Managing your energy, i.e. time, money, relationships, overwhelm

We have an intuitive sense that energy is the underlying principle of the universe, yet very few of us have a real understanding of our own energy: how it operates, what fuels our energy or drains it. We often have ideas about this, but very little real awareness.

Creating business the feminine way is all about learning to manage your energy. In truth, time, money and relationship issues really can be drilled down to an inability to manage our energy effectively. I subscribe to the idea that we are at the heart of everything that is happening to us and around us. Learning to manage our energy, shifts our interactions with others and therefore our reality. What a breath of fresh air to know that we have that kind of power in our own lives.

There are lots of signs to show you that you are not effectively managing your energy: stress, overwhelm, frustration, lack of attention and focus, being tired, relationship strains, etc. When we feel any of these, we should immediately take stock of our energy. What is going on? What is draining me? What am I not honoring in myself? What am I not in integrity with? Who am I not being honest with? These questions will reveal the holes in our consciousness that are letting the energy drain out.

You can think of it like a pipe. Our energy flows from the divine and, without holes in our pipe, leads to a lot of energy and flow in the physical world. Yet when we have holes in the form of dishonesty, devaluing, stretching ourselves too thin, dishonoring our desires and being, then the energy flows out the holes and we find ourselves with very little energy in the physical world.

There are techniques and tools for better managing our energy, these are some of the things I cover in my Business the Feminine Way workshop, but first must come awareness. The next time you feel drained, tired or overwhelmed, I encourage you to stop what you are doing and take a few minutes to assess your energy. Ask yourself the above questions and look for the holes that are draining the divine energy from your life. Often becoming aware will begin to plug some of them up and being honest with yourself and with others is really the key to increasing your energy and allowing more of the divine to flow in your life. Today, may you all feel the divine energy that is your birthright. Many blessings, Sonya

Putting Business the Feminine Way into Practice

I have talked a lot about how to create a business that is thriving the feminine way. As you can see from my lack of posts, I have been busy putting my techniques and tools into practice. I have just recently opened a work/life balance and wellness center. You can check it out at www.somavidaaustin.com. It is my baby, my passion and an integration of all that I am and everything I have learned. In short, it has been a labor of love. It is amazing to put your own tools into practice and really see the effectiveness of what they have to offer. I will be revamping my business as well, integrating my coaching, workshops and marketing company into one amazing practice. So continue to look for my posts and upcoming events. I have another Business the Feminine Way Workshop August 9th, so don't miss it. I wish you all many blessings.

Superwoman Syndrome

How many of us strive to be superwoman. I know for most of us, running businesses, running homes, running around, can run our own lives often into the ground. The idea of taking a break, finding support, finding relief is hard to grasp. I often find myself in this syndrome, trying to do it all, trying to have it all and often forgetting to use the resources I have been blessed with.

Today, I wanted to talk about a very important aspect to approaching business the feminine way. We are here to work together, not alone. It seems like such a common understanding, and yet I think individually we still think there is something we have to accomplish on our own, some place we have to strive to get and no one can help us get there. We have our own seeking, our own striving and we force ourselves to be more, do more and accomplish more than we need to.

I know in my own life, I am moving towards a new paradigm, one where we combine our tremendous wealth as individuals to create something bigger than ourselves, something that serves more of humanity and in that creation we find how much bigger we are as well.

The Superwoman syndrome is interesting, because instead of making us feel like a superhero, it actually makes us feel quite small. We can never live up to our ideal of what that woman is, it is seen as a tall dark shadow whose shoes we are trying to fill. Yet, surrounded by others who are combined in intention to create something beautiful, our gifts stand out, our beauty unfolds and who we really our comes to light.

I have recently been involved in taking on more partners in a truly amazing venture, one that is far bigger than myself, and I have had to confront my superwoman syndrome. The need to hold on to the whole picture, to still prove that I am everything I want to be. It has been a time of letting go for me and a time to confront the beliefs that keep me striving. Yes, what is truly amazing, is in the joining together of our union, I am finding the spaces I shine in. My light is more abundant and letting go of aspects of my business I don’t want to be part of, frees my energy to spread more love, give more light and truly be who I want to be.

I would encourage you today to look at your life and see where you are still holding that superwoman syndrome. Where are you still striving, where do you feel like you are alone, where do you try to do it all? Ask yourself, where could you let go, who could you ask for help, who could you delegate tasks to and start to recognize the unique gifts that truly make you YOU. Let yourself focus on the areas you love, the areas you light up in, and that will make you truly a super hero. Let go of the areas that drag you down, make you feel small and hold you back from seeing your own beauty, your own goodness, your own light. Be willing to confront the beliefs that keep your striving, that drive you to strive for that superwomen syndrome.

Most of all today, I would encourage you to seek out more community. It has become a world of isolation, and even in our family units and our work environments, community is still a feeling we have yet to fully understand. We are all seeking community, support, love and friendship. The more I let go of aspects and hand them over to someone else, the more I realize how important sharing our journey really is. This sharing, this community shows us the common source of our divinity and helps us share the riches that each of us brings to the whole.

I appreciate each of you for sharing in my community. I send you lots of blessings and light today on your journey. The divinity in me honors the divinity in you.

Juggling life’s challenges

It has been a month since I last added to this blog, and I have been doing lots of juggling. I don’t know many moms or entrepreneurs that aren’t juggling jobs, kids, schedules and balancing all the aspects of our lives. So how do we keep juggling life’s challenges, and when can we just put all the balls down.

We spend so much time with our lives in the air, and I think for many of us we sometimes think we have two choices: keep juggling or let everything fall down. I am realizing that neither of the options are reasonable or viable. Eventually we will have to stop juggling, and who wants everything to fall at our feet, disorganized and in shambles.

So in my world of unlimited possibilities, I have created a new option. I am consciously choosing to put the balls down nicely. Maybe you need someone else to help you grab a few, or maybe you need to find a nice cushy basket to lay them all in. Whatever works for you, there is another option. The idea here is that you can take a hiatus from juggling and it doesn’t mean you need to take a vacation. What I have finally chosen to do, in my midst of juggling many projects and quite a few businesses, is to deliberately schedule a day where I lay all the balls down.

This week I have declared one day, Friday, to be a day of rest. I have turned down meetings, I have booked myself for that day. One day dedicated to me. I don’t know what I am going to do, but I am not allowed to bring a to-do list. I need a break from juggling and in one day I can recuperate enough energy to keep me juggling nicely for another month. When is the last time you have deliberately called a truce with your juggling and laid the balls to rest? My suggestion is to book that day now and despite the temptation don’t let anything else stand in your way. As always I send you all my blessings and support.

Knowing your limits

So a lot of work/life balance mastery is about knowing your limits. This is true across the board. You have to know your own limitations, limiting beliefs and when your body and mind has had enough. The first step is awareness. When you start to become aware of your energy and your limits, you will start to notice the one moment when you went over the edge.

Think back to a time in your life, where you were cruising along, things were flowing, and then all of a sudden you started to get stressed, overwhelmed, and felt like life was out of control. I have this happen a lot with work, I will be working and things will be flowing. I will have this intuition that it is enough work for today, but instead of turning the computer off or putting my attention elsewhere, there is this little pull, this compulsion. “Just one more email, just one more hour, just one more task.” In that moment I move from flow to force, and my energy shifts. I get overwhelmed, tired, or cranky. If I wasn’t so aware of my energy, I could blame it on a million things. I know now that not listening to my intuition telling me I was at my limit is what put me over the edge.

So becoming aware of your energy is the first step, listening to your intuition and following that energy is the second. We have to often ask ourselves why do we do what we do? Why do we push ourselves to just do a little more? Why can’t we naturally follow our intuition, instead of constantly questioning it with our mind?

I teach people a lot about structure, both physical structure and mental structures. The pull in our life, those little compulsions, are primarily effects of our mental structures: our beliefs, past experiences, fears and mental anxiety. We are rarely motivated by our deliberate decisions, but instead by our mental constructs. So what is it in your mental space that makes you push yourself over the edge? Maybe it’s a belief that you are not good enough. Maybe it’s a belief that there is never enough time. Whatever is holding us back from following your energy, is what often blocks our intuiton and throws us far off balance.

I believe innately we have a guidepost, an energetic compass. It lets us know what is balance for us, it guides us to make the right moves, and it helps our lives flow. We decide and direct this flow, but we can do it from a deliberate state of consciousness or from a limiting mental construct. This energy will tell us when we reach our limit, so the decision left in our hands is will we choose to honor that limit, or will we throw ourselves over the edge?

I encourage you today to look at your life and become aware of your limits, your energy and your mental constructs that are throwing your life out of balance. I ask you to honor that divine compass and let your life flow more freely. As always, I send you many blessings today.

What do you do when life throws you for a loop?

So we often talk about work/life balance, and all the effort we spend towards achieving more of it, towards getting somewhere with it. What do we do when our designs for perfect balance are crumbled with one quick flip of the universe? What do we do when our plans are flipped upside down and sometimes our life as well?

Sometimes I wonder if our plans will achieve more work/life balance or if the universe’s “bumps in the road” actually create the work/life balance we are so trying to achieve. It makes you question whether there really is a divine plan we are yet to be given. Take for instance, my carefully designed plans the next three days. I have almost every minute accounted for: birthday parties, baby showers, work, time for me, time with my daughter and the 500 other things on my to do list. Then in one fell swoop: flip, my daughter has chicken pox. Clear the schedule for who knows how many days, plan for how to have enough of everything I need to be trapped at home for a few days. Sometimes trapped is how you feel when you are stuck at home as a single mother. My terrifically laid plans have now crumbled and I am left wondering how to get all my to do’s done.

Then I became aware that there was actually a feeling of relief present. How long has it been since I have been “trapped” at home for several days, and how much of our lives do we spend “trapped” in our to-do list? Sometimes it just takes a change in perspective. What seemed to be throwing me for a loop, has quickly become a blessing in disguise. How much time have I had to just fully enjoy being home with my daughter? Now I could make this a productive few days, or choose to enjoy the ride the universe has seen fit to throw my way. So I decided to choose the latter.

We so often think that we are not in control of our lives, that we are a slave to our to-do list, to our supposed-tos, to our have-tos. When we become aware that all of it is self-imposed and at any moment we can tear up those ideas and trash them, we take back control and power in our lives. We don’t have to wait for the universe to turn life upside down, but instead we can be empowered through awareness of when we are choosing our path, and when our path has started choosing for us.

Who or what is running your life today? Is it conscious choices by you, or lists and beliefs that set the pace? I think the most important aspect to work/life balance is being aware: of our choices, our belief systems, our urges, our indoctrinations, our standards of living. When we become aware, we can start to deconstruct those things that no longer serve us, those things that have been running rampant and making us slaves. I urge you to become more aware. Everyday ask yourself, what is running my life today. When you can say: you, consciously and happily, celebrate! When you can’t say those things, begin to look at the ways you can take back your power.

As divine beings, we are innately aware and intuitive. When we take the time to look, the truth of our lives unfolds. Awareness is the greatest step. May you find more awareness today and enjoy the ride of life.

Many blessings.

Are you opening to the divine flow?

So I encourage everyone today to ask yourself this question. Does what I am doing today open me up to the divine, love, the energetic flow of spirit? No, this is not just a spirituality question, but also a business question. My mission is to help integrate people’s lives. It is also to help people grow successful, thriving and abundant businesses and careers. So the question becomes, is what I am doing today opening me or closing me? Is the energy flowing, or is it stagnant? So much of my teaching is based on becoming aware of your own energy. This is what the Law of Attraction is based on and movies like The Secret. It isn’t just believing or visualizing what you want, you have to feel the energy in your body.

Understanding how your energy flows or doesn’t flow is the foundation of my groups and teachings. Business the Feminine Way is about opening up the feminine so that your life will be magnetic, your heart with attract all of the things you desire and there will be a continual movement towards balance. This may sound a little woo woo, but the truth is these are concrete realizations that when felt in the body, will bring success to your life.

We can no longer sustain ourselves through fragmentation and compartmentalization. It is the reason so many of us are exhausted, tired, unhappy and dissatisfied. I believe it is our nature to integrate, to become whole. It is a pull we have toward oneness, first in ourselves and then with all other things. The more we compartmentalize and fragment our lives, the more we move in opposition to our nature, and that creates friction and resistance. There is a million reasons why we compartmentalize, primarily beliefs, indoctrinations and past experiences. Society is a big part of this, we have to be this strong business woman here, mother here, wife here, and somewhere find the I in the middle of all of these hats and identities.

When we ask, is our job, is our relationships, is our choices opening us up to the divine or closing us and separating us from the divine, it is the greatest tool of divination. We can actually follow your energy and let it guide you to fulfillment, success, clients, money, relationships and anything else your heart desires. The first key point in all of this is to become aware. Become aware of when you are breathing, when you are holding your breath, when you feel alive and energetic, and when you feel lifeless. These are all keys. It doesn’t mean that when you feel heavy or lifeless, you run from the choices you have made, but it is an indication that something is not running smoothly. The next question I would ask is if this is shutting me down, what opens me?

This is a moment to moment practice, the epitome of the feminine essence. Is this moment opening me, is this situation opening me? Everyday, every moment ask yourself. Dare to become aware of your connection to spirit. When you do this, things that have been stagnant will begin to flow and you will once again be connected to the wave of divine energy. It might sound intangible, hard, ethereal, but just try it and you will see immediately how much of our reality is based in this awareness of energy. Many blessings to each one of you today, may your divine nature flow and may you attract all of your heart’s desires.