Something I work to get better at knowing all the time is that every person has his own right to his own opinions, beliefs and habits. Each person has that right and I encourage and staunchly defend that right. I believe this is what the Founding Fathers in the US were saying. I don’t have to agree with him and he doesn’t have to agree with me. People are free to choose how they want to live unless it is inflicting harm. Even that can be a slippery slope of interpretation.

Sometimes it is surprising how people very close to you have radically different ideas about how to live. For these intimate family members and friends it is harder, for me anyway, to live and let live and simply say, well it is her choice and she is a grown-ass woman of sound mind. She can make her own decisions.

But that is exactly what my family is faced with doing at present. My mother is nearly 80 years old. She has been independent most of her life and has lived alone, over 5 hours away from the nearest family member for over 15 years. We convinced her to come and stay with my sister, who lives near two of us other kids, for a trial run. It was to be 3 months. It didn’t last 3 weeks. She will leave to go back home at just over the 2 week mark.

I feel robbed in some ways. I thought I was going to have more time with her. I thought she would end up staying, warming up to the idea of being around family and being part of our lives. I don’t understand the life she lives. It is a solitary life, not even any pets, with only trips to the grocery store when needed and most days spent immersed in Turner Classic Movies. She absolutely loves them.

So, I defend her right to her chosen life. I cannot place my values on her. I do not want to make her miserable by living a life she didn’t choose. I would never want to do that. I love her and want her to live the life of her choosing as long as she can. But I will allow myself to mourn the loss of what could have been.

One of the main facets of the lovingME lifestyle is the concept and action of getting very clear on who you are and what you want. Not what your parents wanted or saw for you, not what your teachers saw or didn’t see, not even what your spouse sees but what you discover for yourself. Most of us go through our lives going through the motions. I know that I sure did. I followed the rules and followed the leader. We end up spending much, if not all, of our time living someone else’s agenda. Many of those agenda items may be wonderful and really important. However, if they are not yours, you will not be able to sustain high motivation and success over the long haul. In fact, they are taking away from your energy rather than building it.

But I have to work! I have to pay the bills and I have a family to support, you say. I get that. Oh, how I get that. The nice thing is that once you know who you are, or even have a general direction of what you want, you can start moving in that direction. Your vision will get clearer once you start toward it, once you decide to pursue it. Then, everything you do can be framed as a step toward your destiny.

I am still working full time at a job I love. I am blessed in that regard. But I can say that once I started toward my destiny, my commitment, focus, presence and motivation toward that job increased, exponentially, not decreased as you might expect. No, it increased because now my “why” is dramatically different and bigger than it has ever been before! I need to do well in my job for a host of reasons so I do well in my job for a host of reasons. It is who I am, now that I am clearer and embrace that part of me. It is what I do and do well. I walk my talk and the right resources are available to me because that is what I expect and that is what I request with confidence. And I am available to others in a way that isn’t typical.

My current job is a means to an end but it is also part of a wonderful journey and there is plenty to learn and to teach along the way. My company gets what they need and I get what I need and all at a higher level than is possible for someone who doesn’t have the unmatched motivation of clarity toward their real destiny. This is what I help people to discover in my life’s work. I am truly blessed.

The odds are good that you don’t have a solid role model for loving and respecting yourself or even truly understand what agape love is. Most of us didn’t/don’t. Most of us are not even aware that we are not loving and respectful toward ourselves. Many, myself included, have been taught that living a life of total sacrifice and suffering is the way to go. Being a martyr is great but when that becomes unsustainable, you blow up and say it is my turn and I am taking my share now, by force if necessary. I lived that out for many years.

I still subscribe to those same beliefs of humility and service. The difference is that now I am finally understanding what that means for me in a much healthier way. For God so loved the world, that He sent His Son and saved us. He chose us and He made us worthy. I realize now that my first role is to receive the Gift of His love. I have done that and continue to do it daily simply by acknowledging and being thankful. Then I look to see myself through the eyes of the Creator. He made me. I am His child. I am done telling Him everything wrong with His creation. It was like I had been calling His sweet baby ugly for years! Everything about me He created or allowed. So I now accept it and ask to become more like what He envisioned from the beginning. Because I accept the Gift first, then and only then am I able to truly love others with the overflow.

Being humble does not mean that you tear yourself down. Being humble does not mean hiding your light under a rock. Being humble does not mean downplaying or squashing your unique talents and skills. Serving doesn’t mean giving so much of yourself that there isn’t enough to sustain you. Serving doesn’t mean living someone else’s dream for you.

Humility and service mean committing your life to being the best you that you can be. To be in awe of all that you have been given and to commit to a life of growing and sharing that with the world. There is only one you! You must fiercely guard your time, your mind, your actions, your body from anything that would distract you from or steal your destiny. You have a role to play in this world today.

You also have free will. You are able to choose. My prayer is that you choose to accept the Gift and actively incorporate what that really means into your life. My life’s work is to help people to do that.

A few years ago my life hit bottom. I looked around and it was hardly recognizable, not in a good way. I had been so swept off my path and my beliefs were so jumbled that I was lost. I looked at the people in my life and I so wanted them to change. I was sure that they were the source of my issues. I looked at my husband, my boss, my boss’ boss and all the people pressuring me and I just wanted it to stop. I didn’t want to play anymore. I was burnt out, fried and out of energy.

I felt the weight of the world on me. I had to make my numbers, I had to keep a home. I had to provide and I had to plan, organize and direct everything into this ballet where everything had to be timed perfectly. I felt unappreciated and taken for granted. Once the golden girl at work, there was a bit of tarnish starting to appear on my crown. Something had to give. These people had to change or I had to replace them with others who were different, who would see me, hear me and appreciate me.

It took me several years to get back on track, to learn the amazing lesson that bottom provided. I had allowed it all. I had created this life and I didn’t like it. I was the one who had to change and I was the one who had to first learn to see me, hear me and appreciate me so that I could teach the world how to do the same.

Years ago, I was trying to be skinny. Long history of that since childhood but at this particular time I was heavier than I have ever been. I decided to take diet pills – this was before they took ephedra off the market. They were “natural” so I took them with abandon. I wouldn’t be hungry until late morning, when I would have a big slice of pudding cake for breakfast (yes, you read that right, pudding cake from the local grocery – it wasn’t even homemade with love LOL). Yes, this is a dirty little secret I held, the Metabotrim or something like that, pudding cake and Mountain Dew diet. Shockingly, :-/ it didn’t work. I got bigger not smaller. Unbelievable, right?

I wasn’t fully aware at the time, of course, but now it makes me sad how misguided and ultimately harmful that whole routine was. However, I forgive the old me and I realize that she didn’t know better. Even if she did, she didn’t understand how to do better. She couldn’t see clearly and she didn’t understand that she was so much more precious than that and that health and fitness was the real goal, not being skinny at any cost.

My experiences like that and how I have now created a lean, strong, healthy and energetic body as one major facet of a healthy, joyful life, led me to my life’s work. I help people find those things they are doing and the reasons that they are doing them that they cannot see. While so close to it, they are not able to connect the dots of what is happening but they are painfully aware of the results, like in my case weight gain, lethargy and burnout. We cannot see our own blind spots but someone who has navigated the waters can serve as a guide. What is keeping you from living your fullest life? Show me the result and I will help you uncover and remove the cause.

I am the first example of how I want people to treat me. My mentor Lisa Nichols says this and it is so profound, so important. I show you how I expect to be treated. Wow. So you mean if I talk bad about myself, don’t care for myself, let myself down, don’t fully show up for myself, lie to myself, then that is what I am teaching you to do for me also? Unfortunately, yes. But the good news is that if I am treating myself well, I also teach the world how to treat me well, too.

How can anyone know that you deserve and expect and receive excellence if you do not receive it from yourself? They can’t.

So when I look around and say, wait, why is this happening? Why I am I feeling some disrespect, some ungratefulness, some oppression here? The first place I need to look is in my mirror. How have I shown the world that this is okay and how do I make it clear going forward that it is not? It is a process of exploration, discovery and sometimes, even spelunking. Now, I serve as a tour guide to help others on this journey to uncover what they cannot yet see.

It is very hard to get what you want if you are not clear on what that is. Sometimes it is a general sense that you just want to get better. Sometimes it is that you just want the pain to stop or the happiness to continue. Sometimes it is that you just want something. Different.

In those times it helps to seek clarity. What specifically would you want to be different? If you could pick one thing today (and you can) that you would like to improve, what would that be?

For me today, it is communication. Real, honest, meaningful. Communication. No holds barred, raw, true, communication. Connection.

The how will come now that I know the what. The “what” plus courage and openness to possibility leads to the “how.” We are not really taught to ask ourselves at a core level what we want. We have, most of us anyway, been taught to just be satisfied with what we have, don’t ask for anything because you aren’t getting it anyway, to ask for nothing and save ourselves the inevitable disappointment. Don’t be greedy. Asking for more or something else, the thinking goes, makes one a selfish ingrate.

Well, I am here to give you permission to ask, and to ask clearly. Asking for more does not have to mean that you are not grateful for what you have. On the contrary! The more grateful and respectful I am of what I have been given, the more comfortable and better I am at asking for more and being more specific about what I want. And the more specific and thankful I am the more likely I am to get just that.

It is November and I am jonesing to go to someplace Disney. At this time of year, my preference would be Hawaii or on a cruise. My husband and I have been blessed to travel to many things Disney many times. We went to Disneyland this year for my birthday but that was months ago. Feels like time to go again. Why am I talking about this?

Well, there was a time when I wouldn’t. I kept my love for Disney travel in the closet as much as possible. I had shared a few times but inevitably those who have never been and have no idea about the experience, service and magic (yeah, their branding comes alive) that Disney consistently delivers would just look at me incredulously. “You are going where?” or “Again?”

So I learned to just not tell lest I be met with the negative vibe. I am done with that. I get that they don’t understand it and hey, they don’t have to! But I am who I am and I am no longer ashamed of it. I love Disney. Movies, parks, resorts, cruises, pretty much all of it that I have experienced. I bet the naysayers would too if they tried it with an open mind. Maybe not. It is certainly not for everyone and that is okay! Isn’t it wonderful that God made us so individual and so unique and yet so similar at the same time? We all have some basic needs but how we prefer to get those met is specific to the person. How magnificent!

If you look at your life and see some area you have squashed or hidden because of the naysayers or outright opponents, ask yourself, what if I let it out? What if I embraced it, even a little? If you can’t think of any, then congratulations! More likely, look harder and if you need someone to guide you through that process, I am here.

I used to HATE mornings. Now, it is remarkable how easy it is for me to get up in the morning. For my whole life it was a struggle. I always wanted just a little more sleep. I would sleep in every chance I got and take naps, too. Now, don’t get me wrong, I still love my sleep. I believe it is a big part of the lovingME lifestyle and a requisite to truly living it. But now, I sleep soundly through the night and wake refreshed and raring to go in the morning.

Morning has become my favorite time of day. If someone would have told me that 5 or 10 years ago, heck even as a kid, I would not have believed them. My mornings are sacred and I follow my ritual of prayerful long hand writing, exercise, the writing I do for business, Bible time, my prayer call and Simpleology Start My Day. All of this is done typically before 7 and definitely before my “job” starts at 8.

Why do I do all of this? Because it is ME time. It rejuvenates me. It helps me know me better. It is my destiny and I walk it out every morning. Before, I would simply roll out of bed, last minute, check my email immediately and begin my workday and not let up until evening. Sometimes I would travel and take ridiculously early flights (especially for me back then). I was slowly depleting myself. I was becoming more and more frustrated, empty, anxious, exhausted and bored. I was on the treadmill that I had built, or at least played into, and I didn’t know how to get off. I felt trapped and slowly suffocating.

Not any more. Now I choose to start my day on a positive note every morning. I have an agenda of my own and much to do to live my life to the fullest. Every day is fresh and new and every day brings new people into my life so that I can help them learn this, and to learn it faster and easier than it was for me. And that gets me out of bed early with lots of energy!

I like to practice what I call mind hygiene. I do my best to keep the inputs as clean and healthy as possible. That may vary from person to person but for me it means little to no TV. For me, most TV is at best a waste of time and at worst, outright poison for my mind, my health, my success and happiness in life. Yes, I know that there are many shows and even channels that are full of good shows that are positive, helpful and entertaining. For me, it is easier to avoid the whole routine of watching TV so I do for the most part.

I am a reader, however, and the same can be said about books and programs. Much of it could be a waste of time for you or could even be poison for you. Your selections matter. They matter a lot. There are excellent, nourishing, challenging reads; there are decent, informative reads that are not so challenging but are still helpful and then there is the trash read, which tears down; and everything in between. I choose to stay centered on those things that I believe are building me and enriching my life. Which is not to say that I don’t see the magazine covers at the airport and sometimes take a second glance. 😉

The people with whom you speak and surround yourself also might be a source of wisdom, strength and encouragement. Or they might be a huge drain on you physically, emotionally, mentally or energetically. Some of these you may not be able to change, at least not right away but you can choose to limit your time and exposure and you can choose to seek out those who are aligned with where you want to be. Notice, I didn’t say where you are. That is important, too, but you will naturally attract and find those on your current wavelength, lest you be pulled down or helped up. We can choose to seek those who can lift us up and we can reach out and pull others up (with their cooperation) from our place of strength. If you are not conscious about your role in helping those behind you come up to where you are, then you are likely to leave them behind, which is okay if they are not ready to move, or much worse, you will stay where they are. If you are aware going in, it will be harder to hold you back. If you are not, it will be nearly impossible to break that amazing subconscious power exerted on you to stay with the group.

Have you thought about your mind hygiene and how to improve it or even why you might want to consider it? Most people don’t. I didn’t. That is why I help people with it today, because of how it changed my life when I finally did.