Female protester holding up a sign that says "I CAN'T BREATHE"

Black Lives Matter

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What a month it has been. I’ve never been quite so conscious of living through a time that will go down in history. I can’t imagine witnessing a more iconic moment than the Golden Gate Bridge overtaken with protesters chanting “Black Lives Matter”, “No Justice, No Peace” and calling out the names George Floyd and Breonna Taylor again and again, demanding accountability and justice. 

I’ll keep this short, because this conversation isn’t about me, and I simply don’t know enough yet to speak in an informed and constructive way. I’m not eager to add my voice to this space because I simply haven’t done the work required, and I’m probably going to f*ck up. But I can no longer stay silent on this issue, so I am writing to you in my own imperfect way. Silence and inaction have been my crimes to begin with, and I don’t want to perpetuate those any further. 

Given the percentage of white women in this audience, I suspect I am not alone in having arrived much too late to this conversation of racial justice.

The simple fact is that, until this month, I didn’t take any real responsibility in fighting for a more equitable future. Sure I’ve called people out when they’ve said ignorant things, and I’ve been horrified and heartbroken by the blatant injustice I see in the world. But I didn’t DO anything about it.

It’s an ugly truth to face, and grappling with my own guilt and shame (so I can get over myself and actually be of use) has been a big part of the last month for me. I found this video super helpful, and I highly recommend it.

To any black women or people of colour reading this, or to those who have been in the racial and social justice movements for a long time now, I’m sorry it has taken me so long to get here, but please know I’m not going anywhere.

To those of you who are, like me, just getting started, we have a lot of learning and unlearning to do, and I hope you will join me. 

I’m passing on a few resource lists I found really helpful:

It’s possible you’re inundated with resource lists already, but these were two of the best I’ve come across, so I hope they will be of use. If anyone wants to talk about what they’re reading and watching, or create some structures around keeping this practice ongoing, let me know and I’d love to support each other. 

A few books I can recommend from personal experience are: Bad Feminist, On Earth We’re Briefly Gorgeous, Homegoing, Americanah and Between the World and Me. So eye-opening and beautifully written you’ll be pulled right in and never see the world the same way again. And, of course, buy these from independent or black-owned bookstores if you can! 

Next up for me are So you want to talk about race and White Fragility. I know I’ll learn a ton, and that I may even look back on this very post and cringe at my own cluelessness. But such is the nature of growth and learning. It’s messy and uncomfortable and sometimes downright ugly. As always, the brilliant Maya Angelou’s words offer the necessary compassion and wisdom: 

“Do the best you can until you know better. Then when you know better, do better.”

So here’s to learning and taking responsibility. And to having the self compassion to acknowledge the ways we’ve failed to show up in the past, and the humility to keep learning from the imperfect ways we are bound to show up in the present. 

With so much love, and a whole lot of hope,

Karen 

Two hands making the shape of a heart, holding white flowers

Take it Easy on Yourself

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Raise your hand if you’re being really hard on yourself right now. 

I know I am, and it seems like everyone I talk to is feeling badly about themselves too. 

What we’re all going through is unprecedented, and it’s hitting some people much harder than others. I don’t need to reel off the statistics about death or unemployment or domestic violence, because of course we hear them daily. And they’re heartbreaking. What’s going on right now is tragic to a degree that I truly don’t know how to get my head around. The sheer volume of suffering is unthinkable. 

And then there are those of us who are relatively unscathed. We’re healthy, our families are healthy, and we still have our jobs. There are a LOT of people in this position, this very very fortunate position, as we are all quick to remind ourselves.

* * *

“First world problems” a friend of mine sighed to me the other day, telling me about having to cancel the 150 person wedding she and her fiancé had been planning for May in beautiful Carmel. She’s been such a good sport about the whole thing, but when she sent me pictures of herself in her wedding dress later that day, my heart broke for her. This beautiful, beautiful dress she ordered months ago, in a completely different world with completely different rules. A dress she’d planned to wear as she walked slowly down a long aisle, surrounded on all sides by smiling loved ones, many with tears in their eyes, there to bear witness and celebrate as she and her beloved shared their vows.

Her loss of this day is, undoubtedly, a first world problem. But that doesn’t make it any less heartbreaking.

The lucky ones, we’re struggling too. We’re trying to find meaning and connection in a world where human contact has been replaced by screens. We’re struggling to find motivation in a world without any variety to stoke the fires of inspiration. We’re struggling to create structure in our days when all of our external structures have fallen away all at once. Many people are expected to achieve the exact same results at work, as though the whole world hasn’t suddenly turned upside down and put us all in a state of existential grief and dread. And we’re struggling with our addictions again, whether they be to tv, food, alcohol, scrolling endlessly through Instagram, or whatever else is your preferred source of numbing out. 

It’s important to have perspective. And if nothing else, this crisis is giving us that. It’s reminding us how fortunate we are. How absurd so many of the things we worried about and obsessed over actually are. It’s reminding us how much we have to be grateful for. Approaching our lives with perspective and gratitude, rather than the standard achievement/entitlement mode is a wonderful and important shift. 

But I do wish we would stop judging our own pain and finding it unworthy. Stop telling ourselves that others have it so much worse and therefore we don’t deserve to feel what we feel. That we don’t deserve to feel frustrated or angry, sad over lost opportunities, dreams delayed or canceled outright. 

* * *

My dad was supposed to visit last weekend. We’d planned it months in advance. He and my stepmom were going to come to San Francisco for the second time in my four years here, and we were going to take them to see Hamilton. I’d been thinking about it for months, sitting there next to my dad, watching him take it all in. He knows nothing about the show, and I kept picturing him looking over at me during the opening number, eyes wide in amazement, just utterly in awe of the magic that is Hamilton. I’d had the idea over a year ago, when I first saw it and thought “my dad would LOVE this”. Living far from home gets lonely, and looking forward to that experience went a long way toward filling the dad shaped hole in my heart. So I was sad last weekend, and I’m sad again now, thinking of what could have been.

A cancelled wedding, a missed visit, a business launch delayed, a graduation ceremony cancelled. These may be “little t” tragedies in the grand scheme, but they still deserve our compassion.

Or perhaps more to the point, we still deserve our own compassion. 

A few weeks ago I walked by two women in my neighborhood complaining that they’d had to cancel their family trips for spring break. Oh how I judged them. Look at these wealthy white women who probably own homes in the neighborhood, I thought. Acting like they have real problems. Please.

And it felt good to judge them, to feel superior. Because that’s what judging gives us, why it’s so addictive. It lets us feel superior for a brief moment, which is basically like crack for the ego. So I got a quick hit from judging those women until I realized, hey, I’m a white woman who lives in this neighborhood. Sure I live in a rental apartment and not a 5 million dollar home, but my biggest sense of loss right now is missing out on taking my dad to a musical. How’s that for a first world problem?

There’s the tricky thing about judgment. What we do to others, we do to ourselves.

* * *

The fact that I expect to be shamed for writing this tells you something. That I’m waiting for some hateful commenter to judge me for suggesting that my own feelings actually matter right now. But maybe part of why I expect him (isn’t it always a him?), is because he’s one of the voices inside my head. The voice of self judgment that says I really don’t deserve to have these feelings, let alone share them with the world. The voice that says whatever sadness or loss I may be experiencing is simply not worthy of compassion, because it could be worse. Because other people have it so much worse.

But the thing about feelings is that they don’t go away when we stuff them down or deny them. In fact, they lie in wait, demanding to be expressed, to be acknowledged. What we resist, persists, as they say. 

And heaping judgment on ourselves or others doesn’t actually make us any more virtuous. It doesn’t make the world any more fair, or us any less privileged. It just hurts us when we do this. And hurt people hurt people. 

The world doesn’t need any more hurt people right now. We’re full up on that. 

So I hope you’ll take this as a reminder to be a little kinder to yourself these days. If you’re anything like me, my guess is you’ll need it. And if self compassion is something you’d like some help with, you know where to find me!

With so much love now and always,

Karen

Two hands reaching out to touch across a divide

Wherever You Are Is Okay

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It is my deepest hope that you and your loved ones are okay right now. My heart aches for all of the pain in the world, and I pray that we as a species, a human collective, make it out of these dark times sooner rather than later.

These are unbelievably challenging times, truly unbearable and heartbreaking for a great many people. Everyone, every single human, is struggling in some way right now, so I want to remind you that wherever you are is okay.

I don’t mean that the world is going to be okay, because I simply don’t know that. And I also don’t mean it’s okay that countless people are suffering right now, because that’s not okay either. We find ourselves in a very sad and scary time right now, and there is just no way around it. A global pandemic and its inevitable economic fallout is not something I expected to experience in my lifetime. And yet here we are.

So what do I mean when I say wherever you are is okay?

I mean that if you’re scared, it’s okay to be scared. Be scared, and know that you are in good company. It’s a scary time. And if you’re sad, be sad. It’s a sad time. And if you’re hopeful, believing that we just might be on the brink of a new world order, then be hopeful. The world could use more hope right now.

Whatever you are feeling is okay.

Personally, I’m toggling back and forth between sad-scared-hopeful multiple times each day. And I’m doing my best to make space for those feelings, so they can pass through. Sometimes I succeed in this, and sometimes I fail. And that’s okay too.

It’s okay if you are failing right now.

This post recently gave me a lot of comfort. My favorite line:

“This is what unexpected, uncontrollable suffering does to humans. Yes, it sucks horribly, but it also forces us to lighten up on each other and on ourselves. The bar is low, friends. Very low.”

When I saw this I thought, good on you. Good on you for embracing mediocre parenting right now, and doing your part to ease up the standards parents (especially women) hold themselves and each other to. Mediocrity is home for now. Amen.

How nice to have permission to be the mediocre version of myself that I am right now. I’m more distracted and less productive than usual. Of course I’m distracted. The news is devastating, people are checking in and scheduling catch ups more than ever, and I’m working from home with another human in a one bedroom apartment. I’m mediocre as heck right now, and I don’t even have kids.

* * *

Virtually everyone I talk to lately seems ashamed of their lack of productivity working from home. And I’m no different. I was being horrible to myself earlier this week, basically telling myself I was a worthless human being because I’m struggling to produce right now. Forgive my French, but f*ck that.

Mediocre is the new normal. Put that on a t-shirt.

And it begs to be said that we have so much to be grateful for if our new normal is simply being less perfect than we constantly strive to be. The new normal for a great many people is far far worse. I don’t say this to provoke guilt, because lord knows we’re all feeling enough of that as it is. I say this simply to be real.

If my biggest problems right now are the piles of laundry or tumbleweeds of hair taking over my apartment, or the fact that I’ve probably gained a few pounds and neglected to wash my hair, then I have a lot to be grateful for.

So I’m relaxing my standards right now, and I hope you are too. 

I’m not as focused on eating clean, not quite as fixated on constantly trying to reduce the inflammation in my diet and therefore in my joints. This just doesn’t feel like as much of a priority to me at the moment. I’m still trying to work with the 80/20 rule, but the other night we ate a frozen pizza for dinner while watching Netflix, and I felt exactly zero remorse about it. I just don’t have it in me to do ALL THE THINGS right now. And that’s okay.

Speaking of Netflix, I’m probably watching a bit more tv than normal. Usually I don’t like us to eat in front of the tv, and we make an effort to “be grownups” and sit at the table and have a conversation over dinner as often as possible. But sometimes it feels good to just zone out and be distracted from reality right now, and I’m not beating myself up about that. We can still strive for adult meals and conversation when we feel up for it, but when we fall short, that’s okay.

* * *

I’m also not sticking to my schedule as much as I “should”, or being nearly as productive as I aspire to be. If I sleep a bit later, I still make sure to get my morning walk in, even if that means my workday starts late. Getting out for a walk in the morning keeps me sane, and right now I’m leaning hard into whatever keeps me sane.

Emphasis on the me here. This is what keeps me sane, the things that are helping me right now. That doesn’t mean they’ll work for you, or that I want you to add them to your list of “shoulds”. Our should lists are already long enough as it is.

I’m walking every day as soon as I wake up. It feels so good to be in my body and in nature and to breathe in all that fresh morning air. If things get much worse here, it’s possible I could lose this, so I’m soaking it up as much as possible while I can. I’m writing every morning. Not “productive” writing like this newsletter or other things I intend to share immediately. I’m writing to and for myself alone, getting my thoughts and feelings down and getting clarity at the start of each day.

I’m pulling a card each morning, and taking the opportunity to touch in with whatever wisdom I can access that way. I’m staying informed, but I’m keeping my news consumption to a minimum. Not before I walk, not before I eat breakfast, and not before I do my writing. It doesn’t serve anyone for me to start my days with a flood of anxiety and despair, it really doesn’t.

It occurs to me that this is essentially a spiritual practice. I am taking care of my spirit right now, because my internal landscape is the one thing I actually have control over. In truth, this is always the case, but that reality is impossible to ignore right now.

I’m also holding tight to inspiration. 

This interview with Glennon Doyle, a fierce and fantastic woman had me feeling all the feels and rushing to order her newest book and support her organization.

And Cheer, on Netflix. It’s easy to judge a sport that has its roots in women standing on the sidelines of male achievement, but these kids are true athletes, and this show is about grit and belonging more than anything else. It’s truly inspiring. So much so, it’s reminded me to nurture my own inner athlete. So I’ve been practicing Pilates at home lately (a lifetime first) and busting out the TRX, and it feels so good to touch in with my physical strength and take care of myself in that way.

* * *

Perhaps this is what this is all about. Taking care of ourselves. How can we take care of ourselves in this unprecedented time, for the sake of our selves, and also so we can take care of others in whatever ways are possible.

If you have any brilliant (or even just okay) ideas to help care for others right now, please comment and let me know!

So far my own efforts feel small: checking in with loved ones, ordering books online from my local bookstore instead of Amazon, donating a bit of money here and there, and ordering some food through my neighbor’s restaurant to help her stay afloat. I’m also making a point of looking strangers in the eye to say “hello” or “good morning” on my walks, even more than usual, because it feels important to create connection anywhere we can right now.

I’ve read a lot lately about how in times of crisis, leaders emerge, and while that’s great and inspiring, it also terrifies me because I don’t know yet quite how to step up, and that makes me feel like a failure. But when I let go of fear for a second and lean into trust, I feel certain that if I keep nurturing myself and my spirit, that the wisdom and strength required to step forward will emerge.

So for now, that’s what I intend to do.

Trust myself, care for myself, and care for others in the small ways I am able to. And when I inevitably fall short at any of these things, I hope I find the grace to remember that my own failures are okay too.

May you and your loved ones be safe and supported, now and always.

Karen

Before It Gets Better

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Sometimes it has to get worse. 

It’s a cliche for sure, but the truth is that sometimes it just has to get worse before it gets better. This theme has been coming up for me a ton in my own life, and with both my clients and friends as well.

Life isn’t always easy, and especially with all the craziness going on in the world right now, it can be hard to just stay sane. Sometimes it’s hard to remember who we are, to remember what matters to us and the commitments we’ve made to our growth. Sometimes it all feels like a lot of effort. Too much effort, in fact.

I’m a coach. So I’ve essentially committed myself to a life where I am always growing, always reaching toward the self I know I can be, the one that is perpetually out of reach. It’s kind of the name of the game. So as soon as I expand into some larger version of myself, I start looking toward whatever is next for me, because there’s always a new horizon. It’s amazing, and I’m so grateful to be in a profession that constantly pushes me to be my best self, but it can also be exhausting.

Exhausting to always be reaching for more, which can easily turn into never being satisfied with where I currently am. There are a lot of things I could be proud of myself for right now, a lot of changes to be celebrated.

But we’re not always very good at celebrating ourselves, are we?

 I, for one, have almost an aversion to it, fearful perhaps that in doing so I might let up on the reigns a little bit and slow my roll. It’s like I’m afraid that even just acknowledging my forward motion will slow it down. So I focus on what’s left to do. I focus on what’s lacking.

 And don’t we all? Especially in those places where we’ve started to move forward, where we’ve made real progress toward our goals, but now we find ourselves in a bit of a backslide. I’m like that with my meditation practice right now. I was all about it in January, getting to a record of 35 days in a row or something. And then I fell off. I’m not even sure how it happened, but my guess is that it started to feel easy, automatic. It started to feel like I had that one in the bag. So I let it go one day, and then the next. And now before I know it, here I am feeling like day after day I simply don’t have enough time to get back into the routine. Not enough time to fit in a 10 minute meditation? It’s absurd and I know it, and yet here I am.

Same goes for my work schedule. Sticking to a proper schedule has been a constant struggle for me, as a self-employed person who struggles with attention and focus. Toward the end of 2019 I got really good about setting timers to keep myself in the chair for writing and other creative work, but that’s fallen away. I swore up and down that I would join the new co-working space in my neighbourhood first thing in January, and yet here I am without having done it yet.

And it’s making me crazy! This working from home every day and thinking “oh what’s the harm of throwing in a load of laundry?”, or tidying up the kitchen, or doing whatever else pulls at my attention while I really want to be working. Not to mention having doctors appointments and client calls and whatever else sprinkled haphazardly throughout my days, leaving virtually no long blocks of time to actually do deep work.

I finally got some coaching on this last week, and now I can’t wait to start with my new strict work schedule. I’m not able to start that until the end of March because of all of the things I’ve committed to between now and then, and now it feels almost unbearable to wait that long. My workdays have been like this for years now, slotting things in wherever, juggling the countless health appointments, making zero time for my writing and being vastly less productive than I know I could be.

But it had to get to this point. I’ve had to get to this point where I feel it will literally drive me insane, before I’ve been truly ready to make the changes I’ve long needed to make. It had to come to this crisis point before change could stop feeling like a “should”, and instead start feeling like a desperate WANT I simply can’t live without.

 So what’s my point here, what is it I am ultimately trying to say? That change takes time. That deep change takes time, and that the path is not linear. And in the words of the ever wise and occasionally annoying Eckart Tolle:

“Evolution usually occurs in response to a crisis situation…”

So remember that. That you’re always evolving. That you haven’t failed at whatever it is you’re currently telling yourself you’ve failed at. Backsliding is part of the process of change. These low points are inherent in the overall evolution you’re making, and so often, it really does have to get worse, before it gets better.

So here’s to evolution, and to making space for our own imperfect progress,

Karen

November Wisdom

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Ahh November. It’s that time of year when we really start to notice the shortening of the days. When it gets harder to drag myself out of bed in the morning, and I feel my body craving more sleep, more rest. 

When I moved to San Francisco, I had some fantasy that I wouldn’t notice any sort of change in my mood over the winter months, that the ‘winter blues’ I’ve noticed most of my adult life would be a thing of the past. But even here, where I can enjoy the outdoors all year round, I’ve discovered that the changes in daylight still make a huge impact on me. 

I can’t think of any person who doesn’t have some fluctuations in their energy over the course of the year. Who doesn’t notice dips in mood and motivation as the dark sets in, and a sense of renewed hope and possibility each spring? Whether we like it or not, we are part of this natural world, and we are subject to its rhythms.

How much of your energy do you spend resisting this truth? I know for me it’s a ton. I “should” be able to get up at 6am every single weekday, no matter what. I “should” make myself get up and out the door to exercise, even if it’s still dark and cold. I “shouldn’t” need that second tea or coffee in the winter months, and so on, and so on.

What might happen if I simply gave in and let this natural time of hibernation impact my life and my work? How much more rested and ready might I be when the longer days of spring emerge once more?

What might it be like to simply allow myself to fluctuate with the seasons? To know that November-March I’ll need more sleep. That I might even exercise less, allowing myself to prioritize sleep over activity in the mornings? That it might be a season for less socializing and more time spent reading on the couch? That I might even (gasp!) gain a pound or two because not only is my body is craving warmth, but being buried in layers makes me a lot less concerned with how my stomach looks on a given day.

What am I so afraid will happen if I just let go a little bit?

When I look back on my Toronto winters, I see myself eating more pasta and other heavy foods, drinking more wine, and then leaning more and more on that after lunch latte to boost my energy in the afternoons. I see myself sort of dragging my way through the days, only to arrive home exhausted and depleted, and not exactly excited about doing it all over again. I think it’s safe to say that that particular version of me is pretty far from my best self.

So maybe I don’t need to go that far. Maybe there is some middle ground between living in resistance to these seasonal shifts, and completely giving myself over to them and abandoning my goals.

This brings me to my intention for the month: BALANCE.

So what does balance mean to me right now? On one side of the scales, balance means honoring my seasonal shifts in mood and energy. Giving myself a little more permission to stay in on the weekends if I’m not feeling up for a big night, or if I can’t bear to drag myself out of the house after dark. Permission to sleep a little later, to start my days more slowly. Permission to exercise less, or rather to exercise differently, not pushing myself to get out the door if my body really wants rest. Balance means not fearing that something’s wrong with me that I don’t feel the same in the winter as I do on a sunny spring day.

On the other side, balance means being intentional, being aware. It means noticing that shorter days can lead to habits I don’t necessarily want to develop, and being conscious of my choices around caffeine, food, and especially alcohol. It means making sure I’m not isolating myself unnecessarily, and that even if I’m not up for as much socializing as I am in the summer months, that I don’t go into complete hibernation and start backing out of commitments I’m genuinely excited about.

Most importantly, I’m remembering that balance is a dynamic thing. That I will likely never find myself and my life in perfect balance, and that’s okay. Imagine standing on one foot for a second. Or actually do it, just for fun. What do you notice? There are moments of perfect stillness, but then we go right back to recalibrating, shifting this way and that in order to stay upright. We might even be able to stay “in balance” for long periods of time, but rarely are we ever still.

How does this picture of balance inform the way you’ve been talking to yourself lately or thinking about your own life? What are some little adjustments you might need to make to keep yourself aloft as the winter months set in? And what’s one little thing you might be able to let go of this month, in honor of the trees letting go of all their beautiful leaves?

I’m letting go of trying to create the ‘perfect’ morning routine, and instead letting myself feel into what my body and my spirit want each day. I make time for myself each morning, but I’m letting go of some of the rules, and that feels really good. Some days I write first thing, others I play with my spirit cards, and sometimes I just sit and savor my tea as I watch the sky come to life.

Watching the sunrise reminds me that when we tap into the rhythms of the natural world, we get access to so much wisdom. It reminds me that things are never static and still, that we are always in motion. And that just like the trees, those masters of balance and groundedness, we need regular periods of letting go in order for fresh life to emerge once more.

May you let go of whatever is no longer serving you, 

Karen

What I See For You

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I see freedom for you. Freedom from comparisons with others and the toxic energy that brings into your life and your relationships. I see that as you become more fully grounded in yourself, there will be less and less need to seek validation outside of yourself. 

I see you realizing that the only person whose permission you truly need is your own, and I see you learning to trust yourself and grant yourself permission to be who you are. 

I see you learning to value your own happiness and fulfillment highly enough that you’re willing to commit time and effort and resources towards the things that bring you joy. I see you taking up an activity for the simple reason that it makes you feel alive. I see you recognizing that feeling alive is worth its weight in gold, and that it will serve you and your vision in ways you can’t imagine.

I see you shedding people, possessions, and stories you’ve been telling yourself, in order to make room in your life for the new to emerge. 

I see you harnessing the power of narrative, and starting to tell yourself stories that serve you. Stories that help you move into the future with purpose and certainty, instead of staying oriented toward the past and whatever fears and blocks have been built up around it.

I see you slowing down and allowing yourself to move through your days at a pace that feels true to you. I see you coming to learn and respect your natural rhythms, and to harness the power of your own nature, rather than feeling you need to be anything other than exactly who and what you are.

I see you letting beauty into your life in whatever form most speaks to you, buying yourself flowers, listening to music, going to a show, dancing, watching the sun rise or set. That you will come to value the beauty all around you, to seek it out and celebrate it, letting it be a balm for your soul.  

I see you learning to see your setbacks as they are, simply information for the next time around. 

I see you coming to know and trust and inhabit your true self. With the clarity of your values as your north star, I see you learning to be yourself in every situation, no matter the stakes. I see you learning to trust that this is what is needed, and that your true self will be welcome. And if your true self is not welcome, I see you having the wisdom to know this is not a situation or a relationship you want to be a part of. 

I see you learning to recognize your saboteurs, the internal voices of shame and blame and “who do you think you are” and “you’re not _____ enough”, and to stop letting them rule your heart and your decisions. 

I see you recognizing the toxic impact of perfectionism on your life, and learning to let go of the need to please and impress everyone. I see you saying “better than nothing” and “good enough” when you try something new, instead of letting fear of failure keep you playing small. 

I see you playing big in your life. Taking big risks to create a reality that excites and inspires you. I see you getting crystal clear on your Life Purpose, what you and only you are here to do, and expressing that purpose every day. 

What might be possible for you if you set yourself free? If you decided to start writing your own permission slips? What would you do, just for the pure joy of it, because it makes you feel alive? 

 

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs; ask what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” – Howard Thurman

 

As always, thanks for reading, and if you find yourself needing some guidance along your journey, you know where to find me! 

With heart,
Karen 

Dear Future Client

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This is my dream for you. An expanded sense of self, to see yourself as you truly are, in all of your incredible potential. The courage to be who you are, to trust who you are, and to ask for what you want from life and the people in your life. The freedom to carve out exactly the life that you want in this world, even if it is vastly different – bigger and more exciting – than the lives of others around you, or the life you’ve been told you deserve. 

I see you developing the integrity of self it takes to trust what you like and what you don’t like, and to slowly cut away the people, places, and things that pull you away from your highest self. I see you finding the courage to love yourself so fully that you will accept nothing less from others. I see you growing in confidence and courage, learning to trust the validity of your own longings, and demanding the best for yourself. I see you getting more and more in touch with how you feel, and the things you struggle to do beginning to fall naturally into place in your life.

I see you learning to move through your days with a sense of ease, a calm purposefulness. Spending less and less of your precious time and energy on guilt or self-loathing or other forms of self-defeating thoughts. Coming to trust that the better you feel, the more the things you desire will come into your life, as if by magic. 

My vision for you is that you will come to know and love yourself so vastly that the things you once tolerated will become absolutely unacceptable to you, an affront to the dignity of your person. That you will trust the clarity of your own vision and your inspiration, and you will begin to take action toward your most forbidden dreams. That you will see that nothing is absolute and that – if you really truly desire something – you have the power to make it happen. That you will come to recognize with absolute certainty that what you think and what you do on a daily basis have the power to create anything.  

My hope is that this knowledge will excite you rather than terrify you. That faith will begin to replace your fear. Faith in yourself, the knowledge that you can count on yourself to do what you’ve said you will do. Faith in the universe, that it will meet you halfway if you put yourself out there and practice courage. Faith in other people to treat you as you deserve, and to take care of their own lives you so you can take care of your own. 

And perhaps most of all I hold patience for you. The patience to stop racing ahead and to actually enjoy where you are on your journey, trusting that you are exactly where you’re supposed to be at this moment in time. 

What might be possible if you believed that? What might you do differently? When I remember to slow down and honour the journey instead of racing ahead to the ‘destination’, I can be present to the moment right in front of me. And most importantly, especially for those of us prone to perfectionism and never enough-ism, looking back over how far we’ve already come is one of the most powerful ways to generate the confidence, strength and energy to move forward. 

Thanks for reading, and if this vision excites you, I’d love to support you on your journey. Don’t hesitate to reach out! 

With heart,

Karen