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  • Home
  • About
    • The Happy Fan Club
  • Offerings
    • Redesign Your Life 2.0
    • Get Creative
    • Personal Coaching
  • Creativity Conversations
  • LET'S CONNECT!
  • Blog
    • Live Free Your Way
    • Seeing Things Differently
    • Mistaking Assumptions for Truth
    • How Humor Keeps Us Sane
    • Know Thyself
    • Peach Pie for Breakfast
    • Explore Experience Express
    • Should You Be Downshifting?
    • Stop the Hustle!
    • Do Your Habits Serve or Sabotage
    • Settle Down? Down Where?
    • What Lights You Up?
    • Saying Yes When Your Mind Says No
    • Independence From What?
    • Letting Ourselves Off the Hook
    • Letting Go of Assumptions
    • Is Kindness Allowed?
    • How to Throw a Wrench in the Works
    • Happiness
    • Daring to be Lighthearted
    • What Happens When You See Things Differently
    • Find Delight in Everyday Life
    • Are You Saying What Needs to Be Said
    • Is Your Life in Alignment
    • Are You Trapped by Your Past
    • Can You Love Your Life
    • The Hallmark of Creativity
    • Out Of Ideas?
    • Waking Up to a New World
    • Are You a Possibilitarian?
    • Want to Love Your Life?
    • Is Creativity Necessary
    • What's Stopping You?
    • An Unexpected Discovery
    • Free Your Mind
    • Is Your Creative Genius Hiding
    • Empty Headed or Clear Minded?
    • Is Stress Really Necessary?
    • Will Creativity Improve Your Life?
    • Is Creativity In Your Future?
    • Replace Fear With Love
    • How to Get Out of Your Own Way
    • Just Take A Moment
    • You Don't Have To - You Get To
    • The Good News About Being Stuck
    • Interested in Inner Freedom?
    • Are You a Hoarder?
    • What Remains
    • Co-vid 19 Free Pass to the Roller Coaster
    • Grace Under Pressure
    • Now is the Time To Notice
    • Hanging With the Wrong Crowd
    • Make Your Life Simpler
    • What Could Be Different For You
    • Everything is a Miracle
    • Do You Have A Negativity Bias
    • Are You Really Seeing Or Just Assuming?
    • Happiness and Resilience
    • Wherever You Go, There You Are
    • Is Stress Making You Sick?
    • What I Wish My Humans Knew
    • Looking Backwards
    • Daring to Change Course
    • Lost in Thought or Taking Action?
    • Still Can't Focus?
    • Do Your Thoughts Get Dark and Gloomy?
    • Can't Focus?
    • An Instant Formula for New Ideas
    • Talk Yourself Out of Another Great Idea?
    • Is Your Busyness Keeping You From Getting Things Done?
    • What's that Feeling In the Pit of My Stomach?
    • How Cool is This?
    • How to Make Your New Year Happier
    • Why Be Open To Life?
    • Simple Ways to Transform Your Life
    • Get Clarity and Confidence
    • Are You Driven by Fear or Love?
    • The Number One Way to Keep Your Vision Alive and Well
    • Why Stop Trying to Figure it Out?
    • What Are You Trying to Prove?
    • Do Your Goals Reflect Your Hearts Desire
    • Why My Cat is My Spiritual Teacher
    • Surviving the Holidays
    • 3 Convincing Reasons
    • 3 Secrets to Enjoying the Holidays
    • 5 Quick Steps to Get Your Mojo Back
    • 3 Ways to Keep Your Energy High
    • 5 Reasons to Do Good
    • Pain Relief for the Soul
    • Tired of Living by the Rules? Go Rogue!
    • What? You've Made a Mess? Excellent!
    • Why You Need to Be Inspired Now
    • Change Your Life in Just 48 Hours?
    • The Cure For Mental Overload
    • 5 Infallible Ways to Stay Inspired
  • Newsletter

Is Your Life in Alignment with What You Love?

4/16/2021

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Earlier this week I was in an online group (hosted by my friend Stephanie Benedetto Padovani) where we went into breakout rooms with one other person and for 10 minutes we took turns sharing what we love with our companion. It was amazing to notice the shift in energy that took place within both of us that transcended the virtual nature of our connection, as we focused on something so seemingly simple as talking about what we love.

There was a powerful feeling that was palpable to both of us - a combination of delight, excitement and optimism. The things we included in our"love lists" ranged from the sublime to the mundane, and after it was over the experience lingered with me in one single question: am I living my life in alignment with what I love?

I had to go back to basics and ask myself what  it means to be in alignment. The meaning of the word is to 'line up with' or 'give support to,' so what am I lined up with? What do I acknowledge that touches me, makes me stop and appreciate, that brings me back to varying degrees of awe, gratitude and connection?
​

By way of example, here are ten things I love (out of many more):
​1. The sound of ocean waves as they crash against the shoreline.

2. Fireflies lighting up the fields at night
3. The smell of lilacs in spring.
4. Meteor showers
5. The woodpeckers that visit our suet feeder.
6. Music. It would be hard to live without.
7. Making art, especially when the results are unexpected.
8. Having real conversations.
9. The warmth of sunshine after a long winter.
10. Baby anything: people cats, dogs, turtles, horses…

What do you love? Start making your own list and see what happens as you do. As I look at my own list, I start to remember more things that I love, whether I come across them or create them, and my heart starts to sing. (You may find yourself hearing the song, My Favorite Things from the Sound of Music in your head). But it goes far beyond just not feeling so bad.

When I’m connected to what I love, I find myself in an expanded state without doing anything other than remembering and noticing. No intellectual concepts, no tactics or strategies. Just the pure awareness of the gifts that life presents to us without our permission, without our having to earn them, but just because they exist and we get to experience them.

What would happen if we purposefully choose to acknowledge what we love in our lives? Could it lead to a discovery of inner resources we never knew existed or a way to connect with something greater that would transform how we show up in the world? That’s what it’s done for me, and it’s been a heck of a lot of fun to discover.

Acknowledging what we love doesn't mean we have to be talking about those things incessantly. It's a grounding, a "come from" that flavors everything we do. When our purpose or intention is to live from that expanded and open space inside us, there's a state of flow that happens effortlessly; we see more, do more and have access to more possibilities.

As I reflect on how I feel just by acknowledging what I love, the connection between alignment, integrity (to be whole and undivided) and authenticity (genuineness becomes obvious to me. I'm out of alignment when I don't live from that place within me that resonates with this beautiful feeling. When I don't live from that place of love, I fall back into feeling of struggle, of pushing or striving rather than being open to creative impulses and the ability to see the potential for good in everything.

Just to be clear: living from love isn't some airy fairy, saccharine pretend-everything-is-fine perspective. It's more like living from the truth of what is freely given and that allows us to do what we can to contribute to positive change in the world. And the feeling we get will tell us what to do and where to go next. That's freedom. And joy.

And to be honest, I don’t live from that place all the time. Far from it. I have my own triggers that throw me out of that recognition. And yet, it’s become easier and easier to get back to there. The more I pay attention to what I love, the less I automatically find fault with everything else. And when I’m not finding fault with everything else, I see more options for acceptance, curiosity and engagement.

If we aren't incorporating what we love into the way we live our lives, living from it and acknowledging it, why not? More often than not, we’re just caught up in old habits of putting ourselves (or others) in the wrong, feeling insecure or inadequate.

These are habits that can be broken. If I can do it, then so can you. Your own light will begin to shine more and more brightly, and the quality of your life will improve immeasurably when you allow yourself to align with and include those people or things that remind us of who we are and what we can become.
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