Connect In Thursday: B R E A T H E (Copy)

Self-compassion breathe

We are moves, doers and driven women. We want to do things right. Often with meditation or yoga that "doing it right" enters how our practice, it could be we feel the longer the better, sitting right, getting the poses 100% like our teacher. The sense of what works for us, can fade a little.

Longer can be good, but it isn’t the only way to be mindful, to connect in. During a busy day, serving others less can still be so much.

[Tweet "During a busy day serving others, connecting inward can do so much. Take 3 deep breaths. #mindful #connectinthursday #breath""]

Take 3 deep breathes. Bring more attention to the out-breath. Letting go of the air. This is an invitation to let be. Allowing for these 3 breaths, the thoughts, sounds, feelings, to dos take care of themselves. Connecting to where you are, the body, to right here rather than there (the future, the other person, the past, the to dos yet to come).

What happens during those 3 breaths?

Episode #7 Pleasure with Lesley Stedmon (Copy)

Self-compassion podcast woman

Do you miss pleasure in your life?

Today's show is a great and important one. Our guest today is bringing pleasure back, not as a luxury but as a part of everyday life. I love it.

Lesley Stedmon believes that pleasure is non-negotiable. She wants to live in a world where busy women take the time to make pleasure a priority. Merging her experience as a Registered Nurse and Certified Sexual Health Educator.

Lesley created a movement called The Sensual Sisterhood; a growing community of women who desire to experience the most sensual version of themselves.

Through 1:1 coaching, online workshops, client intensives and destination retreats, Lesley has consistently created a sacred and safe space for hundreds of women to reclaim their desire, embody their truth and own their strong, sacred, sensual selves.

You can find out more about Lesley and The Sensual Sisterhood at www.thesensualsisterhood.com

Connect in Thursday: The Body (Copy)

Connecting to the body

Take a moment to pay attention to how your body feels right now. If it supports you close your eyes.

Why it that so important? It all goes down in the body. How we sense the world. The body is fluid experience and such a great way into to showing up where you are. It isn't a thing. We know the parts it has, but the experience of body and be so diverse, intense, numb and can bring such richness to life.

What is your experience of body right now?

Maybe you need water, food. If you feel relaxed how does that feel? If there is tension in the body, how do you relate to that? Whatever you sense, give yourself a moment to meet that with curiosity.

Share your thoughts with us on the Facebook page

Episode #6 with Casey Erin Wood (Copy)

Casey erin wood

I was curious about what authentic brilliance is, and invited Casey on the show to tell her story and why she feels Authentic brilliance is something we all have.

Casey Erin Wood has a simple philosophy: the universe is speaking to us, we should listen.

As a writer, speaker and coach she has dedicated her life to helping women own what she calls their

Authentic Brilliance

, the quality of clarity and confidence that allows you to walk into a room and transform people through your sheer presence.  She believes we each possess this unique essence and that we are on this planet to share it.

One client shared, “I want more of what she's got - motivation, inspiration, excitement, brain waves, illumination and vision.", while another declared, “Casey is your go-to gal if you're looking to shine even brighter in the world."  And another simply said, “She brought me home”.

When she’s not empowering women to own their Authentic Brilliance you can find her nibbling dark chocolate, having dance parties with her daughter or rocking tree pose on her dock.

In this episode we talked about: 

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 why connection the body is important

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 how to access your authentic brilliance

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 what that means

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 how your surrounding and sisterhood support you

You can check out Casey’s new group program here, it’s all about deepening your connection with your intuition!

Episode #5 Inspirational Woman Bri Seeley (Copy)

Inspirational Woman Project

Bri Seeley is here with a strong message and an inspirational project that is going to touch the hearts of many women.

She is an entrepreneur for all things woman that is passionate about sharing her story, and the stories of other amazing women. Her training and passion as a fashion designer led her to create a fashion label dedicated to femininity and helping women connect with their true selves.

Bri has paved her path by surrounding herself with inspirational women, which revealed to her a disheartening trend that she is dedicated to change. She recognized how intensely women search outside of themselves for happiness and validation, losing touch with what makes them women and conforming to external pressures of how women should show up in the world.

This gap between how women define themselves and how society defines them has created an immense amount of discord and unhappiness. Thus the Inspirational Woman Project was born. 

In this podcast Bri and I talk about

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 her upcoming book and the journey that brought her to creating it

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 why women don't feel like an inspiration

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 how digging deeper into the theme of womanhood has changed her, and those who participated, life

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 why this is (still) an important topic to explore

Check out more about the project here and connect with Bri on Facebook,Twitter and Instagram

Episode #4 earthing with Olga Dossa (Copy)

olga3

Olga is a yogini, mama and the founder of Peaceful Mothering with Olga Dossa. She is committed to supporting mothers to step into their radiance by loving themselves first and claiming their desires.

Through her journey with postnatal depression, she learned that she couldn’t give her best from an empty cup. She left her high paying corporate career to pursue a life that would bring her peace and inspire her daughter to live her own greatest life.

Her great love for her daughter took her on the path of yoga, ayurveda and self-love. Olga believes that when mothers love themselves first, their children will thrive.

In this episode we talk about

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 how to stay grounded

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 why taking of yourself, as well as you family, is important

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 how we pass our way of living on to our children

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 working yourself too hard and Olga's personal story about working through postpartum depression

Interested in learning more about Olga? You can find her on her website, on Facebook, Instagram, Pintrest and Twitter.

Make sure to pick up your free bedtime relaxation to help you release the tension of the day and give you more radiance and vitality.

the tributes to TRIBUTES (Copy)

I have been playing around for a while. With what you may ask... Well, with how to get my writing going for real, what I enjoy writing about and how the hell to get started on that. Apart from procrastination, nothing has been stopping me really. So here we go, diving into the fun part of writing - running with it. The way I want to do it.

One thing I love writing is a Tribute. I love that angle and giving a hear hear to the oddness of life, to the things that make us whole, to what connects us as people and the things that make us laugh.

For me it is often the subtleties of life. I love describing a brief meet between people, a thought that came and went, a feeling so strong it couldn't be shaken off...

...and the experience of all of the above. I have tried the "how to posts", and steps and letting people in on how to do this and that. And truly I believe that the best support I could ever give anyone, was the space to allow them to listen to themselves - so I stopped doing those posts.

The next writing stream will be a series of tributes. Tributes to life. The things that make it glow and the parts that teach the most profound lessons. It will be tributes to white walls and curve balls, tributes to sleep and the people who actually get some of it. And we will see what it evolves into.

It will be shining a light on common humanity and what allows us to belong here as we are.

I am pretty excited about it, because at last I feel that writers block has lifted and I have something to say. I hope you stay tuned.

Podcast Episode #2 with Julie Genovese (Copy)

bio-image Julie Genovese

This podcast goes to show that the online world hooks you up with amazing people that might have passed you by. I am a true fan of Julie's, and I am so happy she joined us.

Julie Bond Genovese is an inspirational speaker, coach, artist, mom and best-selling author of her award-winning memoir, Nothing Short of Joy, endorsed by Wayne Dyer, Dr. Christiane Northrup & Dr. Bernie Siegel. Being born a dwarf, with degenerative arthritis, was not the poison Julie originally believed - it was the cure.

She's been featured on TV & radio including Anderson Cooper Live, NBC LX, The Aware Show & Oprah.com. Julie mentors spiritual seekers and earthy-crunchy-creatives to transform life’s grief, let the soul lead, and woo our hearts back toward the Light. 

Julie came on the show and shared her wisdom and awesome laugh. This is what we talked about:

The self-compassionate woman podcast

Julie's amazing story and why she chose joy for herself

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 The art of breathing deeply

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The challenges that can leave on in the darker parts of life and what you can get from shifting perspective

You can check out Julie's free ebook "Release the Blocks So Creativity Rocks!" at http://www.nothingshortofjoy.com

Episode #1 - With Jess Grippo (Copy)

jessgrippophoto

The new Podcast is off to a great start, starring the Beautiful Jess Grippo

Jess Grippo is a dancer, writer, inspirational speaker, and life coach. Her work is about inspiring people to dance through life: to become more self-expressed, to find peace with their bodies, and to get out of their own way when it comes to making creative dreams happen.

Having left her dancing and creativity aside for far too long, Jess finally discovered true self-expression and creative fulfillment through making her own dance videos. She now actively creates dance work and integrates this experience into her practice as a life coach. She offers inspirational dance classes, coaching programs, and her weekly blog, Creative Fridays.

She was a recently featured TEDx speaker in her talk, “The Dance Less Travelled.”

Jess is a very inspiring woman here are a few things we covered in this podcast

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 self-expression and why it can be challenging to do so

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 Jess' story and how she came to dance and expressing herself through dance and creativity

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 how creativity and self-expression can bring us together, rather than be a selfish act

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 Jess shares an exercise that she uses with clients and gets our groove on... you don't want to miss it

If you are interested in more info on Jess' work or taking her free 7 day challenge you can find her here...

Sleeping Beauty, the caffeine addict... (Copy)

In the past year sleep has been a luxury and not a given, as our youngest apparently feels that sleep is overrated. I have inhaled coffee as the only way to keep me standing upright. During this time I have been more stressed and moody. And I haven't been getting as much out into the world as I wanted to. By habit doing nothing didn't seem like the best cure for the above. Thursday my partner told me to go away for 3 days, sleep, relax and do what I felt was most called for - wow, uhmmmm are you sure, really, ok see you Sunday. I am lucky in the man department I must say.

Out the door I went and took the train to my sisters. Of course I took some work with me thinking this time away would be productive... HA!

I am tired.

At my sisters I had a cup of coffee and didn't really like the brew she was cooking up, so I drank some tea instead. I left the coffee for the next 3 days. This being the first break from the black liquid in over a year. Friday morning I was so tired all I could do was lay on the couch - I stayed there until Saturday midday only to return a few hours later.

I couldn't believe how tired I was and being honest with myself I knew I had been for a really long time. Work, kids, life, habit got to me and I didn't really "hear" the need for more sleep.

Sleeoing beauty the caffeine addict

I normally listen to my body and respect my limits. I also know that I love cuddling up in the evenings a little late, I don't like sleeping during the day and I have so many ideas and love my work that it is hard for me to leave it be.

I am however even more aware that to keep it all up I need to respect my bodies limits and not drown it in caffeine. In the end it wasn't offering a positive contribution to my life.

And as I dive into the material for the upcoming HEAR*SEE*HOLD course I deepen that listening. As with most areas of self and life there is always more to be discovered. The coffee overpowered what my body needed, and in my case boy did I need to sleep, relaxation and to do absolutely nothing.

I came back with a few lessons learned:

1. I don't like filtered coffee

2. Sleeping on a couch for 24 hours ain't too good on the back

3. That I too have blind spots

4. Ignoring it doesn't make it go away

5. zzzzz zzzzz zzzzz