Open to a loving the madness.

The past few weeks have been absolutely nuts in my life. My life has a tendency to be filled with randomness and excitement, but what has happened lately is different from anything that I can recall. From someone re-entering my life, whom I had 100% written off and had moved on from, to amazing travels, and the potential of something new and totally crazy, I am convinced that all of this is happening for a reason....not a celestial reason, but rather that I am at a place in my life to welcome and be okay with whatever comes my way.

Now, I'm not sitting here saying 'look at me, my life is SOOOO perfect", actually what I am saying is this, "Yea, this is crazy and totally unexpected, and I'm ready to face it all head on and am ready to go." Over the past few years I have done a lot of personal work on myself to prepare myself for what is happening now. I'm sure to some of you the term 'personal work' is completely unappealing and most likely conjures up some sort of negative connotation, but what I have experienced and has been nothing short of an awesome ride, with many ups and downs. There are many lessons that I am trying to learn and have not yet been able to fully incorporate into my life, but with that said, the knowing of what I'm striving for helps to keep me grounded and moving in a positive direction no matter what.

When I find myself over thinking my life, which I do often even when it's all good, I find myself trying to predict or manipulate the future... I'm pretty crafty, but I'm not super human, so spending all this energy trying to figure out the "what's next?" is kind of pointless. It's somewhat of an impossibility for me to say that I have no expectations of what's to come, because I do, however, the future is out of my control. So what I am focusing on is this, moving forward with passion and truth, and being unattached to the outcome.

The people in my life who know me best, know that I live fully and give my all when I am excited about what's going on, and they have also witnessed some of my major disappointments. I don't want to be disappointed anymore, so with that I am creating this intention: I experience life as it comes without attachment to it's outcome, so that I can fully appreciate what is happening in the moment and make changes based on truth and not on expectations.

If you could take a few moments time to create a statement of intent for how you would like to move forward from this moment on, what would it be?

Please share what you come up with or let's just talk about it.

Hope you're all well,

Talia

Yay for today!

Today I woke up in one of my most favorite places on earth, San Fransisco. I am here with my best friend, and have four full days to roam around the city and connect with old friends. I am so happy to be here and want to take full advantage of this time.

San Fransisco, to me feels like my second home, which in my mind is pretty cool. So in order to take full advantage of my time here, I am focusing my energy on staying present in the moment, and remaining flexible. My friend and I have travelled together before, and I think we make good travel buddies, but when traveling with someone other than yourself, it is important to share your plans and hopes for what you want out of the trip, otherwise you may end up feeling disappointed.

So over a cup of some serious coffee, Mandy and I are going to map out what we both want out of the trip, and then we'll be off.

What traveling tips have you learned over the years?

How do you remain flexible while taking someone else's agenda into account?

When you think about your most memorible trips, can you identify what lead to that being the case, (was it circumstantial, a state of mind, the people you were with, expecting the unexpected)?

I hope you all are well, and please share your thoughts.

Later all,

Talia

Now, isn't this a fun pattern…

So this past week marks the second time my purse has been stolen out of my car from the same location. I know what you’re thinking, “Wow, you would think once would have been enough to learn that lesson”, well apparently not. The irony of the latest incident was I actually had the thought as I left my purse, which had both my phone and iPod in it, in my car, that as my Father would say, “You’re crusin’ for a brusin’”…and he was right. As pissed as I was, I really only had myself to blame.

So after dealing with the annoying aftermath of not having a phone, being pissed about losing my favorite purse, and cancelling all my credit cards and bank accounts, I slowed my mind enough to sort out what this event was really all about. And what I came up with is this: I have created a belief that it is necessary for me to learn lessons the hard way.

Huh, well that sucks.

I have spent some more time thinking about the deeper meaning of this belief, that I have been living with for the majority of my life, and what I have decided, is that this belief no longer suits me, and to be honest I’m not sure it has suited me at all. This belief is not limited to my leaving purses in cars, in fact it is most clearly evident in my relationship patterns…I stay involved and connected to relationships both platonically and romantically well past their expiration date. What I have realized is that, I have had a really difficult time being honest with myself in terms of when to change my behavior... meaning that I usually recognize when I am no longer benefiting from a situation, but taking the necessary steps to change that situation seem to lag way behind.

I am tired of living by extreme life lessons. Instead I choose to stay present and recognize when things require adjustments and making those adjustments in a much quicker fashion, if not immediately. Since this is a patterned behavior that I have been living with for many many years now, I am really going to try to be gentle with myself throughout this process of redefining my new belief, which is this: I trust my intuition and make the necessary changes in my daily life, no matter how significant, so that I set myself up for success.

So here are some questions that may help you to identify a destructive pattern in your own life that is keeping you down…

Is there something in your life that constantly has you saying, “Why is this happening…again?” If so, what are you doing or not doing that is causing this to be the case?

Where in your life can you connect the dots, meaning can you see if there are other areas in your life that are not the way you desire them to be, in order to determine if you are living a belief or a pattern that is no longer serving you?

What is keeping you from modifying your behavior in order to create a different outcome?

What is your desired outcome?

I hope this is a helpful discussion and some food for thought. Here’s to moving forward with purpose and intention.

I hope to hear from you,

Talia

No postage necessary.

As I was driving home tonight, my mind started to drift to thoughts about some of my very close friends. And I found myself thinking about all the reasons why I love being around them, some of these reasons are their generosity, their gracious hospitality, how much we laugh when we're all together, and a general sense of safety and comfort.

Then I started to think, what do people appreciate about me? Now I'm not looking for compliments, actually my point is the exact opposite.... although compliments are wonderful. My point is this, I want to people to know what I think about them.

The few times in my life when people whom I cherish, have taken the time to share their thoughts about me, have been some of the most meaningful moments that I can recall. So with that said, today I am creating the intention to weekly share my own gratitude for the love and support that my family and friends offer me, simply by telling them, so that they know that I appreciate and value their presence in my life.

Chew on this…

What would it feel like if you were to randomly receive a hand written letter or an email from a good friend, telling you why he or she enjoys having you in their life?

If it’s sometimes difficult to say what you are feeling, what form of expression will serve you the best?

How will you feel once you have shared your thoughts?

I hope you all have a fantastic weekend,

Talia

Help me, Help you

I am trying to make my blog more interactive, so I am calling on you, my readers, to help me achieve this.

What will it take for you to participate?

Is there anything in particular that you would like me to blog about?

Are there topics that I have written about that don’t interest you?

I often times wonder if what I write interests anyone, I mean my life to me is not that extraordinary, thus why I have created this blog to try and break down my day to day life to make it more manageable. I value your input greatly... please share it with me.

Happy Tuesday,

Talia

A good reminder…

I like to pride myself on being a good friend and communicating well with all people, but sometimes it is most difficult to tell someone close to you the truth out of fear…. What is that fear all about?

 I just got off the phone with one of my dearest friends, and I was reminded of the power of direct communication.  I got myself into a situation with this person where I ended up causing her stress and basically I was rude to her because I couldn’t communicate with her directly.  Finally we talked after a week of missed phone calls and numerous e-mails, and hopefully we have sorted it all out and hopefully this won’t have a lasting effect on our relationship.

Why is it so difficult to speak the truth?  What makes communicating directly sometimes so uncomfortable?  In retrospect, I wish I had spoken the truth form the get go, and told my friend that travelling this past weekend was not going to work for me, and instead I lead her to believe that I was going to make the trip happen, thus she delayed making her plans and ended up feeling like I was blowing her off and that I didn’t appreciate all that she was doing to make sure we got a chance to see each other.  None of this is true of course, but since I left her no option but to create a story in her own head, this is now the situation I find myself in.

Thankfully, she had the courage to speak directly to me, and tell me how upset she was and how all she wanted was for me to be honest in the first place. I would have save both of us so much energy if I could have just been upfront from the get-go.

There are other areas in my life where direct communication is a challenge for me and I think I have figured out why that is…I don’t like to disappoint people and confrontation makes me uncomfortable.  Naming those two fears feels good, and there is still plenty of work for me to do around this issue. This was a good reminder for me…I want people to be honest with me all the time, no matter what, I want to be able to give that back in return.

What helps you to speak the truth?

What stops you from direct communication?

What do you appreciate most about direct communication?

Please share your thoughts on the topic; I know I’m interested in what you have to say.

 Talia

 

 

Changing things up

After a wonderful long weekend spent with great friends, I am finding it a bit difficult to settle back into my daily routine. One reason this is proving to be difficult is due to the fact that all of a sudden I am feeling a bit overwhelmed by all that I want to accomplish, both for my business and personally. Stepping outside of my routine gave me the opportunity to see my life without being in it per se, thus allowing me the time and space to mentally organize it and create several action plans.

Action plans, in theory, really excite me, and for some reason the steps it takes to shift the plan from its exciting place in my head, to its physical state often times ends up overwhelming me, and thus many of my best laid plans never get set into motion. This is what I term, FRUSTRATING.

Knowing that this is a pattern in my behavior, I am faced with a choice. I can choose to continue to be overwhelmed and feel sorry for myself and not do all the things I want to do, or I can change my behavior so that the things that I want to do and that excite and ignite me don’t overwhelm me.

I choose the later.  Making the choice to change my behavior feels great, and I already feel like I’ve accomplished something, which is pretty cool. The real work is still ahead of me, which is to determine specifically what behaviors I want to change and why it’s important to make those changes, in order to honor this choice and ultimately accomplish my numerous desired action plans.  What is coming up for me first, is to create a list of priorities, because I know I work really well when I have a physical list that I can see and that I can actually cross things off once I’ve completed them.   For the time being, this feels like enough to get me moving in the right direction, because I also know that if I set out to make too many changes all at once, I will freak out and lose my motivation. 

 Here are some questions that I have found myself thinking about:

What patterns in your life are you aware of that limit you in accomplishing what you desire?

What encourages you to change behaviors that do not serve you?

How will it feel to live in alignment with what ‘s important to you?

 

I hope you all had a great holiday weekend, and feel refreshed to move forward.

Talia