Remabulous

tea time

i hope by now that i am consuming tubs of tea on a daily basis, the english being the champions of the beverage.

over the past weeks and months of chaos, holidays, and starting a new year, i have come to think about tea as the drink of choice. fantasies of days begun with cups of tea and shuffling around in slippers have floated through my head whenever i feel overly stressed.

create rituals that inspire peace of mind. do you crave tea, coffee, naps, or time to read? giving one of these to yourself on a regular basis can increase productivity. it is only our inner puritan who disagrees. if your mind is gnarled up with stress and strain, far better to take a break and then come back to what you are doing with a fresh perspective.

how can you give yourself a break this week? try it and then see how much you get done afterwards. then, tell the inner puritan to shove off.

good reading for women entrepreneurs

a magazine that has been a great read every time i have picked it up, but that might have slipped under your radar is pink. pink focuses on issues for career-oriented women, and women business owners.

it avoids being too fluffy and offers good, useful, career advice. themes each month are interesting to women from any field, and the interviews are smart and well done.

check out their site, where you will find information to subscribe to the magazine, as well as their great newsletter that showcases women who have succeeded in their field.

enjoy!

hopping the pond

well, remabulous ones, i am off for the uk tomorrow. i have left a number of little treats that will post while i am gone. i will post if i am able to from europe, but am unsure what sort of internet access i will have. have a wonderful couple of weeks, and i will be back here on the 11th of february.

image: law keven via flickr

make it easy on yourself!

"nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished." lao tse

this week, my wonderful dentist gave me some tips on brushing technique. i had thought i was pretty good at that process, but it seems i might have been coming at it from the wrong angle. "cover two teeth with the brush at a time and move the bristles, not the brush."

move the bristles, not the brush? it took me a long time staring at the ceiling while she cleaned my teeth to even figure out what that would look like.

it would look quite a bit softer and subtler than the way i do it: brushing away much harder than is necessary. and it is for one reason that i brush with gusto, floss sometimes more often than is necessary. it feels good. it feels productive and righteous. i have never felt that i should have spent less time brushing my teeth than i did.

but maybe it is better to look at where effort is being put in just to make me feel productive. it made me wonder where else i do this in my life. i am sure there are even more places that this is the case than the ones i thought of while in the dental chair.

enamel is delicate- don't overscrub it. on your teeth or your life.

pema chodron's wisdom

The following from zaadz's inspiration newsletter stood out for me:

Our patterns are well established, seductive, and comforting. Just wanting for them to be ventilated isn’t enough. Those of us who struggle with this know.

Pema Chodron

These words of wisdom are good ones for me to remember as I am embarking on many new adventures with my time management, as well as my strategies for my business. It's not enough just to want to change; we have to know what it was that made these habits seem appealing in the first place.

Working with a teacher of mine this week, Ashanna Solaris, who has been a source of wisdom and guidance for many years now, we began to look at the layers I have been holding around my habits this past week. It is always amazing to me how much the ego grips on to these patterns, even when they no longer serve us and might even be holding us back. yikes!

Here are some new ways of thinking that I hope to put in place for myself:

 

remabulous does the group thing!

remabulous is starting a coaching group for the los angeles area! if you live in the area, and are interested in joining a six week coaching group to work with me in person, please contact me about joining. the sooner you contact me the better, as i expect slots will fill up and the early bird discount only goes through the end of january.

for more information, read the flyer about details here.

i look forward to working with you in person, if you feel it is time to begin your coaching process. if you know of people in the los angeles area who might be interested, please send them my way!

i am so excited about moving back into group work. it is one of my favorite ways to work with people and i know that the connections and support found there are invaluable to moving forward in creative and career goals. don't wait! sign up today.

workaholic monday

the lovely kristen havens sent me a link to this post of seth godin's on workaholism. i am quite taken with it. i believe it is true what he says- that fear is the drive beneath workaholism. if we weren't all so afraid that nothing was going to work out, would we continue at this pace?

i love his distinction here between the idea of work that is based on fear and work that is based on passion. aren't we all looking for the "hobby that pays" that he describes? i know i am. and on mondays like today when i wake up a little scared that it's not coming together as quickly as i need it to, i need reminders like this.

thanks so much to kristen for sharing. check her out at the post pub, her latest fabulous site...

there is enough time!

one of the things that i am always grumbling about is that there isn't enough time. it seems to be quite a challenge to fit everything in, especially since i have to be extra vigilant about where my hours go working from home. it is tough to avoid opportunities and lunches and afternoons out when no boss is breathing down your shoulder.

on the other end, and one i have found myself hanging out on more and more often, it is often difficult to stop working. when my sweetie was here recently and both of us were working from home at the same time, we both let the "just a couple more e-mails" mantra prevent us from enjoying a movie together in the evening more than once. what a bummer! isn't the reason to give up the daily grind that we take back control of our time?

enter, once again, carrie & danielle, those magical canadian gurus of beautiful living. their weekly friday focus newsletter, soon to become a daily digest, has been the source of mucho insight. this past week was no exception.

their suggestion to check out the time management plan created by dan sullivan of strategic coaching just might have saved my sanity, my efficiency, and my life. read on to learn what it can do for you...

sarah susanka's words of wisdom

my dear friend, abby, sent me this link to a talk given by sarah susanka at the west coast green conference that she works for in the bay area. in response to my most recent newsletter, she thought hearing the keynote from the conference in november might be a fun little treat.

many thanks to abby and if you are sad to have missed my weekly newsletter this past time, please sign up!

how to go to your own funeral, OR new ways to get motivated in january

milda sent me the following link from cnn about a relatively new practice in South Korea: fake funerals. one company sells the ability to be present at your own funeral. much like living out dicken's "a christmas carol," the idea is that this ritual will allow clients, most of whom are in their 30s and 40s according to the article, to reflect on their lives and choose to make changes afterwards. what would this do to change your life?

image: initmaj via flickr