Tag Archives: love yourself

Surrender

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Surrendering does not usually have positive connotations. Recently I had been traveling a lot, meetings, obligations, running here, running there. Just simply overwhelmed. I would lay in bed exhausted not able to even sleep well.

I decided to start looking at my obligations, my schedule to see what I could eliminate. I started thinking what would happen if I surrendered. Not give up, but give in. Give in to the my mind, body and spirit which needed time to rest, recharge, and be still.

If I kept my hectic schedule and burden load I would only be running myself down more.

What would others think if I postponed my appointments with them? I worried that they would think less of me.

What would my loved ones think if I chose to take time by myself and not rush home to them? I felt guilty wanting to indulge myself in rest and rejuvenation.

I decided to surrender to my body, mind and spirit to get the rest and develop the clarity needed.

Once I made the decision to surrender, to give in, the healing actually began at once.

What can you surrender to, that would be for your well being?

These united states of CONFUSION

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I find myself in one of the many STATES of CONFUSION.

In my piece of the world, these states can look like:

Lethargy

Over excitedness

Needing to shop

Wanting a drink… Real bad!

Needing to eat chocolate, or cake, or the whole loaf of bread

Deep sixing Self Care so that I become a wreck within a short while.

Well it’s been a few weeks and the Confusion persists. I have tried
many of the above coping mechanisms and must report that
THEY ARE NOT WORKING!

they are not working.

So what now?
Here is what I am not willing to do:

  • I will not become an alcoholic…that is just too big of a hole to crawl out of.
  • I will not eat myself out of house and home… Losing all that weight
  • I would gain would be an even deeper hole to crawl out of
  • I do not have the energy I used to have for over excitement… I get tired rather easily these days… Opps… there’s the lethargy!
  • BTW Lethargy is also out… I refuse to become the lazy slob I used to be before I found triathlons and marathons ( at 50 I transformed myself from a lazy slob and became a triathlete and marathoner).

So I will do what I know best… I will follow the simple steps I laid
out in my book, The Indrani Principle, Inhale Life Exhale Joy.

The system that I wrote about in my book, so many years ago, is one that I STUMBLED upon, while STUMBLING thru my life and challenges.

After morphing from couch potato extradordinaire to elite athlete and then to author, life coach, business owner yada yada yada, I find myself stumbling yet again. I seem to be tripping all over my decisions. I am accepting blame for all kinds of accusations. I am
even convincing myself that somehow I have not been ” good enough”.
AND THEN something glorious happened… I was yet again accused of something and I felt my eyes do some rapid fire blinking as if to say…

Wait!
What?

Then I woke up from the known trance of
“This TOO is your fault!”

Ummmm… nOOOOOOO…. I reject your hypothesis. I bear no fault here.

So let me quickly outline the formula that I stumbled upon, 8 simple principles… Simple does not mean easy.
U…Ultimate principle
I…Intuition principle
F…Focus principle
E… environment principle
I…Intention principle
C…Creation principle
P…Planning principle
Y…You principle.

Tune in next Saturday for a guided tour of how to use these simply powerful principles.

Until then… I will enjoy my current state of confusion, knowing well that there are some juicy lessons here for me. The bigger the
confusion the bigger the lesson.

 

Love and light from Indrani and her iPad!

(photo credit middleastpost.com)

A love letter

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It was just yesterday that I was preparing to give birth, or so it seems. In reality, it was 21 years ago. How is it that my brain can hold so many memories of a sweet baby girl?

First yawns

First giggles

First squeals of joy when she saw me

First tiny fists grasping my little finger

First attempts at nursing her

and the list goes on…

Then before I can understand what my brain is doing my mind goes to

First tea party

First swim suit

First sleep over

First day of kindergarten

First… oh so many firsts.

This thing that I am afflicted with is commonly known as Mother’s Love. I am blessed with the capacity to LOVE. She makes it EASY! My children have shown me how elastic and courageous and resilient my love can be. I can rise to any occasion where LOVE is required. I am at my very best when I choose to paint all of my challenges with love. My gift to this brand new 21-year-old is this (and I offer it to you if you need to hear it).

LOVE WELL. LOVE OFTEN. LOVE WITHOUT CONDITION.

BRING YOUR TALENTS TO ALL OF YOUR CHALLENGES, DO NOT LET A SINGLE TALENT GO UNEXPLORED.

KNOW THAT YOU WILL ALWAYS HAVE A PLACE TO CALL HOME, EVEN IF I LIVE IN A CARDBOARD BOX UNDER A BRIDGE.

USE YOUR HEART AS OFTEN AS YOU USE THAT PRETTY HEAD OF YOURS.

BE PATIENT WITH YOURSELF, THE WORLD WILL BE HARSH ENOUGH, SO PRACTICE KINDNESS TO YOU.

KNOW THAT YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH.

KNOW THAT YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH.

KNOW THAT YOU ARE GOOD ENOUGH.

May you be well. May you be peaceful and at ease. May you be free from suffering. May you be happy.

Love to you, my bright eyed child. You have made me a better Human Being. I am eternally grateful.

Be an explorer

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The celebrated Sir Edmund Hillary climbed Mt. Everest in 1953. He faced bitter cold, difficulty in breathing at altitude, equipment challenges.

In 1947 Thor Heyerdahl sailed a reed raft across the Pacific Ocean from South America to the Polynesian islands to test a theory that people traveled by using only the materials and technologies available during pre-columbian times. He faced ridicule by his peers for the concept, faced the weather of the Pacific and finally his raft struck a reef.

Amelia Earhart in 1937 attempt to make a circumnavigational flight of the globe. She had two prior attempts which included mechanical failures, unfavorable weather patterns, and always the fear of reaching her fueling stations.

So you are thinking, yes all these people are great explorers, how could I possibly add my name to that list?

When you do the work to explore your inner self are you facing the unknown. It won’t make the cover of National Geographic but it takes courage, guts, fortitude to look inside and see your truth. There will be times where you cannot think of putting one foot in front of the other, as Sir Edmund Hillary must have thought as he climbed Everest.

You may be ridiculed as Thor Heyerdahl was, but it did not stop him because he believed in his vision, his project and his mission.

To navigate your heart and your life there will be failures, you may have to make several attempts like Amelia Earhart.

To explore you will be scared, you will feel fear, and so did these three explorers.

To explore your true self can be as steep a climb, as wide as an ocean, or as vast as the sky. You are an explorer in the truest sense of the word.

Add your name to the list!

Do you pledge allegiance… to YOU?

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We are about to celebrate another Independence Day in these United States. I am not a born American but I became a citizen of this, my adopted country, as soon as I could. For myself, I found MY personal independence here in the Unites States of America.

Why does America inspire so many to LIVE a full and complete life?

Maybe it is because the earliest Americans had to really scrap with the Almighty King George III to have the freedom that I enjoy today.

For a glimpse of a possible answer we must go back to the 1700s and what propelled the then British citizens, the Colonists to rise up and say to King George III, “Hey Dude… Enough is enough!”

Did the colonists unanimously decide to be independent in one fell swoop?

No, they did not…

Here is an amazing fact about the unanimous signing of The Declaration of Independence. Benjamin Franklin tried to establish The Albany Plan in 1754 and it was soundly defeated, so that The Declaration of Independence was unanimously signed was nothing short of a miracle. We are told that “this coming together happened very gradually”. It seems that the colonies had a series of meetings each priming them for compromise. It was this feeling of oneness that made them a solid block.

Ben Franklin had tried back in 1754 to get the Albany Plan of Union passed and it was NOT supported.

According to the website I used, http://www.ushistory.org/us/9.asp, “This plan, under the slogan ‘Join or Die’, would have brought the colonial rivals together to meet the common threat of the French and the Indians. Much to Franklin’s chagrin, this plan was soundly defeated”.

The colonists thought themselves very much “British Subjects” yet they came together to DECLARE themselves free and independent of The Man just a few years after they rejected Franklin’s Albany Plan.

So what led up to Britain losing to a “rag tag group of freedom fighters”?

Can you imagine the surprise on ole King George’s face when the ship bearing the news that the colonists were winning arrived?

I imagined that he must have declared, in the vernacular of the times, “are you guys sh**ing me?”

From my research, I understand that the push for independence came about from a string of steps that the British made. Some of these are called the Intolerable Acts:

1 Boston Port Act

2 Massachusetts Government Act

3 Administration of Justice Act

4 Quebec Act

The Colonists were further pushed over the proverbial edge with the Stamp Act. This said that all official documents had to bear certain stamps and the costs were extremely probative. People could not even issue birth certificates without these added expenses.

The masses were getting restless. Hey King…you’re in for a bit of a fight, buddy!

Further Independence was not won in ONE epic battle. Rather it was a series of smaller battles, each one giving the colonists more confidence.  “How could the Americans ever hope to defeat the mighty British Empire in a military conflict? Americans faced seemingly impossible obstacles. When the guns fired at Lexington and Concord in 1775 there was not yet even a Continental Army.”

Some of the major battles of the American Revolution are:

April 1775 Lexington-Concord

June 1775 Bunker Hill

December 1775 Quebec

Oct 1776 White Plains

Sept 1777 Saratoga

Sept 1779 Siege of Savannah

Sept 1781 Siege of Yorktown

There are many more…

Why list any of the above?

This is, by way of telling you that Independence is a fight, that is worth it. Your personal independence is worth it. Your personal battles are worth fighting and you will gain confidence with each battle fought.

List your intolerable acts.

List your battles.

Begin to make your case.

Thomas Jefferson was a major writer of the Declaration of Independence, and he had assistance from John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Robert R Livingston and Roger Sherman.

This amazing document has 4 parts

1. Preamble… Tells why the document is written, gives all the reasons why the people must support this.

2. Rights of all the people…life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness

3. List of Grievances…unfair actions of the King and Parliament and lists steps the colonists tried to take to settle these differences. This part ends with saying the King of England is “unfit to be the ruler of a free people”.

4. States that all the colonies are free and independent states.

So as I wish you a MOST HAPPY FOURTH… I invite you to declare your own Independence over your fears and the rules that are holding you back from living in true Freedom.

Here is a little formula to follow:

Write down some of the battles you have fought, give them some juicy names.

Write down some intolerable things that you have endured.

Get your peeps together, the ones who support you and begin the writing of your Freedom Document.

Write your declaration, change it as often as you wish, but keep working on it.

Send me your declarations and I will post some to my blog for the world to see.

Go forth and find your freedom wherever you may live.

Love and light from Indrani

When you wish upon a star

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…Makes no difference who you are.  The song written for Walt Disney’s 1940 adaptation of Pinocchio, rings so true when it comes to our dreams and happiness.  We forget the “makes no difference who you are”!  We do not dignify our dreams and wish for happiness.  Perhaps we ignore our wishes out of feeling embarrassed, undeserving, or just too busy to give our dreams and longing for happiness the recognition and time.  We live as if it really does not matter that much.

We instead choose to play it safe.

When we play it safe, there is no fear of embarrassment in pursuing the dream, no fear that someone will ridicule us about our wish, no fear of failure that the dream may not be exactly what we had hoped.  We sit safely on the wish side lines, thinking happiness not worth the risk of stepping out into the playing field.

Too undeserving to dream?  What a lie we tell ourselves, “I am too ____( fill in the blank)_____ to have dreams, hopes for happiness”.  Would you tell a child they are undeserving?  Of course you wouldn’t, so why would you tell yourself that?  Age is not a factor.

Too busy to dream or wish for happiness? Make time!  There is time if you want there to be time.  If you invest that time in that wish or dream you can jump start your creativity, step a little lighter, smile a little brighter.  Heck, maybe just start smiling. Happiness is for everyone, and it CAN be obtained.  But you cannot obtain it if you do not recognize the wish for it.   I am not saying it won’t take some work.  But isn’t your wish for happiness worth it?

Wishes and dreams are not just for children. As a parent, how can you truthful encourage kids to dream and wish if you yourself do not believe that wishes & dreams are for everyone and that they can come true?!

Dreams & wishes DO matter. Perhaps even more so when we are older.

So, what is your wish or dream?  Write it down and start making your own dreams of happiness come true.

PS> Now that we have settled that… remember dreams have a bill of rights too!

Do you love yourself enough to get healthy?

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Wowzers, half the year is over!

Where did the time go?

I had such great plans for this year.

After my knee surgery in January, I planned to walk about 5 miles per week for three weeks and then get into gear to do some serious mileage.

I have done NOTHING.

Sure from time to time I get out and do a few miles, but that searing drive that I used to have when I was training for my triathlon and my marathons have disappeared.

I feel sad that I have allowed myself to fall off the fitness wagon.

I KNOW how to get back on.

It really is just a decision, a daily decision.

It really is just a promise to myself that my health is more important than anything else.

Just that simple.

So, this past week I again make this promise.

Now I make it in front of you, my dear friend.

I promise to take up my walking again five days of the week and I promise to find a great marathon to train for.

I ask you… What health gifts will you give to you?

I know that it will be difficult, it always is. I also know that it is well worth it.
I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I must do this if I truly love myself.

Do you love yourself enough to get healthy? I hope so.

Love and light from Indrani

The definition of divorce is….

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Emotional divorce as defined by me is:
Disengaging one’s energy from being entangled with the energy of another.
A shorter way to put this is:
Their business is none of yours!
Yes, I know it sounds crass and abrupt and even a little bitchy.

Bear with me a while and read the following story:
I just met a delightful woman walking her equally delightful dogs and we stopped to chat. I started to tell her about the joy event (if you missed it, send me an email and we will send you a taste of what you missed). Anyway, the conversation quickly turned to her feeling really taken advantage of by a very close family member. This person insists on smoking in her house, even though she has been repeatedly told not to. She engages in harmful drug behaviors and has people scrambling to always save her from herself. She even intentionally ruins the good fortunes of others with every trick at her disposal.
This person is an excellent teacher…. Do you have any such teachers in your life?

For example…
People who constantly borrow money?
People who continually dump their emotional bilge all over you?
People who are always complaining about their job but won’t make any changes?
People who must have all the attention on themselves because their life is the only thing worthwhile?

WHAT EXACTLY DO these people teach us? What could we possible learn from emotionally draining situations such as this?
Well the answer to this question is both simple and complicated.
The simple answer is this: They are here to teach us to mind our own business and live our own lives.
The complicated answer is this: What kind of life do you want and do you have the courage to step completely into it?

Let’s take the complicated answer first.

Take some time to answer these questions.

What would your LIFE look like if this person were NOT in your life?

How would you live differently?

What actions would you not have to take?
How would your emotional state of health look like?
Would you be happier if you did not have to constantly care take the emotional abuser?
Do you know what emotional abuse is?
Are there others in your life that you take emotional abuse from?
What wonderful projects would you invest the emotional energy that you are saving?

Now, the simple answer….
All the above answers are YOUR business.
All the above answers are the WAY YOU WANT to LIVE your own life.
NOW DO IT!
There is no time to waste.
Life is shorter than you think.
If not now, when?
If you won’t take responsibility for your happiness who will or more importantly who should?

Love and light, Indrani.

Belief BUSTERS

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Ok so I really kinda want you to conjure up an image of Ghost Busters here and see them running around The New York Public Library chasing down old ghosts and sucking them into their canister.

Would it not be a hoot if we could find a way to suck out OLD burdensome beliefs that suck the life out of US and either replace it with a great new one or just leave space until we find one we like?

Here’s an example… This past weekend I had the great fortune to be the EMEE at Wealthy Thought Leader in Vancouver. Andrea Lee, took a heck of a chance on me. I was an unknown entity. This event was Andrea’s baby. She has nurtured it over the course of many months and she had a lot to lose if she choose the wrong woman for the job.

When she asked, I immediately said yes and then I allowed it to recede to the back of my mind until the week before. THEN I started to get worried.

All kind of “what ifs” entered my mind…
What if I don’t know what to say?
What if I look like a fool?
What if I look too fat? yep…even that!!!
What if the people don’t like the way I do it?
What if the simulcasters say I am doing a sucky job?
And the list went on and on… And on

On Thursday morning, I began and I KNEW I was holding back and Andrea felt it also. She asked if I was ok and I said yes but I was NOT!
She said that my energy was different and I admitted that I was AFRAID of coming off too bold or brazen and that I was worried that people would think I was trying to eclipse her. She laughed and said… eclipse Away!
So Thursday afternoon I showed up as ME and I never looked back… Except those nibbling “what ifs” were always lurking!
I am so grateful that everyone was supportive and that I did not have to fight negativity.

I was lucky…. What happens if YOU are following your passions… Like Lela Lee and have to fight your whole family system? That is HARD and energy sucking. It is easy to give up. It is easy to just do what you are being told to do. It is easy to turn down the dimmer switch.

Please don’t
Please allow yourself to feel discomfort and fear and insecurity.
Only by feeling all of these will you be able to find the courage to pursue and hone the skill set that will fuel your dreams.

Every hurtful comment you hear or mistake you make will strengthen your resolve to make your LIFE your OWN.

If not NOW… When?
Please give yourself a chance to shine. Only you can take that step and I GIVE YOU the PERMISSION.
Like Jesh De Rox says:
“Do not say something to yourself that you would not say to a new born!”

Love and light from Indrani and her iPad!