Tag Archives: texas women’s conference

A little help from my friends

Sometimes staying positive and upbeat gets difficult and there are days it can feel downright impossible. That’s when you turn to inspiration.  You can boost your seratonin, your mood, and your energy by feeding your brain and your environment with things that make you feel good. Maybe for you it is:

  • Talking with good friends
  • A long, bubble bath
  • Going for a hike, or
  • Reading a good book

Three things that are scientifically proven to help our state of being are:

  1. Getting out into nature; especially long walks with your gaze far in the distance.

  2. Hugs and human contact.

  3. Reading or listening to inspiring books or talks.

The latter can be found in your bookstore, on podcasts, or books on tape, as well as recordings of great seminars. Find a few favorites to use over and over again, as well as look for new information. Repition can ingrain the important ideas into your way of thinking that a fast, once-over reading can never do. And let’s face it, all of us have plenty of negative self-talk rattling around in our brain that can use replacing.

This fall the Texas Women’s Conference was again a powerhouse of ideas and inspiration. All the sessions are available by podcast, and there are still some free trainings that some of the speakers are providing.

Have fun listening to these and exploring the things that inspire you.

 

How Do You Make Tough Choices?

Each one of us are faced with tough choices at various times in our life.  Most of us come up against the dilemma at least once, wondering whether to take a leap of faith into something that inspires us or play it safe where we are.

When those times happen, what do you do?  How do you make the tough choices in your life? Do you ask people you trust for advice?  Maybe you weigh the risks and try to analyze the potential for success or failure?  Some people make a pro’s and con’s list and evaluate their options that way.

I have learned that I can argue pretty much both sides of everything, so staying in any process that uses my mind as the deciding force leaves me anguished and often paralyzed.  Yet, when I get quiet and turn to my heart, I can FEEL my way to the choices that will best feed my soul and bring me the most happiness.  Any time I have made choices based on this inner guidance, I have found the universe conspiring to make it work out.  When I have made other choices because I “thought they were right”, I was often left struggling to make them work.

I love the way CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien spoke of her keynote address at the recent Texas Women’s Conference.  She encourages us to look beyond next year to a 10-year horizon.  Then she asks, “What do you want to be?  What impact do you want to have? …What do you want to be remembered for?”

Soledad even puts risk in a new perspective as she points out that when you look at your life decisions from the contribution you can make, they no longer appear risky–options like your career moves seem almost incidental to the potential difference you can make on the world, community or even your family.

I encourage you to be bold in your life, think BIG when you dream and really feel into what choices will give you the most joy in their unfoldment.  If you are not stretching, you are probably also not feeling alive.  So stretch a little.  No, stretch a lot!  You will look back and be so glad you did.