Grieving and Forgiveness!

In an effort to live a more wholehearted life and manifest more love and maybe some Brene Brown friendship ;-) I am taking an online eCourse she is facilitating, based on her book "The Gifts of Imperfection."

The course is 6 weeks long and has 3 live Q&A's.  I've yet to catch one live, but the last Q&A is what I watched today.  It hit me really hard and opened me up!  I have very few regrets/grudges in my life.  But, the ones I do have are pretty major and create some hectic self talk.

"For forgiveness to happen, something must die." & "What had to die was the expectation that this person wouldn't hurt me."
- Brene Brown

Holy WOW!!

I had to, had to pause the video, grab my art journal and use those pages I accidentally skipped (there are no real mistakes, are there?!) to make what is pictured below.

Simply realizing that I was grieving my expectation of failure in the relationship really made me INSTANTLY move beyond the biggest hurtles I was holding onto.

I really want to make this whole entry bold, italicized, underlined, and HUGE font - it hit me that hard!

Then, I posted the page to Twitter (@FacilitatGrowth).  I knew I had to because the thought of sharing and not sharing it made my stomach roll in fear.  So, I did and it got FAVORITED!! I've never had a re-tweet or favorite at this time, so having 2 within an hour of posting this picture really gave me a boost.

Any-who, hopefully, this illuminates and speaks to you a fraction of the way it did to me!

LOVE!
~Shannon

Just a short note!

I just realized that by focusing on Coaching that my other business is expanding in the direction I wanted with little effort on my part.

Have I finally learned detachment?  More than likely, I have simply been less obsessive.

Either way, I just wanted to let the world know that because I have been focusing on Coaching, my other business (which also facilitates growth, but for a very small and specific niche) is growing and I sent out my first email blast for an upcoming workshop I am hosting and booked another, without killing myself.

This feels very natural and easy.  I think this is what I am striving to achieve with Coaching.  Maybe I can learn a lesson from myself and work on letting things be without stressing.... we'll see how that goes....

Thanks Universe, you're keeping this girl pretty happy!!

Skewed Self Perception

I am not 100% sure what it is that I see in my minds eye when I think of myself.  I'm probably about 16 if I'm being honest, with different snap shots of myself blurred on top of it....

This internal perception of myself I know is off.  Here's why I know this to be a f.a.c.t.  I will sometime do a double take of others' pictures and wonder if that's a picture of myself.  Upon closer inspection, I realize that the picture is not of me and actually emphasizes one of the areas of my personal appearance that I dislike - acne, weight, posture, bad teeth, etc.

I did that just the other day.  I was on a Facebook page and they had a collage of members, I saw a picture of someone with glasses and crooked teeth.  The first thing I thought was, "Where did that picture of me come from and WHY is it on some random Facebook page?!"

It wasn't me, it was a nice picture of one of the page admins and their child.  I was so worried someone would see my crooked smile, I completely missed the child in the photo.

Here's the real kicker.  I haven't had a crooked smile in almost ten years.  However, the self-conscious 16 year old that lives in my mind is still stuck on that aspect of her appearance.  I am sure I have been doing these double takes my whole life, but it wasn't until recently that I actively started to notice what I was doing.

How do you heal that?!  Is it simply a matter of recognizing it so that way it will disappear?  I'm not sure, so this is what I did:

1.  I told myself that it wasn't me and it was OK that I thought it was, I am safe.
2.  I told that admin that she was beautiful (via my amazing mind powers) and applauded her courage to smile.
3.  I reminded myself again that it was OK for me to smile now and as a 16 year old girl.
4.  I smiled.  Like, really smiled at the amazing way my mind works to bring me to awareness.
5.  I took a drink of coffee, loved on my cat, and moved on.

I think that is a pretty good place to start.