Growing Girls With Purpose

Money Tree

2011 is quickly becoming a wisp of the past  . . . time to pull out your 2011 Dream Board and see what miracles major and minor happened for you and celebrate them. There’s still a few weeks to knock out a few goals if you hurry!

Last year I did something different. As 2010 closed, I noticed I had accomplished a lot of goals, but it didn’t leave me feeling as validated as I thought it would. So, I did an experiment in 2011. I made a Feelings Dream Board. Rather than goals, I put feelings I wanted to experience.

Unexpectedly, I got the feelings in the end — but, the road to them was rough and jagged. I had to deal with a whole bunch of bottled up, gnarled, rotten, curdled, stinky anger and fear from my past and figure out how to let go of them. I had to confront stuff in my present that I was sweeping under the rug because I didn’t want to see what I saw because then I would have to do something about it. Then I had to figure out what to do about it. There was no way around it. At times I didn’t think I was going to make it through. Of course I did. I always do. Only then did I feel the feelings I had set out to feel: happy, carefree, validated, etc.

This year I’m bridging 2011 and 2012 with a Prosperity Consciousness course at Whole Life Center for Spiritual Living  and I’m adding new principals to my practice of Dream Boarding.

Namely I’m writing a Vision Statement. I will then create a Dream Board as a visual representation of my Vision Statement.

I’m also choosing a word to focus on or represent my year. I’ve chosen “Release.” This was the word that was crucial to my 2011 year, but it felt so good that I’ve decided to continue with it. See, after the release of all the anger, the extreme purge of all the excess in my house, the purge of all my psychic clutter came a gift unexpected — room to Receive. So maybe I have two words – Release and Receive. Release that which no longer serves me and be open to Receive that which does. This practice came recommended by my Anasara Yoga Instructor, Staci. Your word will come to you and then it will come back to you over and over throughout the year, not without some challenges, so be prepared. It will peel itself for you like an onion sometimes and bloom for you like a flower by the end.

Vision Statement Rules 

• Write in the present tense only. “I am so happy and grateful that my body is healthy and functions perfectly and is at it’s optimal weight of 125 pounds.”
• Write very specifically. Tell the Universe exactly what you want, don’t leave it guessing. “I am so happy and grateful that in 2012 I make $50,000.” If you want to travel say where and with whom. “I love our trip to Mexico with my husband, it is so bonding and wonderful.”
• Cover all the basics: Mind, Body, Spirit; Money; Relationships (marriage, kids, family, friends, coworkers, mentors); Creativity; Career.
• Ask for what you want not what you think you can get.
• There has to be at least “the faith of a mustard seed.” If you say you’re going to make $3 million in 2012 and you currently make $30,000 you probably don’t even have the faith of a mustard seed that you’re going to get it. But, if you say you’re going to make $60,000 and you don’t know how you’re going to get it, but you probably know people who make that much and you probably can believe that it’s at least possible to make that much – that’s at least the faith of a mustard seed.
• Edit. Your Vision Statement is not set in stone like the Ten Commandments. Even God changed his mind and narrowed down what he wanted down to “Love One Another.” Once you reach your goal you’re free – obligated even – to expand your goal. You make the $50,000 then it’s time to up the ante to $100,000 or $300,000.
• Leave room for God to do better. At the end of your statement write “Or Better!” Remember God can dream a bigger dream for you than you can dream for yourself.
• Write only in the positive. You don’t want to write “Get out of debt,” because then you are focused on debt and what you focus on expands. You want to write “I am so happy and grateful that we are able to pay our bills in full as soon as they arrive.” Don’t write “Lose 30 pounds.” Write “I love to put on my size 6 Lucky Jeans, it makes me feel so hot and sexy!”
• Read your statement out loud morning and night. Memorize it. When you catch yourself repeating in your head, “God, I need to stop eating this, I’ll gain 20 pounds” Tell your self, “I love putting on my size 6 Lucky Jeans, it makes me feel sexy and hot.”
• Get clear about what you want. Sometimes you think you want something, but it’s not resonating with you. You’ve always wanted to live in New York, but you have kids and every time you think about selling the house and dealing with the NYC school system you feel anxiety. Time to reconsider and go inside and ask yourself: is this something I want or something I thought I wanted?
• God’s not going to make you give up your value system to get what you want. Make sure what you’re asking for is in alignment with your value system.
• Get a witness. Show it to someone you trust. Not someone who will scoff and say, “yeah right, like anyone will hire you without a degree in this economy.” Don’t show it to that cynical dickhead. Show it to someone who will say, “That sounds freaking awesome! I can’t wait to see you do it!” A five-year-old is the perfect witness, cause they know you can do anything. A ten-year-old will make your dream even bigger and show you where you’re still thinking small.

Reread it. If you asked for what you think you can get instead of what you really want – you did it wrong. Edit. Be bold.

Now you’re ready to make a visual representation of your Vision Statement in the form of your Dream Board. Have fun with it. It doesn’t have to be literal. It can be representational and subjective.

Do this with your kids. Faith is learned and takes practices. As does achieving goals and focusing on what you want. These skills take practice and the sooner they learn them the better. They will serve them for their entire lives. Believingis the essence of life.

There is something out there greater than ourselves, put stuff on your statement and your dream board that can’t happen without help from the Divine, from the Universe, from forces greater than yourself. Ask for miracles. Teach your kids to ask for miracles. Because is there anything more profoundly beautiful than the opportunity to witness them?

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Somewhere out there I know there’s a mother or father who is feeling guilty this Christmas season. There are lots of reasons for feeling guilty around the holidays. “I can’t afford to buy my kids exactly what they want,” and “I bought my kids exactly what they want and I can’t afford it” are two of the most popular guiltfests.

As usual, I’m willing to expose myself and our way-of-life to make you feel better (whether it makes you feel rich or like at you have a sister frugal friend) and remember it’s not too late to return that ridiculously expensive X-Box 360.

This year, most of what my kids are getting is used. Actually, that’s true of every year. I can afford to get them more of what they want if I buy it on Craig’s List. Last year I scored a Nintendo Wii for $100!

Ainsley is getting: fabulous Columbia winter coat with matching gloves, $20; gorgeous lavender formal dress, $5; several books, all used; several pairs of really nice expensive brand shoes, all used; a brand new pair of boots, $20; a brand new pair of monkey pajamas and a very nice digital camera I got on Amazon’s Black Friday sale.

Zack is getting: an awesome new yellow and black bike, $25 used; a Ninendo DS w/ 3 games, used $55; several pairs of expensive brand shoes, all used; five pairs of Old Navy jeans, new $10 each; several books, all used; shirts and pants, used; and a brand new pair of monkey pajamas.

They will share the year’s worth of canvas and art paper I scored at Michael’s Black Friday Sale.

We could spend all our money on lavish gifts for our kids. But, we have other financial goals that we want to keep knocking out as 2011 closes and 2012 revs up: pay off our cars, eliminate credit card debt and save for a vacation. We’ve been there and done that and realized there’s no joy in Christmas if we’re still paying it off next September.

So, if it seems like everyone in the world is spending $1,000 on their kids this Christmas, except you. They aren’t.

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Some of our family and friends have “disabilities.” Of course, yours do too. My kids ask questions about their friends’ disabilities. Sometimes adults use letters — ADD, ADHD, OCD — to describe these disabilities, other times they use words that mean nothing to kids like Autism, Cerebral Palsy, Mental Retardation, Downs Syndrome, Aspergers, Dyslexia, Bi-polar, depression. Usually people talk about these different abilities so negatively. I find this type of thinking limited. I hate that we attach the word “disorder” or “syndrome” to God’s gifts. Has anyone ever met a “normal” person? Does anyone really want to be one?

My kids want to know things like what does the name of these “disorders” mean, what does it mean the kid or adult can and can’t do, what will it mean for their future, will they be okay, should they be pitied, do they need help or special treatment?

I’m not an advocate for any special group, I’m not an educator for any particular disorder, I’m not a specialist on any of these disorders. I’m a parent who wants to tell my kids the truth as I know it, answer their questions and make sure they leave the conversation with respect for the way God chose to make different kinds of people, instead of doing the boring thing and making us all think the same and act the same. I don’t take special care to answer my kids with “political correctness” so if you’re offended, please choose not to take it personally.

Attention Deficit Disorder — ADD and ADHD is the inability to focus or sit still, or at least that’s what the public school system wants you to think. These people are highly creative, have a lot of ideas and find it difficult to focus on one thing. This sometimes makes it hard for them to learn what their teachers want them to learn in school. It makes it hard for them to sit still and be quiet in class, so sometimes they have to take medicine to help them. But, when they grow up, these people will be fantastic salespeople, communicators, marketers, artists and entrepreneurs. They’ll have lots of brilliant ideas and if they can find the right people to implement them before they lose interest, they’ll probably make lots of money.

Autism and Aspergers — These people are born with an ability to think differently than you or I. They have linear engineering minds. If ADD or ADHD is the inability to focus, Autism and Aspergers is the ability to hyper-focus or focus so intently that you almost can’t learn anything else or connect with the people around you. They get fixated on certain things to the point of obsession. Maybe the way things are made or the way things are built. In the school system and society, people interpret this as odd and peculiar. They miss social cues and don’t have a lot of friends, they find it difficult to have deep emotions or make intimate connections with loved ones. But, when they grow up, or even while they are teenagers or older children, they are capable of great leaps of discovery. They might find the gene that cures cancer or make the next leap in technology or computers. They become so focused on one thing to the exclusion of everything else that they are bound to discover or invent something new about it or expand it in some way. They are geniuses.

Downs Syndrome and Mentally Retarded —  These people have brains that don’t develop at what is considered a normal rate. They may have suffered an injury or they may have been born this way. These people are pure and innocent. They connect intimately and they came to teach us how to be vulnerable and love purely.  They find it easy to connect to the Now and stay present and focus on the important things in life. When Jesus said “be like the little children,” these are the people you want to look at to see what he meant. Pure. Innocent. Present. Connected. Open. Vulnerable.

Bi-polar and Depression — These people are highly creative and intuitive. They go up and down in their emotions. Some people stay pretty level all their lives. They don’t have really high highs, they don’t know how great that is — but they don’t know what serious lows are like either. People with “bi-polar disorder” are often actors, artists, musicians, writers, public speakers — extremely creative people who rely on bursts of inspiration to do their work. During times when they don’t have burst of inspiration they experience lows that can be very dark, this is depression. It’s very hard for them because they know how great real ecstasy can be. They are usually brilliantly creative and extraordinarily passionate and often end up famous.

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder — These people enjoy order. They like for people to take care of their business because, hey they take care of theirs. They can get obsessive about it. They like to clean. They can get freaked out about uncleanliness. They can be control freaks. These people will grow up and be Martha Stewart or that Walsh guy who who helps the Hoarders get rid of their shit and clear out their psyches. They’ll be IKEA designers, it will be awesome. When ADD and OCD people get married there could be balance or massive conflict – you just never know.

Of course I didn’t list every diagnosis or different ways of being in the world. Just the ones that have come up lately with my kids as they have touched our lives with our friends and family.

I would love if you left comments describing your perspective of other “disorders” and “diagnosis” that have touched your lives and how you talk to your kids about them.

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“For the first time in my adult life, I am really proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.”

— Michelle Obama, March 2008

image of Occupy Wall Street Demonstration: abcnews.com

image of students being maced at University of Tennessee OWS protest: abcnews.com

Image of OWS arrest: wsjonline.com

How about now Michelle? 

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances”

— The Constitution of the United States of America

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This is a thyroid. Notice how it is shaped like a butterfly. A butterfly is a symbol of transformation. It has lived a life as caterpillar then wound itself tightly into a cocoon and rested, then broke free, morphing itself with incredible amounts of energy, though it looked as if it was doing nothing but lying dormant for a long time, and then one day it stretched its wings and broke free of its confines; expanding itself to its full capacity with its peacock blue and vibrant orange magnificent wingspan, lifting off, fluttering on the currents of wind, landing on whatever pretty flowers or far flung limbs, high mountains or glassy lakes it likes.

Notice too that this organ is located on the throat, where the voice, the epitome of expression emits itself. Where we sing from and speak from, where we make ourselves heard from. Where we choose or not, to say what we have to say and where we allow our thoughts to come out from inside ourselves to be broadcast into the world; to be criticized or praised. We scream from here, we laugh from here, we hum a tune from here and when we do this place in our throat vibrates in a way that makes our souls heal from pain, sorrow and grief in a transformative way that is miraculous and holy. When we are infants the sounds we make are primal crying, cooing and laughing. Through our lives we cry from here; guttural sobs, whimpers, gasps of fear, whimpers of humiliation, all of it passes through this space. Every sound of emotion we have for our entire lives, really, passes through this space in our bodies. Every sound we hold back stops here. Notice too that when we are sad or “fighting back tears” this is the exact place that we get “choked up” or experience a “lump in our throat.” The breath of life, water, food, all nourishment passes here. All swallowing. The thyroid is a miraculous and symbolic part of our body. When it goes too slow, we are holding something back.

It was my alarm that my weight was climbing drastically fast that made me march into the doctors office and demand that my thyroid, which had been a minor problem before, be tested again. Alarm isn’t really the right word: FURY is the one. It turns out I have hypothyroidism. My thyroid is running slow. It is sluggish. Blocked. Not expressing itself quickly enough. The thyroid gland largely controls the hormones of your endocrine system. It also effects your blood sugar system, your brain chemistry, your energy levels, your ability to control your body temperature, your circulation, your ability to think with clarity, your ability to sleep, your metabolism.

Essentially your thyroid controls your emotions.

What interests me about my hypothyroidism is the message my body has for me here, right now. If you’ve read the work of Louise Hay or Dr. Christiane Northrup you too know that the mind, body and spirit are intensely connected, that when the body is out of whack or malfunctioning it is sending you a message, “Hey you, listen to me, I have something important to tell you from your deep, wise Spirit, from the Universe. If you don’t listen, you will get sicker. If you listen and act, you will heal.”

In Louise Hay’s You Can Heal Your Life  for thyroid: Humiliation. Belief: I never get to do what I want. Affirmation: I move beyond old limitations and now allow myself to express freely and creativity. Hypothyroid: Giving up. Feeling hopelessly stifled. Affirmation: I create a new life with new rules that totally support me.

In Northrup’s Women’s Body’s, Women’s Wisdom she points out that the thyroid has to do with one’s will, are you begin too willful or overly compliant? It is a fifth-chakra issue and hypothyroidism often has to do with women who often have difficulty speaking up for themselves, holding their own point of view, may have overly soft voices, and have difficulty making themselves heard.  

This is what I know about my hypothyroidism: My thyroid is tell me “Hey Tracee, there is something you’re not saying that you need to say. You’re afraid. Say it anyway. Or you will be sick from not expressing it. From not saying it.”

My purpose on this Earth is to write; to express; to create with words; to create change with the power of my words. It is my Super Power. There are things that I alone was put on this Earth to say. No one else can say them in the way that I can say them and they MUST be said. When I say them, I am freed. I am the butterfly. When I don’t I have confined in the cocoon, stifled, restricted. I want to be the vibrant blue and orange butterfly!

Finish the book!

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