This is my grattitude journal
2. Morph into the New You:
Dare to Dream
Make the place you live the place you’ll love.
Most of us live with a longing for an-other life (home) – or at least improvements. I used to believe you could never decorate your-self out of mental pain, but in fact you can. When you’re rested, comfortable with the thought of living in a “Tem-porary Life and Home,” grateful for the small blessings in life and patient with yourself in the process, then it’s time to Dare to Dream. You’re going on an adventure, to make your best life happen within these walls! This is your cocoon from which you will emerge as the beautiful butterfly you were meant to be. And, as an extra bonus, you’ll be an excellent role model for your children. You’ll be showing them how to overcome life’s obstacles and to be grateful for life itself.
Now, the present moment is the perfect time for you to steer towards your new life, and certainly the dir-ection you are steering towards should always feel like joy and freedom. Can you remember what that felt like?
Ask yourself these questions:
What now?
These general questions can lead you to:
A:
How can I find others in my age group, and how can we support and help each other? Where do I find “Hero Stories” of people who lost their job at my age, did not hide, but used the storm to surge ahead?How can I make a home office to “dream and scheme”
while I am looking for my right life?
Can I take any job and stop being ambitious in corporate life? Can I shift focus and become a blessing to the ones I love in my private life?
B:
My son morphed in more than a physical way.“Dr. Brains” of all kinds showed him deep respect, knowing he had plowed through his final college exams and even taught his peers with a huge tumor in his brain.
He’s no longer thought of as a wimp– he’s “Simba, The Lion King!” Undergoing this trauma in his young life is giving him the courage to seek bold new adventures in his future!
C:
Once you have stopped hating, crying, and grieving, you change your perception. You and you alone hold the key to forgiveness and love, and this opens doors to a bright future for everyone involved. You need to care for yourself and let go of poisonous feelings. In your anger and hurt you may want to kill others, but the poison you take will kill you instead of your target – so let go!Look for inspiration from other heroes and heroines that survived traumas and life changes; look for those that became colorful, unique butterflies soar-ing in the sun, like the caterpillar could never imagine!
Car accidents, brain tumors, job losses, divorces, etc., never seem to be part of a “bigger plan” but they will be, if you begin to be present in the moment, be grateful for what you still have, and receive what you are given with grace. Life/God is teaching you a lesson, so study, read articles, read books, and watch inspirational movies of survivors. In the Tool box you will find the Pathfinder Vision Board which will help you set the coordinates to find your Unique Magical Life.
• Who eLse have gone
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3. Emerge as the New Unique You:
In nature, after only 10 to 14 days as a chrysalis, the butterfly is ready to emerge. Humans often need somewhat longer! How long depends on “the bigger plan” and your willingness to learn and grow.
When the butterfly emerges from its chrysalis, its wings are small and wet, and he cannot yet fly. The but-terfly must pump fluids from its abdomen through veins in its wings, which causes the wings to expand to their full size. You too must pump all your thoughts of hope, love, faith and joy into your wings, before you are ready to fly. Next, the wings must dry and the butterfly must exercise its flight muscles, and you must as well! You will try and fail, but then you try again and suddenly you’ll see your life from a completely new perspective. Like the butterfly on its virgin flight!
It’s a miracle; the gift in its shabby wrapping was the chance to become who we really are. We realize, from practice, that we are bigger than our problems. We now know our immense potential, and we welcome the op-portunity to become a blessing to ourselves and to oth-ers. As we change the world around us changes with us.
You’re a butterfly ready to emerge, ready to come home.
My mission is to help you on your mission! So, here’s my personal House-Coach gift to you: “Four Steps to Help Your Home Emerge as a Butterfly.”
Step 1:
This is deep practice of the “Loving What Is” concept. Take photographs of every room and every corner. Pretend you are photographing someone else’s mess in a magazine or on TV. Then describe in writing what you see on every photo. You’re stating the facts here.For example, “I see boxes, furniture, and other items which belong in a bedroom. I see a chair which belongs in a dining room, cushions for a sofa, a flower stand for a garden (even if you do not have a garden anymore!), and storage shelves for an office, etc. When you have named the corners of every room and the items in them, they are
“registered” for later use.
Step 2:
The next step is called “Adopting.” This consists of choosing furniture and decorations with love.First you divide your home, and even parts of the rooms, into zones. What is the purpose of that zone; what will you do in that portion of the room? Before choosing any furniture, decorative elements or colors it is vital to know WHAT you want to do in your home zones... like prepar-ation before a real adoption. Then decide where each item fits based on what its purpose is in your life.
Step 3:
Sort, play and give away! Grab every box and piece of furniture which you have registered and place them in the zone they would best belong. There might be too much and then you have to downsize using my 7-3 Downsizing tool (read the “My Story” chapter if you haven’t yet or see the Tool box at the end of the book). Put some of the items you have no room for but cannot let go of, such as your grandmother’s rocking chair, in “foster care” with a sister or friend, or store them in a storage fa-cility. It is better to live with less. Better to be surrounded by items that really matter to you than to cram as much as possible into a smaller home. If you have gained weight, you wear loose clothes, not tight ones! Let your new home be airy and spacious – you can always bring more in within the next few months if you still want to. This is a “Temporary Home.” The emphasis, here, is on the word Home not on Temporary. Make it comfortable and store the excess stuff safely or just give it away!Begin placing items with the easiest pieces first: bed or sofa. Where would you instinctively like to rest your soul? It’s best to face the door, where you can see who’s coming in and with a wall against your back. If it’s a living room, you can place the sofa in the middle of the room and a desk or console table behind it, just to be sure “your back is covered.” This is an ancient concept and philo-sophy, from the days when we lived in caves and by nature we still respond well to this kind of “safety.”
Step 4:
Place all other furniture in the right zones.Be playful on paper at first. Use music while you sort and move things to open up your heart to your natural-born
“nester.” Sort paintings and pictures and if you need it, get help from someone who’s good at hanging pictures (we all know someone). Then place lamps. Consider asking for help here, too, for the wiring. Place your decorative pieces and remember all the time to keep a joyful and playful spirit and to reward yourself when you have completed
“nesting a zone.”
Colors are the icing of the cake. The ones that re-peat themselves on your Pathfinder Vision Board are the ones to choose.
70% of these will be neutral colors, which are black, white, brown, grey, white, beige, wooden material.
30% will be of your favorite color scheme. (Interestingly, in my work in the Scandinavian countries, this tends to be 80/20%. The warmer the climate, the higher the per-centage of bright colors!) There could be images at the beach, such as green and blue/turquoise. There might be images of Miami or Haiti with brighter colors. Add the
color tones which make you feel happy, in accents such as cushions, paintings, posters, books, vases and candles.
Or try just one wall with color (for pictures), or a square with wallpaper behind the sofa.
Welcome Home! The butterfly has emerged, ready to fly and live the life it was destined to live! This is really about the journey and not the destination, though that is sweet too! But the vitally important aspect of all this is to feel at home in every zone of your home, to have ad-opted each and every item with love and to know you’re safe even in this tiny shoebox of a home. It’s wonderful to be back Home. And from here, you’ll one day move on to another, perhaps bigger nest, where you will be able to bring the rest of the “furniture family” in storage or foster care.
This is the time when you acknowledge life’s mir-acles, both great and small. You are beginning to appre-ciate each day’s tiny blessings, but more deeply, you are grateful beyond measure for the newfound love and joy in your heart.
And be aware: if or when another meltdown hits you, after another catalytic life event, you’ll know what it takes to go through all the stages. And you will know that you can do it!
Now that you are fully recharged, it’s time to help your children through the exact same process:
“70-30%” coLor tooL:
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