting, creating opportunities, providing joyful and purposeful experiences, promoting peace and love, creating harmonious relationships, and finding pleasure in everything I do.

Prosperity is constantly coming towards me – an idea, a thought, an inspiration, a hug, the right word, a smile, relationships, wellness, expansion, ease, love, feeling capable, watching a sunset, listening to the songs of birds or a train, and enjoying Nature’s vibrant colors and sounds.

I feel prosperous when I allow this constant flow of universal and abundant prosperity; when I call attention to its presence in every moment; and when I allow the higher vibration to punctuate my life and add value to others.

I have no doubt that recognizing prosperity in all things and becoming aware of life’s small pleasures leads me to even bigger pleasures and more prosperity.

I also have no doubt that prosperity in terms of money follows these universal gifts. Manifestation of material wealth and financial abundance follow the giving of oneself and the creating of value, small and large. It follows a life committed to giving and receiving.

So….go love. And love some more!

Create a “feel good” experience. Sing, smile, laugh, and do something fun. Embrace joy. And embrace joy some more!

Pay attention to the small and large blessings coming your way. Be grateful for the smiles, touches, hugs, music, and the stillness. And be grateful some more!

Create a larger space for the abundance coming your way by releasing any resistance and blocks due to grudges, fears, and negative thoughts. Forgive. And forgive some more!

Celebrate life’s infinite abundance in your life and in lives of those around you. And celebrate some more!

Giving and receiving are universal gifts of prosperity. Feel them and allow them into your life some more!!!!!!

 

Your Desires – Selfish or Generous?

My upbringing was laced with messages about how my desires were fruitless and often selfish. Many of these messages actually came from my own mind as I looked around and saw that what I wanted often didn’t matter or seemed impossible to become a reality. I learned to suppress my desires to guard my heart and to feel more safe inside. Ouch.

One of the most beautiful transformations in my life has been my ability to open my heart and allow my deepest longings to emerge into my conscious mind. It has also been a path of risk, of challenge and of great fulfillment. And honestly, at times some frustration.

My work as a Life Coach focuses on supporting women, and sometimes men, to embody and open fully to their deep desires. What I have learned in my own life, and through working intimately with others in this way, is that great transformation, positive outcomes, and beautiful growth are often the ultimate result of embracing these daring desires.

I’ve seen families change and then grow on into new family experiences where everyone seems happier and more fulfilled. I’ve seen brilliant ideas unleashed about how to impact other people’s lives who need guidance, support and love because my clients have opened their hearts and owned what they wanted. I’ve seen women’s faces youthen before my very eyes and their inner energy come alive again, rejuvenating their zest for life. I’ve seen people fulfill dreams of travel, of giving voice to their unique thoughts and wisdom, and of finding meaningful relationships. All of this change came into fruition as my clients allowed their inner impulses. In short, I’ve seen the world be positively impacted again and again by people taking a chance on owning and acting on their hearts deepest longings.

The next time you feel a longing emerge inwardly, pause and consider this ~ Your ability to act on those impulses may be the most generous gift you can offer to the people around you and the world at large.

You Can Reinvent Your Life

Do you wake up in the morning excited and eager for the day ahead? If not, maybe you’re ready for a reinvention or re-imagination of your life. I’ve reinvented my life a few times and look forward to at least a couple more rounds as I move through the next decades.

Reinvention first requires a re-imagination of the possibility of life. I had a fabulous revelation last month when I seriously contemplated the word “imagination”and it’s use. What I realized was that the word “imagination” is like a short version of the expression “in my magic nation”. What we do with our minds is amazing! First we imagine what life can be, and then we bring the experience into manifested form through us.

The mind is a magic nation of creative action. It’s the land where you are the ruler and participant(s) of the inner world of thought and feeling. You are actually creating all the time, often in an unconscious manner. When you awaken to the power of your mind and heart, you become aware that you can intentionally manifest what you desire through using your imagination, your thoughts and your actions.

Reinvention can awaken new passions, allow new aspects of your personality to develop and bring a juicy new energy into your every day experience. If you are disappointed in life, in how you are engaging in life, maybe its time for a re-imagination – reinvention. Your mind and heart can lead you to amazing new places as you open and allow the energy of desire to work its magic in your life.

If disappointment and faulty expectations are leading your life, time for a reinvention! If you live in the Richmond area, join me this Thursday, July 24th, as I co-lead a workshop entitled “Reinventing Your Life”. Meet me at 6:30 at the Goochland Public Library and we’ll open the doors for you to explore some new frontier.

Vulnerable Leadership

My most valuable lessons in leadership came through my involvement as a founder and leader at the Women’s Center for Wellness, now re-birthed as Authentic Women Circle. It was here that I came to understand that each one of us has our own best advice sacredly held within. I learned how to be a part of forming a safe container for others to come into direct communion with that inner wisdom. It was in these circles that I received and expanded some of my greatest training as a Life Coach. I witnessed again and again the truth that we all have equally important thoughts and ideas to share, that I need not have answers to anyone’s life problems but my own. Life is a journey to grow and learn, to evolve into our highest potential through working our way through our individual life challenges as gracefully as possible.

Here are some of my lofty, yet practical intentions when I lead.

* I let go of what may be occupying my mind and allow myself to release into the experience presented. (Meditation is some of the best self-training for this)

* I stay centered in myself to be keyed into what I hear, feel and see, and simply reflect that back. (Again mediation is a power tool)

* If intuitively I sense something of a deeper nature, I share this. (Oops yet again meditation hones this skill too)

* I share honestly from my own experience and perspective.

* I refrain from analyzing and evaluating, but rather approach every encounter as a “what is happening right now?” that is important and worthy of deeper understanding as a teaching tool for both myself and whoever I am with.

If you are growing your leadership skills, I invite you to try on my practices and see how they feel and how they impact whatever experience you are in. I’d love to hear how you do with it!

Who wants inner peace and fulfillment?

What are you passionate about? What will make your life feel really good? I love helping others experience the richness that exists within. I am committed and passionate about this because I know what fabulous results await those who commit to self-reflection. My heart aches to think that in some respects the cure for what so many crave and feel devoid of is available to them – right now – with the proper attention and intention.

Do you take time to reflect on your experience? Do you give yourself time to sit with yourself and fully acknowledge what is happening within? Are you willing to make this a priority?

So many people want more peace and a sense of fulfillment in live. How ironic that we can only provide this for Self. If you don’t feel like you have inner peace and fulfillment, you can decide to cultivate them in your life beginning right now.

The most successful and happiest folks I know are those that prioritize discovering who they are and what they want. This requires knowing yourself and reflecting on your experiences thus far to distill the wisdom that life experience offers as you take the time to acknowledge your inner response to your life thus far.

You can start today by making the habit of sitting for 5 minutes every day this week, by yourself, in quiet, reflecting while deep breathing, and begin your transformation right now. Up your time to a few minutes every week, and before you know it life will start to feel a little different and you will begin to know the real you. With this knowledge you can take action.

If you want guidance for cultivating this quality of life, join me in our upcoming workshop, Living the Real You, Leading Life from the Inside Out happening this month! Email me for details at laurelhollandh@gmail.com. I love supporting you on this journey to inner abundance!

The Secret to Lasting Happiness

Do you know what makes you feel vibrantly alive? Being in love is one of the high states of this condition. That’s why most of us love being in love! In fact, we can be a seeker of this condition, failing in relationships after a time, because we haven’t learned to cultivate the high state of feeling vibrantly alive in all areas of life. It’s especially important to cultivate a new high vibration state in the relationship through ongoing quality attention to one another after the “in love” phase passes. This art is a beautiful and passionate path to pursue.

What makes your heart sing? What causes passion to arise in your being? What brings joy and that “vibrantly alive” feeling into your being? Make a list and then create the conditions to enjoy those experiences. This is the secret to lasting happiness.

Life as a Koan

With birth (a new granddaughter!) and death (my Dad’s passing) knocking at my door this month, my natural inclination is to become pensive. I draw inward and notice how I am feeling, what is happening inwardly for me as big life events jiggle my consciousness and emotions stream through my being.

During the last week of my Dad’s life, in the early hours before dawn, I was contemplating my Dad’s life and my life with him, allowing a spontaneous life review to flow through my mind. Flashes of insight flowed throughout the review.

Suddenly I saw life as a koan. What is a koan? Here is the definition I like from the internet  “Koan :  a paradox to be meditated upon that is used to train Zen Buddhist monks to abandon ultimate dependence on reason and to force them into gaining sudden intuitive enlightenment.” Notice that one must abandon mental activity, at least momentarily,  in order for the enlightening moment to emerge.

I thought about feeling emotionally disconnected from my Dad early in life and the impact it had on me. Paradoxically, we made our way to a sense of emotional and mental peace, a true closeness with one another through our journey of simply being ourselves with one another – accepting all that this means. Suddenly I saw life as a journey that you can’t know about ahead of time. You must surrender and live it fully to experience the truth of its meaning for you. Being ever true to Self leads to reaping the rewards.

I thought about my Dad’s dedication to living with spiritual awareness, and his clear desire to support others on the journey into this awareness. Paradoxically, at times he could alienate those of us closest to him. He had a way of speaking at us about this truth that we must discover, and how to get about the business of doing this. That didn’t feel spiritually aware, it felt bossy. At the end of his life, he was a demonstration of remaining ever-constant to his beliefs about the body simply housing his personal consciousness that will indeed make its transition onward one day. He lived a very conscious end of life process, very aware and very clear about his desire to be present to the entirety of it. I grew to feel even closer to him as he prepared to leave this reality.

I thought about my family dynamics and the lessons I learned by living through, and also by leaving behind, the dynamics I no longer wished to perpetuate. My determination to live a clear and consciously directed life set my course onto a path of deep healing. I remain grateful for the challenges of ending old patterns, of leaning into being forgiving and open-hearted. It is often through overcoming personal inner difficulty that we grow to become our strongest and wisest self, able to serve the world in the best of ways. Paradoxically, those difficult dynamics, when worked with consciously, become a gift. They are the fire that burns away the clouded conditions that keep us from seeing our own inner truth. With this kind of consciousness we may launch into our best life.

Life as  a koan – a thought that brought comfort and then clarity in many ways. Suddenly I want to consider everyone’s life, and presence in my life, as a koan. Each life a paradox that I can meditate upon, to sit with in wonderment, in curiosity about the purpose, the meaning of it all. And in that wondering, in that spacious holding lightly for review, perhaps I will be gifted again and again with these little enlightments, with the release of reason, opening me to the greater gifts of intuitive insight and deep personal peace.

Closing the Year at Focusing Inward, A Year of Creating Masterful Habits

As I close the year for this blog, my year of creating masterful habits doesn’t end. My hope is to continue on this journey of creating more joyful, more peaceful, more loving, more fulfilling life experiences by aligning our collective words, thoughts and deeds to reflect the passion and desires that lie within each of our hearts. We will go forward and accomplish this as we continue to develop the habits and pattens in our lives that demonstrate listening inwardly and courageously acting on that inner truth.

The greatest habit that I continue to talk about, write about and experience daily, is that of learning to become still and turn towards the inner world. I love hearing about how more and more people are now learning and experiencing the benefits and riches of investing time in this wonderful exercise! What lies within each of us is a gold mine of awareness that has the potential to bring amazing fulfillment to our lives, both individually and collectively. The need to be still long enough to work through the old conditioning and misaligned beliefs remains the greatest foundation you can build for yourself to create a life of purpose and passion.

My masterful habits that have brought me to living a life I love every day include:

1. Sitting still and listening inwardly.

2. Immediately addressing any inner conflict that arises within me.

3. Using every instance where I am upset with someone else to discover what I am trying to control outside myself.

4. Taking full ownership of the state of my inner world and learning more skills to create the feelings I want, as I desire.

5. Taking time to be clear about what I want and able to verbalize it just as clearly.

It’s been a fabulous year because these habits have served me to create that fabulous daily experience! The relationship that is key to experiencing exactly what you want lies within you – the relationship with Self! Are you giving your inner world the attention required to manifest what you want?

 

Next year I am excited to introduce my medicine wheel, BE Your Medicine™ here at Focusing Inward. My intention is to share what I know about living a life of joy and peace and how you too can create the quality of life you deeply desire. You have everything you need within you for this creation. What may be happening is that you are not listening to what your heart desires, you may be driven by old conditioning that holds you back from creating the life you want, or you simply lack the inner connection to power yourself forward to what will bring joy,passion and excitement into your world. My hope is that BE Your Medicine™ will offer you a path to discover that you indeed have the power within to create the life you desire.

Thank you dearest blog readers, for joining with me this year. I am grateful for you, the receivers of these writings, who share with me the desire for experiencing more joy and peace in your worlds too. For now, I am spending the New Year eve and day, communing with my Self to clarify my intentions as the New Year begins, and to listen closely to how my heart guides me into the peace and joy I experience today, and will continue to as the new year unfolds. I invite you to find your peace and joy in 2014!

Dreaming Your Life into Being

“Realizing” my dreams is a practice. Here is my practice –

* First I dream, sitting quietly with Self, allowing what I desire to arise from within, to my full consciousness, to be examined and considered, played with in my heart and mind for a time.

* If I purposefully hold the dream or vision, it begins to gather an energy or force from within as I continue to give it attention.

* The more I connect with it, the stronger the energy grows and it becomes a force that wants to “move me”.

* Slowly (sometimes rapidly) my daily actions begin to align with that vision. This becomes a purposeful and natural experience. I do not force things, although sometimes I push myself out of my comfort zone. After I have completed a new task, I feel especially good because I know I had to “grow”, gaining new skills to make it happen. I didn’t let fear stop me. Yay!

* If that dream is held long enough and strongly enough, I realize that vision in my life. Meaning I am now living it in this conscious reality of form. Perhaps it does not appear “exactly” as I imagined, but it does appear. I don’t need to “control” the form, I simply do my part and it organizes organically.

We are all dreaming our lives into being. Do you like the dream that you have created in your life? Many of us are dreaming our lives into being unconsciously, sort of sleep walking through life and saying – why is my life like this? When you decide you want something else, and then deeply commit to it, anything is possible. The only way to know this is true, is to do it.

 ~Thanks to Oriah Mountain Dreamer for inspiring this post with her post, “Achieving Dreams”.