Miss Modish- Mojo Maker

Truthy Tuesday: Mind Gremlin Mania & Meditation

{This is part of our Truthy Tuesday series over at The Maven Circle, where we openly share our struggles and thoughts around a different topic each week. Join us in getting truthy on your own blog, and we'll link up and spread the love!}

I have so many mind gremlins to contend with up in that noggin of mine.

You know what those are- the negative, nasty things we tell ourselves about our abilities, about who we are. And all of those mean things we tell ourselves are so SO totally wrong most times, but we have such a skewed perspective when we're stuck in our heads that we start to believe what they're saying.

Some of my many mind gremlins that like to come out and play:

• one is that I'm "too shy", definitely too shy to go up and talk to a stranger, to feel comfortable in a crowd or to speak in front of one!
• I have a problem believing anyone is interested in what I have to say, or that they find value in it in anyway. I've always doubted that any of my words are worthwhile.
• I worry about the outcome of things more than the process of doing the thing and that starts the anxiety and stressing out
• I do care what (some) people think and want to live up to whatever their perception/expectation is of me, and I often 2nd guess whether I can/do/ever will
• And then there are my own expectations of myself which are basically beyond human and leave me feeling disappointed in myself, guilty for not getting it all done, or not by now, or not doing "enough"

And I could go on and on...

There was a time when I was so consumed with what those voices told me, I was convinced that my amazing, lucky life was more of a burden, cause it felt like one just trying to get up every morning and keep all the balls in the air and keep everyone happy and just get through the day, day after day. 

I ended up overwhelmed, on the brink, and needing a serious change because I realized, I wasn't really considering- what about my own happiness?

Our mind gremlins can convince us we're not deserving of happiness, or that we'll find it somewhere "out there" if we just conquer the next accomplishment, and the next one, and the next one...

But that feels so empty and unsatisfying in the long run because your own happiness is only going to come from within. And a large part of that happiness is going to come from battling your mind gremlins!

My recommended tool for battle: Meditation

It's life-changing, seriously. Even 10-15 minutes a day can be life-changing.

It's also really difficult to start trying to do too, yes I'll give you that. You know what helped me in the beginning? Guided meditations- they help you stay focused and make it not so difficult to sit there with yourself and your thoughts for a few minutes. Here are some to try if you're interested:

• I recorded a "present moment" guided meditation for The Maven Circle! You can get it free with sign-up to our inner circle- I've had so many amazing, positive responses about it. Hope you enjoy it!
• I also like these free guided meditations by Davidji at the Chopra Center- most 10 minutes or less
• And these by Tara Brach, most 15-30min long. She also has a great introduction on how to meditate.

Meditation has not only helped me lessen the gremlin banter, but not heed it anymore. By helping me gain distance from those thoughts, it gave me perspective enough to see that these things I've been telling myself over so many years are NOT TRUE!

You are what you say you are. You are what you think you are. If you can shift both your thinking and the verbiage you use to talk about/to yourself, you'll be able to make some headway in the mind gremlin battle!

Meditation is one way. Getting out of your head and into your body can happen in many forms tho. The key is to realize that you don't have to believe what those mind gremlins say. You don't have to define yourself in limiting ways. You have the choice to change the way you think and to shift into a new perspective!

You have the choice to do battle with those gremlins! And if you need help, our Catalyst Course has an arsenal of tools and support to help you do just that!

We just opened up registration for the next round of the course, to start Aug 13th! We'd love to help you dig in and identify what's going to make you really deep down happy and how to start breaking down all the mental and emotional obstacles along that path to your most awesome life.

The change starts from within- it really does, as cliche as it is. I learned firsthand that simply by changing my relationship to my thoughts (we need some distance, us two) I'm able to feel differently about who I am and what I'm capable of. I'm able to tell those nasty gremlin buggers to shut the eff on up, and it feels invigorating!

I still have a lot of gremlins to fend off or ignore, and they do still get the better of me sometimes, but knowing that I have the power to break through them inspires more confidence in myself than anything else.

You have the power to break-through them too! It's in you, it's in us all.

Are you doing battle with some mind gremlins right now? How do you fend them off? Or are they getting the better of you?

Share, open up, I'd love to hear in the comments below, or join us with your own Truthy Tuesday post!

CAR-MA: Throw yourself a Party of One

{collabo project by my mister and I- original photo by him, @drsmoothdeath}

Kitty Photo Friday!

Butt-to-butt birdwatching buds- that's the only time you'll find these two this close together really :)

...........

This will probably be another working weekend because next week we're opening up registration for our Catalyst Course! We're so excited to do another run of it, the first one was amazing! If you're interested in the course, TODAY is the last day to sign up to our inner circle to receive a special discount for early birds!

It's funny, just talking about procrastination this week really lit a fire under my butt and I feel like I was really productive! Will share how the self-hypnosis works (or doesn't) next week- I linked to the exact ones I'm using over on the Maven Circle resources today, plus a couple books I got to help cure my procrastinating ways!

Well hope to see you round here next week (I'm turning 30 on Aug 4th- new decade, here I come!!)
<3 jena

New Perspective: Begonia

So I got one of these olloclip lenses for the iphone, and it's pretty dang fun! Do you have one? I LOVE the macro view- I really like looking at things in depth and seeing different perspectives, it totally shifts your world. The above shots are of my begonia plant- it's like a strange and beautiful alien landscape!

In other news, I'm seeing Fiona Apple tonight and am so. freakin. excited! I grew up playing piano and she was my idol, I was obsessed with her! (ok, still kinda am :) I have butterflies! Whee!  

Hope you're having a good Thursday! 

Project: Kick Procrastination’s Ass

I'm sick of being controlled by this ever-pervasive habit of procrastination! I'm getting truthy about my life-long struggles with it over on The Maven Circle today and feel like it's one of my last barriers to getting where I want to go in life.

I think procrastination can be good in some ways- especially when it comes to creative projects- but in lots of ways, it's so not helpful. It creates stress and pressure and overwhelm that doesn't even need to exist, and I'm sick of feeling the guilt of not getting stuff done. I'm sick of feeling like I'm always catching up with yesterday, rather than participating in today!

So edging upon my 30th birthday, I've decided it's high time to break this nasty habit of mine- it's time for Project: Kick Procrastination's Ass!

(see, I could've taken time to figure out a better name, but instead I'm doing it now and just putting it out there! ;) Plus the accountability factor of having you guys out there listening along and expecting things really helps me get into gear!

It's time I actually use some of the many resources I've bought on a whim to help me figure out why I'm procrastinating so much and how to take steps to fix it. And since I know it's something that so many of us struggle with, I want to do it here, in front of you all to share my journey, progress and hopefully all the oh so helpful tips I learn along the way.

So my first step? Stop calling myself a procrastinator and instead, a "do-it-now-er, in training!"

My second step? I'm going to listen to this Overcoming Procrastination self-hypnosis mp3 that I downloaded, uh, last year, and see what happens!

Self-hypnosis is basically like a guided meditation, very relaxing and helps imprint things into your subconscious mind. And it's supposed to be more effective if you listen to the same script for 5 days in a row to really help those subliminal triggers and messages start to shift- so that's my plan. I'm going to listen once a day, for at least 5 days in a row, and report back next week if I notice any differences in my thinking or behavior.

Are you a procrastinator too? Want to change that? Join me here and hopefully this new series can work some wonders for us both! :)

CAR-MA: Blaze your own trail

{collabo project by my mister and I- original photo by him, @drsmoothdeath}

Kitty Photo Friday!

Fluffy Lulu belly says "Have a relaxing weekend, I know I will!"

I, on the otherhand, might not be relaxing so much as catching up on housework, emails, projects, posts- such is the life. But I can't complain because I love love what I'm doing!

Over at The Maven Circle, Jen and I are getting ready for our next round of The Catalyst Course, re-vamping, re-structuring and re-filming all the video content. It's going to be a 4 week course, starting Aug 13th, all about sparking your inner awesome and finding a place of happiness, direction and freedom from constant stress!

Next week we'll be sending out a special first dibs registration to our inner circle list at a discounted price! You can reserve your spot before they sell out and get a good deal on it- win-win! Hop on the list by Monday, Jul 23rd to make sure you get the deets when they're sent out next week.

Hope you have a happy weekend and I'll meet you back here next week!

<3 jena

Take a Summer Stroll With Me (Part 2)

More photos from a walk around the neighborhood in the sunshine. See the first set of photos here, and let's take a summer stroll together!

Have a happy day! <3 Jena

Truthy Tuesday: Is Finding Balance Really Possible?

Photo by me, and a peek at Take a summer stroll with me part 2, which will be up tomorrow! Beautiful words by Rumi, one of my favorites, always, for a dose of perspective.

Find me getting Truthy today over on The Maven Circle blog about work/life balance, and whether such a thing exists! (hint: no, I don't think it does!)

CAR-MA: Maintain

{photo by my Mr, drsmoothdeath}

Kitty Photo Friday!

We just moved our bed over to a different wall, and I don't know much about feng shui really, but woah! It's like there's a whole new energy in here, it's really weird. It just feels better now. The cats seem to like it pretty well too! (they're easy to please tho really)

Now we have to still paint in here, add pics and some shelves and other stuff. The bedroom was the last on the list of rooms to put our personal stamp on since buying the house, ya know, since no one else really sees it, but I'm feeling like the time has come! Consider this a before picture! First a new bed placement, then... the world! hah :)

Well I, for one, am pleased as punched that the weekend is almost here. After spending last weekend around way too many people for this introverted girl, I can't wait to just spend the next couple days with the mister, my garden and a pile of magazines that have my name all over them.

Hope you have a great weekend and I'll meet ya back here Monday!

<3 jena

Truthy Tuesday: Self care thru quick daily "restarts"

{We do this weekly feature over on The Maven Circle called "Truthy Tuesday", where we share our real experiences around different topics each week. We'd love to have people post their experiences around those topics on their own blogs too, to encourage more truthiness around blogland and openly talk about some of these things!

This week I'm doing my Truthy Tuesday post here on my own blog, in hopes you'll do one on your blog too! We'll link back to it from the MC blog so that we can all check eachother's posts out.}

We're talking about "self care" this week, as in how do we take care of our own health and wellness? It doesn't involve getting mani/pedis and sitting around eating ice cream all day, although that sounds like a totally awesome and worthwhile way to spend a day here and there :)

It's more about, how do we give back to ourselves? Keep our personal wells full so that we can be our most awesome selves?

I'm feeling in need of some serious self care right now after an exciting, inspiring, but honesty exhausting weekend spent at WDS.

I normally take weekends OFF from work stuff. As in, I don't open up my laptop on a Saturday. I rarely check my email on the weekend and don't reply to any until Monday, unless it's a really rare something that can't wait. I might do some work on a Sunday evening if I absolutely have to, but it's only the most relaxing, fun kind of work that I can do with HBO on in the background- nothing too thinky.

I do all this in an effort to give myself a break, a relief from analyzing and organizing in my brain all day, a chance to really feel removed from work thoughts and present in what's right in front of me.

So having no brain time off at all this weekend made it really hard to jump back into this work week with much gusto. My brain feels like a computer with too many windows open that hasn't been shut-down for far too long and the RAM is all clogged up. My spinny rainbow pinwheel thingy is spinning for a long-ass time between each click of the mouse, and the only way to fix me at this point is to shut down, and reboot.

But the weekend isn't comin for a many more days, so I'm going to have to incorporate little "restarts" throughout each day to keep me chugging along.

Here are some of the ways I make quick "restarts" to come back to present and take care of my own mental & physical wellness throughout a busy day:

• fetch break with bobohead out in the yard everyday
• walks around the neighborhood with my camera in hand
• a 20 min break out in the garden to weed & prune (yes I like those things), cut flowers or just gaze
• a mid-day shower to clear my head, brainstorm and re-energize
  
• meditating- a quick guided meditation recenters me in less then 10 minutes
• if one of my cats is lookin' cute, best be sure I'll break to take some pictures
• exercise isn't half bad if you find something you really like- I do kundalini yoga videos at home 2x a week & group training work-outs outside at the park 2x a week (which are super awesome!)
• meeting friends for breakfast or a happy hour cocktail- sometimes an hour convo with a good friend is all the therapy you need
  
• take my brain-on pills and a multi-vitamin every day
• drink many large glasses of water each day, starting first thing in the morning which helps me keep it up all day- taking vitamins helps increase the water intake too!
  
• have breakfast every morn, even if it's small- helps keep my metabolism up & helps me eat throughout the day (instead of starving myself til dinner cause I was "too busy" working to eat, like I used to)
• make a mean green smoothie which takes 5 min and is always an energy booster
• listen to music really loud and dance around like the dork-fantastic
  
• do self-hypnosis downloads to relax and stay motivated- 15-20 minutes to help stop procrastinating? I'll take it!
• take 20 min to watch a video, read a couple articles or a book chapter on something I want to learn about, to help my biz or myself
  
• and my favorite easy breathing technique which can help me refocus and destress in a minute or less

That's most of what's in my self care bag, and I'll reach in and pull out what I need, when I need it, throughout the day.

Sometimes I need to take many tiny self care breaks during the day to keep my energy and enthusiasm up, sometimes I only need a few... but it's all about listening to what your body and mind needs in the moment, and giving yourself that, so you have even more to give to your work, your people and the world around you!

I hope this list can give you some ideas of how easy it can be to add in self care to your day 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there. What are some ways you take care of yourself throughout the day? Or do you forget to add yourself to your own "to-do" list? 

Share in the comments below, or on your own blog & leave me a link- we'd love to hear your stories & tips too- love talking about this stuff! 

CAR-MA: Team Up

{photo by my Mr, drsmoothdeath}

One thing that stuck with me from the World Domination Summit is that groups have a lot of power, and that even bigger, greater things then you could have imagined can happen when you team up. 

Kitty Photo Friday!

The kitties got this teepee for Christmas a couple years ago but never really slept in it- I recently moved it over by the window, added some fluffy stuff to lay on, and now it's one of their favorite cuddle spots!

......

Well, I'm off to my volunteer duties for the World Domination Summit which starts tonight and goes through the entire weekend- are you going to be there? If so, say hi if you see me! I'll be wearing a bright yellow WDS ambassador shirt and have bright orange curly hair- can't miss me ;)

I'm so excited for the whole experience- will share more about it next week and in future posts. Hope you have a wonderful summery weekend and meet you back here on Monday!

<3 jena

Take a Summer Stroll with me (Part 1)

It's finally feeling summery around here! Story goes summer really starts on July 5th in Portland, and that certainly seems to be the case this year.

It's blue blue and warm finally and feels so good out there! I went for a long walk with my camera and took a bunch of photos around the neighborhood- I have too many favorites to share in one post, so this is part one of a summer stroll around the neighborhood. Come along with me!

I have more awesome skies, trees and houses to share with you next week. Happy summer! 

<3 jena

CAR-MA: Show what you're made of

{photo by my mister, @drsmoothdeath}