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What Lights You Up

What Lights You Up

by | Jun 22, 2024 | Uncategorized

Discover what generates the feels and do more of it!

What I love most about the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of light of the year? Regardless of your beliefs, your human nature wants you to go full cave mode, and submit to the slumber of the night.

Winter Solstice is a time to go deep within your heart and create a meaningful connection with yourself. It’s a time of reflection, to connect with the sensory experiences of life and discern what is meaningful.

I liken the Winter Solstice to entering the initial darkness of your heart. But if you allow your imagination to activate, you can envisage a light, your heart spark, to ignite and illuminate this sacred space. 

If visualisation is challenging for you, I recommend connection to the sensations felt within your body. Whether it be tension or relaxation, allow yourself to observe what you are experiencing. And in this moment, of quiet stillness, allow yourself to reflect on the previous six months using the tips below.

Reflection of our journey path affords us the gift of responsibility, to discern what works and what needs attention. Remember there is no right or wrong.

Moving forward, supercharge your observation skills. Observe when your sensory response lights up to something in life. For example, what makes you feel good? Do more of that. 

For me personally, I adore those fleeting moments when the dawn peeks over the horizon and the beams of orange light chase each other over the earth. The night sky changes from black to blue and then the hues of pink and orange arrive. 

That moment when those orange beams reach me, I feel electrically supercharged. I become hyper-aware of everything around me. My senses are stimulated. I purposefully breathe deeply and slowly, savouring these fleeting moments. I meditate, often walking in nature, and allow myself to be intentional as I connect with my dream life whilst moving my body. 

We aren’t genies who can click our fingers and our dream life magically appears before us. We can decide to run a marathon, put on a pair of sneakers, and then run 42 kilometres. Life doesn’t work that way. But with meditation, you can imagine the life you want and create the feel-good energy of that dream.

Here are five ways to actively use meditation to discover what lights you up!

1. Intention

Through my walking meditations, I connect with my intention of the dream life I want to live. I want to feel balanced, calm and peaceful so I must envisage myself flowing from one task to another within the juggle of life. 

2. Habits

Whilst walking, I can activate my imagination. Whilst being meditative I can allow myself to see the bigger picture of my dream life. I can envisage my future where I have fully integrated the positive habits required to support me in achieving my dream life.

By regularly visiting the vision of the ultimate habit(s), I can discern small positive actions that step me towards the final desired outcome. I can then choose, to implement those actions and practice being joyful, happy, peaceful and calm.

3. Strengths

Your imagination is a powerful tool. When you activate your meditative, or dreaming state, and connect with your intentional habits, you can identify what feels natural. These are your strengths. In other words, that feeling is evidence that you already have the tools and strategies developed for achieving what you want.

When looking at the bigger dream life goal, your opportunities for further improvement (some call this your weaknesses) may reveal themself. Never judge this as a failure. Consider this your homework for improvement to achieve your desired goals.

4. See the steps

As you’re walking, allow yourself to see yourself taking those positive steps forward. Envision the actions required to create the new habit to support our dream life. You can experience joy in its most simplistic form during nature walks because you’re in a meditative (or relaxed) state. Each step transposes your physical reality of moving forward, with the imagined desired outcome.

Remember your brain doesn’t know what is real or imagined. You’re in control of that. So double up on the action with imagination to supercharge feeling good.

5. Reflection

The winter solstice day of darkness naturally affords you the time and space to reflect on your perception of success. You get to ask yourself-

  • Have you made positive progress steps towards your goals? 
  • What has hindered your progress? 
  • What might be next to stretch yourself out of your comfort zone?

There’s no right or wrong question as long as you don’t experience shame, blame or guilt for not having arrived fully at the dream. 

Remember always, happiness is fleeting, just like those orange beams of dawn light. Your role in life is to experience as much happiness as you can.

So perhaps your reflection questions may include — where or when do I make time to be, find or experience happiness? Maybe your dream life isn’t to win a million dollars, but to laugh more with your kids.

Conclusion

You can intentionally harness moments of time whilst in nature, that amplify your energetic access to your dream life. You can be intentional in your connection to that dream, and proactive insert small moments of joy seeking to generate that feel-good sensation. And you can actively seek more and more moments of joy-filled wonder in your life until you realise, you are already living your dream. Happy winter solstice!

First published with Illumination, a Medium Publication. 

Want to read more like this?

This is My Roar – signed copies of my first published book can be purchased from this website. Self Reflection – A little Look Within – click here 8 Hot Tips How To Journal – click here Can You Risk Not Stepping Up To Mother yourself? – Click here

About Karen

Change Facilitator

Karen Humphries is a Kinesiology Practitioner, Clinical Resource Therapist, Clinical Hypnotherapist (including psychotherapy), Health & Business Coach, LEAP & NES Practitioner, Intuitive Meditation Facilitator, Training Counsellor, and published author. She is a self-confessed laughaholic.  She loves being of service to the world with her humorous and positive approach to life, encouraging people to ‘choose to change and bloom from within.’ 

Karen Humphries, Change Chick, Change Facilitator, Kinesiology, Wellness Coach, Australian Bush Flower Essences, LEAP Facilitator, Trauma, Public Speaker, Cancer Ambassador, Blooming From Within, Traralgon, Victoria, Gippsland
Two magical questions

Two magical questions

by | Dec 28, 2023 | Self Development

Two Magical Questions To Explore The Start And Define The End – How To Create A Meaningful Intention

You must first understand your starting point to generate any meaningful change in your life. It’s called the present moment, or today. The starting point of change begins where you are right now!

Just two quick questions before you continue scrolling…

As a Change Facilitator, I spend every single client and group session asking people the following two questions.

1. Where are you at today?

2. Where do you want to be? 

In other words, have you gifted yourself time to reflect on the year that is drawing to a close?

We’ve had almost 365 days of experience. Jump into your journal and explore the centre of your feelings, yep we’re working in the heart, not your head. 

How well did you thrive or survive 2023?

What were those experiences like for you? Try not to think of those experiences as good or bad, but rather did you have the tools to face the challenges brought to your door?

Did those tools sustain you to move through the experience or merely survive it?

What did you learn about yourself or others or situations?

Did you reach a point of desired change where you’ve now decided it is time to stand up? Is it time to step forward? Is it time to change?

If you’ve answered yes, but are uncertain of ‘how’ don’t stress. Just trust that the decision to draw the line in the sand is a good one! 

Exploring what was pleasant, or not, what you would repeat and do again, or not, is a gift of awareness. Identifying feelings associated with a specific experience supports you to create boundaries, review beliefs and refine your understanding of the world you live in. Your feelings will enable you to create a firm boundary.

For those wanting to deep dive a little further, there’s a fabulous tool called the Wheel of Life (WOL). Traditionally the WOL coaching tool enables you to quietly reflect on many facets of your life from wealth, health, relationships, career etc.

The WOL exercise is generally used to support your reflections on your recent experiences (like the year just done) and discern what you’re actually in control of. When using this tool with clients I’m sure to remind individuals to gift themselves permission to be kind as you deep dive. 

Allowing yourself to discover what you might not be in control of, and perhaps what needs to change in terms of behavioural patterns is a powerful, yet confronting activity.

“THIS WISDOM IS GOING TO HELP GUIDE YOU WITH WHAT YOU’RE GOING TO DO IN THIS NEXT YEAR OF YOUR LIFE.” — Mel Robbins

Identifying information about what you’re in control of is extraordinarily powerful. It allows you to decide whether you continue forward in the same way. If your recent experiences were not positive, then perhaps ask yourself whether you want that to continue — regardless of whether you know what action needs to be taken to make a change.

To generate energy for change on a physical, mental and emotional plane, you must first know where you’re starting from. Knowing the start will naturally steer you into a direction of change, in other words, flowing into the space where you want to go next. 

Mel Robbins recently released a digital download WOL whereby she encourages the reader to reflect on your past year using the premise of the following questions:

  • What’s working in your life right now?
  • What’s not working?
  • What are you willing to do the work for to have change?
  • What are you not willing to do the work for?

Answering these simple questions can help you to define the potential boundaries of change. Remember, some things may not be able to be physically changed, for example, the death of a loved one. However, your reaction to an event or experience can be changed. 

So during your reflection of the year just past, be honest with yourself and explore what was hard. The ‘hard bits’ are where you did some intense up-skilling and possibly learnt some life lessons. 

Identifying the shitty bits enables you to discern what you need moving forward. And perhaps most importantly reflecting on those moments gifts you an awareness that you are far stronger than you ever imagined.

Without realising it, you have grown in the last 12 months. You’ve changed. You have developed your kind of wisdom just by navigating the path of life.

“WHEN YOUR GOALS ARE INFORMED BY THE THINGS YOU’VE STRUGGLED WITH, THOSE GOALS TAKE ON A RICHNESS OF MEANING.” — Mel Robbins

Exploring the psychological space where are at today, through reflection of the year just past enables you to readily identify a starting point of your life as a whole. Consider using the Wheel of Life tool, or Mel Robbins digital downloadable (click here) and explore your life — relationships, health, wealth, love etc.

Allow your answers to surprise you, as any identified area for change is your destination moving forward. It’s that simple and complicated. 

Gift yourself an hour to ask yourself where am I now, and what is my intended destination? I encourage you to then reflect on any aspect of your life where you’ve identified a source of stress or low score. In other words, where do you want to be? 

Asking yourself frank questions like “What am I in control of?”, and “What can I surrender and just go with the flow?” allows you to fine-tune the road map to move forward. 

The ultimate destination of your reflection isn’t to win a million dollars. You only end up with the same challenges you have now, and a million dollars worth of bills.

Your intended destination should be what will make you happy in the various areas of your life. When you identify what your desired happiness looks and feels like, you can then draw up an action plan of how to achieve it.

First published with Illumination, a Medium Publication. Click here this piece.

Want to read more like this?

This is My Roar – signed copies of my first published book can be purchased from this website.

Self Reflection – A little Look Within – click here

8 Hot Tips How To Journal – click here

Can You Risk Not Stepping Up To Mother yourself? – Click here

About Karen

Change Facilitator

Karen Humphries is a Kinesiology Practitioner, Health & Business Coach, LEAP & NES Practitioner, Intuitive Meditation Facilitator, and published author. She is a self-confessed laughaholic.  She loves being of service to the world with her humorous and positive approach to life, encouraging people to ‘choose to change and bloom from within.’ 

Karen Humphries, Change Chick, Change Facilitator, Kinesiology, Wellness Coach, Australian Bush Flower Essences, LEAP Facilitator, Trauma, Public Speaker, Cancer Ambassador, Blooming From Within, Traralgon, Victoria, Gippsland

Is Your Container Too Small?

Is Your Container Too Small?

by | Mar 27, 2023 | Self Development

Stop Limiting Yourself In Order To Fit In

When was the last time you squeezed yourself back into a container? I’m not talking about your skinny jeans, although that metaphor is useful.

What I’m talking about is when did you last limit yourself in order to fit in? Whether it be a social situation, a moment of awkward conversation or an experience of conflict.

When did you last dim your light so as not to shine too brightly? Because that kept you safe.

Or god forbid, when did you speak up and outshine the popular girl?

Or perhaps considered worse, when did you last draw attention to yourself?

Thanks to social media, we have become complacent about showing up in their lives.

We crave the tiny bit of dopamine received from the ‘likes’ and numbers on our Instagram accounts, yet we suffer anxiety from ignoring all the signals from our bodies.

It’s so easy to become trapped in the vortex of comparing yourself to others. It’s so easy to ignore that intuitive voice inside you, and simply do what everyone else is doing. It’s easy to make your container smaller.

So where do you limit yourself in order to fit in?

I read an amazing article by Loretta Hart on Linkedin the other day which resonated strongly. She shared a story of coaching a young woman to prepare for a podcast interview.

To encourage this person, Loretta asked the following question- “If you had loads of young women in a room and you could share with them one message what would it be?”. 

The young person’s response without hesitation below my mind … “take up space”

These three words got me thinking about how we limit ourselves, and the associated psychology of why we do it.

Our human experience dictates we want to feel safe. We actively seek out love and acceptance within families, friendship circles and even at work. This psychology extends to the entrepreneur, who craves the likes and numbers growing on their business pages. 

However, seeking validation outside of ourselves disconnects us from what actually lights us up. This uncoupling from what excites us reduces the size of our container — our heart space.

When we limit this container, we are limiting our capacity to express ourselves. When we don’t express what is felt in the heart, we migrate our energy into our head and become stuck. This is where a negative outlook begins to fester.

Additionally, when we don’t express our feelings, we reduce the energy we can feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of thoughts. This reduces our capacity to focus, concentrate and explore. This is how procrastination via mind-numbing activities begins — like social media or tv.

When we limit our exploration of life and new experiences, we develop an internal sense of agitation. We become anxious. This makes relationships challenging as we’ve reduced our capacity to articulate how we feel and negotiate on our own behalf.

So let me wrap up by asking where you limit yourself in order to fit in with a situation, or do you take up space and honour the magical unicorn you really are? And perhaps more importantly, what is diluted in your life when you reduce the size of your container through your limitation of yourself?

First published with Illumination, a Medium Publication. Click here this piece.

Want to read more like this?

This is My Roar – signed copies of my first published book can be purchased from this website.

Self Reflection – A little Look Within – click here

8 Hot Tips How To Journal – click here

Can You Risk Not Stepping Up To Mother yourself? – Click here

About Karen

Change Facilitator

Karen Humphries is a Kinesiology Practitioner, Health & Business Coach, LEAP & NES Practitioner, Intuitive Meditation Facilitator, and published author. She is a self-confessed laughaholic.  She loves being of service to the world with her humorous and positive approach to life, encouraging people to ‘choose to change and bloom from within.’ 

Karen Humphries, Change Chick, Change Facilitator, Kinesiology, Wellness Coach, Australian Bush Flower Essences, LEAP Facilitator, Trauma, Public Speaker, Cancer Ambassador, Blooming From Within, Traralgon, Victoria, Gippsland

6 Tips To Self Reflect

6 Tips To Self Reflect

by | Dec 5, 2021 | Self Development

A Little Look Within

Self Reflection enables you to face the awkward, uncomfortable and dysfunctional aspects in your life  can change your life!

I have multiple conversations in clinic every week with clients who have moments, and even periods of time, where they feel stuck? Perhaps this immersion into darkness only lasts for a couple of hours, or worse, the stuck lasts several days. Some report that it extends out to weeks and gasp, maybe months!

There’s a common denominator for nearly everyone I see — they don’t know why they are stuck.

I talk to these clients about the need for real honesty with yourself, in order to seek a deeper understanding of that close and very personal relationship called ‘me’ or ‘myself’. Diving deep into the relationship with yourself can support you to overcome sub conscious habits that restrict or inhibit you to live your best life.

If you’re nodding your head then self reflection might just be the thing you’re looking for.

Self reflection is not an activity to beat yourself up. Nor is it designed to instigate shame, blame or guilt yourself. And let’s continue with a bit more honesty and agree, that when you first actively begin to explore yourself, it can feel a little uncomfortable — if you allow it.

Self Reflection is defined by the Cambridge dictionary as
“a serious thought regarding your actions”.

 

In other words you’ve got to dig for the good stuff. For example for you to return to your heart space and perceive what worked well or what didn’t?

Self Reflection is a process of observing yourself. This includes your feelings, thoughts and actions. It’s a process that requires being honest with yourself and should not ignite negativity of self sabotaging behaviour of shame, blame, or guilt.

Self Reflection requires a couple of things in order to achieve a positive outcome. You require courage to explore your darkness as you search for your hidden treasure. This includes your flaws, mistakes and reprimands. Your darkness hides the quirks in your values and belief system. Your darkness hides your strength by running a vulnerability based survival behavioural program.

It means you have to be prepared to accept yourself and get the hell out of your head and step down into your heart space. Connecting into your heart space, you are accessing your innate wisdom. You are activating your intuition and perception of life from a space of love. When you disconnnect from all that over thinking, you are actually stepping back into your heart space.

Allowing yourself to be willing to explore within incorporates the need to embrace six ‘self’ attributes.

These include:

  1. Self-confidence —embracing that feeling of trust of your own abilities, qualities and judgement.

2. Self-image — how you see or perceive your abilities, appearance and personability.

3. Self-Worth — sense of your own worth or value as a person.

4. Self-Respect — pride & confidence in yourself.

5. Self-Belief — the belief that you can do things well.

6. Self-Esteem — confidence in your worth & abilities.

Self Reflection is therefore a personal growth tool which allows you to pause and determine how well you’re travelling your journey path. It’s so easy to reflect on your life with a negative filter like overthinking, worry or fear. Your nervous system drives this defensive type of mental based energy.

Self reflection can be used as a tool which supports you to evaluate, and celebrate what you have achieved in your life. With a little kindness for yourself, self reflection can support you to step out of self sabotaging patterns whereby negativity swirls around inside your head.

You can do this be using the power of reframing your perceived failures, simply as lessons not yet fully learned. In turn this creates a positive energy of acceptance and allows you to shift gears or direction to achieve success in the future.

So let’s explore what Self Reflection can do for you!

So let’s explore what Self Reflection can do for you!

Tip #1 Be Honest With Yourself

Self reflection is an invitation to be honest with yourself about how things are going in your life. Your observation should simply assess your behaviour during your experiences, in terms of your values and beliefs.

Are you aligned to your core values? 

Tip #2 Observe your behavioural patterns 

I invite you to gently lay down the need to judge yourself on this one and simply look at whether the same trigger consistently arises for you to address. This creates an opportunity to become aware of the habits that best support you to live your best life, or address the ones that are holding you back.

Tip #3 Understand Your Core Values

From the persepctive of Self Relfection and understanding your core values means reaffirming assessing what is important in your life.

Assessing your values (because some may change throughout your life as you mature) is like maintaining and re-affirming your inner compass to always point you in the direction of your true north.

Tip #4 Be Kind & Gentle!

Self reflection isn’t intended nor designed to beat yourself up about what has happened doesn’t change your experiences. All this does is make you feel like crap.

Remember to not use why questions, because they only leave you looking in the rearview mirror of the journey you’re taking. You need to ask what questions which enable you to open up to a different reality or version of your truth.

Tip #5 Be Forgiving

Self Reflection should encourage you to be gentle with yourself, especially when you don’t meet your expectations, don’t get it right, or completely mess it up.

We all make mistakes.

This is why reframing thoughts and feelings is so vital. Remember that our expectations are often unrealistic and set you up for a perception of failure or fear of not being perfect.

Tip #6 Keep Track Of Your reflections

Capture your observations, thoughts, feelings and whatever burns up your internal barometer in a journal. This enables you to monitor change over time. It helps you map the evidence of your success, or further identify where you can make small adjustments along the way to living your best life.

So Self-Reflection is really like a form of internl auditing.

It’s just like placing your thoughts and feelings in front of a mirror, and being able to examine what the heck has been going on. The reflection enables you to examine what is seeping out of the cracks or what has arisen from the dark depths of your sub conscious. As part of your internal audit, instead of going straight into reaction mode, you can choose to become curious and explore why certain emotional responses arise under specific conditions, or be triggered by specific places or people.

Self reflection is a very useful tool, especially if you’re trying to manifest that next big thing in your life. Perhaps you’re using affirmations or the law of attraction and you’re not quite reaching the desired outcome you seek. Self reflection enables you to look at various aspects of your life where you may be running a hidden sabotage pattern.

Self-reflection is a tool that instantly brings you into the present moment because it forces you to explore how am I feeling about x?

It’s a particularly useful strategy if you know you’re about to face something that may re-trigger stress such as a work situation or family gathering. Additionally it’s a useful tool when you’re studying or working on a project as it supports you to measure actual success and celebrate that!

So where in your life can self-reflection support you?

Let’s begin with your relationship with yourself.

We all know that knowledge is power. When you can acknowledge how a person, place, or thing can push your buttons or stress you out, you can take action to defuse the stress trigger. The relationship you have with yourself needs to be based in self love in order to manifest positivity and productivity. 

If you waste your energy and time with the negativity of shame, blame, guilt, judgement, or even resentment you’re wasting your life. This is because negativity stifles your energy to thrive and shifts you into a space of survival, in other words flight or fight.

The relationship you have with yourself is therefore vital in order to thrive in your life. The person who looks back at you every morning in the mirror is going to be the most important relationship you have in your life. It’s imperative to therefore consciously assess where you perceive any weakness or areas for improvement and this starts with where does your negativity spring up?

What pushes your buttons? What trips you up? What causes you to fall or go splat on your face? What fucks you up?

When you can sit quietly with yourself and honestly replay a stressful situation, accepting the flourish of emotions that may have transpired as a component of your reaction (rather than response) you are creating an opportunity for growth. It’s a choice point when you explore this quiet space because you get to decide how that reaction made you feel afterwards. 

You get to decide whether you might do it differently. You also get to explore where that reaction came from so that you begin to understand yourself on a far deeper level.

Want to read more like this?

Can You Risk Not Stepping Up To Mother yourself? – Click here

How To Stop Making Excuses & Start Living Your Best Life – Click here

Healing Emotions Hurt More Than The Physical Wounds – Click Here

About Karen

Change Facilitator

Karen Humphries is a Kinesiology Practitioner, Health & Business Coach, LEAP & NES Practitioner, and self-confessed laughaholic. She is an avid Breast Cancer Advocate residing in Gippsland Victoria Australia. She loves being of service to the world with her humorous and positive approach to life, encouraging people to ‘choose to change and bloom from within.’ 

Karen Humphries, Change Chick, Change Facilitator, Kinesiology, Wellness Coach, Australian Bush Flower Essences, LEAP Facilitator, Trauma, Public Speaker, Cancer Ambassador, Blooming From Within, Traralgon, Victoria, Gippsland