What is your Mission?

We’ve all heard about mission and vision statements for years. Maybe you work at a company that hangs their statements on the wall, or perhaps you’ve participated in a group process that created a mission or vision statement for your group or organization. But have you ever spent three intensive days digging deep inside yourself to bring to the surface just what is your personal mission and vision?

I just attended a powerful and transformational Peak Potentials course called Life Directions in which I did just that (with about 700 of my closest friends and 28 life coaches to boot!). While I’ve known what my strengths are, and while I had created a personal mission statement about a year ago when I started my aromatherapy and flower essence business, I never really understood the process or the purpose as well as I do now.

Your personal mission statement is your purpose in life, it’s who you are and what you came to this planet to do. A mission statement is based in action, and should include action words – what do you do? Next question, who do you assist? Is it a specific group of people, or all people? Is it wild animals, companion animals, or the natural world? You decide. Finally, who is going to benefit or how are you going to benefit specifically.

After you write your mission statement, here are some questions to consider. Is your mission a projection of you? Are you adding the value to others that you would like for yourself? Is your mission helping to heal your wounds? Your answers to these questions should of course be “yes”. How much disappointment would you feel on a scale of 1-10 if you were not fulfilling your mission? (if it’s less than a 6 or 7, you probably need to re-work it).

My personal mission statement is still a bit of a work-in-progress, but I’d like to share it here with you as an example. After going through a number of exercises and experiences designed to pull out common themes, this is what I came up with.

I inspire, heal, teach and lead people who are seeking to transform their lives to help them live in purpose and joy and remember who they are.

One of my greatest mentors just spoke about exactly this on a training call tonight. Shannon Lavenia, an amazingly powerful, focused and on-purpose woman spoke to our company about a mission as a foundation for your life, your marriage, or your business. It gives you something to stand on, something to always come back to, something to guide you in your life. Without a personal mission you don’t really know who you are, and you cannot create the kind of positive results in your life that you can when you are absolutely sure who you are. A personal mission creates that certainty, that knowing of who you are and why you were born and what you are here to contribute to this world.

My vision is my vehicle that will allow me to accomplish my mission. I know that my mission will never be done, but it gives me purpose and direction in my life – it makes it easy to decide if what I am doing is in alignment with my purpose in being alive or not. It gives me a touchstone, a foundation.

As your mission reflects your inner world, your vision is what you manifest in your outer world. It’s your work, career or business and how you earn income. Having a clear vision gives you direction, something that you want to achieve or live in your life. It’s how you are assisting others, the vehicle you use to live out your mission. Your vision must ignite your passion!! If you aren’t totally excited about it, it’s not the right thing. What is it that you truly want to do or be or have?? Not what someone else thinks is right for you, or what you think is reasonable, but something that would make time and space irrelevant. Something that you have a burning desire to create and that you would actually be willing to die for.

Your vision may grow and change as you do, and you can complete your vision and create a new one. A good timeframe to begin with is in 3-5 years, what do you want your life to look like?? Part of my vision includes writing several best selling inspirational books and traveling the world on a book tour promoting them and teaching principles from them. It also includes a retreat and conference center where people visit and live in community, remembering who they are on every level and connecting with their divine gifts. The conference and retreat center includes a connection with the land, energy and healing work, space for arts/crafts/music, space for children and multiple ways for people to connect with the Earth. This part of my vision actually came to me in a real “vision” about three years ago while I was meditating in water, and I have a detailed drawing of it hanging up near my desk.

In my vision my three children are joyful, passionate, purposeful and happy and we have an amazing time living on our land and traveling the world together. There’s also a soulmate, a life partner who aligns with my mission and who I connect with on every level! I have created an educational foundation for starting new Sudbury schools, to finance the costs involved with starting a school. Financially, I’ve got multiple streams of income and I am a multi-millionaire.

Can you see how my vision fulfills my mission? That’s how to live a life on purpose, to share your gifts with all who may benefit from them. At the end of Life Directions, we all participated in a truly profound experience in which I got to my core how essential it is for ALL people to live in accordance with their own personal mission.

Every single person who is born on this Earth is here for a reason. Discovering what that reason is, and sharing your natural gifts and talents with the universe will lead you to a joyful, purposeful, fun life! If you keep your gifts to yourself or keep them buried within you while you continue to work a job that you may be highly skilled at, but doesn’t make your soul sing, you are dimming the light that illuminates this world. You were meant for something great. It may be something huge that affects millions, or something more specific and smaller, but whatever it is it’s absolutely essential that you do it!

You are important! You have important work to do! All of us are depending on you to do your important work! When you are living a life according to your mission, you’ll have no regrets when your time comes to transition into pure spirit. Time is of the essence. Share your light, your soul, your passion with others and you will transform this world. Now is the time. Let nothing stop you, particularly your own excuses and fears. I implore you not to wait another second longer!

Major Miracle of the Day

Most people think of miracles as events or occurrences that happen in their lives (or sometimes only in “other people’s lives”) that are rare and unexpected. We tend to think of spontaneous recovery from a fatal illness “miraculous” or attaining the exact amount of money needed for some needed item or experience a “miracle.” Then there is the category of “everyday miracles” – the first snow falling, a gorgeous sunset, a baby’s smile, falling in love. What exactly are these “miracles” and how does a person get to have more of them in their life?

I have been experiencing so many “miracles” over the last year or so that I want to take some time here to explore them in a little more detail. I’ll start by telling you what miracles Facebook has wrought in my life recently!!

I was adopted at birth and like most adoptees in this country, had no legal access to my birth records. I grew up without the barest information about my parents, much less any other family connections. That changed in 1996, when I was 26 years old, just after I got married. I met my birthmother and four half-siblings in Pittsburgh, PA in the summer of 1996. My three youngest siblings were 8, 9 and 10 years old at the time, and we developed an especially close bond. Over the next few years we staying in touch and visited as often as we could – I lived on the west coast, so visiting was pretty rare. In 2001 things changed and for the next several years, I lost touch with my family. I tried desperately to find them again on the internet, but had no luck.

Two days before Thanksgiving Day of this year – about a month ago – I struck gold on Facebook and found one of my brothers there!! I had just gotten started on Facebook a few weeks earlier. He had a profile on MySpace as well, so I connected with him there and on Thanksgiving Day, for the first time in almost eight years, I spoke to my brothers, sister and birthmother again because they were all in the same place for Thanksgiving dinner. A miracle!! Could I have planned it any better?? No.

Another miracle – a little over a month ago, my finances looked pretty bleak. I had posted my Honda minivan for sale on Craigslist and two people had promised to buy it and then backed out of the deal. I was way behind on my payments, and really needed to sell it to get my head back above water. On November 18, I received a call from some people who had looked at it a couple of times and they said they would drive down and pay cash for the van that day. I called Honda Finance to find out what the payoff balance would be so that I could send them a check. The man I spoke to put me on hold while he cancelled the order for an agent…who had already been sent to my house to repossess my van!! I collected the money from the people, they drove away in the van, and then I FedExed a check to Honda Finance later that day. A close call for sure, and definitely a miracle!!

But the story that has me thinking so much of miracles is the one that happened today. First, a mere “minor” miracle. Sandrine and I had been close friends our senior year in high school. She was a foreign exchange student from France. We stayed in sporadic touch over the years, but I had just about given up hope on finding her again. Sure enough, late last night, I found her on Facebook too!! We have re-connected once again and now my daughter, who is obsessed with all things French, will be thrilled that she has an auntie in France.

Now for the “major” miracle of the day! This story starts way back in 1989 when I was in college in Connecticut. I became close friends with Todd through some activist work I was doing on campus. During the spring semester of 1991 Todd traveled to Madrid, Spain to study while I traveled to Berkeley, CA to take some much needed time off from school. In May of 1991 I was once again traveling, this time by train from Oakland to New York and then up to Connecticut where I was to stay for the summer at my college campus. During a 24-hour side trip that I took in Minneapolis, I spoke to a friend of mine back at college who told me that Todd had apparently committed suicide while still in Madrid. I was absolutely crushed, and to make things worse I was going to miss the memorial service being held on campus because I would still be on the train. Todd’s death had a profound impact on me at an early age, and most haunting was the fact that nobody could figure out what had really happened. Todd was one of the happiest people I ever knew – he had a laugh like I imagine an angel child must have. I was as confused by his death as even his family appeared to be.

Jump forward seventeen years to May 2008. I was staying with a childhood friend in Maine and somehow the conversation turned and I told her briefly the story about my friend Todd. She asked me if he was in Spain at the time he died, and I said, “Yes, why?” It just so happened that she had seen about five minutes of a new program on a new TV network called Logo and it was about the twin siblings of my friend Todd and their quest to find answers to their brother’s death!!! We looked it up online and I viewed the four episodes of the documentary they had participated in called Gay Siblings. It was powerfully emotional for me to watch as Todd’s brother and sister went back to Madrid to search for some answers as to what really happened. At the time, I was in Maine because my own mom was dying so I was spending a lot of emotional time with her at the hospital as well. I got in touch with Todd’s former roommate from college, who happened to be featured in the program, and my contact with him was definitely cathartic.

But then last night, for some reason (yes, divine intervention!) I looked up Todd’s brother on Facebook (yes, the divine intervention tool!!) and this morning we had our first conversation by telephone!! He was as happy to hear from me as I was to talk to him. We are even in the same line of work – personal development and life coaching! I never could have guessed that more than seventeen years after experiencing that acute tragedy of losing my nineteen year old friend so suddenly that I would be able to re-connect with him in a way through his younger brother. I can’t describe the joy that began coursing through me as I spoke with Todd’s brother, knowing that neither of us will ever take our connection for granted because it was born out of such an emotionally painful event. Funny coincidence (or not!) Todd’s brother has a twin sister and I am the mother of boy/girl twins!!

Maybe we should start to call these “miracles” allowances of the divine. When we start to focus all of our energy on feeling good, and doing good for other people, and on our true potential as human beings, it seems that the miracles start flowing steadily and increasingly!! So many “miracles” have happened in my life over the past year alone that I can barely count them all!! I just continue to smile and allow the joy and the magic of them to wash over me and my life. I appreciate that the universe is working in co-operation with me whenever I experience one of these miracles.

What miracles have happened in your life over the last year? What were you doing to allow them into your life? Do you “believe” in miracles, or do you “expect” miracles? Do we create our own miracles? Why so some people appear to be “lucky” while others are not? Is it because they expect to be “lucky” and therefore are actually creating more “luck” in their lives? We absolutely get what we focus on. If you focus on the positive aspects and the possibilities in your life, then I guarantee that you will start to expect miracles. These miracles make life into an awesome, fun game!! I can’t wait to find out what’s going to happen next!!!

Happy Winter Holidays to All!! 2009 is going to be the best year EVER!! Stay tuned to this blog for more as we enter the New Year. Expect miracles and allow them to flow into your life, and write and tell me about them as well!!

Creating Life On Purpose

Have you ever made a decision to create something out of nothing except pure opportunity and desire? I did just that a few days ago, and it made me so happy I was giddy for hours and hours. I’m talking about the universal laws of creation here – the law of attraction, the law of deliberate creation and the law of allowing (check out Abraham-Hicks for more on this).

Several weeks ago I heard a new David Byrne song on the radio, which I quickly became quite obsessed with and soon I found myself downloading his entire new CD of material onto my iTunes and listening to it constantly. I was a big Talking Heads fan back in the day, but hadn’t really kept up with David Byrne’s solo pursuits over the years. The new song, called Strange Overtones, caught me in it’s groovy grips though and I’ve listened to it A LOT over the last few weeks. It’s music David Byrne created with Brian Eno – enough said there, I hope.

I heard that David Byrne was coming to Seattle the day after my birthday in February, and I was thinking seriously about buying some tickets to go to the show. Then, on the radio Wednesday morning I heard the DJ announce that she was giving away two tickets to the show! Hooray! I was driving though, and didn’t catch the dial-in information in time. Boo. Someone else won them, of course. Same thing on Thursday. I really didn’t give it much thought, until Friday morning at about 10:30 AM. 

The DJ announced that she was getting ready to give away tickets again to the tenth caller, and this time I pulled over into a parking lot and prepared to win the tickets. I thought to myself, it’ll be really great to go to that concert for my birthday celebration, and won’t it be so much nicer to go if I win those tickets and get to attend for free?

I sat in my car. I closed my eyes. I heard the DJ’s voice in my mind saying, “Congratulations! You’re our winner!” I got a little bit unsettled and anxious, so I took some deep breaths and grounded myself and continued. I sat there for about five minutes, mentally rehearsing winning those tickets – a technique I learned directly from Dr. Joe Dispenza who was featured in the movie What the Bleep Do We Know. I opened my eyes, opened up my flip phone and waited to hear the phone number to call. She said it very quickly, but I got it. I dialed once – busy. Twice – busy. Three times – busy. Four times – it rang…and rang, and rang. The DJ answered. I said, “I’m calling for the tickets”, and she said, “You’re winning the tickets!” I laughed! I told her I had been wanting to go to the show for my birthday, and was so excited to be winning those tickets!!

After I hung up the phone, I was GIDDY! I was ELATED! I had consciously created that exact experience and I was enjoying it to the fullest. I expected to win, and I did! I laughed while I listened to myself on the radio a couple of minutes later! How fun it is to set your mind on something, focus intently, and receive almost instant results! What a joy to persist (I only had to press re-dial three times) and then receive the rewards. 

I went into Radio Shack a few minutes later, and I told the young girl who helped me that I had just won tickets on the radio – on purpose. She said she didn’t think real people really won those things. She thought that the radio people recorded somebody winning and broadcast that, but that nobody really won. Wow. Pretty far off from what had just happened to me. A different reality.

How are you creating your life on purpose? What thoughts are constantly going around in your mind? Are you entertaining thoughts of possibility, or lack? Of hope or fear? Because what you focus on, what you think about, you absolutely create in your own life. It may not happen quite as quickly as it did when I decided to win the concert tickets, but it absolutely happens. It has to. It’s universal law. 

I’ve got my thoughts and feelings lined up with some pretty powerful visions for my life right now. I am imagining some wonderful possibilities for me and my family. Each day I sit quietly for 30- 60 minutes and focus intently on mentally rehearsing what it will look, feel, smell, sound and taste like to have already achieved my goals. It makes me feel so happy, so peaceful to know that what I am wanting in life I am absolutely assured to receive as long as I keep open to it. I enjoy the mental rehearsals so much because they are so joyful and fun, and I feel fulfilled to have received my heart’s desires. I start my day in wonderful expectation of the abundance that will be coming to me, and in gratitude for what I already have. I feel positive, even when my circumstances are anything but positive. I stay focused on what I desire, and I take action from that place of certainty, of knowing that I am the creator of my own life.

Absolutely amazing things have been happening to me. My business is totally taking off. I’m re-creating relationships with family members whom I have been out of touch with for seven years, ten years, twenty years even. Suddenly, everything is going my way. Ah, but I have been affirming this to myself for months now, even when it LOOKED like things were NOT going my way. A few weeks ago when things looked very bleak, something amazing happened at the eleventh hour to turn things around and I knew that I had been part of creating a miracle. I decided on that day that it would be my “pivot” day, and that things would never in my life get that bleak again, at least financially. Since I made that decision, I have experienced several other miracles. They are gaining in momentum, and I am excited to awake each day to discover another one more wondrous than the last.

This is fun! This is why we are alive, to create our lives on purpose. We came here to enjoy creating and it is fun when things are going along well. My kids and I are healthy and thriving. I am excited about the adventure that my life is. How about you?

Gratitude and Appreciation

I’ve cultivated a habit over the last few months that is a mighty powerful force for the positive in my life, and that is keeping a Gratitude Journal. Each day I begin my morning by writing down several things that I am grateful for and why. Many times my children, my house and the heat and protection it offers, my amazing work-from-home business opportunity and community (http://www.wiseearthenterprises.com for more on that), and my friends top the list. Some days I wake up and it’s pouring rain for the tenth day in a row, it’s dark and gloomy and it’s more of a stretch to even want to get out of bed. That’s when I grab my journal and write, “I am so happy and grateful that I have such a warm, cozy bed” which immediately starts me thinking in the direction of what else I have in my life that I appreciate.

Starting each day by writing down several things or conditions in my life that I appreciate puts me into a powerfully positive vibration which then magnetically attracts more positive aspects into my life. A smile springs to my face and I negotiate the morning of making breakfast for my three children, packing lunches and driving them to school with more centeredness and humor. OK, I’ll admit the good feelings don’t always last all the way through my morning routine, but at least I know that I am starting off on the right foot. 

Fearful thoughts arise in me, as they do quite frequently for most of us – our minds love to lead us down the garden path beginning with the not-so-innocent phrase “What if?” What if I can’t make the car payment. What will happen? Will some guy named Guido show up in my driveway and take my car away from me? Oh, that would be bad. Then, how would I drive the kids to school? If I don’t have a car and have no money to buy a new one, how in the world would we get around? Etc. Etc. My mind is taking me into a tailspin and suddenly my palms start to sweat, my brow starts to furrow, I get knots in my stomach and I start yelling at my kids. STOP RIGHT THERE!

I am in control of my mind, and therefore my emotions. I grab the steering wheel and yank it away from my terrified mind. I breathe. I breathe again. I continue breathing. And then I think, “What do I already have in my life that I am grateful for?” I’m alive, I am healthy, my kids are healthy, we have fresh water to drink and clean air to breathe, we are intelligent beings, we have a nice warm house to live in, I’ve got so many inspirational, fun friends, I’ve got good food to eat and massive abundance surrounds me everywhere. WHEW! Gratitude saved me from that train wreck again! I’m feeling relieved, I’m feeling hopeful. I know that the bumps in my road are just temporary. I know once again that I am limitless possibility and that I already have endless abundance in my life.

I ate at a fantastic restaurant in Berkeley, CA last month called Cafe Gratitude (http://www.cafegratitude.com). There are several locations in the Bay Area – I would sure like to bring them up to the Puget Sound!! They serve mostly raw, vegan food which I very much enjoy but the attitude when dining there is what is most profound. The servers ask the diners, “What are you grateful for today?” When my server asked me this, I thought of many things at once but the primary thing on my mind was how grateful I was that I was able to have the experience of dining there and was about to be served delicious food because I was rather hungry. 

I noticed that when the servers asked this question, many of the diners got a confused, hesitant look on their faces and couldn’t really think of how to respond. I realized that because I have cultivated a habit of expressing my gratitude and thinking about what I am grateful for, I can come up with an answer for that question at any time of the day or night. For some, however, this was a far stretch from their everyday way of being in the world. They came to this place of community and great food and love with hope in their hearts, but when it came down to participating full out, old fears and patterns held some back.

My server and I got into a beautiful discussion in which I happened to mention that I thought gratitude was the most powerful force in the universe. He countered, “What about Love?” To which I replied, “Gratitude is Love in Action.” I’m still not sure what made me say that, or even quite what I meant, but it made both of us think and struck each of us as a profound statement. 

If you want to keep pointed in the right direction in your life, in the direction that makes you feel good and powerful, I highly recommend taking some time each day to be thankful for the things you do have in your life instead of focusing so much on the things that you don’t have. Start a gratitude journal and write in it every day for five minutes. Join hands with your family around the dinner table, as I do with my children, and have each person tell at least one thing that they are grateful for. It could be anything. Being alive. The air we breathe. Cookies. That we are all sitting down together. This becomes even more powerful when you ask family members to say one thing that they appreciate about each other.

I am very grateful today for the opportunity to share my thoughts with all of you. People I know and people I may never meet might read this post and be inspired to be more grateful in their lives. How cool is that? Thank you for reading my blog. I appreciate having readers! Thank you to those of you in my life who have inspired me not to take anything for granted, but to continuously strive to hold myself in a place of appreciation for the massive abundance of well-being that surrounds me at all times.

My Declaration of Freedom

On July 5, 2008 – yes the day after the U.S. Independence Day - I wrote a private declaration to myself; I declared myself to be free. This was a powerful and transformational tool, and I recommend that you give it a try. I’m not sure just what inspired me to write it, but I was in the middle of some huge changes in my life – my mom was dying and I had just gotten divorced about six weeks prior.

My Declaration of Freedom was a couple of pages long, and filled with emotion, basically declaring to myself that “I’m not going to take it anymore.” What’s the “it” that I decided not to take anymore? Holding myself hostage in fear, thinking that somehow I’m not “enough” or “worthy” of living my largest dreams. Caring about what others’ think about me or what I am choosing to do in my life. Playing life small, playing life safe and in the realm of the known. 

Here’s an excerpt of my Declaration of Freedom;

I am meant to thrive, not just survive. Damn anyone who says otherwise. I am meant to lead, not follow. I am meant to blaze trails, to help humanity. I’ve got to change and grow to be up to the challenge. Determination, Hunger for my vision, Do Nothing Else. Be the vision. Be that person now. I will have what I came here for. It is mine, and I now claim it as mine. I have all of infinite wisdom and power at my fingertips, in my heart and mind. I now choose to play big. Fear and inaction are no longer options. No more excuses. I’m ready. Hop in and let’s go.

This declaration has helped me move forward in my life in many ways. In this blog, I’d like you to consider what’s holding you back from accomplishing all of the dreams and desires that you have? Will you choose to continue to feed your worries and doubts by focusing on them, or will you choose to feed your dreams of what’s possible for you?

This blog will explore personal freedom in all of its’ manifestations. I intend to share resources that I have found valuable and wisdom that I have gathered along my journey in the hopes that I can inspire others to become more free, to become the deliberate creators of their lives that we were all meant to be. Life is meant to be absolutely enjoyable and fun, but we all have patterns of thinking and feeling that often create a life that is anything but fun and enjoyable.

Exploring personal responsibility in the creation of one’s own life is something that absolutely fascinates me because it is a totally new concept to most people. In this “victim” mentality world, taking responsibility for EVERYTHING in one’s own life is a fresh new concept that deserves some exploration, because taking responsibility for what IS is the first step in creating a life of infinitely positive possibilities. I’ve been interested in personal responsibility for a long time, and am looking forward to exploring this concept in depth on these pages.

What does freedom mean to you? How does it feel in your body when you are experiencing freedom? Do you feel relieved? Do you feel lighter? Do you feel more powerful, more creative? Do you even feel more ALIVE? 

What is possible for you? I invite you to explore this question with me on my journey to absolute freedom.