I let go of a few connections on Facebook today.  It was time.

While I love the opportunity to connect with old and new friends alike, there were a few connections that just didn’t feel good.  I reluctantly accepted some connections as a sign that I had “grown” and decided to continue a few because I didn’t want to “appear” bitter.

Whatever.

As I was doing my morning pages (a writing ritual in which I dump the junk so I can actually think), I became very angry about some of these connections.  But instead of being all “adult”, I just sat with it.  I pissed, moaned, cursed, shouted (all on paper) and allowed my feelings the space they had so desperately needed.

When the violent vomit session was over, I felt better.  I was surprised that I still held such crap, but now it was gone.  And then it became clear to me to CUT THEM LOOSE.

NOT because I was still angry.

NOT because I was being vindictive or childish.

NOT because suddenly I was “over” it.

It was because I could clearly see that the connections did not serve me in this new place.

When I thought of those people, I could smile.  Even be grateful for their place in my life.

And I could see that my energetic ties to them no longer felt good.  They didn’t inspire me.  They didn’t lift me up.   They simply no longer resonated with the person that I AM..today.

So, I cut them loose.  With love in my heart and gratitude on my lips.

It’s clear that if you know me or read this blog, I have a hard time letting go.   (you think?)  I understand now that letting go doesn’t have to be done with anger, bitterness, or even a reason.  You KNOW when something no longer serves you. (don’t you?)

Letting go doesn’t make you a bad person.

Just because you’ve invested time, money, love and energy into something doesn’t mean it has to last forever.  Change is the only constant, people.  EVERY moment is different than the last.  YOU are different person today than you were yesterday.

Hopefully, you’ve grown.  And sometimes that means that you’ve “outgrown” certain people, places and things.

What in your life no longer inspires you?

What do you still keep around that is taking your energy and not providing any return on that investment? (No,  not in a “what have you done for me lately?” way, but in a “you make me feel like dancin’” sort of way)

I invite you to love yourself enough today to CUT IT LOOSE.  (And yes, I realize that may include me.)

You inspire me!

Lisa

Tonight while flipping channels, I made the decision to listen to the ABC Nightly News. I do my best to avoid what passes for news these days. At it’s “best”, it’s simply another medium to program your thinking. It doesn’t let you decide what to think, it tells you. Call me a Cronkite-era baby, but hey, at least he considered me intelligent enough to make my own decisions.

At it’s worst, it’s an over-glorified gossip column. What was the 2nd story of the day: The Tiger Woods car accident saga. Are you kidding me? What part of that story is actually relevant to my life or even news worthy?

I only continued to watch because I was hoping to hear something about the economic drama in Dubai but was also “hooked” in by a story about one of my favorite authors, Dr. Wayne Dyer.

While I didn’t get the goods on what’s up in Dubai, I did get clear on the fact that the so-called journalist believed that what Dr. Dyer teaches (along with others like him) is just a bunch of crap and that he’s gotten rich off of it.

But I stayed with it.

You see, Dr. Dyer has been diagnosed with cancer. What became clear (to me) was that the “journalist” wanted to point out the flaw in Dr. Dyer’s teaching that thinking positively can attract wonderful things into your life. Obviously, if Dr. Dyer has developed cancer, one must conclude by his teachings, that his thoughts created it.

And why would any one create cancer?

Why indeed.

I read Dr. Dyer’s first book when I was 9 years old. I thought “Your Erroneous Zones” was a “dirty” book and I was going to sneak and read it and be a “naughty” girl. The book wasn’t anything of the kind and it started me on path of thinking beyond what I’d been taught. I would veer off course severely, but life would bring me back to his simple teachings. I don’t own every book he’s written, but I do have dreams that he will write the foreword of my book. He’s been a great inspiration.

So, tonight as I listened (quite superficially) to the reporter’s questions of Dr. Dyer, I began to think about the quote from Shakespeare’s Hamlet:

…for there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

[William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act II, Scene 2]

You see, the reporter’s point was that Dr. Dyer must be a fraud because he has attracted something “bad.”

But who says cancer is bad?

Every cancer survivor I have ever met tells me that their cancer was “the best thing that ever happened” to them.  Huh?  I always walk away from those conversations dazed and confused because I have seen the destruction cancer causes to a person and the pain those around them endure watching their loved one suffer.

Cancer is UGLY.   Of course, it’s BAD, Lisa.

I began to think about most people’s perception that attracting a million dollars into their lives would be a “good” thing.  But what if after getting that million dollars, your entire family was murdered because someone else wanted you to give up that money?  Would you see that windfall now as a “good” thing?

Let’s consider Dr. Dyer’s diagnosis.   What if from this cancer, he develops a closer relationship with his kids and grandkids?  What if he is gifted with a vision that outlines a cure for AIDS?  We have no idea what will come from this, so we are not really in a position to call it “good” or “bad.”   I believe Dr. Dyer will see the experience as a gift from Source and think and act accordingly.  This will keep him in the flow and totally aligned with Source.  I would guess that if you can manage that connection, it doesn’t matter what’s going on “out there”.  You can find total peace and harmony with what “is”, no matter what “it” is.

That’s flow.

And that’s the experience we came for.  That’s what this game is all about.

So to the critics of your thoughts create reality, I say you just don’t get it…yet.  We don’t attract circumstances, per se with our thoughts.  We attract experiences. If love is what we want to experience, sometimes the circumstances we get is heartbreak.  As f’d up as that might seem, when you learn to love deeply, unconditionally, you don’t question “how” you got there and what you “went through” to experience it.  You savor and appreciate the feeling, which is what you really wanted to attract all along.

I believe that “positive” thinking will allow your experiences to be less painful, but it will not necessarily stop the painful ones from showing up.  Those experiences allow us to re-focus and reconnect with who we say we want to be.  They strengthen our resolve to BE that person.

I Get it Now.

Thank you, Dr. Dyer, for once again helping to know something through my own experience.  Because of this story and your diagnosis, I finally understand that quote from Hamlet.  I finally “get” that I can choose how I think about any event in my life without judging it as good or bad, right or wrong.   What a huge gift to finally understand and live, “go with the flow.”

Best of all,  I can finally write the last chapter of my book, not surprisingly titled, “I Get it Now.”

How perfect.

Be well.  Stay in flow.

“There comes a time when you have to stand up and shout:  This is me damn it! I look the way I look, think the way I think, feel the way I feel, love the way I love! I am a whole complex package. Take me… or leave me. Accept me – or walk away! Do not try to make me feel like less of a person, just because I don’t fit your idea of who I should be and don’t try to change me to fit your mold. If I need to change, I alone will make that decision.

When you are strong enough to love yourself 100%, good and bad – you will be amazed at the opportunities that life presents you.”

Copyright © 2000 Stacey Charter

Today I took the bold step of hiring a writing coach and committing to finishing my 1st book by the end of the year.  I’m excited and quite frankly have grown sick and damn tired of playing small.  How do people go on year after year pretending to be something that they are NOT?

I’m loud, opinionated, passionate, angry, funny, kind, sensitive and highly intuitive.  I am who I am, people.  F*** YOU if you can’t take it.

I no longer require or desire your approval.  As the song goes, “It’s MY Life.”

I want more people to get pissed off enough at mediocrity to live bigger, BOLDER lives.  Yes, people are not going to like you.  Friends, even family will try to hold you back or simply walk away.

You can survive it.  Trust me.  Been there.  Done that.

Deep inside you is a dream that you’ve buried for a long time.  Afraid to bring it out into the light, because someone or lots of “someones” told you that you weren’t good enough, smart enough, or that your dream was not realistic.  Their discouragement had no end.

And you listened.

Took the easy route.  Called it being “practical.

Whatever.

Piss on ‘em.  It’s YOUR TIME.

If not now, when?

Over the next several weeks, I’ll be sharing my journey into the book writing process and giving you glimpses into my new coaching program, My Life, By Design, that I will be launching in January 2010.  I’m committing myself and my company to the personal and economic empowerment of women through creative expression.

I believe that life is a creative process and the life of your dreams is one that you consciously design.

I can’t accept another woman hiding behind fear of rejection, failure, success or believing the lie that she is not worthy of her heart’s desire.

It’s never to late to love yourself enough to create an extraordinary life.

Join me.

Here’s to you AND me!

One of the greatest blessings I received when I left my corporate career in 2005, was KNOWING that I had made in difference in the lives of many people.

I don’t say that to stroke my ego. Time and time again, I would hear it, but my last day in the office, I KNEW it.

I realized then that many people live their lives not ever really knowing deep down whether or not their lives had meaning or actually MATTERED.

Trust me…your life has meaning.

YOU matter. YOU have made a difference. Probably in ways you don’t even realize.

This weekend, I spent hours feeling sorry for myself. I was visiting my hubby who works out of town and only comes home on the weekend. This weekend, however, he was on mandatory overtime, working 15 1/2 hours on Saturday and another 12 today. I was sad because this was not the “dream” I had for my life at 44. I was sad because I have few friends, sad because so many people I have loved did not feel the same, sad because I believe I have so little to show for the time I have spent on this planet.

Pathetic, I know. But honest.

And then I opened my email to a blog comment that left me stunned. SOMEONE had actually missed my writing. Huh?? My little private blog, the blog I put up for my own healing, was being read and appreciated and now missed.

I was stunned.

I have heard from many people that something about the way I write feels good to them. I’m flattered, but frankly, I don’t really believe them. (How rude of me to call them a liar, huh?) I write to keep from losing my mind. I write because when I don’t, I feel like I may actually explode.

It floors me that it could provide value to someone else. (And thank you Cynthia, for your loving gesture.)

I had forgotten this one gem: When you SHOW up, miracles happen for yourself and others.

So, I am back. And I will keep writing.

Because, writing soothes my soul and helps me reconnect to the part of me that only speaks truth.

That part that knows we are all connected.

That part of me that knows that in my healing, I contribute to the healing of others.

I will keep writing because YOU matter and I am grateful that you have touched my life.

Thank you.

With much love & gratitude,

Lisa

Friday I got fired.

After a year and a half of doing work I absolutely hated (with a client I adored), I made a mistake and it cost me 90% of my income.

Her decision did not come as a shock.  In fact, not 2 hours before it happened, I told my mastermind group that it would.  And the night before, when the incident happened, I said, “I’m done.”

Of course, that didn’t make it any easier to hear.  Yet I know, the pain I have been processing is my ego acting out in fear.  “What now?”

The truth is…it’s the best thing that could I happened.

Today, for the first time in a very long time, I felt compelled to blog. I mean, I just had to share. Writing gives me a peace that is hard to describe.  Yet I had stopped doing it because I was too busy.

Today, I woke up with a sense of possibility. Not dread.  Not overwhelm.  P-O-S-S-I-B-I-L-I-T-Y.

Today, I gave thanks (genuine, feel-it-in-my-bones, thanks) for my life and everything in it.

In other words, I realized that I am happy the shit is over.

The work I was doing was not inspiring.  I did not jump out of bed every day with anticipation to do it.  It was over my head, way beyond my capabilities and just plain, frustrating.

I never pretended to excel at administrative work.  Yet, when people actually started paying for it, I just went with it.  I was honest…I told them my background.  Invariably, I would always make a mistake or miss a deadline and yet they would stay and keep paying.

So, I just kept trying harder.  Taking more classes.  If I knew more, I’d get better, right?

Sound familiar?

I, like many people who still work in Corporate America, was pouring time, energy and money into my WEAKNESSES,  instead of my STRENGTHS.

I am a COACH.  And a damn good one.

I can help you move from where you are, to where you want to be in POWERFUL ways.

I see YOUR greatness even when you can’t.  I am your biggest fan, until you become your own.

THAT’S what I am good at.  THAT’S who I “be”–without effort or struggle.  It’s my natural state.  And Friday, I was given the gift of time and space to reconnect with that gift and decide how I want to be of service in the world.

Getting fired was…The BEST THING EVER.