Tag: laurel ley
BEing Your Emerging Self
I’m ready to start living life to the fullest. This line seems so cliché as it seems to be the latest buzz concept. Why might this matter? Sometimes I can be a bit of an “evolution” snob. ROTFL; ultimately, SO WHAT if anyone or everyone else is focusing on this? It’s MY priority.
To me, “living life to the fullest” has to be based on an internal shift of belief as well as actions. That’s where this comes in.
Recently I was realizing that I really want to increase my water intake and keep that consistent, day-to-day. Years ago, I heard that it’s important to drink half of your body weight in ounces in water; and to match an additional 2 ounces of water for each ounce of caffeine consumed. Although I share this concept regularly, I’ve yet to achieve it myself.
THEN, I recently heard a twist on this which was paradigm-shifting …. What I heard is that the break-even point of water consumption is the half your body weight in ounces; and that if you really want to fuel your body properly, you’d up that by 20-30%. Think about this …. the MINIMUM amount of water to consume is half your body weight in ounces; NOT that this is the ideal goal. That’s another 20-30 PERCENT.
This was one of those life-changing moments …. A “kerplunk” moment …. All of the things I suggest to people, I share about, I coach people to embrace and that I am not living myself …. came front and center for me.
Combined with the regular discussions I have with close friends on evolving including fun concepts such as “being versus doing,” “living who we are,” “living from the present” …. I shifted to ….
IT IS TIME to start putting into action those day-to-day activities which support what I believe in, and support my emerging self … who I truly am versus where I’ve been living from.
Concurrent taking action is continuing to do the inner work which clears the way to make the action easier to integrate into my day-to-day life. Want to know more about the inner work, and where many find themselves right now? If so, check out Angela Coulter’s recent discussion around this via her “Living the Shift” livestream/podcast.
I started thinking of the different elements I’ve been exploring, am interested in making part of my regular “don’t need to think about it” activities ….. I realized the perfect acronym for me is “Dragonfly” as that’s a personal totem for me. I have dragonflies in various forms all over my home, yard, vehicle, clothes. Dragonflies represent transformation, change, lightness, flexibility, self-awareness, power. Just recently, I was traveling and came across dozens and dozens of Dragonflies in various fields. I took this as a very profound sign and message. I loved seeing how integrated they are into the environment which reminded me of how I’d like self-care activities to be in my life. You can see a video of the lovelies here: Being Your Emerging Self ~ Dragonflies.
Here’s what I identified as the actions of being I am now integrating into my daily life to reflect and support me:
D = Direct your thoughts, starting with when you wake up … set your intention for the day
R = Renew yourself through meditation, quiet time, etc.
A = Ask for guidance ~ such as “Show me the way” (credit to Nommy)
G = Gratitude ~ express gratitude in every moment, every thing
O = Oxygenate ~ I use a BEMER, breathe deep, yoga; however you do it, it works
N = Now ~ live from the present now, in each situation
F = Fuel yourself through a minimum of half your body weight in ounces of water plus 20-30%
L = Listen to connect ~ Look around you to observe ~ Live from Love
Y = You ~ Make yourself a priority as a reflection of your commitment to you
“With every act of self-care your authentic self gets stronger, and the critical, fearful mind gets weaker. Every act of self-care is a powerful declaration: I am on my side, I am on my side, each day I am more and more on my own side.”
~ Susan Weiss Berry
This is how I’m choosing to support my emerging self. What supports your emerging self?
I invite you to join me and others in allowing and supporting your emerging self so that you too can choose to live your life from being your emerging self.
With curiosity and gratitude,
Laurel Ley
Trinity Energy Progression Facilitator/Practitioner
Getting to Know the Notorious Me
I used to be afraid of being “notorious” as I’ve always been a bit different. I wanted to “fit in”, to be known, to be liked. The issue is … I don’t think I’ve felt that way towards myself. Yet I’ve wanted it from outside of me. Except I also didn’t want to be like everyone else. Go figure. 
In other words, I’ve had this contentious and confusing relationship with myself, and I wanted others to approve of me, when I haven’t approved of myself.
I’ve been on a path for a while to get to know myself although the path is a bit different than I had been on. Little did I know how the two were related, per the origins of the word “notorious”:
1540–50; Medieval Latin notorius evident, equivalent to no(scere ) to get to know (see notify) + -torius -tory
I don’t approach life the way most people do. In addition to a more open perspective on life, my brain processes information differently than almost anyone I know, or any of those who know me, know. Makes life interesting. I’ve always felt different, and lately, I’ve been feeling even more so.
More and more I’ve come to accept how I’ve been in life …. identify what comes naturally to me …. choosing what beliefs and perspectives are important to me versus what I thought should be …. choosing where I want to move out of a current comfort zone.
My entire life, I am used to being the one with the vision … the one blazing the trail … the one striking the path …. the one leading the team, whether I meant to or not, it just kind of happens.
For the past few years, I’ve enjoyed living without the need for much external validation.
Nowadays, I usually live more in the present ….. more focused on moving forward versus living from the past … more focused on thriving, joy, laughter ….
Then the past few weeks happened. Lately, I’ve been clearing and purging and processing and shifting and releasing and creating. I’ve been moody, emotional, out of sorts, judgmental, reactive, fearful, angry, resentful, etc. Not all of the time, but way more than I would like to live in and not how I am used to living my life, anymore.
I’m not getting things done when I’ve told others they would, or planned things would be complete. I don’t like this. Even more, I don’t like that I’m seeing this as a pattern in my life, whether there are factors seemingly out of my control or not. Which started me looking at other parts of who I thought I was.
Then, it hit me ….
I FEEL LOST.
I’m starting to see that I haven’t been completely who I, or others, thought I was. Nor, in some cases, is that who I want to be. I’ve been feeling like a fraud, a fake, an imposter …. and that’s the worst. Seeing what I have contorted myself to be, to fit the mold of others.
I see that I’ve been betraying myself, over and over … and then get outraged if someone seemingly does that to me.
I’m not sure who I am. I’m not sure who I really have been. Who has defined who I’m supposed to be? I’ve been living on auto-pilot … which is broken and no longer working for me.
WHO DO I WANT TO BE? What choices am I making? What choices do I want to make?
Because I’m experiencing a LOT of change in my life, I’m also experiencing a sense of overwhelm. I’m being put into a position of having to come face-to-face with the last 20 or so years of my life and well, it’s not all fun. In the process, I’ve been encountering one thing after another which is breaking down, burping, blowing up around me. AWKWARD.
In the midst of organizing tons of papers in boxes going back years and years, I’m coming face to face with what I’ve done and not done. I’m feeling nostalgic, regretful, sometimes proud and pleased. Mostly, UNPLEASANT.
I’ve been consolidating electronic files, merging duplicate files from over the past two decades … External hard drives have been crashing, before files could be pulled off. In the process of recovering what could be, and I got sick, I authorized destroying a hard drive which had been damaged before I checked what came off it. I lost YEARS and years of sole copies of my extensive work product, which I thought defined me. Even though I have some in paper form … SICKENING.
I’m experiencing odd issues with my computer, my phone, and especially my internet. Repeated tech visits, nothing helps. Everything is moving sooooo slow, which is part of what prompted getting the electronic files merged and consolidated. Then, crash. My tires needed to be unexpectedly replaced when one got damaged and went flat. The motor on our ac went out for the 2nd time in 9 years, and we have to pay for the labor. FRUSTRATING.
I’m clearing out a lot of items in my home, redoing walls, etc. Sometimes I’m having a tough time letting go of things, even though I haven’t used something for years, and/or I’m hearing it’s time to let the item move on. I can’t find things I need, such a paper to get a sizable reimbursement. Items I love are breaking. UNCOMFORTABLE.
I’ve been detoxing and working on a metabolic reset. My body is getting healthier, and I’ve been able to start exercising again. My body is starting to reflect a shape again, and this makes my mom happy. I have a wedding for my nephew in June, and the pressure is mounting as it’s not progressing “fast enough” for what I’d like. YIKES.
My primary relationships are shifting. I’m still integrating connecting with members of my birth family (I was adopted) and the unexpected reactions in my (adopted) family members and myself. There are other primary relationships and situations shifting in fundamental ways. STRESSFUL.
I have a number of people in my life, and one in particular, close to me, who are acting as perfect mirrors for behaviors and words about me, that I needed to see in myself. All the ugly, seemingly cruel stuff I am hearing is really just a reflection of the ugly, cruel things I’ve been saying to myself. UGLY.
I’ve been guided to explore unexpected ways of supporting myself financially, on a long-term basis and in a sustainable way. Utilizing some of my natural skills and requiring developing new and emerging skills. I’m interacting with “new” people. PANIC-INDUCING.
A lot of what has worked for me in the past as distractions, doesn’t work anymore. The familiar coping mechanisms no longer work the same way, and primarily no longer work. DISTRESSING.
My usual way of being, what I’m familiar with is being shaken from to the core …. My foundation is being reset, restructured … I don’t have much familiar to fall back on. I’m usually the one with the answers. SCARY.
Everything is taking way longer … takes more effort. I FEEL LIKE SCREAMING A LOT OF THE TIME, lately. Even in doing this blog, my computer locked up and I had to reboot it, and a number of times I just had to sit and wait for it.
WHAT’S THE POINT IN SHARING ALL THIS? Especially since I rarely ever vent much, let alone publicly, as I don’t need nor desire any sympathy.
I’m feeling LOST. Life is feeling AWKWARD … UNPLEASANT … SICKENING … FRUSTRATING … UNCOMFORTABLE … STRESSFUL …. PANIC-INDUCING … UGLY …. DISTRESSING.
UMMM, YIKES.
I say I want peace in my life, and my life isn’t reflecting this. So, maybe I don’t really want peace. The “committee in my head” starts to gear up for bashing me, my life, my past, my present, my future.
STOP.
Today ….. I have tools to stay in the awkward, uncomfortable, frustrating, stressful, distressing, sickening, panic-inducing, ugly, scary … and have it not be more than where I am, in the moment.
I have tools to stay in the present …. and not return to the past, nor project failure into the future.
I have tools to not freeze in the present, just because I’m feeling lots of potentially overwhelming feelings.
Today, I can choose to face the feelings, accept them, acknowledge them, and choose new ones … and if I don’t, that’s okay.
Today, I have the ability to choose. Let’s see who I choose to create.
Run from what’s comfortable.
Forget safety.
Live where you fear to live.
Destroy your reputation.
Be notorious.
I have tried prudent planning long enough.
From now on I’ll be mad.
~ Rumi
Laurel Ley
Trinity Energy Progression Facilitator/Practitioner
The Rowboat, the Motorboat, and the Helicopter… or, the Sailboat of Life
Have you ever considered if the universe is delivering exactly what you’re asking for but you’re not recognizing it? What if it is delivering exactly what you asked for, right now?
This isn’t about the “law of attraction”.
This is about …. What if the universe is delivering everything you want, or the way to get there, and you don’t accept it because it doesn’t look the way you expected?
I’ve been having a number of discussions lately about just this concept referencing the modern parable about the man who dies, ends up at the pearly gates, and asks St. Peter why he wasn’t saved. As it goes:
There is widespread flooding going on. A man dies after going all the way up to his roof during the rains, and he drowns. He ends up at the pearly gates and asks St. Peter, “Why, why wasn’t I saved? I asked over and over for help, and none came.”
St. Peter responds with, “You were sent help, you didn’t accept any of it. When the rains first started, we sent you a rowboat; but you turned it away. As the waters continued to rise, we sent you a motorboat, and you also turned it away. Finally, when you were on the roof, and there was one last chance to save you, you turned away the helicopter we sent. Each time you said that God would save you. My child, it was God who sent you the rowboat, the motorboat, and then the helicopter.”
There have been numerous times in my life when I’ve been waiting and looking for the rowboat, the motorboat, and even the helicopter …. and I missed the lovely sail boat sent my way.
I’ve been a student of life as long as I can remember. I’ve heard the concepts of “plan plans, not outcomes” and “pry your fingers off the steering wheel of life.” I haven’t really gotten it until just recently.
I found myself once again asking for direction to my path in life as well as support to a thriving life, including both health and financial. Within 24 to 36 hours I got my answer, yet it didn’t look like I expected. I wanted a few signs; I got them. I mean … I REALLY GOT SIGNS WHICH WERE VERY CLEAR as they were signs that are meaningful and distinct to me. ROTFL, I still was a bit questioning.
FINALLY …. click went the light and I now see the sailboat!
What I most love about all of this is that I have come to a place in life where I thought I was trusting as life unfolds, except it seems when it doesn’t look like I expected. If I’m kicking and screaming and upset, that is not living in the present, seeing and accepting the gifts which are being offered to me all along my path. This is now the graduate level course of life ….
Am willing to trust, am willing to live in faith …. even when things come to me in different ways than I thought? Can I have inner peace when I’m being challenged outside of my comfort zone? Can I trust when life is feeling unfamiliar? Will I allow myself the pleasures of trust, ease, and inner peace?
So, am I ready to see my sailboat? I’ve found I’m ready when I’m ready, no sooner.
Yep, not only am I ready for the sailboat, I am ready to let my dreams set sail. I am now on the sailboat life sent me …. feeling the wind and the mist from the waves as they embrace my body.
We must let go of the life we have planned,
so as to accept the one that is waiting for us.
~ Joseph Campbell
Anyone else? Who’s ready and willing to come sailing with me?
Laurel Ley
Trinity Energy Progression Facilitator/Practitioner
Tending My Own Garden
I love gardens; always have. To me, there’s something so fundamental to my own core being … so breath-inducing …. so beautiful …. so alive. I always feel closer to myself, closer to inspiration, closer to All, connected to All.
To me, it doesn’t matter if it’s a structured English-style garden …. Hakone Gardens which is near where I grew up and is one of the oldest Japanese-style residential garden in the Western Hemisphere …. The Tuileries and Carrousel Gardens which is part of the Louvre in Paris …. Filoli Gardens, also near where I grew up …. my dad’s extensive vegetable, fruit, and flower garden …. fields of fresh growing produce which can be found across this amazing United States …. a personal garden in a backyard …. or even a bunch of pots with plants grouped together.
I could spend hours just enjoying the presence of the living vegetation as well as the other living beings such as dragonflies, butterflies, bees, etc. Even as I type this, thinking of gardens I’ve enjoyed, my psyche begins to get all energized and I feel uplifted.
I begin to take deeper, more fulfilling breaths.
Still, something was missing for me.
My parents always had amazing green thumbs; I did not inherit this; or hadn’t until ……
….. bing … a lightbulb went off. I came to realize I had yet to experience creating and maintaining my own garden …. versus just enjoying others’ creations.
From this awareness, I realized there was a metaphor for me … meaning, “my garden” represented the relationship to myself. Am I, or to what degree am I, actively engaged in my own life?
Last fall, with some guidance from a neighbor who is my “garden muse,” I started planting in various places in my small front and back yards as well as in lots of pots. I’ve found one of my most inspiring and insightful choices is to purchase plants from the clearance area at my local Lowe’s stores. It used to be that if the plant didn’t survive, I wouldn’t feel as bad that I wasted money.
This habit of purchasing the clearance plants now has a completely different lesson and insight for me. I have found such reward and personal validation when a plant that was barely living is now thriving.
The more I develop the relationship with my plants, the more I develop the relationship with myself. It starts in a simple, literal sense … My connection/meditation time for the day includes going out daily to check on my plants, water them, move around the ones in pots which don’t seem to be doing so well in their current location. Often, I’m joined in my outside time by a bee who frequents the front yard, a dragonfly who is partial to the plants in the side yard, and most recently in the backyard, a new swallowtail butterfly which was fluttering all over one day showing me what it could do with its lovely wings.
As I connect with my plants and their insect friends, it reminds me to connect to myself …. “Am I watering myself (enough) daily?” “What am I feeding myself?” “How am I doing in my current location?” “Do I need more sunshine, more shade?” “Who am I connecting with, or not connecting with?” “Am I taking time for myself to just breathe?” “Am I enjoying moments of just being?”
The other thing about having “my own garden” to enjoy versus watching or enjoying others’ gardens, is that my focus in life is now on ME. I no longer look for someone to take care of my garden, nor am I off taking care of someone else’s garden. I’ve found that …..
I am joyfully and gratefully responsible for creating and maintaining my own thriving garden.
P.S.. Both photos are from my garden. In the top photo, the pink flower in the large pot in back is a “Guara.” This winter all that showed of the plant was a bit of the woody stem; it wasn’t looking good. Some people may have even thrown it out.
I heard to give it time, water, and love …. and voila, look how gorgeous it is! This too has been my experience with myself. When I accept myself as I am, and provide time, water, and love … I too have blossomed. What a beautiful blossom I am.
Laurel Ley
Trinity Energy Progression Facilitator/Practitioner
Today is Blissful
Recently, I was walking my two male Dachshunds as I do most days. I had already walked my Border Collie and two female Dachshunds. Courtney, the senior girl and self-proclaimed “Queen”, was riding in her “moveable throne or carriage”, otherwise known as a dog stroller. Since the dogs have access to the backyard via a dog door, the walks are for fun and connection as they often will see neighbors and get some attention, such as pets or kisses; if they’re lucky, they’ll get treats as well.
The walks had gone and were going just about “normal” … lots of start and stops … sniff sniff, pee … sniff, roll in the grass, etc. Celt, the Border Collie who came from Louisiana following Hurricane Katrina,, is not seeing nor hearing so well, plus he has arthritis in his back hips. Acupuncture helps, to a degree. None of that seems to interfere with his pursuit of finding something to forage from in our walk, whether dropped food or Canadian Goose or cat poop. Then, he slows down at the second part of the walk while my youngest Dachshund girl, Missy (aka Miss America) is pulling to go faster.
So, here I am …. pushing the throne, lifting Queen Courtney up and down throughout the walk as she demands … keeping Celt from eating whatever, waiting for him to finish his socializing with neighbors … helping Missy to slow down and enjoy the walk … sometimes standing with Missy 16 feet forward pulling me that way, Celt 16 feet behind me, me trying to not pull him … and reminding myself that we’re all out here for “FUN”.
~whew~ I survive the first walk, and start the second after a short break. I don’t usually have this attitude about walking but I really wasn’t feeling well; yet I was “determined” to take them.
The boys were doing their “usual” … each often walking at their own pace which is usually way behind or way ahead of the pace I was at; and often one was walking way behind and one way ahead, with me again in the middle. Camo will run way ahead … and Scoo will start barking at neighbors, other animals, completely enjoying themselves …. and sometimes contributing to “mommy” feeling a bit stressed and crazy.
…. And then in a moment, IT ALL SHIFTED ….
The boys and I were walking down one long stretch, there was a bit of a wind blowing, the temperature was wonderfully in the mid-70s ….
I found myself fully in the present … enjoying the boys enjoying their walk with mommy …. the wind …
At that time, I realized “Today is blissful” …. period.
It didn’t matter that I had a long to-do list, or I hadn’t been physically been feeling very well and earlier had felt like I could just crawl onto the couch and stay there for a while … or that Courtney had just been diagnosed with congestive heart failure and the medication was making her sick … or I had unexpectedly been in the ER and then the hospital a couple of weeks earlier ….. or, that I have long-term bills to pay off ….. … or that my elderly mom (don’t tell her I used that term) has been having health issues and I live 3,000 miles away, etc.
All that mattered ….. all that matters … is that in each and every moment, I can choose bliss.
It really is that simple. Breathe in bliss …. breathe out bliss. Live in and from bliss.
Blissfully,
Laurel Ley
Trinity Energy Progression Facilitator/Practitioner
D5 Creation