One of my coaching colleagues, Elle Swan, wrote this message on her newsletter yesterday. She writes about what I have also experienced – but I want you to hear it from HER:

Before I started living vibrantly, my life was empty and sad.

Be Fit, Live Rich, and Have a Vibrant Day!

Be sure to visit Elle Swan at ElleSwan.com

As I also continue to write about living a passionate life – especially AFTER you turn 65 – visit my new blog: agelesssexy.blogspot.com

Stay tuned for further information about my upcoming webinars, teleseminars and workshops on living with passion. In the meantime, smile… See? You can do it!

Blessings and smiles,
Sheila

Everyday, I receive wonderful “reminder” messages from my friend and mentor, Neale Donald Walsch, bestselling author of the Conversations with God books. I recently received one which reminded me that I am the creator of my tomorrow, and the best way to ensure that my “tomorrow” is what I want, that I owe it to myself to IMAGINE what it is I want my tomorrow to look like.

Neale says: “…imagination is your greatest gift. Do not be afraid to use it. Imagine yourself as being okay right now. Totally okay. Imagine yourself as Whole, Complete, and Perfect. With nothing to change, nothing to improve. Imagine your heart as being open again, your life as if it were starting over in the most important ways. Can you imagine this? Then you have just created Tomorrow.”

I recently had a client in my office who is struggling to reconnect with her husband and create a loving and intimate relationship with her life partner of nearly 30 years. Her lifelong issue has been a challenge in loving herself. What I know is that until you can fall madly and wildly in love yourself, you cannot expect someone else to do so – not really. As Don Miguel Ruiz reminds us all in his wonderfully wise little book about love (The Mastery of Love) , until you can love yourself, you cannot love someone else. Until you can love YOU, every relationship that pretends to be love is simply a business deal that says “if you love me, maybe I can feel better about me and therefore love you”. That just doesn’t work, because there is no balance in the relationship. The “other person” always has the power; the one who needs to be acknowledged, validated and appreciated by the other is forever looking at the “other” to complete them. It is forever a business transaction. It is not love.

So I gave my client an exercise and asked her to “try it on” just for the exercise of it: I wanted her to repeat a specific statement for three minutes of silent contemplation, and then we would talk about what came up for her after the exercise. The statement I asked her to silently repeat to herself throughout the three minutes was “my life is PERFECT just as it is…” She immediately began to argue with me about the word “perfect”. She protested: “but my life IS NOT PERFECT!” I suggested that she be willing to be open to a re-definition of the word “perfect” and to simply use her imagination, keeping her mind open during the three-minute exercise.

“I can’t do it!” she protested. She was stuck on the word “perfect”… I repeated the invitation: “just imagine for the next three minutes what it would be like if you could see everything in your life right now as perfect…Just imagine it!” She continued to argue. She wanted to change the word “perfect” to “acceptable”. I did not budge in my guidance for the exercise. “Just for the next few minutes, I’m asking you to imagine that everything is perfect…” She remained defiant and flustered. Being willing to simply imagine something previously unthinkable became a major obstacle.

She reluctantly completed the exercise with me. After the three minutes of silence, she continued to argue about the word “perfect”. I used her intensity as an opportunity to observe her attachment to her “imperfect” life…

Before she left my office, I invited her to consider the possibility that every aspect of her life right now which is a source of challenge and/or upset is in fact some form of benefit and blessing…that there is a form of “perfection” in the adversities in our lives. Although she was really struggling with that notion, she agrees to consider that thought.

So, what about you? Have you considered the possibility that whatever difficulties you are facing today may actually be one of your greatest blessings – you may not see that today, nor be able to acknowledge that today. However, if you think back on other times in your life when you were challenged, is it possible that you see some benefit or gift that came out of your prevailing?

I am inviting you to use your imagination today: imagine that your life is Whole, Complete and Perfect just the way it is today, and that your life is filled with blessings you cannot even see at the moment, but you imagine the certainty that they are there, nonetheless. Imagine it! That…is your Tomorrow.

Thank you Neale! Visit Neale at www.NealeDonaldWalsch.com

With love and blessings,
Sheila

Is it possible that you, or someone you know and care about, are addicted to suffering?

I know it may sound strange, but some people — more than you might imagine — actually become attached to suffering, as if it is an old and familiar friend. For many, “suffering” does become that old and familiar friend — hard to let go of, hard to break away from…Suffering can become a dangerous addiction; an unhealthy way and and ultimately an unfulfilling way to feel alive.

It is true: many people persist in the habit of suffering in order to feel more alive: SUFFERING IS AN UNHEALTHY and UNFULFILLING WAY TO FEEL ALIVE! Many people hold onto their suffering because it is a way to feel alive…almost like an antidote to feeling numb. Suffering is the ego’s way of feeling important.

Arielle Ford has discussed the addiction to suffering in her newsletter today, and has also linked us to her friend Kute Blackson who wrote a beautiful blog on this topic. As Arielle wisely says, “whether you are a businessman or a buddha, pain is inevitable. There is no way to avoid it. Just by virtue of being in a human body there will be some pain. Trying to avoid pain will only create more suffering. Embrace pain to release yourself from suffering. Suffering is optional. Suffering is a choice.”

What I know from my own experence in life with with working with hundreds of clients every year is that suffering comes from you “story” about what is happening in your life and less about what is actually happening. What is happening is simply what is happening. The suffering part comes from all your interpretations you make up and the meaning you assign to your specific experience. Change your story and you will change your reality within yourself.

I’m sharing here below some of the fabulous information in Kute’s blog so that more people have the benefit of this thinking.

My hope and prayer for you and those you love is that you become liberated from the addiction to suffering, so that you can discover healthy ways to feel alive and transformative ways to feel important – here are some tools for you, the day after “Liberation Day”:

KUTE’S 7 KEYS TO CREATING SUFFERING:

1. RESIST EVERYTHING – resist what is. Resist reality. Fight against what is happening in your life with all your might. This is a guaranteed method to suffer.

KEY SOLUTION: Accept what is, so that you can then decide how to shift it.

2. HOLDING THE BELIEF – “The experience that is happening to me should not happen to me. I should be having some other experience than the one I am having. This shouldn’t be happening to me.” You have probably heard yourself doing some version of this. It just keeps you stuck.

KEY SOLUTION: Embrace your current experience. Your current experience is the experience that you are meant to be having because you are having it right now. Trust, and focus on what you can learn and how you can grow. The experience is here to help you evolve.

3. FOCUSING ON ALL THE THINGS YOU CANNOT CONTROL – This will only cause you to feel completely helpless and disempowered. It will leave you in a state of worry and anxiety. Some of us are professional “worriers.” No matter ho much you worry it doesn’t actually change the situation. Once you are done worrying, the situation will be the same. Worrying is a waste of time.

KEY SOLLUTION: Focus on what you can control. Take actions that are in your power, step by step.

4. REFUSING TO CHANGE – Keep doing the same thing over and over again and hoping for a different result. Well, as Einstein said, that is the definition of insanity. Are you so set in your ways that you are afraid of giving up the known suffering for the unknown possibility of happiness?

KEY SOLUTION: Embrace change. Be willing to do something different. Let go. Go into the unknown. Take different actions.

5. GIVE UP YOUR RESPONSIBILTY – Be a victim. Play the blame game making everyone else at fault or responsible for your life and how you feel. Unless you take responsibility for your current experience then you are powerless to change it.

KEY SOLUTION: Take full responsibility for your current reality and decide what changes you are committed to making. Give up blame.

6. FOCUS ON EVERYTHING THAT IS WRONG IN YOUR LIFE – Whether a relationship or a person. When you focus on what is wrong, you will surely find what is wrong. You will end up creating more of what is wrong to feel wrong about. Then the negative cycle continues.

KEY SOLUTION: Start focusing on what you are grateful for. Remember all your blessings, and appreciate that daily. What you appreciate, expands. What you thank about, comes about.

7. DENIAL – Lie to yourself and others. Pretend that everything is fine when you know that it isn’t. When you avoid facing what is, you end up staying stuck and repeating the same patterns of pain, and relationship. This only ends up prolonging your suffering.

KEY SOLUTION: Tell the truth to yourself first. Tell the truth to those in your life. Be honest. Face reality.

Life is too short to waste spent suffering. Most of what you worry about today you won’t even remember a few months from now. Most of what you are trying to change in people today, you won’t care about on your deathbed.

You hold the padlock and you hold the key to your freedom. YOU CHOOSE!

To learn more about Kute, please visit www.kuteblackson.com

With blessings and smiles,
Sheila