A Creator-based® Life

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Thank you.  Two tiny, powerful words that, when combined, heal wounds, open doors, and create hope.

Thank you for who you are.

What you bring to this world is vitally important.

I am humbled and grateful to be a part of the world you inhabit.

It has been said that you are never happier than you are grateful.

That’s true.  

Gratitude is a superpower.  

It is a stepping stone to joy.

So, how does that apply to today?

Well, friend,  what would you think of trying a little experiment with me this week?  

Every time you take a drink of water or whatever it is you love to drink, have a silent thank you moment with our Creator.

Could you do that for the next few days in preparation for Thanksgiving?  It’s a busy time of year, I know. 

Pausing to be grateful will give you that added peace and strength you’ve sought.

  (It’s a backward law, but slowing down helps us get more done! An added perk for this overflowing season.)

Try it- Call it a Gratitude Sip.

We can’t live without water.

We can’t live well without gratitude.

Supercharge your life this week- try the Gratitude Sip.

All my love,

Beth

What do you do with that crazy conversation in your head? Listen as Beth, Jaycine, and Jenn share solutions sure to create peace and confidence in your life today.

Happy Veterans Day! I am so grateful for all of those who have and will continue to protect and serve our country. Thank You!

It’s voting day tomorrow in the United States, and it has been a hotly contested race full of pepper and vinegar.  

I wanna feel better.  How about you?  I will be up early tomorrow to join my neighbors in voting for my candidate of choice, get my sticker, returning home grateful that this election season is over.  Secondly, I will work on being happy with the result.  Did you know that people who report their lives are generally happy live 35% longer than those who report unhappiness?  Feelings and emotions matter.

In an effort to establish a healthier, happier life for all, today we will share five principles of a happy life proven and recorded in a landmark longevity & healing study with Kelly A. Turner.  She found ten key happiness & healing factors.  We will do five this week and five next. You can read more about it in Kelly’s book ‘Radical Hope.’ 

5 of the 10 Key Happiness & Healing factors:

1. Exercise- A long, that could be 10 minutes or an hour and a half, comfortable walk daily raises happy hormone levels, increases lung power, and builds bone strength.  In general, it’s good for the soul- your body, mind, and spirit.  If you’re struggling with a life issue, try talking with your Creator as you walk.  You will be amazed at the insight and relief you experience.  You might want a notepad or phone handy to record what you learn.  Writing makes it real.

2. Spiritual Connections- see above.  But also, consider the relationships you have with those you love.  Can you create spiritual connections with them?  Moms often know when something’s not right with their children, even if that child is miles away. How? Spiritual connection.  It happens with everyone you love.  Love more. Connect more. Study with us, and we can show you how.

3. Empowering Yourself - You are the creator of your life experience.  You have within you light and truth, all of the power you need to grow and create.  Claim the power in your life, and with your Creator, build boundaries that bless.  If it’s not a heck yes, it’s a heck no, remember?  You can, and you’ll be glad you did.  Study out your decision and follow your heart.  Create a firm boundary and respect yourself enough to keep it.

4. Increasing Positive Emotions- We talked about this a few weeks ago.  Practice Positivity daily.  Set a time for 5-10 minutes and sit comfortably.  Recall happy, joyous memories to your mind and create the happiness your soul craves.  I know it’s impossible always to feel happy- this is a 50/50 life, after all, but if you practice 5 minutes of good, happy feelings, your brain will create more of that going forward.  It is a simple way to create positive neural pathways that will pay off and bring you greater happiness for the rest of your life.

5. Following Your Intuition- You are divinely created after our Eternal Creator.  As such, you can grow and become much more than you are today.  Listening to your inner, centered self, to your gut feelings, as you will, will strengthen that intuition with which you have been gifted.  Look for the things that bring you light and hope in your life.  Follow them.  Create more of them.  There is always another way to look at things so they look better.  Promise. Practice Positivity and more clearly recognize truth.

Our November theme is Compassion.  

This month, we are reading Kristen Neff’s Self Compassion and Lynn Twist’s The Soul of Money.  Abundance is a vital component of compassion.  Yes, you read that right.  Abundance is a vital component of compassion.  Think about that this week, and I will say more about compassion, abundance, and the remaining 5 Happiness Traits next Monday.

Til next week, when we will reveal the last five components of happiness & healing, and speak more on the role of compassion in a happy life.

Remember to join us on Saturday! Last chance to register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1041435400317?aff=oddtdtcreator

All my love,

Beth

The path to finding truth is to pass through the cycles of life with Wonder and a sense of Exploration.

Tao Porchon-Lynch

#Blessed & Living Lightly

Happy Monday! Are you coming to the My One Word Workshop on Saturday November 9th?

Register here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1041435400317?aff=oddtdtcreator

What do you think of when you hear ‘live lightly’? Often I think ‘reduce your environmental footprint’, ‘be kind to the earth’ or live so you leave a legacy for your children.

Today, I’d like to consider the concept of living lightly as keeping a buoyant incandescent glimmer going through your day. Live as if a small flame of happy expectation is kindled inside of you. Some call it hope, some positivity. We can choose this feeling and build on it. This is the foundation of living lightly.

Moving through life with a sense of wonder and exploration is the path of learning and growth. Our eyes are open to discover and embrace truth. It’s foundational in the Creator-based® Way. Fall is such a busy time! It’s nuts how many things there are to do!

However; rushing through this season of harvest invites us to look right past the present abundance and forecast ourselves right into the harshness of our upcoming winter. In that gray busy-ness, we miss the good that lights our lives. Life feels heavy. Where is your focus?

Consider this: count your harvest, celebrate it, and it will become part of you. We want our life stories to become golden with #blessed.

How can that happen?

Use The celebrate and integrate practice in journaling. In ‘celebrate and integrate’, we pause at the end of a project to give full attention to the big thing we just created and accomplished. That helps us process the lessons and integrate the learning we just experienced. With journaling, the act of writing longhand on paper helps the subconscious mind integrate and create reality, allowing us to cement the goodness and gratitude of our celebration.

It’s a mini ‘celebrate and integrate’ daily practice!

1. As you journal at the end of the day, pause to ponder. It’s okay if it’s only for a minute. What is important is that you…..

2. Open your heart to your Creator and listen. Practice the Pause Breath from last week, open your heart, and listen. What insights are you aware of? What does the still, small voice say?

Your insights may be quiet, but as you pause to ponder, your heart will speak softly of blessed moments in the day.

3. Trust your quiet insights.

4. Write them down.With time, your small daily insights will grow to be a practice that changes your outlook on life. It will lead you to live lightly.By small and simple things, great things come to pass, one day and one reinforced neural pathway at a time

.What we practice becomes permanent in us.

This practice of listening and writing our daily celebration integrates the experience and lets our mind own the blessed truth. You can practice it in many ways.

Finding yourself frustrated? Try this end-of-day pause, ponder, listen, write practice on the topic of acceptance.

Feeling sad? pause, ponder, listen, & write practice on the topic of gratitude.

Feeling lonely or afraid? pause, ponder, listen, & write practice on the topic of where you saw your Creator’s hand in your life today.

The gift you give yourself in the practice of ‘pause, ponder, listen and write’ will change your energy and open you to be able to see in a whole new way.

You’ll see. You will feel happier, more optimistic and literally lighter.You will be living lightly.

And #Blessed. :)

All my love,

Beth

To sign up for the My One Word Workshop, click here: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/1041435400317?aff=oddtdtcreator

  Welcome to A Creator-based Life, the weekly podcast for CMH Coaching. We empower women of faith to create the lives they love- the lives they’ve always wanted. I’m here with Jaycine Bonnett, a business coach, Mom, Grandma, and avid runner, and Jennifer Dereus, a coach, a can-grow-anything gardener, and a hypnotherapist. And I’m Beth, a Master Life Coach, author, and creator of The Creator-based Way: Create Your One, Awesome, Amazing, Perfect Life. 

So, we had a wedding last weekend.  #Blessed!  Seth and Chloe tied the knot. Did you hear Queen’s rendition of “Another One Bites the Dust” blaring through Honey Grove? That was wedding #8 of 9 for us, and I’ve sung it at each one. I am very, very grateful for all who worked so hard to make it a memorable and sacred experience. Truly, we are blessed.  (Only one more wedding to go….)

Just as quickly as wedding #8 was complete, the seasons turned. My thoughts shifted forward, the weather cooled, and rain came in after a summer of drought.  The sunrise is later; the darkness comes earlier.  No longer do we languish in 9 pm sunsets.  What a stark contrast! I love it, but not everyone does.

Just as summer turns into fall, we can choose to accept, enjoy, and even embrace our new season and the new opportunities presented to us. 

Or not.  Change can be very unwelcome.

Often, it will feel like our plans have been overruled, agreements canceled, and approval rescinded.  That hurts.

I learned a new term recently. It’s German in origin. ‘Sturm and Drang’.  

‘Sturm and Drang’ express turmoil and turbulent emotion, which quite literally, mean storm and stress in the original language.

(I love words that sound like their meaning, known as onomatopoeias.)

Sometimes, we need a little ‘sturm and drang’ between seasons.  Processing is not always pretty, but it can broaden perception and shift perspective until we are ready to proceed.

'Practice the pause’ helps.

 Two mindful breaths in and out of the nose

Following the breath into and out of the body, focus on the physical sensation and travel of cool air in and warm air out through the entire breath.

Just two breaths of complete, dedicated focus.

It works really well if you breathe in to a count of 4 and out to a count of 8, but it’s more important to focus on the physical sensation for this one.

As Junior Creators, we can practice an outlook on change that will help us gracefully accept remodeling and reshaping in our lives.  Remember: You are the creator of your life experience. You have within you light and truth, all the power needed to grow and progress.  Using compassion, mindfulness, and hope, change is a gift.

#Blessed.  How’s it going with that?

Live Lightly!

All my love, 

Beth

The Power and Promise of Feeling Blessed; a Practice, not a Permanent.

This October, we are talking about #blessed.  On good days, this is delightful… other days, I want to burn the hashtag.  However, in our 50/50 way, I’m feeling all the feels and working on it. 

When you actively seek out the experience of feeling blessed, you are creating a distinct energy.  That energy and emotion, also known as gratitude, is powerful and activating.  It turns on other energies in a domino effect.  Abundance will soon follow. 

Gratitude is not just a feeling, it's a transformation. It invites the vibration of light, a feeling you can almost immediately sense.  Light and Truth are kindred sisters; when you meet them, life looks and feels better.  Their close cousin, Hope, is always within reach, ready to guide you through the journey of transformation.

I’ve been around for a while now (not as long as I plan to be) and have experienced both joy and sorrow.  It is said that the depth of our joy directly correlates to the depth of pain we have experienced previously. It seems pain carves more space out of our hearts for joy.  There’s that 50/50 principle again!

One thing I know for sure, our true constant in life is change. With change come all the emotions.  It’s essential to experience all the emotions.  In this way we learn and grow and become our best selves.  Just like there are no bad parts of ourselves, there are no “bad” emotions. There are simply emotions we like to feel more than others.  Locked in our bodies, our feelings resonate and create our life perception.  We can embrace the promise and power of embracing them all as we continue with our daily practice.

So, what does that practice look like this week? As always, it begins with your Creator.  When we begin the day, every day, relationship building and checking in with our Creator, we become grounded and centered.  From that place, we, too are ready to create our day.

Here’s an idea-

When an uncomfortable emotion comes up, notice where you feel it in your body.  Take a deep breath, and instead of trying to run from it or push it down, accept it.  Sit with it.  Emotional energies need to pass through you, and will do that in 25 - 90 seconds if you allow them. 

Try it.  This week, when you feel a strong emotion, take a deep breath and accept that vibration/emotion/feeling.  Feel it in your body.  Name it.  Count how long it takes to ease up.  Even when I was deep in grief a few years ago, my intense emotions lasted no longer than 25 seconds.  

In powerfully charged situations, like grief or shock, emotions roll in like waves of the sea or the intense, muscular contractions of childbirth.  They gradually intensify, peak, and then subside, pausing before the next wave. It’s predictable. I find that pattern comforting. You simply have to let go and ride the wave.

Ride this week's emotional energy wave, and let us know what happens. You’ll be glad you did!

Years ago, my favorite movie was Hillary Duff in ‘The Perfect Man’.  A cute rom-com, it had beautiful actors, beautiful scenery, and beautiful music.  When I was sad or stressed or overloaded, I could go to that movie, get swallowed up, and create my own, personal illusion of a perfect day. Was my day really perfect? No, but I usually felt better.  But, this is real life.  And this is one of those times when real life is better than the movies. 

My friend, you can create a perfect day for yourself.  No rom-com needed. Let’s begin at the beginning with how to begin the perfect day, and we’ll go from there in future blogs. Neuroscience has shown that the first wakeful 10 minutes of the day are powerful.  The way your brain wakes up in those 10 minutes makes all the difference. 

Remembering that in CMH Coaching, CMH stands for Compassion, Mindfulness and Hope.I am going to show you how to create Hope.

 1st- Compassion; What to you love? feel it and see it.What is your most important life goal?  For me, that is my relationship with my Creator and my family.  If the first thing you do when you start your day, directly correlates with that goal, you’re starting on the right foot.  That could be waking up in gratitude to God, waking up to kiss your honey, or any one of the many acts that support for your #1 life goal.

2nd - Mindfulness:  What do you want?Notice that the first thing in your morning does not involve your phone.  Put your phone to bed in a different room. Instead, choose 3 or 4 affirmations that clearly assert where you want to be in 6 months or a year.  Write them as I am statements- I am a published author, I am confident and fit, I am strong enough to lift hay bales (that was Jaycine’s) I am patient….what do you want to “be” in the next 6 months?  Only choose a few- write them down and use them for step 2.3. Hope: Active Creation: Get a big drink of water, and move.  Intensati is a form of exercise that involves dynamic aerobics with intentions. 

For step 3, you want to recite your affirmations in the intensati style- move and shout (okay, or speak) your affirmations while you walk, jump, stretch etc.  Move your body and bring in some Oxygen for that hard working brain of yours! 

Just one rule- Create within your personal parameters.  In other words, Believable Baby Steps, Bob.  I’m not going to affirm that my eyes are brown.  They’re blue and I won’t likely change that.  Choose something semi-believable to affirm.  Maybe I can be patient…or powerful…or confident.  Your brain, when given daily baby steps that are almost believable, will create the beliefs you want with practice and time.  Moving your body to your intentions seriously solidifies those beliefs.

Try it! Put those intentions out there so God can divinely orchestrate life for your good.  He delights to bless you. Now, if you want your phone, go for it, but notice how much better you feel before you do.  A life that starts with compassion, mindfulness, and hope is a happy life.  One might even say it approaches perfection. :) You can create a perfect start to the day- every day. 

Try it, y’all.  Let me know how it works for you! All my love,Beth To learn more about Intensati, check out intensati.com. It’s genius.

We have officially moved out of our self-care summer. I hope yours was beautiful. Charging into the school year and the holidays, wouldn’t it be nice to keep that summer self-care feeling? Self-care doesn’t end when the summer does.

Here are some tips to help you strengthen yourself for the season ahead. Saundra Dalton-Smith inspired me this week with the idea that Sacred Rest isn’t just for Sundays. Her blog on Emotional Resilience was spot on!

As we ‘practice a pause’ in our day or our week, we can fortify our creative abilities and our Creator-given power of choice, creating space for peace and grounded security. Who wouldn’t like to feel grounded and peaceful as the pace of life picks up? It is possible, you know.

CMH, in CMH Coaching, stands for Compassion, Mindfulness and Hope. Here are 3 ways those principles can help you prepare for the season ahead and keep that lovely summertime feeling going. Create compassionate, restful moments in your day. Summertime traditionally has a little extra downtime. You don’t have to give that up!

Create pockets of time for yourself. A restful moment for 3 deep breaths after a trip to the Ladies’ room, when you close a phone call, or before you take that first bite of lunch. Carpool line, grocery lines, and time on hold are all great times to practice breathing in to a count of 4 and breathing out to a count of 8. Trust me, after the third breath life will look different, better even. (And that’s saying something when you’re waiting on hold!)

Mindfully set boundaries & protect your peace. My daughter Hope once told me while I was struggling to make a choice, “Mom, if it’s not a heck yes, it’s a heck no.” As a busy working Mom creating and keeping multiple roles going, Hope was great at doing a quick once-over when offered a choice. If it wasn’t a quick, happy yes, it was quite often no. In this way, she had time for things that mattered, things that protected her peace. That will work for you.

“Rest is not for weaklings. Hollowing out space for rest is work. Finding time for rest is the hands and feet of the promises we long to claim. It means saying no. It means having limits with ourselves. It means having limits with others. It takes courage to rest in the midst of an outcome-driven society. It takes strength to walk away from good in the pursuit of better.”― Saundra Dalton-Smith

Create space for your emotions. We often overlook the physical need we have to process the emotions that we encounter every day. We feed ourselves, we sleep often, we shower and put makeup on to face the day, but do we take time to process the feelings that present regularly as a result of our life choices and circumstances?

Feelings and thoughts are directly related. We know that, but did you know that a thought, held long enough, becomes a belief? A belief, held long enough becomes a perception, and that can become our personality, and ultimately, our character. We want to take time daily to process our feelings.

A good friend, a coach, time with meditation and prayer with our Creator, and journaling are all great processing protocols. Exercise- a walking meditation is a also great boon for processing. Just take a little time in your day to talk it out with Him or a friend/coach. You’ll be so much stronger for it!

As we conclude our month on resilience, remember this. You have within you light and truth, all the power you need to grow and progress. You can do this, and your Creator is ready to help you every time you reach out. Reach out often. We’re all here for you.

All my love,

Beth

We can either live in a world of miracles or mediocrity.  

And while I believe, like the Music Man, that mediocrity is not a mortal sin,I also believe in miracles.  Every.Single.Day.

 A miracle has been defined as a wonder. Synonyms include marvel, healing, opened, restored.

 Now, I don’t know about you, but miracles have been in my life all week long. 

Wonder: When I turn on the faucet, clean, potable water comes out. Magic! 

Marvel: My grandson Eli has learned to walk.  One day he is a gecko boy, slithering along on his belly, wiggling back and forth to move forward, and the next he is vertical and upright.  Watch out world, here he comes! 

Healing:  I cut the top of my foot while moving into the main house last week.  After less than a week, my body has created new skin and healed almost to the point that you can’t even tell.  Regeneration is bliss. 

Opened: Where I was emotionally blocked, I met with my coach and she helped me open new ways of perception and hope.  I see things in a whole new way. 

Restored: A four-hour nap.  Need I say more?

 Miracle: wonder, marvel, healing, opened, restored 

“Miracles are marvels and wonders because of the effect produced on those who saw them.” 

My miracles brought sunshine to gray days and hugged me closer to my Creator. 

We do have miracles today- beyond imagination!

(Spencer W. Kimball) 

What about you?  What have you seen this week? 

May you be blessed to have eyes to see miracles this week.  

Take time, check in with your Creator, and ask.  

You will be blessed to see all kinds of new things. 

Write and tell us what they are! 

All my love,

Beth