The funny thing is that life works exactly the same way as our muscles do. When we don’t push through the edges of our various comfort zones, we don’t grow, and we stay weak in those areas.  At work, businesses don’t grow by staying status quo. They grow by taking calculated risks and stepping up to learn new things and implementing them at a consistent, progressive level. Let’s say for example, you wanted to be a successful public speaker. Would you start by giving a speech to the massive stadium crowd at the opening ceremonies of the summer Olympics? Of course not, you would probably die of heart failure and anxiety before that happened anyway. You would begin by taking the step to stand up and speak with a small group first, then build your strength step by step from there.

Likewise, your health doesn’t improve when you keep eating the same way as you always have. Trying different diets to lose weight by starving yourself doesn’t give you health either. It simply gives you another go around to regain those pounds to be on yet another diet. You have to get healthy first to lose the weight. You have to push yourself out of your old mental conditioning and eating habits. Yes, it will feel uncomfortable in the beginning, but the strength and energy you give your cells by feeding them plant-based foods like kale, spinach, broccoli, etc., rich in phytonutrients, on a daily basis will change everything in your body, including your weight for good.

And certainly, relationships don’t grow and develop when you just play it safe either. In fact, relationships don’t even get started unless you push yourself and  step out of your comfort zone to risk a little time, a little generosity, and a little vulnerability and intimacy to connect with others. The strength of the relationship builds as you water it with candor and accountability too. This is where authenticity truly meets authenticity and strong bonds are made.

So where are you at this week? What area in life do you need to push a little more to get stronger? Set your fears aside and go for it! —Traci Vincent

Here are some of my classics related to body image: “Ugh, look at this muffin top belly.” “My arms are flabby.” “Thunder thighs.” Ironically, the very same week I was silently telling myself these negative things and seeing myself this way, here is what other people commented, “Wow, your waist is so tiny.” “You have great legs.” and “You have nice yoga arms.” How I was perceiving myself was completely opposite of how others saw me?

How about in relationships or would be relationships? More of my inner critic classics: “Who would want to date a single mom my age, when there are so many guys dating girls half their age with no kids?” “I don’t deserve a good man in my life, after all the mistakes I’ve made.”  ”I’ve been hurt, so I don’t want to let anyone hurt me again.” Here is how other people saw me that week: “You’re a great mom and a great lady,” ” You are so caring and loving.” “How does a guy like me, get so lucky to meet a girl like you?” Here again, my inner critic was not in alignment with how others viewed me.

Of course, then there is how I’ve talked to myself at work.  A few examples: “You should have known better than to hire that person.” “I’m not smart enough to stay up with all the technology advances.” But the reality is that same person has handled some pretty intense client situations and remained loyal to the company and the computer program that started out frustrating and confusing is now easy and people actually ask me for help with it. Once again, another case of  misalignment in my self-critic and reality.

I’ve discovered again and again that it is very easy to get entangled in negative self-talk patterns and before long they become self fulfilling prophecies, so to speak. We have all heard of the the golden rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto to you.” Let’s suppose we flip that when it comes to how we talk to ourselves. Would you ever go up to someone and tell them they have disgusting thunder thighs? So why do we tell ourselves that? Would we ever go up and tell someone they are too stupid to learn this computer program? Then why would we say that to ourselves? Would you ever tell your best friend she is too old and unattractive to go out on a date?  Why on earth do we let our inner voice say that to ourselves? How about we modify the golden rule to apply to ourselves first. Do unto yourself as you do unto others. If you would never tell someone they look fat and ugly, why would you insist on saying that to yourself?

Here is an exercise that I learned last year to do break free from that vicious self-talk and self-critic. Stand in front of the mirror and look at yourself. This is definitely not easy to do this since this immediately engages that inner critic. Stand there and lovingly begin to notice things you admire about yourself. Maybe it’s as simple as you like the color of your hair, shape of your eyes, your smile , or your curves. Find at least one thing you appreciate about your body and acknowledge it. Be thankful for it and begin to build on that positive outlook. If you like the shape of your eyes than purpose yourself to make eye contact with others that day. Let them see what you see. If you have pretty teeth, purpose your day to smile more and share that joy with others. Do this daily and begin to notice the shift in how you begin to love and value yourself more while simultaneously silencing that inner critic.

In summary, it simply goes back to the premise of what you focus on expands. I challenge you to focus your inner voice this week on what’s right about you instead of what’s wrong about you. Find expansion in the positive. Turn that inner critic into your inner cheerleader and find yourself living a more dynamic, happy life. Make it a great week!  –Traci Vincent

Removes FEAR (False Evidence Appearing Real) – Personal confidence can remove hesitation, which is an attribute that originates from fear.

Provides Opportunity – By removing that hesitation, you then begin to open doors of opportunity. A great example would be the Jim Carey movie, “Yes Man”.   Although it’s a little bit extreme, it clearly conveys the message of being confident for life opportunities.

Builds Personal Posture - Once opportunities begin to come into your life, you begin to build your personal posture.  Similar to physical posture of sitting up straight and standing tall, personal posture is your stance and the value you give yourself, which displays a command of respect from those around you.

On the flip side, here are 3 potential weaknesses that can hinder your personal confidence:

Negative associations – Friends that drain your personal confidence must be avoided at all cost.  If they are not for you, then they are against you. I hate to be so dramatic, but I think you get the message loud and clear.

Excessive Media Exposure – Every day the media exposes you to a large quantity of negative news.   If left unchecked, this negative bombardment can creep into your subconscious and make you feel as if you are part of a chaotic world of which you have no control, which could not be further from the truth.

Negative Self Talk – If the voice in your head was an actual friend, how long would that friendship last? I think this speaks for itself.

You are one of a kind; there is only one of you that have ever existed in this universe. If that’s not special, I don’t know what is. Be confident in who you are, I guarantee it will open up doors to the opportunities that you have always been looking for.

So if we want to live more boldly and learn to start taking risks again to grow and expand our lives and our experiences, we need to have courage. Ironically, courage is not the absence of fear. Courage is not really courage either, when you already know the outcome. Courage is stepping forward in faith towards the result you cannot see yet. Courage is living for something bigger than simply your preservation. By risking boldly you create shifts in your mindset and create new opportunities in all areas of life, be it in business, relationships, or health.

When we risk boldly, do we always win or get what we desired? No, absolutely not. Life is ebb and flow, up and down, win and lose. Not everything in life will be good. Fortunately, everything in life will be for the good even though we don’t often see that in the present moment. Risking boldly keeps us moving forward and expanding versus living in fear and shrinking.

Let’s make up our minds to risk a little and live boldly. Remember courage is not the absence of fear. It is forward movement via faith in spite of our fear. Where will risking boldly take you this week?

Traci Vincent

I had to change and change I did. It was time to plant the seed of pure love. ”God is love, and with God, all things are possible.”  This statement changed my life. I began to feel God’s love again.  With the true power of awareness I started to create the life I dreamed and wanted and more importantly the life that God intended me to live.  The depth of profound joy in my heart brings tears to my eyes.

Be yourself.  For most of my life I role-played and allowed others to define “me”.  I am finally living just being.  I had to step back from those who insisted on defining me.  Their limiting beliefs were causing a problem for me.  Believe in yourself, accept yourself and learn to affirm that “I am enough and I am myself”.

Focus on your inner power.  Shakespeare wrote: “There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Stop focusing on your weaknesses which keep you in a mental state of negativity.  When you are aware and in-tune with your inner source you can shift that mindset when you tap into your strengths and your true power.

Make peace with the present moment.  Life is experienced in the present moment.  So many people live their lives with resentment and blame because they are so focused on the past or so caught up about worrying what’s going to happen next in their future.  Start to take responsibility for your life and live in the present moment and make peace with it. 

Learn to live with love.  Daily I remind myself to live in gratitude and count my blessings. I really try to keep judgement and criticism out of my life.  It’s difficult, but just being mindful has helped me change those negative thoughts of criticism.  I choose to live in kindness and pass that on.  This quote from Dalai Lama recaps inner peace and happiness beautifully:“ As human beings we all want to be happy and free from misery…we have learned that the key to happiness is inner peace.  The greatest obstacles to inner peace are disturbing emotions such as anger, attachment, fear and suspicion, while love and compassion and a sense of universal responsibility are the sources of peace and happiness.”

It’s all about choice, choose wisely my friends.

Debra Moser

However, I want to dig a little deeper with happiness here and go back 800 years to it original root word “hap”. Hap is defined as “one’s luck or lot; occurrence, happening or accident” Could that mean that the feeling of happiness comes from what happens to a person by chance? I wonder if all of us who are seeking happiness in life realized that what we may be saying on an unconscious level is that we are putting our happiness quotient on mere luck and accident.

Call me a control freak, but that just doesn’t resonate too well with me. I don’t want to rely on luck or happenstance to have that happy feeling inside me. I want something different. I want to have that feeling inside me on an ongoing basis regardless of luck or accident. What I am seeking is beyond happiness. What I am seeking is joy! Joy is defined as a source of delight. It is what lies beyond emotions, regardless of what happens to a person.

When focusing on having joy, you must purposely open yourself to your source of delight for that feeling, in spite of your circumstances. For me, that source comes from connecting with God. Since God is omnipotent and omnipresent, that means joy is available to me in a powerful way and at all times.  It is not dependent on mere luck.  Now how comforting is that!

So if you are seeking to live with joy, where do you begin?

Prayer/Meditation: Spend time each day settling your mind and opening your heart to your source. Let go of your limited thoughts and abilities and accept the peace of omnipotence and omnipresence from God. Don’t allow your own limitations to limit God in your life.

Be Mindful of Your Joy: Think of joy or bliss like the center of an onion. As you peel back the layers of an onion, what you have at the core is still called an onion. As we peel back the layers of our lives…the worldly happenings, work, finances, relationships, physical health, emotions, self-worth and so forth, what remains is still our true core self.  What remains in your “onion” is your bliss and joy, safe, protected and untouchable.

Set An Example: Share your joy with others.  If most people are looking for happiness through luck or happenstance, show them the power of real joy available in every moment.  Live by example and share the power of joy and bliss by living lovingly, peacefully and positively in this world. If you want to see joy in this world, then it must start with you being joy in this world.

Wishing you all joy beyond happiness today and always,

Traci Vincent

I mentioned in one of my previous blog posts that the subject of money is seen as taboo in casual conversations and that it is seen as rude to ask someone about their money situation. With this in mind, it is no surprise that those dealing with financial loss can find themselves feeling very isolated and distressed about what to do next.

The fact is that financial loss is similar to other types of loss, in that it creates the same feelings of guilt, shame, anger, sadness, anxiety, loneliness, shock, yearning, failure and insecurity. Experiencing these emotions can result in social withdrawal, loss of sleep/appetite (or over-sleeping/eating), excessive worry about money, irritability, marital strife, and low self-esteem/self-worth that result from the change in financial identity. In many situations, financial loss is a direct result of another loss, such as a death, job loss, or illness.

If you are dealing with financial loss, the good news is that you are not alone, and your situation does not have to be permanent! I want to let you know that I speak from experience. All situations that are perceived as negative have new opportunities for change, growth, and awareness sprinkled in. Here are some ideas to help you gain some perspective and get back on track:

~ Be here, now – Don’t beat yourself up about what you should’ve or shouldn’t have done, or about the way things used to be. Grieve, truly experience your emotions, and realize that you are here now and that you have the ability to change your situation.

~ Seek social support – Make sure that this is from somebody who will listen to you and offer you unconditional support. This may not necessarily be the same person who you will turn to for financial guidance, however.

~ Seek help with planning – A coach, therapist, or mentor can help you to sort through the practical and emotional pieces of your situation and then help you to create plans for how to make effective and sustainable changes. If you were not already aware of this, the MorningCoach certified coaches are available and ready to help!

~ Practice gratitude – Keep a gratitude journal where you write things down each day that you are grateful for. It is very easy to experience the distorted perception that everything is going wrong, but what we focus on expands, so begin to focus on what is going right.

~ Keep things in perspective – For many of us, our financial situation is directly tied into our identities. Remember that your finances do not define you or your self-worth. You are a spiritual being who has gifts to share with the world, so get in alignment with yours and tap into your creativity! ~ Tanya Mundo

Whether it is a loss of a job, a loved one, a marriage or relationship, or our health and vitality, deep loss has a profound way of unleashing emotions at a level that we don’t usually encounter and quite frankly which can feel very scary and overwhelming. Some of the typical stages of loss as described by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in her 1969 book, “On Death and Dying” include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

Denial could be described as our way of dampening reality and holding back the intense emotions of the situation.

Anger is a protection mechanism for justifying those deep and very intense feelings.

Bargaining becomes our grasping at straws or clinging phase.

Depression is when we realize that the situation is forever altered and changed. We long for the past that no longer exists.

Acceptance is found when we let go of focusing on ourselves and our pain and open up to what we have learned, what we can be grateful for, and how we can use this experience to propel us forward in life. Sadly, many people struggle to get to this point where they can stop dwelling in the past and soaking in their own ego and transcend to something greater in the here and now.

Although I’m not Buddhist, a Buddhist principle I’ve read about and studied and have found useful in my life is the idea of living with non-attachment and non-clinging. Of course this doesn’t mean we go through life alone and with no relationships or that we magically bypass loss. To me, non-clinging simply means that we encounter life with an open palm instead of a clenched fist. Each person, job, experience or whatever that rests on our palm should be cherished and looked at with gratitude in that moment. When that person, job, etc. leaves our palm for whatever reason, we keep our palm open and resist the urge to clench our fist and squeeze the love and gratitude out of the situtation by getting caught up in our own ego. By keeping our palm open we demonstrate the power of the mind and self-control  that enables us to gain wisdom, peace and joy and to move forward in our life.

My hope is that since loss is so universal, that we all can learn to stay gentle, understanding  and compassionate when we see others dealing with loss. Let’s gain an appreciation of what ties us all together as humans and be the positive influence for healing, progression, joy and gratitude. What do we have to lose? Traci Vincent

One of the definitions of adventure is, “an exciting or very unusual experience”, and another is, “participation in exciting undertakings or enterprises.”  Just last week, my 18-year-old daughter announced that she would like to get into rock climbing. Here in Maryland there aren’t the kind of rock-climbing challenges that we would have had available when we lived next to the Rocky Mountains in Colorado, but there are plenty of places to begin and then to work up to that, including indoor rock walls and smaller mountains nearby. This weekend, my five-year-old twins are going to start playing t-ball for the first time. They have never played and are a little nervous about it, but they are up for the challenge. Fun and adventure can be easily found right in your own back yard and it doesn’t have to cost a lot of money.

Not only is adventure fun, there are actually health benefits associated with it. Adventure increases your sense of accomplishment, motivation, and satisfaction. That sense of achievement helps you to be more resilient and better able to cope with the challenges that life has to offer. Getting out in nature can help you to feel more relaxed and serves as a form of stress relief, and most of us have heard about the health benefits that laughter brings (if you would like to read more about this, click here).

Here are some great ideas for bringing some fun and adventure into your life:

Take dancing lessons – There are many nightclubs that offer free Salsa or Latin dancing lessons just prior to opening for the night. This is a great way to get out there and learn something fun and new, and then put what you learned into practice!

Test drive a sports car

Get out in nature – go river rafting or tubing, hiking, horseback riding, or just have a picnic!

Have a mini adventure – Try indoor skydiving, rock wall climbing, ice skating, laser tag, or paintball

Try something new – Go to a restaurant with a cuisine that you have never tried before, attend a wine and cheese tasting, go to a cultural festival, check out a new museum, go to a concert or play. There are many free or low-cost events out there. Check out Yelp or your local newspaper for ideas.

Make new friends – If you haven’t met any new people lately, try checking out a group on Meetup.com, join a sports team, try a class like art, fitness, or cooking, or even attend a new church.

These are just a few ideas to get you started. The idea is that you get out there, try something new, and have some fun! Here’s to adventure! ~ Tanya Mundo

(Luis and Eddie after off-roading)

I first heard of this park when my friend, Eddie, invited me to come along with him for the annual Spring-Break Fest held at the park. He told me to expect days filled with nothing but adrenaline and excitement.  It all sounded great, yet I some how managed to sabotage this excitement with hesitation and worry. I began to make up excuses why I couldn’t go, none of which were true. I started to analyze the origin for these excuses and question the reason and purpose behind them.  After a while it was plain to see that it was just an uncomfortable feeling of being around masses of people, getting muddy and sleeping outside. My belief was that everyone would be drinking and acting irresponsible, which I later learned was not the case. I then remembered being told that going outside of our comfort zone is a key ingredient to personal growth. With that in mind, I called up my friend and told him that I was good to go for the trip.

We packed up all of our equipment and headed north to Punta Gorda, Florida, and two  hours later we arrived at the park gates, sitting in line for a full hour just to get into the park. Once finally in, we began our mission to find a vacant camping spot.  The park was jam-packed with no spots in site.  It seemed as if my fears were becoming true until we stumbled upon a fully-vacant field to call our own.  It was a heaven-sent campground located all the way in the far corner of the park. We picked a spot, set up camp, turned on the engines, and went mudding. Now if you have never been off-road mudding before, it’s one of the most exhilarating, yet messy, experiences you will have. However, this is not recommended for those of you who can’t tolerate getting dirty. There were points where I ingested a decent amount of mud while driving. I made the decision to let go and be in the moment. It was an experience that I truly enjoyed, and for the time, all my problems were vanished from my mind.  Being out in nature, trekking through the mud pits, gave me a sense of liberation and excitement that can only be understood through experience.

Because we are creatures of habit, we tend to sabotage ourselves from having new experiences. It’s almost like a defense mechanism that keeps you from leaving what is safe and heading into the unknown, but that is not how life is meant to be lived.  Life is an adventure, in itself, and requires living to the maximum potential, especially when learning and experiencing new things. So the next time you are at a crossroads in trying something outside of your comfort zone, take that leap! It will help you expand your personal development, and it makes great conversation topics. Gitter Done!

“Live like you mean it” – Luis Rosario