Lightarted Living: What to do while Waiting for the Other Shoe to Dro...

Lightarted Living: What to do while Waiting for the Other Shoe to Dro...: 'Before you criticize someone ,  you should walk a mile in their shoes.  That way when you criticize them,  you are a mile a...

Lightarted Living: May today be all you need it to Be

Lightarted Living: May today be all you need it to Be: May today be the day you achieve your heart's desire. May today be the day a stranger points you in the right directio...

May today be all you need it to Be

May today be the day you achieve your heart's desire.

May today be the day a stranger points you in the right direction.

May today be the day you find what you're looking for.

May today be the day you pocket your dreams and carry them with you.

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For more than 35 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes letting go and moving forward with life easier than ever before.

Do you know someone who could benefit from uplifting messages? Please share Lightarted Living with them. If you or someone you love is interested in learning more about closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, join the FREE Lightarted Living mailing list. 

Lightarted Living: How to be Calm and In-Control When You Feel Anythi...

Lightarted Living: How to be Calm and In-Control When You Feel Anythi...: " Anyhow, t he short answer is 'No'; the long answer is 'Hell No! '" Fit-to-be-Tied  The other day I had ...

How to be Calm and In-Control When You Feel Anything But

"Anyhow, the short answer is 'No'; the long answer is 'Hell No!'"

Fit-to-be-Tied 

The other day I had a call from a woman who was fit-to-be-tied. She took a break from work so she could cool down after being blindsided by a colleague who wanted to put her back on a dysfunctional team she just left. 

Surprised and hurt, she blurted out an emphatic 'NO!' before she called me to unleash her frustration and anger in a safe place.

We're programmed to experience the full gamut of emotions, including anger, rage, frustration and fear, and there's nothing wrong with us when we're moved to outrage and feeling out-of-control. Outrage is a normal, healthy response to our boundaries being breached--yet it feels so awful, we're driven to get back to a calmer state as soon as possible.

So the question is, what can you do to regain your calm and sense of control sooner? In other words, how do you regain your calm and sense of control when you feel anything but?

How to Communicate like an Adult when you feel like a Child

In a hot moment of feeling pushed out-of-control by the actions of others, this young woman responded in just the right way to put her back on the road to feeling calm and in-control.  

While it may not have felt like it in the moment, once she was hit with a situation that made her feel like an out-of-control child--whose destiny is being dictated by others--she chose to communicate like an adult by changing where and when she released her frustration and anger.

To regain your composure when you're pushed to your limit, remove yourself from the situation to re-calibrate your response. 

Just like this woman instinctively knew, you can recenter yourself through engaging in two simple practices that shifts your reaction time and space: 

💓 Practice the Pause--When you practice the pause, you learn to close you mouth while you take a break from reacting to the situation--you put time between when you want to openly rage and when you calmly respond.

💙Retreat to a Safe Place to Vent--When you remove yourself from the situation pushing you out of control, you make it easier to voice your concerns in a safe manner. 

Calm Adults Speak with Grace and Strength 

When you're caught off-guard by being treated unfairly in the workplace, give yourself a moment to deal with the anger and frustration. Pause to find someone safe to talk with privately about how you're feeling and how you want to deal with the situation before you speak up. 

When we're calm in our responses we show ourselves to be adults with grace and strength who act thoughtfully instead of reacting impulsively.  And more importantly than showing others we act with grace, we show ourselves we can regain our composure quickly and create better outcomes.   

'By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try the world is beyond the winning.' Lao Tzu

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For more than 35 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes letting go and moving forward with life easier than ever before.

Do you know someone who could benefit from uplifting messages? Please share Lightarted Living with them. If you or someone you love is interested in learning more about closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, join the FREE Lightarted Living mailing list.

Lightarted Living: Kahlil Gibran~Forget not the Earth Delights

Lightarted Living: Kahlil Gibran~Forget not the Earth Delights: Breathe and Be Free “Forget not that the earth delights  to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your ha...

Kahlil Gibran~Forget not the Earth Delights

Breathe and Be Free

“Forget not that the earth delights 

to feel your bare feet

and the winds long to play with your hair.”

Kahlil Gibran

Look for the Magic and Beauty

“The appearance of things changes 

according to the emotions; 

and thus we see magic and beauty in them, 

while the magic and beauty are really in ourselves.”

Kahlil Gibran

Turn Thought into Action

“Thought is a bird of space,

that in a cage of words may indeed

unfold its wings but cannot fly.”

Kahlil Gibran

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For more than 35 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes letting go and moving forward with life easier than ever before.

Do you know someone who could benefit from uplifting messages? Please share Lightarted Living with them. If you or someone you love is interested in learning more about closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, join the FREE Lightarted Living mailing list. 

Lightarted Living: Rid Your Life of Drama and Emotional Clutter

Lightarted Living: Rid Your Life of Drama and Emotional Clutter: Let Go Being a person who values freedom, I’ve been working on letting go of things that clutter my mind and attention. When I first ...

Rid Your Life of Drama and Emotional Clutter

Let Go

Being a person who values freedom, I’ve been working on letting go of things that clutter my mind and attention.

When I first considered what I held on to that created chaos and distress in my life, a clear pattern started emerging: 

If I want to lead my life through my naturally calm and joyous spirit I'd gain the most benefit by focusing my attention on letting go of other people’s drama.

So I started the practice of letting other's drama slip past me without allowing it to get a toe-hold from the get-go.  This is a very freeing experience. 

Below are 3 simple things I've done to minimize the effect other's drama has on my joyful spirit. 

By keeping it simple and staying conscious of what I allow in, I'm finding it easier to move past drama each time it erupts. 

Walk Away from Drama and its Creators ~

Surround Yourself with People who make you Laugh

By Marie Forleo

“There comes a time in your life, when you walk away

From all the drama and people who create it.

You surround yourself with people who make you laugh.

Forget the bad and focus on the good.

Love the people who treat you well, pray for the ones who don't.

Life is too short to be anything but happy.

Falling down is a part of life, getting back up is living.” 

1. Consciously Acknowledge What You Want and What You Don't Want

Sit, Rest, Work--Alone with Yourself--Joyfully

It's not always easy to ‘sit, rest, and work--alone with yourself’ without letting the producers of drama splatter you with their over the top display of ill will and chaos. 

By consciously choosing to let the drama slide off you, you can better direct negativity away from you. 

Choose to stay focused on what you want--to live joyfully without drama. When drama appears--consciously acknowledge its presence and actively choose to walk away from it and its creators. 

2. Look through the Wrong End of a Telescope 

When in the middle of someone else's drama, view the situation as if you were looking at it through the wrong end of a telescope to minimize the view. In your mind, put the drama into a balloon and watch it disappear into the horizon.

Thanks to Grant Soosalu for the breathing technique

3. Choose Calm and Uplift

You are the master of your mind and spirit.  When you're surrounded by other people's drama, choose to breathe uplift into your heart and breathe out calmness into your gut. 

If you discover other's drama has crept into your mind long after the event, gently repeat this breathing technique to uplift and calm you to regain your center.

My Heart is at Rest

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For more than 35 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes letting go and moving forward with life easier than ever before.

Do you know someone who could benefit from uplifting messages? Please share Lightarted Living with them. If you or someone you love is interested in learning more about closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, join the FREE Lightarted Living m

Lightarted Living: The Three Day Rule: How to Calm the Worry-Wart in ...

Lightarted Living: The Three Day Rule: How to Calm the Worry-Wart in ...: LET IT GO Want a way to calm the worry-wart in you and ease your way through life?    Learn how to apply the Three Day Rule to ch...

The Three Day Rule: How to Calm the Worry-Wart in You

LET IT GO

Want a way to calm the worry-wart in you and ease your way through life?  

Learn how to apply the Three Day Rule to change how you deal with transitions-big or small.

We all need a strategy to ease our way through the constant change called life. 

While some people worry and fret more than others, we're all susceptible to reacting through life when we fail to give ourselves time to acknowledge the transition--no matter how small--and allow ourselves to just be in 'the moment after' without judging or interpreting it. 

This is what the Three Day Rule is about:

💓 Giving yourself time to just be in the moment after without judging or interpreting.

The Three Day Rule

I stumbled on the Three Day Rule in my 20's when I came home anticipating going back to work after a vacation.  The wall of dread hit as I stepped into the house.

You know that moment just before you step into the house after being gone when the irrational fear sets in--'OMG I forgot to pay my bills before I left on vacation'; 'OMG I left the stove or iron on--or water running'; 'OMG I wonder if anything bad happened I don't know about while I was gone'.

Instead of arriving home relaxed from a truly pleasurable vacation, I soon found myself fixated and anticipating all the problems that might have happened while I was gone and it began gnawing away at me. 

I didn't like that gnawing feeling one little bit.  It was in that moment I realized this was a pattern I could change.

 

Give Yourself Time 

To get back into the Swing of Things

As I thought about it, I realized I always came home from a vacation to secretly anticipating the problems that piled up while I was gone. Yet, I realized after I got back into the swing of things--after about three days--I had a handle on things and my angst lessened.

'What if I applied a three day rule?' I thought. 'What if I approached coming back home or going back to work after being gone as if there were no problems for three days?'

So I gave it a try--and it worked like a charm. No matter what issues arose in the 1st three days after returning home or to work, I calmly took the information in as just that--'information' and approached my first three days 'as if there were no problems'. 

I soon realized that I had stumbled across the best stress management technique ever--the three day rule--as it was effective when it was applied to big or small transitions alike.

THE THREE DAY RULE

There are no problems for three days when returning home or returning to work 

after your absence, or after being hit with a major crisis or life change.

There Are No Problems

The key to applying The Three Day Rule is how you approach the information that comes at you during those three days. When you choose to act as if there are no problems, you are choosing to act rather than react to your current life.

Don't let change and uncertainty overwhelm you. Choose to tweak your approach to the ever-changing landscape of life by applying the three day rule in all aspects of your life.

Ease Your Way through Life Transitions

Every moment in every day we transition from one moment to the next. And in the space between we face uncertainty about what's coming next. 

When the transitions we face are bigger and more difficult such as moving from being married to divorced or widowed; going from being a renter to becoming a home owner; changing employment status from employed to laid off; changing health status from well to sick--the stress and worry about the future can be overwhelming.

Even simple or 'good' transitions such as transitioning from home to work; returning to work after a vacation or weekend off; moving from being single to becoming a couple; moving from being unemployed to getting a job; or becoming new parents--can be stressful and give us cause to worry and fret. 

To ease your way through life transitions practice applying the Three Day Rule. Give your worry-wart mind a chance to catch up as you learn to be comfortable with the uncertainty of what comes next. 

Practice Being Comfortable with Uncertainty

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For more than 35 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes letting go and moving forward with life easier than ever before.


Do you know someone who could benefit from uplifting messages? Please share Lightarted Living with them. If you or someone you love is interested in learning more about closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, join the FREE Lightarted Living mailing list. 

Lightarted Living: Dying on the Job? The Simplest Life Hack to Jump-S...

Lightarted Living: Dying on the Job? The Simplest Life Hack to Jump-S...: Help! I Need a Way Out!  ��Do you feel your life dreams slipping away as you slog your way through a job zapping your energy and numbin...

Dying on the Job? The Simplest Life Hack to Jump-Start Your Life

Help! I Need a Way Out! 

💓Do you feel your life dreams slipping away as you slog your way through a job zapping your energy and numbing your mind and motivation? 

💙Are you feeling locked into a job that's going nowhere, but by the time you get home from work you're too tired to think clearly about how you're going to get out of this stagnant job?

💚Do you find hazy, unproductive thoughts rolling around in your brain's dryer drum, churning the same energy-zapping thoughts over and over again?

Stop driving yourself crazy with churning thoughts and start propelling your life forward. One simple life hack will make it easier to refresh yourself and think productively when stagnation shows up and life starts going downhill.

Life Hack: A strategy or technique adopted to manage your time and daily activities more effectively.

Stagnant Periods are Catalysts for Good

Listen up! Feeling stagnant at work isn't always a bad thing. It wakes you up to 'the time is NOW' to move your career forward. And as much as we hate it, being uncomfortable is the best motivator to spur us on to achieving great things.  

Attempt to ignore your discomfort and it will just build up until you're really uncomfortable and unhappy, and ultimately it'll compel you to change. So learn to endure those uncomfortable feelings, and sit in them until you're ready to change.  

Like pulling back on a rubber band, when the tension between where you are today and where you want to be is great enough, it will shoot you forward.

When it gets bad enough your discomfort will serve as the catalyst motivating you to do something to improve your situation. The discomfort prods you to discover the courage and determination to find your way forward.

'All things seemingly good or bad work in our favor'. You're not 'stagnating' if you use this period to plan your next steps, or you use it to prod you to develop a more effective way to deal with work and life. 

But to be effective, you have to set the stage so you can do your best thinking--and that's what the #1 Life Hack is all about.

#1 Life Hack to Jump-start and Refresh Your Life

If you're too busy on the job to think about moving on, and you're too tired when you get home, how can you break this vicious and tiring cycle so you can refresh your life?

You can insert an enjoyable habit into your daily schedule that allows you to be productive in your thinking. 

Effective, productive thinking requires two things:

💓A rested and alert mind. 

💓Your freshest moments of the day dedicated to you for free flow thinking.

What is the #1 hack to jump-start and refresh your life? Carve out 1-2 hours of uninterrupted 'me time' each day when you are freshest. Give yourself the first and best part of the day.

How to Insert 'Uninterrupted Me Time' into a Jam-Packed Day

Most of us just jump into life and do the best we can to figure it out. But before we know it we've boxed ourselves into a schedule that has us running ragged with no time to breathe, much less think. It is only after things go wrong and we're feeling stuck with no way out that we start asking questions.

When you find yourself boxed in it can feel like there's no way out. But there is. You must learn to rearrange your daily habits so you put uninterrupted dreaming time in the prime-time of your day.

We all have just 24 hours in a day. When we want to change up our lives something has to give. We can't fit something into our day without taking something out--even if that something we are removing is doing nothing or sleeping.

The trick to fitting 'uninterrupted me time' into your overfilled schedule is to ease into it. 

Start with one day a week. On a work day, set your alarm to get up two hours earlier. Ideally, find a coffee house or cafe close to work to get a cup of coffee and/or breakfast.  Take something to write on--whether tablet, journal or yellow-lined paper. Then start putting words to paper in whatever way they come out. 

💓Make lists of questions, feelings, ideas for new jobs. 
💜Make lists of job skills you've acquired.
💛Update your resume.
💙Make a list of complaints and what's bothering you.
💚Make a list of people you'd like to talk with about your career and/or life.
💛Bring magazines to tear up to create a vision collage.
💜Write letters you'll never send to people telling them how you feel.

There is no right way to get this started. The goal is to get in the habit of giving yourself the 1st and best part of your day so you can think about what you want to think about, and so you know you will always have time in the day for you.

Early on in my career I learned to get up early when no one else was awake to give myself 1-2 hours of creative thinking time. After satisfying my need to engage in calm, productive thinking, by the time I went in to a workplace filled with constant interruptions and meeting the needs of others I was less frazzled and more productive.  

At UCLA I drove to a coffee house near work at 6 am. This 'early bird gets the worm' practice allowed me to miss traffic jams, and it gave me two hours of uninterrupted time to think and study. I'd give myself this carved out 'creative me' time at least 1-3 times a week. On the weekends I'd take myself out for a special breakfast place by the beach early to give myself uninterrupted me time to think, study or play.

Later, when I had children and worked full-time, I learned to get up at 5 am to drink coffee and write. When no one else was awake I felt the world was mine and I had complete freedom to put my mind to whatever use I wanted to.

The Caregivers of the World Need Uninterrupted Time

Women are the caregivers of the world. We tend to be 'polychronic' by nature, meaning doing many things at once--especially for other people. Those of us who serve as the caregivers of the world, or perhaps working in customer service industries, especially need dedicated, uninterrupted 'me time' to center ourselves and have a fresh moment to think. 

In our daily work--whether at work or at home--we're pulled in every direction by others needing a piece of us. If we fail to carve out our freshest uninterrupted dreaming time for ourselves our sense of satisfaction with life will plummet.

We need to be able to process the everyday stresses and happenings (or not happenings!). We don't function well if we keep things bottled up inside or think we have no time to process our inner most thoughts, dreams and fears.

Bless Your Stagnant Workplace 

'We can bless each space we enter, leaving a sweet energetic footprint behind.'  Madisyn Taylor, 'Blessing Space' in DailyOM

Take time to ground yourself by gifting yourself with the best part of your day to spend on yourself. You will serve others better and more easily guide your life in the direction you want it to go. And you will carry your good will into your workplace making it a better day for you.

According to Madisyn Taylor of DailyOM, 'physical space acts like a sponge, absorbing the radiant of all who pass through it.' If you are feeling stagnant in your workplace, practice shifting the energy of the space each day by pausing to 'bless the space' upon entering and and leaving the space. 

This blessing of the space will be easier if you enter work having 1st given yourself the best part of your day to enjoy uninterrupted time by yourself. When things feel good inside, your surroundings will feel healthier too. 

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For more than 35 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes letting go and moving forward with life easier than ever before.


Do you know someone who could benefit from uplifting messages? Please share Lightarted Living with them. If you or someone you love is interested in learning more about closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, join the FREE Lightarted Living mailing list. 

Lightarted Living: Regrets? Come Clean for Forgiveness and Redemption...

Lightarted Living: Regrets? Come Clean for Forgiveness and Redemption...: 'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us' The Lord's Prayer  Wrong-doing and Forgiveness ...

Regrets? Come Clean for Forgiveness and Redemption

'Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us'

The Lord's Prayer 

Wrong-doing and Forgiveness

Regrets. We all have them. But for some, those regrets are more shameful and cut deeper and cast longer shadows on their lives. 

How does one move from shame and denial over wrong-doings to finding forgiveness and a renewed life?

You Can't Change the Past, But You Can Change the Future

Life happens, and along the way we all engage in thoughts and actions we're proud of and some we aren't. 

Although we can't undo the past, we can come clean with ourselves and turn past transgressions into current lessons to raise our consciousness and transform us into better human-beings. 

The Truth Sets You Free

Honestly addressing wrong-doing isn't easy. But the prize of a better life and renewed intimacy in relationships is worth the difficulty of acknowledging the truth. 

Before others can forgive us we must forgive ourselves. And before we can forgive ourselves we must factually and honestly face our wrong-doings head on.

If you fail to deal directly with your regrets about past actions they'll sink into a murky cesspool of seeming oblivion only to burst forth as a shameful stew, keeping you from finding the true forgiveness you need to fully embrace your life and relationships. 

Let Go: Get to the Heart of Past Transgressions to Transform your Life

What have you done that causes you regret?

What do you harbor fears about being found out?

What secret are you hiding? 

What do you fear others would judge you for if they knew what you did?

When we attempt to cast bad things that happened out of our consciousness by denying, ignoring or minimizing their existence, they don't simply go away. Instead they get buried deep in our subconscious to become deep, dark secrets that continue to simmer and fester, filling us with feelings of self-loathing and unworthiness. 

When we feel defective or imperfect we isolate ourselves, further deepening our feelings of self loathing, thinking 'If people really knew me they wouldn't approve, love or support me'.

To let go of feeling you're an inadequate and defective human-being you need to consciously examine what activities lead you to feel this way. 

Embrace your truth. Acknowledge your wrong-doing. Make amends. Forgive.

Finding Hope for the Future

No matter who you are, and no matter what you've done, you need hope you can turn your life around to create a better future.

No matter the past, you can put your life and relationships on a positive and trans-formative path. 

Embrace your truth. Acknowledge your wrong-doing. Make amends. Forgive.

Self-Forgiveness Leads to Trust in the Future

Faith in the future and in human beings begins with finding your way to forgive yourself--no matter who you are and what you've done. The goal of coming clean is to heal your heart of hurts, and to be able to relate to others more intimately. Forgiveness comes after coming clean. 

Embrace your truth. Acknowledge your wrong-doing. Make amends. Forgive.

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For more than 35 years, Susan Meyerott has been helping people lighten up and step over invisible barriers to change one step at a time. She speaks to your heart, puts you at ease, and makes letting go and moving forward with life easier than ever before.

Do you know someone who could benefit from uplifting messages? Please share Lightarted Living with them. If you or someone you love is interested in learning more about closing the gap between where you are now and where you want to be, join the FREE Lightarted Living mailing list.