How are you doing?  2020 has been an interesting year, wouldn't you agree?

I did something this year that I thought that I would never do.

I signed up for a group coaching membership.  Yep, I did.  The past few years have been difficult and I have really been struggling with trying to figure it all out.  So I had to try something.  And in my typical fashion I had to do something that was somewhat anonymous.  The group is big enough that you can attend and not be seen, but you get all of the teaching.  And this works perfectly for me, and I have been learning a lot.  I am so thankful that I put aside my preconceived ideals and make this investment in myself.  

What could have been a very difficult year - that continued to spiral downward, has become a year of healing that I am so thankful for.

​Are you taking time to invest in you?  It is really important that you do.  I carried some baggage around for far too long, and I wasn't taking care of my health - I just kind of let everything go.  This is not a good place to live your life.

Making active choices to live intentionally is where we all need to be.

I have made a variety of changes in my life and part of it includes the environment that I live in and how I start my day.  I am going to share a bit of that with you.

I have been following Yoga with Adriene on YouTube for years.  I am not a big fan of public displays of exercise, I like the comfort of my own home.  I start my diffuser with a relaxing scent, play some relaxing music (which for me is jazz), lay down my yoga mat and spend 30 minutes relaxing and stretching.  It is an amazing way to start my day. 

​Now that I am working from home I have more time in the mornings because I no longer have the commute.  Yoga helps clear my mind, stretches out the muscles that ache from the night (which seem to be increasing year by year) and gets me motivated to take on my day!

Yoga for Writers is a favourite of mine.  I like the stretching with a little bit of core.

Taking the time to invest in my mental wellness has so important.  

I created the My Journey journal years ago and it keeps evolving and become something that is a huge part of my life.  It is my weekly check in with myself and has become a place where I can see my journey unfold and give myself more grace in my journey.

If you are interested in checking it out for yourself all you have to do it CLICK HERE to download your free journal.

2020 is year that I will always remember and I am thankful that I used this time as a positive experience.  It is so easy to get sucked into a negative environment - and it happens.  But you don't have to stay there.  You get to choose, I really hope that you will join me as we choose to end 2020 well.

2019 has been a year.......

After writing about my journey in 2018 ​I thought it was important to take some time to think about my journey in 2019.

I find too often that I let my experiences control my life and I forget that I don't have to allow that to happen.  2018 threw me for a big loop and I allowed it to get out of control.  It took a trip to the ER in September for me to push pause, slow down and really take a look at my path and current direction of my choices.

I have always enjoyed journaling and I created a weekly journal that I can use as a form of reflection and personal guidance.  It has been a good exercise for me, I am not always dedicated to it, but every time I find my way back to that journal I am thankful for the time and energy that I choose to give to it.
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So what has my 2019 journey taught me?  

I have learned to focus on what is really important to me. 

My family is so important. I didn't quite realize this until I saw the breakdown and struggle of families in our circle of friends.  My job is my job, it doesn't come before time with my family.  I will dedicate to it what I need to in order to fulfill the requirements, but I will not give it more than it needs.  Too often I was answering emails and phone calls at home during my "family time".  I do not need to be a member of several boards and committees.  I took the emails off my phone, I put my phone away when I come home and I choose to be present with my family when I am home.  My daughters are in grades 11 & 12, I don't have a lot of time with them while they are living at home.  A new reality of parenting is right around the corner, I am going to enjoy this time and be the Mom they need right now in this time of their lives.  This is a decision that I will never regret, I believe that by building into this time now will only further our relationship after they go out into the world.

Not only am I building into my daughters but also my husband as well.  How often I see couples struggling after their children have moved out.  Years are spent building into our children, while our marriages have been set to coast and then when the children are gone building their own lives we don't know how to relate to our spouse.  Then we feel like our marriage is breaking down - when in reality it has been breaking down for years because you haven't been building into it.

My family is built on my relationship with my husband.  We choose to be married to each other and build a life together and watch it grow and flourish, then we added our daughters to that relationship so that it can become fuller.  How could I choose to neglect that which my life is built upon?

I have named my golf set "Peg" and my husband and I have found a great little par 3 course where we can go for a nice walk and hit a few golf balls - hopefully in the direction of the hole 😁 and we have a chance to spend 90 minutes talking and challenging ourselves each game.  I always keep score, not to compete with each other but to see how we are doing from game to game, and I set the rule that we can never score higher than a 6 on a hole, I just give us a 6+. 😉

Priorities are important and we need to make sure that they are what fill up our lives.  So many little things and things that are not necessary can start to invade but we have a choice.  My family is important, they will be the ones that I am thinking about on my death bed.  They are the ones that I think about when I fall asleep at night and when I wake up in the morning.  They are priority.

I also know that to be what I need to be for them, means that I have to make myself a priority as well. I will share more about that in my next post, in this year of journaling ​​I am going to be dealing with a lot of heart healing, purpose searching and goal making. ​ You can find out more about that in my next post.

I love teaching journaling workshops.  I basically tell everyone to throw out any idea that they have about journaling and start fresh.  

There are so many different opportunities in journaling, one of them is to practice gratitude.  Studies show that by doing this simple exercise daily you will have more alertness, enthusiasm, optimism, attentiveness, energy, more motivated, likeable, generous, helpful, more likely to volunteer and give back.

I think that those are all qualities that we would appreciate being described as - so my challenge for you is for the 31 days in August to share three things that you are grateful for.  I even created a printable that you can print off for yourself to be accountable for the next month.  Think about how beneficial this will be for you, your marriage and your family.  Print off a few copies and share them with your children, your friends, even your husband and grow together on this journey of creating a grateful heart and life.

Life is full of chaos and noise. It has gotten to the point where we are afraid of quiet.

Whenever there is quiet our thoughts take over and those thoughts can scared us sometimes. So we keep adding to our lives. 

Tonight our daughters were working on homework assignment, my husband was at band practice so I finished up the dishes and thought I would go and sit down and rest for a few minutes. While I was sitting down to relax I turned on the TV to watch the news, then I thought that I hadn't read the paper today. When I finished the paper I picked up my cell phone and started to play a game on it. When all of a sudden I realized what I was doing. I had planned to sit down and relax for a few minutes and now I was bombarding my brain into overload.

Why do we willingly do this to ourselves?

It is time my friends, to embrace quietness and stillness and learn to just 'Be'.

It takes time and practice, it will not be easy for me - I can tell you that! But it is something that I know I need to do. The first step I believe is to find a place where you can find quiet. Also, if you have children that would include a time as well. I have friends who get up at obscene hours in the morning just to guarantee their quiet time. I am not a morning person. I get up because of necessity to take care of my family and get ready for work. I like dusk, the girls have quieted down for the night and I have time to think about my activities of the day - the conversations that took place - and what did I learn today?

Use those precious moments during your day to pause and "Be". I am told that your quality of life will increase dramatically. Life throws so much at you each day - I want to be able to treasure those moments of silence and solitude, and use them to become a better wife, mother and friend.

Anyone want to join me on this journey? I am going to need all the encouragement I can get! 

My husband is always reminding me to write things down.  I tend to have millions ideas and thoughts running through my head continuously.  Sometimes I can’t sleep because I am so excited about the things that are going through my head. 

My husband told me that he heard a story about Albert Einstein and how he would write everything down. Anything that  came to mind he would write down.  He had many journals of thoughts and ideas that he kept record of.  He did even memorize his phone number, if he needed it he knew where he wrote it down and he could look it up.

Why did he do this?

Because when you write down all the things that are running through your mind it opens your mind to new ideas and thoughts!

No wonder Einstein is known as a brilliant man!  

So this is my new mission, I want to keep my mind open to new ideas and thoughts.  I want to have the space to be creative and to give time and energy to the things in life that matter, not what I perceive as demanding my time.