How to Tell Someone No

                        

Idk if you know this (I didn't)- NO is a complete sentence.

If you want, you can sweeten it up by adding a thank you to the end.

Sometimes I keep it short and sweet.

No.

Or even nope.

 I'm getting so much better at using this beautifully freeing sentence.

I'm a pro at telling my son No!

They taught us in school to say no to drugs- and the church I grew up in taught us to say no to pretty much everything else.

But no one taught me how to say no to my family or friends.

It's a very important word that we all need to use from time to time.

If you are struggling with this two letter word, head on over to Over The Moon Magazine to learn how to say no!

                               

Peace,

Felicia

How to Accomplish Goals in 30 Days

                                 

This year, I've decided to change resolutions to experiences.

Experience just feels better for me. Instead of feeling anxious, I feel excited and encouraged.

Experience feels more reachable.

My latest article for Over the Moon Magazine gives you a real, no-nonsense guide to reaching your goals for this year!

Get out your New Years resolutions cuz I'm gonna help you mark some of those off your list! 

Click here to check it out.
                                           

Be sure to comment and let me know what you want to experience this year!

Xo,

Felicia 

Healthy New Year, Healthy New you

Happy New Year- a.k.a "I'm ready to get in the best shape/relationship/job/etc. of my life!".

2015. So crazy.

I thought for sure after the Y2K we'd be teleporting, and have robots who clean and cook calorie-less foods like Rosie from the Jetsons. 

I don't mean to brag, but we got a robot this year. 

Yup. A real- life robot. 

My son got a robotic dinosaur. He doesn't cook, or clean, but he can sit, bark and growl. And he can go into maniac mode if you press a button on his back (which isn't that impressive, I can do the same thing).

Well, just as I'm sure that there's technology out there for teleporting, I'm pretty sure there's some sort of technology for getting rid of calories (kinda like the Total Gym we got for Christmas). 

It's safe to say the past, oh I don't know, maybe my whole post-pubescent life, one of my new years resolutions has been to get healthier (code for skinnier)

While I could go on and on ranting about body image and weight and women and all the other stuff you already know, I'm gonna save you the headache. After all, it was one of the biggest party days of the year last night.

As I was cleaning up today after our awesome party, I tuned into Over the Moon Radio and listened to episode 2- Stop Feeling Crazy About Food with Isabel Foxen Duke. 

Isabel made a very good point. One that we all need to commit to memory.

Weight and health are NOT the same thing. 

You can be healthy and thin and healthy and not thin. You can be unhealthy and thin and unhealthy and not thin. 

So if you're like one of the many bazillion women who want to get "healthier" this year, I suggest you check it out. Or even if you just ate one too many tofu cocktail weenies or one too many glasses of gluten free champagne. 

                                         

Sorry so short, but I have more confetti to clean up. 

Listen to it and get ready to be the healthiest you you can be!

Cheers to the new, healthy, you!!

xxo,

Felicia 

Why I Started Meditating Every Day (the answer might surprise you!)

                                

Apparently it's been a few months since I've posted anything on my blog. I write pretty regularly but it seems as soon as I take a break in my day to get it blog ready, my son wakes up.  Or I realize it's almost 6 and I haven't showered, let alone make anything for dinner. 

Believe it or not, I'm starting to get the hang of this new role of motherhood. Kinda. I did forget the diaper bag last week but for the most part I'm doing pretty good. 

Showers are a regular occurrence, my house is in order and we don't eat corn dogs for lunch anymore! (I've actually been living without a microwave for over a month now.)

So how did I go from stinky, scattered, microwave-hot-dogs-for-lunch-everyday, messy mama to good smelling, grounded, I-now-use-my-toaster-oven-for-everything, organized mama?!

Well... I'm not really sure. 

But I'd have to guess that the secret behind my success is meditation. 

I have been meditating for 21 consecutive days!

Yup...I signed up again for the Oprah & Deepak 21 day meditation challenge- but this time I actually did it for more than 5 days. 

And I have been more productive in those 21 days than I have been in probably the last 2 and a half years! 

Meditation is like organization and cleaning for your soul. 

It's a way to get rid of all the things that you don't need any more and allows room for the stuff you really want to cultivate in your life. 

I felt scattered, unorganized and unproductive. I felt like I was always behind and trying to catch up with my life. 

I was tired of how my life was going and I was asking for direction.

So once again, I was graciously given a nudge from the Universe. 

I was laying on the couch one afternoon, already feeling defeated since my son and my kitchen were covered in oatmeal, (yes, oatmeal is a lunch food) and the rest of my house was a disaster. There were tons of boxes that needed to be unpacked, clothes that needed to be folded- you get the picture. 

I didn't know where to start, so I grabbed my oatmeal covered child, and threw all the laundry off the bed and we laid there.

He was spilling his bottle while I checked my email on my phone. 

I got the email for Day 1 of the meditation challenge and decided to create a cool picture for my Instagram to show people how dedicated I was for signing up for another 21 day challenge. 

I posted the pic and decided what the heck...we're already laying here, we might as well meditate! 

The few times I had actually done the meditations, they were really good and I was excited for this one because the topic was Live the Life You've Always Wanted and that sounded pretty good to me. 

Especially cause I felt like I wasn't exactly living my dreams. 

So I put it on and to my surprise, Max had stopped squirting his milk on the bed and was falling asleep!!

It usually takes me awhile (an hour) to put him down for a nap so the fact that he was asleep in less than 20 minutes was incredible. 

I finished up the meditation and felt refreshed. I think I even showered. 

The next day around nap time, I put on the meditation for day 2, and Max fell asleep again! 

Day 3 and 4- same thing. No screaming or fighting his nap.

 He would fall asleep so fast, I was ready to buy the whole series. 

And another thing started happening- I starting making lists of all the things that needed to be done. 

Now, I had made lists in the past but I never really got around to actually doing them. 

The more I got done, the more motivated I was to do more. I was starting to see some light at the end of the tunnel. 

I was more focused and relaxed. I started noticing this expanding feeling of calmness. 

We were a week into the challenge and to be honest, the only reason I was doing it every day was because it was the fastest way I could get my son to nap. 

I've been wanting to make meditation part of my routine for awhile now, but couldn't get passed the feeling of being to busy to actually do it. 

I didn't all of a sudden have time- I just found something that was helping me put my son to sleep faster so I could hurry up and do more stuff around the house.

Regardless of the reasons behind my daily meditation, I was still reaping the benefits. 

Another icredible thing started happening. I noticed all my relationships were improving, I was feeling more patient with my son and with everyone around me. 

My outer world started reflecting my inner world.

I was letting go and clearing out space in my mind and my house was mirroring that. I was making time for me and I noticed that I seemed to have more time in my day.

But the second week into the meditation, Max wasn't napping. As a matter of fact, he didn't nap that whole week. But I still did it because I needed a time out for myself, even if it was only 20 minutes. 

I needed that time to quiet my mind and reflect. 

It's been 21 days. Almost everything on my to do list is complete. We've eaten home cooked meals almost every day, and I feel so good. Like really, really good.

The more I work on the inside, the faster I see change on the outside.


P.S.There are lots of free meditations on Youtube and if you check out The Chopra Center for Meditation, you can sign up for an upcoming meditation series. They're free and they also have an app you can download that's really convenient.

What "Another Earth" Taught Me About Perception

                                          

Every situation we're in, we have two choices- to let it make or break us. Our ego's have this way of trying to break us everytime. When you're at the grocery store and you pick the line that ends up taking forever, or when everyone in your office drives you bananas, it's the ego that tells you to get revenge, or to take out your anger on the slow cashier.

I believe that we're here on this planet to grow. Everything is always changing, and growing. The little things that make up our day to day are our opportunities to grow.

We've all listened to our egos, maybe more times than we care to admit. But does it actually make you feel better to tell everyone off? It might temporarily. It might feel good in the moment. But it doesn't help us grow.

Does riding the car in front of you ever make them get out of the way? Maybe. But does it keep anyone from ever cutting you off again?

Does telling the cashier that they really need more than one person working ever make there be more than one cashier the next time your're there?

The ego lives for those things.

And every time you give in, you feed the ego.

It kind of stops the lesson right in its tracks and then you'll just end up having to try again next time.

Our world needs each and every one of us to start growing if we ever want to live in a world of peace and harmony.

Check out my article for Over the Moon magazine on changing your perception.

And be sure to sign up to get the weekly issue delivered right to your inbox!

Old town & New beginnings

                                          

The pod and truck are loaded and were heading out. As we pull on to the freeway to head home, I check my phone to see our approximate arrival time. I've done this drive so many times, but somehow I thought maybe it would say 6 hours instead of 12 hours.

I noticed the time on my phone- 11:11.

If you don't know by now, I don't believe in coincidence. Everything has meaning to me.

Bird feathers, pennies, butterflies, number sequences- all mean something. Even spiders and moths have a message if I could just hold off killing them long enough to listen.

According to Sacred Scribes Angel Numbers, Number 1111 is made up of the powerful influences of the number 1, amplified and magnified by four.  Number 1 resonates with the vibrations and attributes of new beginnings and starting afresh, independence and individuality, initiative and assertiveness, ambition and motivation, success and leadership, courage and strength, creation and creativity, self-reliance and tenacity, attainment, happiness and fulfillment, innovation, self-development and oneness with life. Number 1 reminds us that we create our own realities with our thoughts, beliefs, intentions and actions.

A year ago, I thought I had it all planned out. We moved to Denver and I was certain it was going to be for at least a few years. I also thought I was going to magically be a different person with not a care in the world. I left all my problems behind and everything was going to be smooth sailing. 

       

 

After the adventure we had, I feel like I can hang with Captain Black Beard and the rest of the scalawags!

I'm so thankful for all the people and events that lined up so we could have those experiences. But I sure wasn't thankful in the midst of all of it.

Not one bit.

During the time where there didn't seem to be any light at the end of the tunnel, I just wanted to turn back. 

One thing I know for sure (Oprah moment) is that it's during the struggle that you build the skills you need to handle life. 

That doesn't mean you have to struggle. But if you are struggling, you're developing the skills you'll be able to use in the future. And then the better you get, the shorter the struggles seem. 

When we're struggling, angry, disappointed, or sad- it's because things didn't go the way we planned. 

When we made our move to Colorado, I had it all planned out. And when it didn't go the way I planned, I freaked out, threw a fit and wanted to go home. 

But I was forgetting that when things don't go as planned, there's a bigger better plan in the making. The dreams we planned on didn't happen, but those weren't really dreams. They were just a step up from what we were doing back home. Kinda like a promotion. 

I've always dreamt of being a writer. Free to explore and capture my experiences to share with whoever was interested in listening. To be free from the daily grind. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that in the time of such struggle and hardship- would the beginning of my dreams be taking form. 

I am a regular contributing writer for an incredible online magazine, Over the Moon, something that would've never happened had our plans turned out the way we thought. 

I also learned a lot about myself, gained strength in my relationship, and learned to trust my intuition even more. And moving to the place I always wanted to live. Once again, by getting what I thought I wanted, I was able to re-examine and see what I really want and what's important to me. And now I can take the necessary steps to continue to move forward in this new direction. I'm going back to an old town but with new eyes. I'm staying firm on the goal but flexible in the process. 

Looking back on your own life, can you see how the things you planned on, turned out better than you thought? If you can't see it yet, don't worry- keep going. There is a light at the end.