I’ve been thinking about the question “Now what?” As the home isolation orders are slowly transitioning into being, “I’m free……I’m free at last”…..now what? Like most, I have no idea how I’ll begin to navigate the new normal. In my mind, I want to leap feet first back into my life. The life I’ve known since…….well, since forever.

Our sisterhood of women are what makes our community special. Together, we’ve shared our dreams, wishes, goals as well as struggles and challenges. We’ve learned, they wanted to discover, heal and connect with their own hearts as well as each other’s; a tribe ready to support, love and hold space for one another.

At the end of 2019, I was part of a published compilation book with a total of 52 authors, titled Kindness Crusader. The idea of the book was one chapter for each week of the year. Depending on where the author’s story landed in the book translated into the week they were responsible for reaching out and connecting with the community within the collective group. My story landed on week 15.

This past Sunday, International Women’s Day was celebrated and I was proud to be part of the movement that recognized women’s rights around the world.

Inner wisdom, also known as intuition is something we all possess. It knows our truth, authentic self and heart. We had no trouble following our inner wisdom as children; it was natural, easy and felt good, but as adults we think too logically and somehow manage to creep out of our heart space and into our head. Letting the head take over will wreak havoc on our mind, body and spirit.

There’s a little known secret in the land of motherhood or spouse hood, or family hood, etc., that women think it’s selfish to do for themselves before others. Where did that come from anyway?

Over the last few weeks I’ve seen noticeable changes in my yoga practice. So much that I almost gasped out loud at a pose earlier in the week. It was a pose I’ve done for many months and even though I’ve managed thought it, my form and grace could have been much better. Then this week, just like magic; I was doing the pose with ease. Queue the confetti…it was a little victory for my soul.

Recently, I was asked to speak about mindfulness for a local rotary club. I was both honored and excited to be able to share ideas with them. In preparing my presentation I wanted to make it interesting and valuable of their time. As the members entered the room and began to settle in I noticed the number of men that filed in. I was pleasantly surprised at the volume. For some reason I thought the majority would be women but that wasn’t the case. The men attendees were as much as the women, if not a little more.

I’ve been keeping a dream journal since spring of last year. I don’t always jot them down for a couple of reasons: 1) I wait too long and don’t remember or 2) so many crazy things happen I don’t know where to begin. The latter has happened quite frequently and I find myself shaking my head in complete wonder. Wondering, what could the most random, off the wall, doesn’t make a bit of sense, events possibly mean?

This year it came about two months early. Seriously?! At first I kept ignoring the word since there were still a few months left in the year and I loved my word for 2019…..joy. I used it to guide my actions; always looking for ways joy could make by days brighter. Even if things weren’t going as planned I always tried to look for the silver lining; ultimately things automatically improved just from a little shift in my thinking.

Happy, shiny, infinite possibilities of another new year and new decade. It’s hard to believe another twelve months have flown by. For the last several years, I’ve gotten quiet, listened to my heart, picked my word of the new year and set intentions and goals for the next 12 months. Not necessarily a new year’s resolution, but a plan for what I want to create and manifest in my life.

It's launch day.....WOO to the HOO! It's the official launch day of the compilation book titled Kindness Crusader andI'm one of the contributing authors. This project has been in the making for almost a year and I'm feeling giddy inside. I've had aspirations of writing a book for a while but always felt overwhelmed by the process. Being part of this compilation book has been a wonderful learning experience for future projects.

I'm not gonna lie, it was hard. It was damn hard and many nights my children would find me at the dining room table crying or frustrated over some statistic problem I was trying to solve or a  paper I had worked on for hours that somehow got deleted from my computer because I didn't save it correctly. Those days I wanted to give up. I never showed that side to my children but trust me, inside I just wanted to quit....throw in the towel and settle for mediocrity.However, there was a fire in me that kept burning and wouldn't let me give up. So, day after day, week after week and year after year I've been doing the hard work to make my life better. To make a difference in the world.

For three days and two nights, 10 women came together and formed a close bond and sisterhood. We trusted, laughed, supported, cried and held space for one another as we took a leap, head first into a heart healing program. So often we get paralyzed from moving forward in our lives by fear and self-doubt and we’d rather stay stuck than risk the vulnerability of change. If we can trust in our inner guidance and follow our heart, it changes everything.

We all have what we define as our core values and principles on how we choose to live our lives. You may live by integrity, compassion, motivation, service to others, kindness, humor, respect or courage. The list goes on and on. You may not even realize what all your core values are but you have them.

The visit from my daughter was a good reminder of connection and how warm and wonderful it felt to a mother’s heart. Even though we talk several times a week, the human and physical touch was a blessing. Just hanging with my girl was exactly what this mama needed on a sunny summer day and I’m pretty confident it’s just what she needed too. Connect with loved ones you haven’t seen in a while……it’s good for the soul.

Now, in our new location we talked about the meaning and power of a new moon. Black new moons are said to be more powerful than regular new moons. This black moon is in Leo and helps re-learn ways to express our creativity. It’s also a time for self-love, including all matters of the heart; especially our own. It’s time to stand in our own power.

Why are we always critical of ourselves? Crystal, Andrew and Hannah all liked the picture and when I showed it to a few friends, they equally agreed. What were they seeing that I wasn’t? My critical eye, was not grounded in fact, rather expectations that wouldn’t measure up.