Monthly Archives: January 2018

Sneak peek into my new course – Choosing Ease!

Here’s the good news folks: We don’t have to wait for perfect circumstances to be able to find a place of ease inside. 

Have you ever had an experience that was supposed to be “hard” but turned out to be pretty lovely? I’m going to give you an example. But first, let me tell you about a ritual we used to do with Ben before he would go to sleep at night. It went something like this:

Ben: “What was your favorite part of the day?”
Me: “My favorite part was riding that big bicycle along the water.”
Ben: “That was my favorite part!”
Ben: “What was your favorite part daddy?”
Matt: “Let’s see, my favorite part was swimming in the pool with you.”
Ben: “That was my favorite part too!”

As you can probably tell, whatever you would say, it would be Ben’s favorite part too. After doing this for a while, I noticed a little habit of collecting favorite parts throughout the day to bring home to Ben.

As I headed to the doctor’s lab waiting to get my blood drawn one day, I thought of our ritual and started looking for favorite parts. Driving around for twenty minutes looking for parking? Not my favorite part. Getting blood drawn? Definitely not gonna be my favorite part, I thought. (I get super nervous and usually cry or pass out when I get a blood test)

But I imagined seeing the same moment through Ben’s eyes… and while I was with the technician I imagined how this could be my favorite part. As this question entered my mind, I saw the sweetness in the man’s eyes when I told him I didn’t feel well and I saw how connected he was when the tears started pouring down my face.

I noticed how he held my gaze and said, “You are safe with me. Nothing is going to happen to you. I’ve got you…”and how that made me cry even more. (Who was this angel man?) I noticed how he tried to talk to me about Alicia Keys, about how she was classically trained and writes her own songs and most artists don’t do that and how she deserved those Grammy’s… and I understood that he was trying to keep my mind on something else… I noticed all of it. And because I asked myself how this could be my favorite part, I could see something holy in it.

I could see how the favorite parts aren’t necessarily just the fun ones, but the ones where we see beyond the superficial into the sacred.

Our experience is often about where we put our attention. And the stories we layer on to an otherwise neutral occurrence. Blood draw. Just is. Totally neutral.

But I arrived at the clinic with a particular narrative- Blood draws. Bad. I hate blood draws. Blood draws scare me. I pass out when I get shots. Why do I have to do this? Poor me. What if the person doesn’t know what they’re doing? I hate this. 

What made the difference was interrupting that habitual story with a new one – even for a moment – in the form of a question. What if this was my favorite part of the day? (That’s crazy, some part of me responded. Impossible.)

But I held the question just long enough to notice this man’s face. His compassion. His willingness to see me not as his next “patient” but as another vulnerable human being sitting with him. This pause, this moment suspended, was enough to open up a little oasis – one where the story became different.

We mostly miss these moments.

But one of the gifts of being vulnerable is that we are cracked open. Even just a little bit. We are porous. Kindness (even the smallest varieties) can seep in more easily. When I am the most vulnerable I notice even the smallest gestures and my heart fills with gratitude. Vulnerable moments are the best places to practice this.

Have you had a moment like the one I described?

A moment when you were vulnerable, softer than usual, maybe even cracked open + someone offered you something from their heart? Something real, something kind, and you were able to let it in? Maybe it was even your favorite part? A moment of ease, well-being, connection, intimacy inside a very imperfect circumstance.

P.S. Did this piece resonate for you? If so, join me in exploring Choosing Ease! The delight starts Monday.

CSP #26: How to Stop Feeling Like Sh*t with Andrea Owen

Andrea Owen is an author, mentor, and certified life coach who helps high-achieving women let go of perfectionism, control, and isolation and choosing courage and confidence instead. She has helped thousands of women manage their inner-critic to create loving connections and live their most kick-ass life.

She is the proud author of How to Stop Feeling Like Sh*t: 14 Habits that Are Holding You Back from Happiness

 

Choosing Ease – My brand new course!

Dear Ones,

I’m calling in ease this year. 

I have goals + dreams of course, but when I ask myself how I want to feel? It’s spacious, buoyant, joyful… as much of the time as possible.

So many of us are addicted to struggle… we think life needs to be hard, or that we need to work hard for what we have for it to have any value.

I believe in ease.

I believe that when I am creating from a place of ease and buoyancy I am actually in flow – in alignment with myself and the Universe. Things feel more fun and playful. I enjoy my life more. I am able to be more present. I am in delicious co-creation with the universe.

Are you calling in more ease this year too?

If so, join me and a classroom full of kindred spirits for five weeks of creating more ease in your life right now – no matter what your circumstances are.

In this course, we will explore:

Week #1: The Mindset of Ease
What if this was fun and easy? This is a question I ask myself all the time. It immediately rights my ship and helps me find an elegant solution to whatever I am wrestling with. This week will be about shifting our mindset from one of struggle to one of ease.

Week #2: Clearing Space
Clearing our physical space + our calendar to make more room for ease. We will explore setting boundaries, perfectionism and we will identify where we can make space for  simplicity. We will practice allowing things to be good enough, not perfect.

Week #3: Cultivating Self-Compassion
This is possibly the most important of all. Creating a habit of relating to ourselves with kindness.

Week #4: Getting into Alignment and Flow
Alignment is the new hustle peeps!
We will look at creating from the quantum model – one where we get into alignment before we take action. It’s not about more effort equals more results, it’s about right effort equals right results. 

Week #5: How Authenticity Creates Ease
Leaning into who we actually are. Identifying our strengths + gifts and allowing what feels most organic and natural to us to be front and center. 
We will also explore how our perceived flaws can be our gold.

The ease + delight begins Monday, February 5th, 2018 – just $99 

P.S. If you don’t like to read all the mumbo jumbo, here it is in one sentence (easy peasy!) – 5 weeks of creating more joy through adopting an ease mindset, growing our self-compassion and clearing space for what we truly want! It’s going to be life-shifting and good.

 

Some of my favorite podcast episodes from 2017.

Today I am celebrating that I created a podcast this year! The Creative Superheroes Podcast.

It’s seriously the best gig around – sitting down for tea with some of the most interesting, creative and delightful people in the world. The episodes above are some of my personal favorites…

Just click on one of the graphics above to get to the episode.

Enjoy!

xo Andrea

You’re gonna make it after all.

Yesterday, my friend Laurel and I taught a daylong manifesting workshop. The space was filled with really incredible women and we ushered them through a process of letting go of their 2017 (at times with tears for how hard this year was for so many of us) and welcoming and visioning 2018.

Because I co-led with Laurel (who is an angel practitioner) we also held an angel circle. This means that Laurel embodies a tribe of angels – Josephus and the Wisdom Council – and they speak through her. As she spoke, I realized that I had never actually witnessed Laurel (or anyone else) channel. All of my sessions with her (and there have been many!) have been on the phone, so it was such a treat to see her do her work in person. With her eyes closed, she fielded questions from participants and offered wise advice and energy clearing for all of us.

Most importantly (and what I love most about circles of women) is that the personal is almost always the universal. A question from an individual is a question for the collective. There wasn’t anything that someone asked that didn’t somehow feel relatable to my own life…

This morning, still filled with all that good energy from yesterday, I went on a little hike. I was listening to music (on random shuffle) as I walked and decided to ask the angels for some guidance. “Okay angel friends! Can you have the next song that comes on be a special message from you to me?”

At first I didn’t recognize the song that came on, but I started listening to the words.

Who can turn the world on with her smile?
Who can take a nothing day, and suddenly make it all seem worthwhile?

It started to sound familiar, something from my childhood… Could it be? Oh my goodness, it is! It’s from the Mary Tyler Moore show! I laughed. How in god’s name did this get on my phone??? And then I listened to the words.

How will you make it on your own?
This world is awfully big, girl this time you’re all alone
This was the PRECISE anxiety I woke up with. A little electric current of fear: “Oh my goodness, I just bought a car. Will I be able to make payments and rent? Will I be able to take care of my kids? Oh my god oh my god, can I pull of this single mom thing??”
Your are most likely to succeed
You have the looks and charms
And girl you know that’s all you need
All the men around adore you
That sexy look will do wonders for you
Love is all around, no need to waste it
You can have the town, why don’t you take it?
You might just make it after all
You’re gonna make it after all
So yeah, the part about the looks and charm and sexiness is a little outdated (ha!) but the sentiment was so good it made me smile. Love is all around, no need to waste it! You can have a town, why don’t you take it? You’re gonna make it after all!

I felt like cheering or doing that Mary Tyler Moore hat-in-the-air toss as she arrives at her apartment building. Whether it was in fact the angels speaking to me or not didn’t matter. I had gotten my message. The one I most needed to hear today.

Want to try it? Do a little meditation where you ask the angels/Spirit/God/your higher self/your intuition for a secret message. Then randomly play a song and listen to the words.

What is your secret message in song?

The Cosmic Tube.

 

On Christmas Day, I woke up alone. I’m Jewish, so this isn’t quite as terrible as it sounds, but there was that feeling, that thud in my chest of Where are my children? How is it that I don’t get to see their sweet faces beaming and bursting as they open presents today? I imagined them tearing at the paper with glee, squealing as they removed each treasure from their stocking. I imagined them with their grandparents and cousins getting so much delicious attention, playing board games in their pajamas, eating pancakes.

Anyway, we have these moments right? Those moments when we take a mental inventory and judge how far we’ve come. How the heck did I get here? I never thought my life would look like this. What have I accomplished? How is it possible that I’m a single mom? This is so strange and not at all what I planned… 

I looked at my phone. Want to come downstairs and watch the girls open presents?  It was my sweet neighbor downstairs, a fellow single mama with two little girls. She gets it. She is the one who, when I am away on a trip and flying home, will turn on some lights in my apartment and put the heater on so that I don’t come home to a cold, empty house. Yeah, that kind of friend. 

Yes! I texted back smiling.

I came down and watched them open gifts. They cheered after every box was opened. I took in their pure delight – the perfect proxy – and it was so good. And the girls made me gifts as well- a friendship bracelet in oranges and purples and a gorgeous hand-knit square in ombre blues, perfect for my altar.

The last two Christmases I have gone on a hike in Tennessee Valley. You can guess from the photo why… a long, gorgeous walk to the ocean. You land at a wild little cove with roiling waves, not the kind of water you would dare swim in, but the kind you bow to. The power and beauty is massive and overwhelming. You feel small there, but in the best possible way. You feel held because it’s so clear that it’s not about you, that there is so much more, that there is an entire Universe that has big plans. I like being humbled this way.

I picked up a smooth, black stone and held it in my palm facing the water. May I let go of whatever stands in the way of love and flow. I chanted this to myself as I took a few steps toward the water. May I let go of whatever stands in the way of love and flow. Then I threw the rock and watched the waves swallow it up.


 

Do you remember those pneumatic tubes from way back when? Your parents would drive along the side of the bank and deposit a check into that tube and it would shoot straight up into the ether. I couldn’t ever figure out where exactly it went but I like to imagine it went up to the sky, to the clouds, to the world of magical things!

This is also how I like to imagine our dreams, our wishes, our intentions… like the one I made at the ocean. We write it, speak it, and then we let it go. We put it in the cosmic pneumatic tube and it shoots up into the Mystery. 

This is a nice visual for the way we invite magic to co-create with us, to dance with us. We don’t have to do it all alone. I repeat: We don’t have to do it all alone.

Is there something you want to put in the Tube for 2018?

Feel free to make a comment or hit reply and leave it here. I will gather all the wishes and send them up. Consider this your virtual portal into the World of Magic.