Weekly Intention: This week is Spring Break. We are going on a bit of a crazy adventure. I will be spending most of my week in Life Restoration Camp while the boys will be having fun in nature and other adventures without me. We will have some wonderful time together at the beginning and end of the week and hopefully for breakfast in the mornings. I am scared, excited, and of course worried that something will go wrong. But my intention is to be fully present, make the most most of everything. 

Things I want to get Done: 

• There’s nothing I want to do this week except be present. 

This month’s intention is:  Shine Quietly: It’s crucial to take time to reflect. Take this month to reflect on how things are going. Is there anything you need to adjust/change/drop or pick up. It’s ok to shift things. It’s also important to acknowledge what’s working. Take the time to shine some light inward and see what’s going on. I am hoping Life Restoration and this month’s OLW will be great opportunities to shine inward.

Ways to Shine this week:

• One: Bold: Showing up is bold for me. This whole break will be bold.
• Two: Open: Open to receiving all that i can from the camp and all the amazing people there.
• Three: Heal/Nourish: I think this whole week is also about nourishing my soul.

I am looking forward to: the camp of course. and the time with my boys. and the time away.

This week’s challenges: showing up to the unknown. making sure the rest of my family is ok while i’m gone.

Top Goals:

• Work: none.
• Personal: listen, learn, be present.
• Family: pay attention whenever i can.

I will focus on my core desires (bold, mindful, nourish, love) by: making the very best of this incredible opportunity.

This week, I will say yes to: the camp, being there. making connections.

This week, I will say no to: feeling guilty.

I am worried that: i will let down my family. the camp will not be good in some way. bad news will continue. something will go wrong. i will have ruined spring break. the kids will hate it. on and on.

This week, I want to remember:  that i am so lucky. that life is beautiful.

Weekly Intention: This week is mostly quiet with a challenging Thursday. It’s a combination of mundane tasks like taking David to the dentist and social events like Book Club and meeting a parent and a bunch of work. The intention I want for this week is to be slow. I always run run run and talk fast, move fast, do a lot, etc. There will definitely be some of that running around on Thursday just so I can make it to all my commitments but I still want to slow down as much as I can. I want to listen more than I talk. 

Things I want to get Done: I liked listing some of my big todos last week, so I decided to continue for a while.

• One is to make sure I sleep even more than I did last week. I still feel really tired.
• Two is to book the hotel for our summer and make a decision around whether we add another subtrip.
• Three is to pay the kids’ schools for next year.
• Four is to finish all the Q2 sheets for work. 
• Five is to order all of what David needs for his upcoming trip.
• Six is to keep smiling, keep looking for the good, and keep enjoying myself just the way I am.

This month’s intention is:  Rain or Shine: March is a tough month. You often feel like giving up in March. It feels too long. But it’s not. Keep going, You’re doing great. Remember that the trick is to just show up. Keep showing up. A lot of showing up this week, too. Book Club. Parents from both kids’ schools. To work for meetings. Dentists. Also showing up for my little boy who is sick and needs to stay home from school today.

Ways to Shine this week:

• One: Bold: This week’s bold move will be to show up to hiking on Saturday.
• Two: Open: Open to meeting new people, taking on new challenges.
• Three: Heal/Nourish: I am going to go with exercise this week. I’ve totally stopped it and I would like to restart.

I am looking forward to: book club and book pick night. 

This week’s challenges: thursday starts at D’s school, then i go to N’s school, then I go to work, then I go back to N’s school, and finally I end up at the book store by my house. it will be a looong day.

Top Goals:

• Work: q2 sheets. 
• Personal: booking the rest of our vacation. getting D’s stuff. 
• Family: actually starting a project with the boys.

I will focus on my core desires (bold, mindful, nourish, love) by: trying to be quieter this week. listen more closely.

This week, I will say yes to: taking new chances.

This week, I will say no to: listening to the negative voice inside me which gets triggered more than I’d like.

I am worried that: taxes will not be done on time. thursday will be a disaster. i will miss book club. my knees won’t stop hurting. i will drop the ball on something important. something bad will happen at work. nathaniel won’t get better.

This week, I want to remember:  that i need to focus on what matters most and not let people who don’t matter make it harder for me to be kinder to the people who do matter.

Weekly Intention: Here we are. After Friday’s post, I’ve been sitting and waiting and thinking and wishing inspiration would strike me and I would find a magical path the “shining person” I wish to become. But, of course, there are no shortcuts in life. If you want something different, you have to show up and do the work to get there. 

The wonderful Zewa left a comment asking me: “If you had a client with your personality seeking coaching for your type of “problem”, what would you say, do, think, feel, hear and smell?” Thank you Zewa. I’ve been thinking about this since I read your comment. 

The first thing that came to my mind when I read the question was to ask “what would happen if you let all these thoughts go for a week?” What if, just for a week, I didn’t have to strive so hard? Or even strive at all? What if I loved every piece of myself and was just kind and generous to myself for a little while. What would be possible then? Or even for 24 hours? Could I go 24 hours without all this noise in my head? 

Honestly, I am not sure. I feel like this voice in my head has been there so long, I am not sure I know how to shut it up. Or even diminish its strength. But I love the idea of it.  I know that some people believe turning off the critical voice would make them lethargic. They fear it would kill all the motivation to be/do better. I am not one of those people. I believe that wanting to be/do better is an innate part of me. To be honest, even if it weren’t, so what if I didn’t want to do/be more? What if right here, right now was just good enough? Is that so terrible? 

Anyhow, coming back to the question. If I can’t shut down the voice, is there something else I can do? Can I flood my head with love? With overwhelming positive noise to live alongside the critical one? Maybe the trick is to not shut down the negative voices but to build up the positive voice? Just like turning to generosity to counteract scarcity, maybe the trick for criticism is not engaging with it but building a solid foundation of positivity. 

So here’s an experiment I will be running for the next week: I am going to flood my life with positivity. Specifically:

• I am going to smile pretty much all the time (even if I am not feeling it.)
• I am going to be kind to everyone, including myself.
• I am going to make a list every day of something magical and wonderful about myself. Something that’s uniquely me.
• When I catch myself thinking and saying negative things, I will counteract them with 2x positive ones. 
• I will send kind+loving messages to 3 people in my life every day.
• I will dance/sing loudly for 3 minutes to a song I love every morning.
• When people say kind/nice things to me, I will say thank you and I will write them down.

This is my list. I know that if I do these things, there will be a meaningful change in my days. Let’s see how it feels. 

I was talking to Jake earlier this week about something that frustrated me about David’s school and something the parents did. And he reminded me about a story he’d read that week about how things are not happening to us. These people aren’t out to get me. Their intentions aren’t specific to me. I am choosing to interpret events in a particular way but really events are just happening out in the world and they don’t have anything to do with me. Difficult to explain this in abstract terms but I have a tendency to see myself on the outside of things. So each time something happens that perpetuates this story of how I am different, how I don’t belong, how people don’t want to invite me to places/things, I use it as an opportunity to feed the belief I already have about myself. Even though we’ve talked about such things before, it really resonated with me. I am who I show up in the world as. Everything that happens in my life goes through that filter. I interpret life. And I can choose to interpret it differently. This is such a big part of shining. Not only being the best version of me but also seeing the best versions of others. Reflecting that to them. So let’s see if some of these items above will help me interpret life differently. 

There’s one more thing I plan to do. I will make a list of the life I want for myself. The one based on my values. If everything were to work out exactly how I wish for it to be, what would the days of my life look like. I will write some of this down towards the end of the week when my meetings are quieter and I am back from Seattle.

This month’s intention is:  Rain or Shine: March is a tough month. You often feel like giving up in March. It feels too long. But it’s not. Keep going, You’re doing great. Remember that the trick is to just show up. Keep showing up. I am showing up to Seattle. I am going to show up at David’s school. I am going to show up to my life this week! And I will also show up for my little boy regardless of what news we find out.

Ways to Shine this week:

• One: Bold: I’d like to have honest conversations with my teams in Seattle about the ways in which I can contribute meaningfully. 
• Two: Open: Open to possibility this week. Open to being positive. Being unafraid to be me. What would that even look like? 
• Three: Heal/Nourish: Well working on this more on the psychological side this week.

I am looking forward to: my trip to Seattle. Seeing work friends in person and then being back home.

This week’s challenges: Three day trip to Seattle will be hectic and long. When I am back Thursday will also be long and tricky splitting my time between David’s school and work. But really the biggest part of this week is some important news we find out for Nathaniel, so if you’re the praying kind, please pray for my little one who has his heart set on being able to move to David’s school. He’s been counting down the days and wishing and hoping and I would love for his little heart to soar with good news.

Top Goals:

• Work: spending quality time with each team. using it to get a jumpstart to Q2.
• Personal: all of what i outlined above. 
• Family: create a schedule for spending more time doing projects with the boys and with jake.

I will focus on my core desires (bold, mindful, nourish, love) by: well this week is all about self-love. nourishing my soul. being mindful of my thoughts and bold with the positivity.

This week, I will say yes to: being me, accepting compliments, all things that might make me have fun. 

This week, I will say no to: perpetuating negative beliefs.

I am worried that: oh man, of course i am worried i won’t go through with my plans above or that something will happen to make my trip not go as planned or that i will eat badly, do wrong things, say wrong things, blah blah. but this week i am going to choose to believe that all will be ok and put my focus on that instead.

This week, I want to remember:  that life is short. I am given these precious days and they are mine. I can squander them or I can savor them. I get to choose.  The day will come to an end either way. 

Weekly Intention: Guess what I am going to say? this is an unusual week! haven’t i had only unusual weeks lately?! Well, this week has the potential to go both ways. It comes with two tough long days in the beginning of the week. 3 clients on Wednesday. And then possibly Jury duty on Thursday. If no duty then two trips to David’s school. Just a lot of chaos. And a stressful week at work to top it off. It’s all going to be ok.

This month’s intention is: February was Shine from the Outside In and I did finally buy some makeup!! 🙂 March is Rain or Shine: March is a tough month. You often feel like giving up in March. It feels too long. But it’s not. Keep going, You’re doing great. Remember that the trick is to just show up. Keep showing up. So there you go. Keep showing up is what I am going to do!

Ways to Shine this week:

• One: Bold: Tuesday is going to be a bold day. Work is bold lately all the time!
• Two: Open: Still need to be open to feedback. Open to a crazy week schedule.
• Three: Heal/Nourish: I’d like to rest this week. not sure if it’s possible but I’d really like to.

I am looking forward to: is it terrible if i say I am looking forward to Friday?

This week’s challenges: tuesday. it’s a long day. full of a lot of stress. i also have a tight deadline at work for one thing and i’ll feel better when i am 100% ready.

Top Goals:

• Work: clear email. get some of the dragging todos done. 
• Personal: get back to nourishment, exercise, journaling.
• Family: stop yelling. be patient.

I will focus on my core desires (bold, mindful, nourish, love) by: being in each moment while it’s here. doing my best. working harder.

This week, I will say yes to: having faith.

This week, I will say no to: stressing needlessly. so much is not in my control.

I am worried that: i will get jury duty and it will mean i miss perf deadlines. i will get jury duty and it will mean i can’t take D to the doctor. tuesday will go badly and both David and Nathaniel will be upset. I will mess everything up. I will get jury duty. I will never catch up at work. I will never stop being in pain. I will never get enough rest.

This week, I want to remember: that things always work out. it’s going to be okay.

Weekly Intention: This week has a lot of work trips. Three of the five days, I will be going to work. I need to come up with a plan for journaling and exercise to ensure that I don’t stay off the schedule now that I am back in town. I also need to make sure to get some extra rest to make up for the jet lag I feel. I have one week of full, crazy work and then next week is Winter Break which will be a mix of work and vacation so I really need to use this week to get back into my routine or it will just be easy to completely fall off. My plan is to get a bunch of work done and then to sit with my kids and be intentional about how we plan to spend our time this year.

This month’s intention is: Shine from the Outside In: It might seem counter-intuitive but sometimes it helps to start with the outside. Take care of your body, your skin, your teeth. Dress in a way that makes you feel good. Show up and look the part. I haven’t been focusing on this at all. I would love to buy some clothes but honestly I don’t have the energy at the moment so I’d like to think smaller maybe. Like makeup I can buy/wear. Maybe that can be my focus this week.

Ways to Shine this week:

• One: Bold: I have a bunch of new work events and goals this week. They will require me to be bold.
• Two: Open:  I have a lunch with David’s school’s president tomorrow. And then movies with a lot of women. Both will require being open.  (and bold to be honest.)
• Three: Heal/Nourish: I’d like to go back to longer journaling. And of course back to 7minute. I also would like to sleep as much as possible this week. Back to eating fresh only.

I am looking forward to: seeing a lot of friends tomorrow.

This week’s challenges: jet lag. a lot of trips to work and late nights.

Top Goals:

• Work: create the 3 other sheets i would like. do round two. ask for what i need.
• Personal:  journaling. exercise. sleep. recover.
• Family: find a better equilibrium/plan at home. with kids. with free time.

I will focus on my core desires (bold, mindful, nourish, love) by: trying to back to some sort of routine this week. even if just for a week.

This week, I will say yes to: asking the hard/uncomfortable questions.

This week, I will say no to: anything but being me. i am going to show up as me. do my best and be present.

I am worried that: work won’t get done. i will continue to be exhausted and jet lagged. lunch will not be worth it. movies will feel disastrous. i will never catch up at work. i won’t exercise. i won’t journal. i won’t book LA or what I want for spring break. i will be impatient with my kids.

This week, I want to remember:  that it’s ok to take things one at a time. that it will all work out because things always do eventually.

Weekly Intention: I’d say this is a crazy week but I’m learning that there is no such thing. Every week is different and unusual in its own way. So there’s no such thing as a crazy week. Every day is full, sweet and I am grateful to have it. So anyhow, this week, I get to go to David’s school three times. I get to spend Monday and Friday with David. I get to have two client calls. A trip to work and a trip to the hairdresser. A ton of work, of course. And, on Saturday, if all goes well, I am flying to Sydney once again for work. But everything is for a good cause. All of these are because my life is full and layered and rich and I am so grateful. My intention this week is to pay attention to this rich and layered life I have. To notice and appreciate and live the moments. All the moment. School, life, work, family, alone time, friends, all of it. I want to pay attention. I want to be here, now, with all of the moments. Not wishing I were somewhere else, not worrying, stressing, hoping for something else. Being here, now. I also want to pay a bit of extra attention to my boys since I will be gone next week.

This month’s intention is: January is almost over so I’ll go with February’s intention: Shine from the Outside In: It might seem counter-intuitive but sometimes it helps to start with the outside. Take care of your body, your skin, your teeth. Dress in a way that makes you feel good. Show up and look the part. So I will spend some time this week thinking about what this means for me.

Ways to Shine this week:

• One: Bold: I don’t think I will have time this week but I would like to think about clothes this week. See what bold moves I can make there.
• Two: Open:  I haven’t been that great at connecting with friends. I have two intentions this week. One is to email several friends to ask to join in on some of the work they do and two is to see if I can have lunch with at least one friend this week but being that I am going to Sydney, I would like to focus on my family this week.
• Three: Heal/Nourish: I’ve journaled a bit this week but not enough, I also dropped the traditional 7min exercise I was doing because of skiing, I’d like to get back on the wagon for both of those.

I am looking forward to: my flight to sydney. it’s long but also relaxing. also to david’s conference tomorrow. and to digging into some data I’ve been collecting at work.

This week’s challenges: a long friday this week and no weekend since i will be on the airplane. not ideal but still wonderful.

Top Goals:

• Work: second round of a routine i just started. a presentation i have to give. decoding all the data i’ve been collecting.
• Personal:  a bit more art. some personal time. journaling.
• Family: do better with the food. spend time with my boys. celebrate david.

I will focus on my core desires (bold, mindful, nourish, love) by: slowing down this week. i want to spend time being a bit more mindful. can i do this?

This week, I will say yes to: a new structure for journaling. i don’t have any of my mornings at home this week so I will have to temporarily create a different structure for exercise and journaling.

This week, I will say no to: rushing, impatience, judgment (self and others.) fear.

I am worried that: I will not get enough done. i want to do two big projects at work before I am back from Sydney. I am not sure i can. I am worried that I will backslide on the eating and not exercise. I am worried about my trip to Sydney of course. I am worried it will not be enough or it will be too much. Or that the kids or Jake will not be ok. Or that it will not have been worth it. Some of these will take two weeks to find out. I am also worried I won’t get enough downtime.

This week, I want to remember: that life is passing me by as I try to figure out all these things. that while trying to improve is essential to my soul and who i am, it is also ok to rest and enjoy. i need to do both.