My Journey of Gratitude - Day 29

This morning's journey took me into a place of stillness and inner peace. I enjoyed the feeling of silence around me and the stillness within me, but that was just the beginning of my journey.

Gratitude led to peace which took me to a place of deepest love--love of life and love for life.

This is that place of every-thing and no-thing. The 'void' that I used to fear but now wrap around me like a warm blanket. It is always in this void, this place before creation, that I experience my deepest truths and my deepest understandings. It is not a place I get to often, but today I did.

Sitting in this energy of every-thing and no-thing, I am free to be re-created into a new thing.

Gratitude exists in this place as well. I'm finding that gratitude exists everywhere. It feels like the glue that holds the universe together and allows Love to enter in.

Love and fear are the only 2 real emotions. Everything else you experience are aspects of one or the other. It is impossible for them to exist in the same place at the time. You are either in a state of love or a state of fear in any given moment.

The state of gratitude opens the door for love to enter in and reside within you. Fear, then has no room and no reason to exist.

But we live in a world of duality--good/evil, right/wrong, gain/loss--with fear, chaos and conflict seemingly in charge. That is one aspect of reality, but it does not need to be the only aspect I experience.

With each day of this journey I understand on ever deepening levels not just the importance and benefits of living in gratitude, but the amazing tool for transformation that gratitude is.

No other tool is as easy to employ to change your experience of life. It costs nothing, needs no user manual to assemble and is available to you in every moment.

You simply close your eyes, take a deep breath and say 'thank you'. Your Spirit self can take it from there.

Gratitude can be the next great adventure of your life--if you allow it.

My eyes closed, a deep breath and thank you for being on this journey with me.

In gratitude,

Bonnie

My Journey of Gratitude - Day 28

Some days I just have to laugh at what a slow learner I can be.  Today is one of those days!  I began my usual process of stepping into gratitude, especially giving thanks for these past 30 days, which are quickly coming to an end. 

As I was expressing my gratitude for an experience yesterday that I would preferred to not have had, I realized that being in a state of gratitude does not keep me from feeling old worries and fears, nor does it protect me from the challenges in life.  I find that I still worry and fret over what isn't going well in my life and at times old beliefs still pop up and get in my way.  It's part of the human experience I suppose; just not the most pleasant part.

The state of gratitude does not guarantee me sunshine and rainbows every day. 
What it does do is give me an essential tool to quickly shift my perspective and my experience.

Remember that gratitude is also a choice. I can take the time, even in the midst of anger or worry, to choose to feel gratitude for something.  I may not enter the state of gratitude, but I can certainly shift my mood with the feeling of gratitude.  To say to myself "I choose this instead of that."

With that understanding came an image of how I've been practicing gratitude up to this point.  Practicing it--not being it.  It is a journey after all, not a destination, so learning wisdom along the way is a good thing.

The image I saw was of me carrying a huge, heavy rock.  This rock was so big that it blocked my view of where I was heading.  I had to crane my neck to see around it, but right in front of me--just a big ole piece of impenetrable rock. 

Now the interesting thing is that I've carried this 2 ton piece of earth with me for so long that it became part of me--who knew! 

I saw that during this journey of stepping into gratitude, I would unconsciously put the rock down, step into gratitude and have my beautiful experience--and then pick up that darn rock again and continue on my not-so-merry way.  No wonder I often feel exhausted and can't always 'see' where I'm headed!

Because change is a choice, gratitude is a choice--I made a choice to let go of the rock and try something new.  I didn't need nor did I want that rock any longer, and I no longer wanted my journey of gratitude to be separate from who I am, what I do and where I'm headed. 

At first the rock turned into a pile of gifts--gifts that I can offer to others, but they were still heavy and still blocked my vision.  Not yet matching my vision.

So I sat there as gratitude came to me--that was a new experience.  Gratitude stepping into me rather than vice versa.  As I allowed myself to be bathed in and invigorated by this state of gratitude, the gifts disappeared completely and there was only me standing there with no obstacles to block my vision.

Me. My knowledge, skills, talents and personality are the gifts I bring to my life and to my clients.  Who I am-exactly as I am--is the gift I bring.

Who you are, exactly as you are-that is the gift you bring to the world.

And that knowing my friends is worth this entire journey!  For this I am most grateful.

What are your stories, your questions, your opinions?  I am grateful for you in my life and would love to hear from you.

In gratitude,
Bonnie

My Journey of Gratitude - Day 16

I want to first thank a good friend of mine for helping me yesterday to clear some of the old stuff that has arisen during this journey of mine.  Whenever you make a shift of any kind your frequency changes and whatever you've been holding that no longer resonates with that new 'you' shakes loose and needs to be released.  That is what healing is all about--letting go of what no longer fits.  So yesterday my friend Sue helped me let go of all that had shaken loose and I feel so much more freedom.  For that I am grateful.

So this morning, feeling more freedom within and without, I sat down to practice my 10 minutes of gratitude.  It was easier to get into that state of gratitude this morning because most of the chatter that I normally have to move through was gone.  A big WooHoo! on that score!

What is left behind is a deeper warmth, like glowing embers after the logs have burned themselves down.  A calm, steady warmth that spread through me, deep into my bones.

Not the high that I've always felt before; you know that mountain top experience we often get. But with every high must come a leveling out because we are not called to live at the top of the mountain all the time--or at least I'm not.  I am called to live amongst people and be of service from within the community, not separate from them.

And so a new sense of gratitude was born within me today.  It feels like I found myself again and, even better, I fell in love with myself all over again.

Today I am grateful for the slow, steady glow of gratitude that warms me and tells me that I am 'home' at last.

In gratitude,

Bonnie

My Journey of Gratitude - Day 14

"People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be."  Abraham Lincoln

That quotes floats through my mind as I begin my time with gratitude.  How happy am I allowing myself to be and what stops me from being happy all the time? Interesting thought to ponder and it opens many doors hidden away in my mind.

As I continue spending time in the state of gratitude I find that all that is not gratitude--all that cannot exist in this energy--is free to roll on up and out of me.  My initial reaction is to stop and ponder each thought and each feeling; wanting to understand and solve.  That's part of our human nature and the function of our conscious mind, that desire to know the 'why' of every situation. 

But asking 'why' will only give you the story surrounding the situation; it will never give you the truth that lies within.  For that you must sit within the middle of it all, giving thanks for whatever is.  As a teacher of mine often says "Understanding is just the booby prize."  Consciously choosing what you want instead of what you currently have--there is the power and the freedom to create change.

To be stand in the middle of your life situation and say "No matter what has happened to me in the past--this is what I choose today.  This is how I choose to live today."  That is true self-empowerment.

Gratitude comes in many forms and some days are easier than others to feel thankful.  Today gratitude showed up as patience and trust.

Patience that saying 'thank you' in the face of doubt is enough, and trust that all is well regardless of what I see happening--or not happening--around me.

So today I am grateful for my doubts, my faith and my journey, bumps and all.

In gratitude,

Bonnie

My Journey of Gratitude - Day 9

My vulnerability is my strength and I am grateful for that realization.

A couple of things I want to talk about today.  For years I've been meditating and all those years I always needed to hold a pillow or cover my solar plexus up in someway.  Couldn't meditate without that.  This morning during my 10 minutes of gratitude I noticed that I was not covering myself up and hadn't for the past couple of days.  That is a huge shift for me.  To be open and vulnerable with no need to protect parts of me.  It became so natural to not put a pillow or blanket in front of me that I didn't notice it for 3 days.  For this new openness I am grateful.

Until yesterday I didn't realize how vulnerable being in gratitude makes you.  In fact I hadn't even thought of myself as being more vulnerable until an experience yesterday with a person who made a few mean-spirited remarks to me for reasons of her own.  My first reaction was to feel hurt and shut down, but that is now such a foreign feeling that I was immediately aware of the shift from open gratitude to fear.

You see to me being vulnerable use to mean being weak, helpless and open for hurt. It meant that I was allowing anyone to come along and behave badly towards me, so no way was I going to be vulnerable! 

My experience with gratitude this morning showed me the true meaning of vulnerability--being fully present in my life, in my body and in the moment.  Fully present with myself and for others.  My vulnerability is my strength, my gift to myself and to others.  For only in the present and in my presence do I allow myself to be known.

Being vulnerable is my strength.  It is what makes me the healer and teacher that I am.  This journey of gratitude has shown me how I have closed myself off in the past and how much more Life and Light I have when I am open, vulnerable and present.

There will certainly be times when I run into people who behave in unkind ways; we are all doing the best we can with what we have and so many people still live from their pain rather than their true nature.  And I accept that people just do what people do and it is never personal really.  There will be those times, but the difference today is that I know and understand that in any moment that I lose my presence, I will remember that I now have a higher value on living from a state of gratitude and can return to being present with a simple decision.

So to the person who was so unkind--I am grateful for your presence in my life and the gift of understanding that I received through your action.  And to my friends that I turned to when I felt misunderstood, I am most grateful for the mirror you always hold up so that I can see my true reflection of who I am as a woman, a friend, a healer, a teacher.

My vulnerability is my strength and for that I am grateful today.

In gratitude,
Bonnie

My Journey of Gratitude - Day 8

My mind gets so impatient when it feels I'm not moving forward fast enough.  It is always wanting more, more, more and faster.  This impatience stems from an old belief that there is not enough, so better get it right now.  And that was my experience this morning.

Impatience when nothing 'grand' seemed to be happening.  I love those mountain top experiences.  You know the ones where you feel on top of the world and everything is laid at your feet.  Your energy is high and you are in the zone.  I love that and truth is that there are many other ways to experience transformation as well.

Those gentle moments of gratitude are just as powerful--when I am open to noticing them.  Like a warm gentle breeze blowing freshness into my home, so is that gentle, easy flow of gratitude bringing freshness into my life--and I am transforming.

This journey with gratitude is building a new foundation from which to live my life.  My old foundation which was based on past pain was like a huge dam filled with thousands of leaks and threatening to overwhelm me should I not contain it all.  What an exhausting way to live!

Today I have a new image.  The dam has broken and I'm riding the waves using the energy released to fuel my new foundation, my new way of living in this world.

No longer afraid of being overwhelmed, I am now free to build anew.  And I hear myself on that surfboard yelling "Ride the waves baby.  Ride the waves."

Gratitude Experiment--Day 5

Resistance--what a great teacher!  It was inevitable this resistance.  The conscious mind doesn't think much of change after all and loves the status quo.  To spend time in the state of gratitude--and gratitude IS a state of being--opens you up to change.  And resistance arises, like an old pair of slippers.

I embraced my resistance and expressed gratitude for it.  'Thank you resistance!  How wonderful to see you again old friend.  I acknowledge and honor you as being part of who I am.  Welcome.'  It seemed insane at first to embrace my resistance because, after all, we resist feeling it don't we?  But what we resist persists.  And so we sat together--my resistance and me.  Just sat in gratitude that I actually had resistance--realizing that resistance has a positive intention, which is to keep my safe.

And in that moment of safety I felt the shift.  How precious is life!  My life, regardless of what I do or don't have, despite the situations I find myself in--my life IS precious.  Your life is precious.  The very act of living is precious.

Last night my husband & I attended a charity gala.  I got all 'gussied up' as my mother called it and Jim wore his tux.  We've always had a great time before at this annual gala, but this year was a very different experience.  The room was noisy & chaotic and several of the people at our table spent the evening drinking and texting rather than talking. 

So we left early and came home.  I quickly shed the fancy clothes and slipped into my favorite pair of flannel pajamas.  Just the man I love and myself--together and grateful. 

That experience last night showed me what I value most--a life of simplicity with people I love and who love me right back.  Being myself in every moment.  Being grateful for all my experiences--whether I like them or not.

So there I sat in my flannel pajamas filled with happy smiling frogs. Nothing to prove, nothing to do, nothing to be--just me in the moment.  Content, happy and grateful for everything.

Enjoying the essence of my life now.

In gratitude,
Bonnie




 

Gratitude Experiment--Day 4

Here's what I experienced from my 10 minutes in gratitude this morning.

Being grateful for your life in this moment, no matter what your current circumstances, does not mean that you are content or ok with where you are.  By saying thank you for what is now is not the same as being satisfied for what is.  You are not saying "I'm grateful for this debt.  I'm grateful for this illness."  Or whatever is happening in your life now.  That is a common misunderstanding--or fear we often have about saying thank you for what is.

By saying thank you for the money that I DO have expands you beyond the fear of not enough.  Thank you for the love I DO have in my life opens you to even more.

Everything is energy.  What you think, feel and do is energy.  And energy either expands or contracts. Gratitude is an expansive energy and when you take the time to be grateful for even one thing in your life--your energy expands and flows in ways you may not notice.  But it does.

Gratitude is more than a feeling.  It is a state of being.  The more time you spend in this state of being, the more it becomes part of your true nature.
Gratitude is the energy of 'even more'.  And you can certainly add that in your thank yous.

Thank you for the business I DO have.  I am so grateful.  And I open to having even more.  Thank you.

We Stand Sister to Sister in Our Divinity

A beautiful video that speaks to the Brave Woman message. We are all One.  We are all Divine.  We are all Love.  We can all stand sister to sister-shoulder to shoulder in our Greatness.

The Freedom of Gratitude--the 30 day experiment

Gratitude is a powerful tool for change and it is available to you in every moment of your life.


Last night I spoke to about 40 women at a networking group. My topic was the Attitude of Gratitude. Katie & I are teaching a teleseminar this month on the Freedom of Gratitude. It seems that the topic of Gratitude is in the air this month—and much needed at this time too.

Yesterday morning while preparing for my talk, I was guided to spend minutes sitting in gratitude. No asking for anything, no writing in a journal, no ‘doing’. Just 10 minutes of being grateful for what I already have. What an experience!

Now 90% of my life is amazing and running smoothly. That leaves 10% just not where I want to be. What I didn't realize until I sat in gratitude for 10 minutes that the past several months I was so focused on the 10% that wasn't working that I forgot about being thankful for the 90% that IS wonderful! Worry & fear wil do that to you--make you forget everything but the loss, the disappointment, the lack!

Within just a few minutes I felt such incredible warmth spread through my body & my heart opening in ways it never did before. As I became aware of my old negative thinking, it began shifting and changing—remember no ‘doing’ just ‘being’.

Suddenly I was shown every situation, time, event in my life where I had ALWAYS gotten what I needed and asked for. I mean EVERY time. I also realized that the limitations and trials that came with each opportunity were of my own making.

Even when I was receiving everything that I asked for—my negativity was limiting my experience. Everything showed up according to what I expected and what I allowed.

Wow! Talk about a total shift in consciousness and emotional healing! I view my past completely differently now. My whole life has opened up in new ways---just using the power of gratitude.

SO—I have committed to spending 10 minutes in gratitude for the next 30 days. I’m doing this because the past 2 days have opened me to so much more than I imagined existed.

The experiment is simple—10 minutes a day sitting in gratitude. Doing nothing—no journaling, no commanding—just being present to the presence of gratefulness in your life. That’s it. 10 minutes a day for 30 days. Come join me!

Every day I will share with you my experiences from my 10 minutes of gratitude. Ii'm excited to discover what lies on the other side of 30 days!

In gratitude,

Bonnie

Break your trance of scarcity and breathe again

Break Your Trance of Scarcity First in a series of Brave Woman teleseminars  October 22nd 9:00 am PDT $29

“If struggling was the way to get there, we'd be there by now." Victoria Castle There is no question that scarcity exists.  It is also true that abundance exists as a reality as well.  So the question is – which reality are you currently living?  Are you satisfied with your life or is there something greater that you want to experience? Living in scarcity is living in a trance that squeezes the joy of life right out of you. It eclipses your greatness and stops you short of achieving your heart’s desire. It is a very real experience—and it is easily broken!  Like any trance state you can wake up from it.  All you need are a few simple tools -- which you get in this teleseminar. When you hold a belief in ‘not-enoughness’ you are stuck in patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviors that run counter to what you really want in life. We all live in a trance of our own creation.  Old habits and automatic reactions become hard-wired into your neurology and then you find yourself caught in a web of what you don’t want but not sure how to break free. There IS Life on the other side of the trance.  A life filled with love, abundance, great health, fulfillment, joy and success.  But first you must wake up from your current trance. This teleseminar show you exactly HOW to wake up and stay awake! Sign me up!   Your Trance of Scarcity is a story you learned to tell yourself at a young age about the reality of life. “I’m not enough. There is never enough. It’s too hard. Nobody cares.  Settle for less. I’m not worthy, deserving, valuable.”  It becomes your way of living, your day-to-day reality, directing your actions according to unconscious programming.  What you expect to show up in your life—does.  Beliefs of lack, struggle, and separation begin to define your reality and you forget to question what is true. But—and here is the key to waking from your trance—when you feel stuck in a never ending cycle of lack or trapped with nowhere to turn questioning your personal reality is a good thing! Being fully present in your life breaks the trance and opens you to new choices and new experiences.  Breaking the trance of scarcity wakes you up—and keeps you awake. In this teleseminar you learn to:  Break your trance of scarcity Be fully present in your life Clear blocks that keep you trapped Quickly transform your life with simple tools Embody a state of abundance To embody abundance means to live in a state of fullness and flow, being open to receiving and having different than you have now. You do all that and much more in this Brave Woman teleseminar: Break Your Trance of Scarcity Break free of the fears, dead-ends and frustrations of your life now! October 22nd 9:00 am PDT $29 Register Now! Take this Journey of Courage with other women wanting what you want—to live an Authentic Life as the Brave Woman that you are.    As always, this teleseminar includes intensive belief work along with a special meditation to enhance and integrate your healing. Upon registration you will receive a handout with a brief exercise.  Completing this exercise before the teleseminar will greatly enhance your healing experience. Can’t attend live? No worries!  This teleseminar will be recorded and the free replay made available to you the next day. We are excited to see you there! Bonnie & Katie

My mother, my Self

I was watching a tv show earlier today and heard something that struck me as really profound—at least for me and my relationship with my mother.

Mothers are responsible for us being here.  Like a bus they get us here.  The problem we run into is that we often spend our life trying to get back on the bus rather than living our own lives.

Now this comment was made talking about all of us—men & women alike.  But it got me to thinking about women and the relationship we’ve had with our mothers.  How in my life was I trying to ‘get back on the bus’, meaning living either my mother’s life or the life my mother trained me to have?

It didn’t take long to uncover that parts of me were still trying to live my mother’s expectations of what a ‘good’ wife, mother and woman is.  Growing up in the 50s & 60s with a mother who gave up all of who she was & was seriously depressed most of my life and a father who took a dim view on any female being an independent thinker, I learned that to be considered

‘good & proper’ as my mother put it, I must always put myself last no matter what I had to give up or how miserable I was.

I learned that ‘good’ women didn’t work, stayed emotionally & financially dependent upon the man, and that doing anything else was ‘bad’ and bad things happened to ‘bad’ women.  Because I grew up with an Italian father it was called the Madonna/Whore thing.  If you conformed to what a good woman was then you were a Madonna—pure, but helpless with no thought for yourself.  Anything else left you with just being the Whore…and we all know what society thinks of whores.  To this day I still cringe when I see or hear that word, but words have no more power to harm than we give them.  So I take back the power to live my own life on my own terms--and still be loved, accepted and successful as my Self.

Interesting dilemma that has put me in over my adult years.  And I was surprised to find that still part of my core identity even with all the healing work I’ve done over the years.  Yet, there it was—staring me right in the face and asking me what I was going to do about it.  Keep it and continue on the path I’m on or stand up as the Brave Woman that I know I am and say

No Way!  That is NOT me!

So I took some time to figure out what I wanted to believe about myself as a woman and about my life and commanded the changes.  That old feeling of conflict within no longer holds the power over my life.  Yes, I still feel some charge around that—and why wouldn’t I?  It was my early training and became an unconscious part of my identity as a woman.  So, yes, there is still

more healing work to do around it.  But the important part is that—now I see it and have looked that lie straight in the face and said—THIS is who I really am and THIS is how I live my life now.  I again awaken the Brave Woman that lies within and invite her to step forth and be engaged in my life.

So—how are you still trying to get back on that ‘bus’?

How are you living from an old, out-dated belief system that has never really been you?

And what do you want instead?

I witness your courage and your Brave Woman Within,

Bonnie

Breathing into your Brave Woman soul

To awaken and nurture that Brave Woman that lies within you, spend a few moments every day just being with her as you would your best friend.

As you invite her to be more active in your life, you will be amazed at the changes you notice within yourself and within others around you.

So your Brave Woman mantra for today is:

Breathe and be Whole in the joy of being You.

The Race

It's not that you fall, because you will.  It is that you get up again and keep on going.

A true story about a Brave Woman--her fall, her striving and her triumph.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM5A1K6TxxM&feature=youtu.be

Falling Out of Love with My Drama

Falling Out of Love with My Drama

I have been fortunate to study with some of the most amazing teachers over the decades, and all of them have talked about letting go of the drama in your life.

It took me awhile to truly let go of it all and learn to live in the present, to be present with my own life and with everyone in it.

I found that I took myself through several steps to get to the Freedom I desired:

Step 1- Forgiveness

In order to start the clearing out process I realized that forgiveness was the key that would open the lock to all else that was within. Even though I knew better, it was still easy to get caught up in the idea that by forgiving the person, I was approving the act. And also that forgiveness was for the other person when it is really always for us and our own inner peace. Once I got myself past those old mind-sets, it was all downhill from there – simply a process of letting go.

Step 2 – My History

How many of us are ‘married’ to our stories. It is easy to believe that if we give up our ‘story’ we will no longer be ourselves and we will never be able to rectify what has happened and create something new. The truth is, it is your stories that keep you stuck and interfere with your capacity to create the new life you want. Once you choose to create what you want instead of what you have, you have no need for what was.

Step 3 – My Future

Finally I got to the point of looking ‘forward’ even though I am aware from quantum physics that there is no time – just ask Einstein.  For me this was sort of a way station. It was a place I lived for a while until I really understood that my future is right now. It was useful in the sense that at least I had separated out from my past.

Step 4 – My Now

This is where I want to live for the duration.  Staying in the present is so much more interesting than you might ever imagine. This is where your greater capacity lives and this is where your joy resides

In the present you are always fresh, new and available to every idea, opportunity and resource that your world is offering to you.

I wouldn’t choose to live anywhere else.

Love and blessings, Katie