What's slowing YOU down?

Have you taken a fearless inventory of your life lately? When you imagine living your greatest possibility, what do you see? And what current behaviors and patterns are incompatible with that desired image?

For myself, my biggest stumbling block & drain on my energy would be my relationship with food. It's my addiction, without a doubt. So what's yours? What's your vice? It could be as dramatic as alcohol, or as subtle as being addicted to emails or gossip. And if your first reaction is... "I'm not addicted to anything!", think again. I've yet to meet a human being that wasn't addicted to SOMETHING.

So, I'm addicted to food. For me, overeating and not listening to my body's natural sense of hunger and fullness is a way of not dealing with uncomfortable, underlying feelings, a way of protecting myself from my hypersensitivity to my environment, a means of self-sabotage, and a way of keeping me acting like a child. Now, at one point in our lives these vices have served a purpose. But as adults, especially in this day and age when I believe our transformation as a collective is so deserately important, we don't have time to be children any longer. As a whole, we've simply got to GROW UP! It's time. And it starts within each one of us. For me, I need to step up to the plate, take a deep breath and bravely face life and situations differently than before. It's time to feel my feelings, exploring my internal computer and reboot if necessary.

How do YOU want to take this trip? For me, I want it to rest easy on my deathbed knowing that I lived fully, honestly, lovingly and bravely. How about you? What do YOU want to look back on when you're on your own death bed? Sorry if this sounds a bit morbid, but it's a very important question - and much easier to ask now, than once we're already lying on it.

To live the life of my dreams, my relationship with food obviously needs closer examining. It's an area where I lose my connection to God. I feel hollow, spiritually hungry, and self-absorbed around the area of food. It's lonely, dark, and desperate. But some of you might say, "Stephanie, you're the thinnest you've ever been!". Yet my weight and my peace with food have nothing to do with one another. Pain is pain, whether someone else can see it or not. Yes, granted, it's far smaller and quieter than it was years ago. But that is unimportant. Even if it's the size of a pinhead, if I'm losing my power in that area, it's worth exploring.

Where do YOU lose your spirit? What areas of your life could use a little TLC? What patterns would have to shift in order for you to live the life of your dreams? (Pick only one for now - we have a tendency to overwhelm ourselves to sabotage our efforts, so make it simple so you can see tangible results).

For seven weeks now I've made it my highest goal to find peace around food. I'm eating when I'm hungry, eating exactly what my body is calling for, and stopping when I'm full. It's exhillerating and painful all at the same time. I'm realizing that I've never been "normal" with food in 36 years. I'm noticing that there is a lot of stress in my thinking that the food was covering up. I'm realizing even more deeply the impact my food addiction was having on my life and how amazing things can be in the future if this burden was lifted. I'm turning the struggle over to something higher. I'm giving my connection to God instead of the food. And I'm dealing with the feelings that are left. I've made a pact to the Universe that I will do everything in my power to live my greatest possibility.

So when you take a fearless inventory of your life, what stands out to you? What needs healing within you? What area in your life, hidden or not, dims your amazing internal light? And what's keeping you from living YOUR greatest possibility?

There's never been a better time to change your life. The planet needs you. Your country needs you. Your community and family needs you. YOU need you. Now's the time to be the best you can possibly be...

Just Listen & Follow Directions

Life is basically a pretty simple process. But somehow when human beings get involved, we have the urge to complicate everything!

The body is created to feel hunger — it's a simple sign that it's time to eat. Our body feels fullness — that's how we know to stop.

Same goes for thirst, sleep, and on down the line. Yet sometimes these messages can get a bit subtle. But if we're honest with ourselves, don't we get messages all the time?

"Wash the dishes".
"Brush our teeth".
"Slow down".
"Stop and pick up that trash".
"Call your friend".
"Quit your job".

If we just learned to pay attention to the small, soft little voice within us, it will gladly guide our lives in an effortless, easy, miraculous way. Where this voice comes from, who's to say. Perhaps it's "God", or perhaps it's just the wiser inner part of ourselves, or it's a message from somewhere else... Regardless, I've found this voice to have wisdom beyond what my ego and personality could ever hope to have. But boy, listening up and following these directions is another story! Whew...

How many of you feel as I do sometimes: That you have lost control of your own spirit and find it challenging to listen to your inner guide? Are you frustrated when you KNOW to do something, but you simple don't do it?

Today let's play together and support one another as we practice listening and following directions. We do this by humbling ourselves, simplifying our lives, and give our path and purpose over to something much greater.

I'll admit, my ego fights this all the time. But when I do show up and just listen, miracles occur. I turn left instead of right at a familiar corner, and run into a long-lost friend.... I pick up the phone and call a friend, only to receive an inside tip on a dream-job becoming available... I get the feeling to wash the dishes, only to find out that a relative is about to come over for an unexpected visit...

We make life so much harder than it has to be. Myself included. But what if we just listen and follow directions today? What if instead of going to the gym, we work on our "listening" muscle instead? The more use it gets, the stronger it grows and the louder it sounds. Our lives in turn will run as effortlessly as a river stream, bending, turning and flowing through life's amazing landscape.

Share what you accomplish today, big or small, in terms of listening up, and may the force be with you!