As a big fan of Disney, I have seen many, if not most of their full-length movie releases. I have noticed a trend in the last few movies I have seen and I find it interesting and gratifying. That is the empowered female. I see this as an excellent trend and a natural response to the old princess waiting for her prince to save her from Walt’s day.

What I would like to see going forward are better role models in the parents/married couples. It seems like so many of them end up getting killed without us getting to know much about them. And of course we all know the drill about the wicked step-mother.

I would also like to see more of the empowered princesses end up with their prince. I think showing that it is possible to be both powerful and partnered would give our children, and ourselves, a better, more rounded view. To have both versus the either/or myth being further propagated.

That myth, however, ends here at Love Starts with Me! We are powerful and empowered women who have the beautiful relationship without losing ourselves in the process. Now that is progress!

Having excellent habits and routines will create an excellent life. The converse is also true, of course.

When I started to get into the habit of looking for, and finding, the best in my husband, things changed dramatically. As most of you know, it took a real kick in the gut for me to start to look or even care to look. Before that I was way too into my own world and focused on what I wasn’t getting. You can get more of that story here.

Silly me! I had it all backwards. I didn’t realize that in order to have what I desired, I had to start seeing it and picking it out of the bunch. When I started to see the gold nuggets amongst the other rocks, wow, now I see that they are everywhere.

It did take me some training, though, to learn to find and recognize the gold right there in front of me. I think this is true in so many cases.

I recently had a root canal. Yuck, I know. Actually it was really easy but that is another topic. The doctor or dentist always puts up the x-ray to show you what is going on and why the procedure is warranted. Well, like pretty much every x-ray I have ever seen, except my broken wrist as a little girl, I couldn’t see squat. I am looking at it going, yep, that is a tooth, and so are these others. And?

Well, the dentist, the oral surgeon, doesn’t see it that way at all. He immediately saw what his eye had been trained to detect and notice. We laughed about me not being able to see it and he was very cool. He said, yeah when I first started, I have to admit, all of the other faculty and advanced students saw the images and what they were looking for immediately but I stood there wondering what they saw and if I would ever learn to see it. He did. I did. You will.

Then once it is habit, you will wonder how you ever missed it before. And you will see that good in everyone and everything. That is when your life expands and joy overflows in ways you cannot yet comprehend.

I love being the queen. I used to love to be the princess – with the requisite attention, pomp, and sometimes even drama. That morphed into me being the worker bee, for lack of a better term, where I didn’t feel regal at home at all but only in the job as the most trusted of servants.

I am finally settling into my role as queen.

And my husband now treats me as a queen. He does this because I have assumed the role of benevolent queen and I treat him as the benevolent king that he is.

There are simply ways in which a queen is respected. These are not often discussed. They are not begged for. They are not negotiated. They just are. They are the normal things that a queen receives. It is the proper way that a lady of style, substance and wisdom is treated.

A queen is calm. She is not arrogant or whiny. She is simply accepting of the rights and privileges of being a queen.

A queen is ever supportive. A king knows what is expected of him, as does the queen. It is not something that is dependent on the situation. A queen is always a queen and a king is always a king.

You are also a queen. Isn’t it time you embrace that within you?

I am going to keep today’s message short and sweet.

Celebrate today. Celebrate the time you have with your loved ones. Take some time, even a moment to really connect with your spouse or partner. Show him some extra love today.

He is worth it.

You are worth it.

Enjoy!

My webinar is coming up tonight. This is a momentous day. This evening, a group of women will take a big step toward creating the relationship that they desire.

Will you be amongst us?

Among those who are taking a stand for themselves, for their marriages and for their families?

It is an honor and a privilege to take this journey with those who make the decision. To teach what I learned the ugly, long and hard way. I pray that no others will have to learn these things the way I did. I pray that the pain can be avoided with early prevention and maintenance.

That is why I do what I do. I am so very blessed to be able to do so. I am blessed to take my toughest days and turn them into not only joy and freedom for me and my family, but also for the women and families I serve.

Today is a momentous day. And I am supremely grateful.

To sign up to be there or get the replay click here.

One of the greatest gifts I received in my own transformation process is learning that I am in charge of my own thoughts. Hand in hand with that, and the mastery of this is of course still ongoing, is that the better my thoughts are, the better my life is.

This is especially true in my marriage. As my thinking gets clearer and more conscious – more purposeful, my marriage gets better, more conscious and more purposeful. We end up deepening our intimacy, working better together, being more aligned and more fulfilled.

I am not perfect here, of course. The great thing about this is that when I slip into unconscious negative thought, I feel and see the ramifications very quickly so I am alerted to going off course.

So how do you start thinking better thoughts? Well, the first step is to pay attention and notice the thoughts that you are having. Can you change them for longer than a couple seconds? Can you drop out of the rumination loop and into thoughts that serve you? Don’t just say, well of course I can. Actually try it.

If you are like most people, like I was, I couldn’t. I couldn’t stop my thoughts at all. I could redirect for a moment but then bam, almost immediately, the unconscious negative thoughts would come rushing back in.

Minding our thoughts and words is absolutely the most powerful marriage and life enhancing habit we can develop.

I am devoting the first session in my free webinar series on July 21st to this very topic. If you haven’t yet signed up, you can do so here.

There will be a recording available if you can’t be there live.

I have a birthday coming up. Unlike many women, I am quite excited about it. I just can’t believe how much better my life gets every year. I feel like my life reorganizes to a much higher level about every six months. Sometimes less.

That goes for my marriage as well.

Several years ago, I think 10 actually, I chose to work on my birthday. Out of town. On a Saturday. I protested for sure. Then I caved. It was a brand new job after all and I went for the approval of my boss over my gut crying out that it was a mistake. I wanted to believe that I was the only one who could do it. So I did.

We do not get our days back.
We do not get those kinds of decisions back either.

My wonderful BFF decided to drop everything and come with me. And we did have a great time together. The work thing was of course a bust. It happens that way when you choose unwisely.

My husband did not come. I can’t really even recall asking him to. I probably didn’t. At the time I thought nothing of it. I mean, it was my choice. That didn’t obligate him to participate.

Now I see that it was a big example of the furthering of a wedge between us. That wedge continued to grow and deepen for many years. Until it tore us apart.

Now that we are back on track and more solid than ever, I know where I will be on my birthday. With my husband. I cannot imagine not being with him on that day. Nor could he imagine not being with me on that day. He is planning great things and I am so grateful!

I am also very thankful for what I have learned and that now I make better decisions. I can say no. I ask for and receive. I am now able to receive more and do so more graciously than I ever could before. Try it. It is empowering and freeing!

Did you know that I am a Certified ScrumMaster?

Huh? And who cares, right? Yeah, I totally understand that response. The reason it matters might surprise you.

I apply Scrum to my life and to my coaching. So I am bringing a new depth and new vantage point that is unique and quite effective. A ScrumMaster’s job is to keep the Scrum (usually a team but in our case a client/yourself) focused on the predetermined and mutually agreed upon goals for the predetermined time period. It is basically ensuring we are focused on the right things at the right time.

I have worked in the software world for over a decade. In software design and development, there are a number of methods that people use. Scrum is one of them. It is considered an Agile method, meaning it is very flexible and quick to correct. When you have a complex process, like software to develop or a lifetime of habits to examine and optimize, there are so many moving parts and pieces that you really have to stay on top of things and have regular checkins, even daily checkins. Otherwise you wake up after months and months of development work to find that what you just spent all of your time creating is nothing like what your end-user (even if that is you) needs or expected.

So what does this mean for you or me in our personal lives, much less in our marriages? Well, plenty.

You see a relationship never goes south in a short amount of time or over one circumstance. Yes, it may look or feel like that at times but we all know that really, that bit was just a straw that broke the camel’s back. It was days and days and days of the same routine of a slippery slope that got steeper and slipperier (yeah, it really is a word) as time went by. The thing is, it was so subtle, such a small movement each day that no one really noticed it happening. If they did, they dismissed it as a bad time, a bad day, a bad spell that will pass. It will fix itself, we tell ourselves.

What I have seen, what I have found in my own personal life is that, just like a waterfall process, it doesn’t self correct. It can’t because we haven’t got a clue we are even off course yet. It isn’t a stage that just passes. It gets worse and worse until you one day look around and holy cow, you are so off course you have no idea who this person is or how you got here!

So, just like in nearly everything else, prevention is worth more than cure. Prevention and regular maintenance keeps everything humming along. Focusing on the right things at the right time makes all the difference in the world – in your relationship, your career, your health, your finances, everything.

Otherwise, you find yourself spinning your wheels.

It may very well be that if you are reading this, it is because you are starting to see that you are off course. That is the great news! Awareness is the first step to any improvement.

You may think it is too late.

That is old programming showing its head. Wonderful! More awareness. It is not too late until you say it is. When you decide it is too late, then, of course it will be. Because you are reading this, I know that you know that it is not.

I love to give gratitude for my life. I do it silently in my head all of the time, for specifics as well as general praise and thanksgiving. I am thinking today of the specific things for which I am grateful in my loving partnership and what I have learned that allowed me to receive all of this.

Gratitude is essential to a life well lived. Gratitude is the key that opens all doors. Gratitude is the secret to getting more of what you are grateful for. Gratitude is the best way I know how to dramatically improve the mood and tone of any situation.

So with that in mind, I will share my blessings with you.

I am so grateful for my gorgeous, wonderful husband. I am grateful for how he looks at me. I am thankful for how he checks in with me during the day. I am grateful for how he takes care of me in every way. I am so blessed and happy that we talk and plan and dream together. I am grateful that we work together to support one another in the achievement of those dreams.

I am so happy that he promotes me and encourages me in my life’s passion. I am so thankful that he travels with me and loves the luxury life as much as I do. I am also so very grateful that he loves Disney and Disney experiences as much as I do!

I am just so glad that he is my husband and that we live this life that is light-years from where we were just a short while ago. Back then I couldn’t have listed all the things I did here. Back then I didn’t know what I know now.

I give praise for what I learned the hard way and that this life just gets better and better as we create and expand it together.

I am not bragging. This is not something that is reserved for me and my wonderful King. No, you can have it, too. You can create it, too. You just have to know how and gratitude is a big piece of the puzzle.

Just a few years ago, I was a workaholic corporate recognition junkie in a miserable marriage who had no idea how to make my life over. I had no idea what I was put here on earth to do or how to best use my gifts and talents.

I ended up filing for divorce in an effort to gain the freedom I so desperately sought.

I thought I had hit rock bottom when I decided to reconcile with my husband and he wanted no part of it. I was only part right. Losing the job that had once meant so much to me got me all the way there.

But the dark night of the soul that ensued from all that opened the door to my learning how I could turn it all around. I became a student with a voracious appetite for understanding how I could create the marriage and life of my dreams.

I made a decision that I would have both an amazing marriage and a fulfilling career where I actually help people.

Here 4 years later, my husband is back home and we are stronger and happier than ever. I now know my calling and live it by teaching women what I learned the hard way.

How did I get here? How did I leave behind the misery of a failed marriage and the bondage of corporate groupthink?

Get the 5 Simple Secrets and find out.

I would like to show you how you too can join the ranks of happily married and professionally empowered women who have it all – without losing themselves in the process!

If you are ready to claim your true desire and live your passion, then I am ready to show you how to become the conscious architect of your own life.

Join me for the free 5 Simple Secrets webinar series starting July 21. You can register here.

I can’t wait to see what we build together!