Focus on the Breath

Last month’s topic, Sleep Hygiene, I listed the basics to set yourself up for having a good night’s sleep. I also mentioned that I would continue the topic this month and write about breathing techniques and other tools I have used to help calm my body and my mind once the quiet sets in for the night. A good night’s sleep is something I have spent years working on, and I am finally at a place where sleep is not something I struggle with and want to share what I have learned. As I have previously stated, these are not overnight fixes and start with baby steps, a desire for change, and then sticking with it.

Years ago, I was an insomniac, living a very stressful life, yet even after my life began to normalize, I was still having trouble quieting my mind long enough to fall asleep. Those of us who experienced trauma or hold in all their stress and anxiety don’t realize that it creates a physical reaction. Our nervous system stays on high alert, always in fight or flight mode, so we don’t know how to slow down and relax once our head hits the pillow. Yes, there are pills and substances readily available that you can reach for, but my goal was to find a natural approach. I was looking to heal my mind, my body and my spirit and anything that I would have to ingest was not the solution I was looking for, and that is when I began to incorporate simple breathing techniques into my bedtime routine. I wanted to learn how to meditate but couldn’t sit still long enough to give it a try. I didn’t think I could ever do that, yet fast forward a decade later and now I meditate on Sunday morning in a group circle run by a Buddhist monk. Life is an amazing journey once you allow baby steps to lead the way.

I will do a separate post for meditation, but ironically, the one constant in meditation is the same as any breathing technique I have learned and that is to focus on the breath. At the time I started out I didn’t know that and all I knew was that I needed to start with something simple. The first breathing technique I learned is called the 4-7-8 and involves regulating your breath. This is a wonderful way to calm your anxiety and nervous system, and I found myself using it throughout the day as well. Anytime we focus on our breathing it takes our thoughts away from the mind and puts the focus back on our breath. This simple technique helped me to release the mind chatter so my body could begin to relax. I still use this technique anytime I feel stress or need to control my anxiety.

The technique involves three simple steps:

- Inhale through your nose for four counts.
- Hold your breath for seven counts.
- Exhale through your mouth for eight counts.

The focus on the 4-7-8 breathing provides a calming distraction and the counting sequence helps to refocus our thoughts away from the racing mind. This breathing technique is a style of intentional breathwork which helps to decrease heart rate and blood pressure, which puts your body in a calming state for sleep. Most people hit the pillow, and their mind jumps into overdrive, so putting the focus on the breath rather than your list of things to do will help tremendously. Repeat the technique a few times and then just slip into a natural breath and see how you feel.

When I first started doing this, I would be so relaxed but still awake, so also incorporated a do not engage way of life. The visual I was given was to picture a blind coming down and turning everything black so you do not engage with your thoughts. Once I am in the middle of my sleep routine, I will no longer fully engage in any thoughts or talk, because doing so will bring me right back to being wide awake and then I will be up for hours. We all use this technique now, and the running joke in my family is that we will politely let you know we are in this state and getting ready for sleep. A simple "don't engage" is all that is needed to be spoken to let you know I am already half asleep, please wait until tomorrow. 

You may want to go back and read what we talked about last week about Sleep Hygiene so you can incorporate everything I've talked about into your bedtime routine. Get your room ready, make those lists so what you must do tomorrow is on paper and out of your head, and then everything else hand over to God to take care of while you’re sleeping. Anything else can wait until tomorrow. You put in a long day, so now your only task left is to focus on your breath while you drift off to sleep.

Wishing you a wonderful night’s sleep.


In love and light,

Fran

Sleep Hygiene

 I hope everyone is doing well. I now live in the Northeast, we are in the middle of Summer, it’s hot and sometimes uncomfortable to sleep, so I thought this would be the perfect month to talk about Sleep Hygiene. We were in the middle of a heat wave, central air is currently not a part of my world, my apartment never reached below 80 degrees, I only have a fan in my room, and was still able to fall asleep the same way I always do - which is almost as soon as my head hits the pillow. That is the week I knew for sure what this next topic should be. I am a former insomniac, and have come a long way since those days, so wanted to share what I have done over the years to help myself become a better sleeper.

The bedtime routine I follow now is not something that was created overnight. Like anything else we do with healing, it starts out with baby steps of change, and with commitment becomes our new normal. I have stayed with people who can’t believe the rate of speed I can fall asleep. The last girl I stayed with while waiting for my apartment, let me sleep on her sofa and claimed she was still talking to me and I was out cold. I do not like that I may have seemed rude, but I am grateful for being able to do that with such ease now, and my former self is just as grateful.

While in the grips of chaos and trauma is usually when our sleep cycles are hit the hardest. I can remember going through cycles of nightmares where I was afraid to sleep, when my life was filled with worry about other people and I couldn’t sleep, the cycle of menopause where the frozen washcloths in my freezer were my only relief, or being a mom to teenagers where sleeping while they were out driving was not an option for me. I am not sure if what I do now would have mattered back then, but those times are when I decided that the only way to continue was to get some rest and is when I started focusing on how to do that. We cannot work or think clearly without sleep. Our mind, our attitudes, our relationships, our health, everything that we want to stay in balance depends on us getting a good night’s sleep. We all have a different rhythm and the amount of sleep may vary, but the one thing we do all have in common is that if we don’t learn to take control of ourselves and our mind before bed, then our minds will race and we will wind up staring at the ceiling or counting sheep for hours and wake up not feeling rested.

The first thing I would like to talk about is what I started doing to help with the mind chatter before bed. I started making lists. I would keep a list of things I wanted to do each day of the week and putting it on the list meant I created space and calm in my head because I no longer had to remember it. I would cross everything out at the end of the day and if it wasn’t completed before the end of the day, then I brought that item to the next day. I didn’t have to remember it or think about it again because the list would be waiting right there for me in the morning. The feeling of accomplishment when crossing things out was also a much needed, and a great way to bring positivity into my life. The belief that whatever I couldn’t handle I would hand over to God while I was sleeping became important to me as well. I trusted that I would wake up with the answers that the continuous loop in my brain or staring at the ceiling would never show me.

The second thing I did that was most helpful was I started a routine. I stopped staying up watching television and falling asleep on the couch, waking up with a neck ache and then going to my room where I would be up for hours. I took control. I made sure to be in bed by 11pm no matter what. Whatever I didn’t accomplish by that time, including unwinding, could wait and I still follow that same routine. I may veer off the 11pm and if I am tired go to sleep earlier or stay up a little later if I am watching a great movie and not dozing off, but I will always try to stay in that same time vicinity so my body clock stays in check - and I will always make myself go to bed. Now my body automatically knows that if I am turning off the television, turning off the lights, locking the front door, brushing my teeth, taking off my jewelry, drawing down the covers, putting on the fan, it is sleeping time. My body knows that, so now even in a hot apartment I will fall asleep in a few minutes of my head hitting the pillow.

My family and I understand now how important white noise is to our sleep and keeping out the chatter, so we never attempt to sleep without it. We all use a fan for that, and just the noise is enough to adjust the silence where thoughts will try and work their way in, and the noise of the fan hums us to sleep. I first tried using music on my clock radio but found my mind singing along to the tunes and keeping me awake. I also tried to keep it low enough so that I couldn’t make out the words but eventually bought a small fan to keep on my nightstand and have been using that for years.

Your bedroom should be the place away from the other rooms of the house where your body knows right away it can feel rested. Choose colors that create a soothing, calming environment, and choose sheets, pillows and blankets to suit your comfort, and try to keep it as strictly a bedroom. My preference is no television in the bedroom, but understandably that is not everyone’s choice. I used to fall asleep to the sound of the television, which is why it is now removed from my room and included in the list of what I turn off in my living room before sleep. The fan is now my background noise so a television in my room is no longer needed for something to fall asleep. This also works for me because I want to start my day by 6-7am and having no television keeps away the urge to stay up late. The bright screen on your phone is also not a good idea right before sleep, so try and keep all of your scrolling to the living area and put that in your routine and the list of things to turn off or silence before bed.

Those are the basics to get you started, and next month I will continue this topic and write about breathing techniques and other tools I used that helped me to calm my body and my mind once the quiet set in for the night. Remember what I said earlier, this was not an overnight fix. This all started with baby steps and a desire for change. This is something I have spent years working on, and I am finally at a place where I say goodnight, and you won’t see me or hear from me again until morning.

A good night’s sleep is something I wish for you as well.


In love and light,

Fran

Finding Your Path

I wasn’t sure what my topic would be this week, I have been distracted with work and trying to break into a new field and noticed that it was the first Sunday of the month and time for my monthly blog. I was suddenly drowning in thoughts and flashes of my life and how fast time flies and that feeling of oh geez how did I get here and where am I going.

Those of you who are creative and have taken that avenue of life know firsthand that our lives don’t run a path of climbing a corporate ladder. To others, our lives may look hard or confusing or irresponsible because we don’t fit in a normal box of what success may look like. Go to college, get a degree and work at that same job, learning and moving up until you have success and money and security and everything people strive for. When you are an artist and a creative type, our minds and our lives don’t always work that way – we don’t always fit into a box or a category. An artist’s path may entail many things such as ad designer, graphic designer, interior designer, painter, teacher, screen printing, furniture sales, writer, business owner, all of which I have been. I do hold a bachelor's degree and have had many exciting jobs and have worked at places and with people that will always hold such a special place in my heart, but my journey does not look like a corporate ladder to be climbed. My work history looks more like small trampolines placed in a room labeled art and design and instead of picking one ladder and staying climbing on that same one, I jump from one to one taking in all the knowledge and experience and growing as an artist and a person before moving on to the next one. People like me don’t have pensions or large 401k plans, or weeks of vacation and sick days that build up over time, we are either self-employed or at the beginning of a new job and another outlet for our creativity where we can put our skills, knowledge and experience to use.

That’s a creative mind, and now throw in a little ADHD, OCD and years of trauma from a young age and the product is yours truly. My path may not have been a straight one, but I am grateful for the outlets where I have used my creative side to deal with my feelings, emotions, and issues. My dad knew I would need this before I did and at the age of ten, a few months after losing my mom, enrolled me in a painting class. I had always loved art and even in kindergarten can remember my teacher speaking to my mom about one of my drawings. I loved to draw and every Christmas the first thing on my list was a pack of magic markers. Those of you my age will remember the big smile on the cutout of the box and inside you could see all the colors and they looked like teeth. The bigger the package the more colors and the more exciting. I still get that same feeling every time I walk into an art store. It is that place from young to old where I have found that spark of joy.

Losing my mom at the age of nine completely changed me and forever dictated the path my life would go, but that painting class and being in a studio setting gave me the tools I needed, the comfort of where I fit in, and the vision of what I wanted my life to look like. Art would become my voice, my stability, and my confidence. The path where to go and what to do with it didn’t come with a map of instructions, so I have spent a lifetime on trampolines rather than a corporate ladder and immersing myself in anything creative. When it is too structured, I am uncomfortable; when it is too routine, I feel like I am dying inside. I have met so many people who are just like me, so the road even though filled with struggle, and at times financial struggle, is also the one I know I am not alone and continuously choose because it is the road that makes me feel alive. It is the road that saved me when I had to face the world without a mom, and looking back my dad knew that was what I would need. He passed away not too many years after that, but by the time he left I was getting ready to graduate high school and the path ahead was already one paved in art and design. He did that for me. As I am writing this, I realize that I always look at my dad and that time as he left me, when I should be looking at that time as he loved me, he saved me.

I am pretty sure that realization is also coming about because of a conversation I had with my son this morning. We have been on this healing journey together for the past few years, so our paths and conversations always seem to be in unison. He said that change doesn’t always mean making affirmations, sometimes it goes deeper and it is our belief systems about ourselves that must change too. Sometimes our belief systems are stuck in a false narrative of the past, and just making affirmations isn’t enough. We must believe those affirmations to be true down to our core, down to our soul, and that is when true change will begin to take place.

Yes, somewhere along the line our roles have flipped, and at times he has become my life coach, always spewing my beliefs and my words back to me as a reminder to stay on track. We both live our lives now with purpose and the knowing we are making changes, big changes. We are striving for a life that my parents saw for me, that I saw for my children, but for whatever reason life happened and we all went off course. I wouldn’t trade any part of my life because every moment, every blessing, every heartache brought me right here, and right here is a pretty good place. I am sure that false narrative that he left me rather than he loves me has unknowingly dictated parts of my life and sent me off on a harder path than needed. I know and understand that belief system is one that needs to be changed to make where I am now an even better place. We may go off course but that same path we always wanted is still there waiting for us if we look ahead, and sometimes all it takes is a tiny change in perspective to see what, or who, has been standing right there with you on your path all along.


In love and light,

Fran

Moving On

First, for everyone who celebrated Sunday, I would like to wish you a Happy Mother’s Day. I understand that for different reasons not everyone does, but this blog is a good place to mention it since the day can be a trigger for some and met with complete sadness. What we do have in common is we all have a mom and then depending on your situation you are either celebrating being a mom (fur babies included), celebrating having a mom, missing a mom, or maybe healing from a mom. Everyone has their own story, and the day is met by all of us differently. I know for myself, losing my mom at a very young age forever changed how I viewed that day until I had kids of my own. Even then, because I carried so much baggage with me into adulthood, some were met with challenges and were not so great.

This year I spent a few days before Mother’s Day in Florida with my boys. We are trying to make it a yearly thing since we no longer live so close to one another. The time we spend together is short, so we are forced to make it count. There is no room for not making every moment matter – even the moments of silence and just being together. We are forced to be present and take it all in, something I don’t think we did when just moving along through life. We took certain things for granted – we all took being young for granted. Now we talk about where we were and where we are going. We talk about plans for the future, and in doing so, we are slowly healing from our past – together.

My mom hat will never go away, but learning to be a mom of adult children is a new challenge for me and another part of the healing process. I am learning to let go of the need to control. My oldest son put it to me the best when he said that I have to trust that I did my job as a mom and raised good men. Now my place is to let go and let it unfold as it should. I walked away from our conversation, knowing that adult children don’t need a helicopter mom, adult children need to know that we have trust in them. They must know that we have faith in them to be who they are and do the right thing. They need that trust and faith from us so they can have that faith and trust in themselves.

This isn’t an easy thing to do when you already thought you let go of so much control already. I always joke that nobody told us how hard it would be to make the flip of your kids growing up and no longer needing you. Yes, they need you, but not in the same way they did when they were young – and definitely not in the same way they needed you through chaos. Once healing begins you have to consciously let go of trying to micromanage everything for safety, for peace, or to minimize fallout. Once healing happens you have to let go of those reigns and let normal living in. That is sometimes hard to make that change of perspective because you don’t really have a gauge of what normal living is. This is a new concept for us and finding our new normal free of drama is something we are all working on together.

My trip was an eye opener that not only am I getting older, but our family dynamic is changing. We have turned a page moving into a future that is completely unknown to us. But a few mornings over coffee we realized that this is the most control any of us has ever had over our own lives. Each of us is choosing a path for themselves that is their own choice and exactly where they want it to go. Maybe we are able to do that because we have been through so much healing. We know to stay out of it and just be each other’s support system. We are no longer codependently intertwined, but in a healthy place as individuals, and it’s a very nice place to be.

I may not have been the best mom, but I know in spite of everything, through it all I was a good mom. I’m sure I can speak for many of us when I say that we did the best with what we had and the information we had available to us at that moment in time. Once knowledge and information are presented to us then healing becomes a choice. You choose to heal or you choose to stay the same. I always say that once you make that choice to heal then everyone else starts to follow your lead and they slowly begin to heal too. The ones that choose not to heal, then they move on with their own journey. We learn to detach in love. We can only control how we show up – it is not our job to control how others show up. Even when you’re a mom.



In love and light,

Fran

New Beginnings

 Hope everyone is doing well. Spring is here so I thought New Beginnings would be a good title for this month’s blog. Trees are blooming and I can finally hear the birds singing outside my window. Now that Winter is a part of my life, the sound of the birds is something I hold near and dear to my heart. It is the sound of outside. I spent so much time in the Sunshine State, so no surprise that I am still not a fan of Winter, and the cold, and being stuck inside. My kids think I am crazy for moving up north and taking on such a drastic change in the weather, but I was thinking about how different I live my life now that I deal with the seasons and such a drastic change from month to month. I am trying to embrace that life is now seasonal, and I have Summers to look forward to. Yes, I may have been stuck inside for a few months, but I also got a lot done. My focus was on writing and completing my book, and I know that if the sun was calling my name, I would not have been so diligent about writing. The seasons are helping me to see life differently and live my life differently. I do like to hibernate a little, but now that the nice weather is coming, being isolated will no longer be an option for me.

Changing my weekly blog to a monthly one has also completely changed my routine, my thought process, and I find myself in a new season of healing. A few weeks ago, I was complaining about something to my son, and he said you need to read your own blog, you need to read your own book. He always has a way of putting me back in check, and at that moment is when I realized that yes, I am in a new season of healing, and all the same rules still apply. Stay off autopilot, be grateful, stay positive, stay out of my head, let go and let God, keep my eyes forward and out of the past, the list goes on. Each time we complete a season of healing we become stronger and then look to take on the next chapter. We feel like we are starting all over again, but we must remember that we are not. We are taking all the knowledge with us from the previous chapter and looking to level up. We set our sights higher, so it feels like we are starting over. That is the place I am right now. The old way of living (which at one time was new for me) feels uncomfortable, and no longer a good fit, and I am ready to move forward.

Every time we move forward, new lessons are presented and the old ones show up again. I always say the old ones show back up to test us. They are there so we can show that we are ready for the new chapter. We don’t want to repeat the old lessons, so we show that we have grown. We are more present, we are more grateful, we are more forgiving (of ourselves and others), we see life differently, we want to have a new beginning once again. Life is full of endings and new beginnings, and it reflects our growth. I always say that endings don’t have to be so ugly and so dramatic, but they usually are because that is the only way we can let go. We cling to what is comfortable even when it is no longer good for us. We stay at jobs and we stay in relationships long past their expiration dates because it is what we know. The fear of change will try and hold us back every time, but now that I am aware of that, I try to face it and see it for what it is. I am learning to embrace every ending and new beginning and hoping and praying that God has a few more in store for me.

The photo I chose this week represents where I am right now. I always say that you can tell how I am doing and if I am present by how my plants are doing. They weren’t doing so well. Once I stopped doing my weekly blog, my routine changed and I was a little all over the place. I wanted to do this and learn that and be here and be there and everything felt very chaotic. I had to remind myself that another new beginning was presenting itself and filled with a lot of unknowns which can feel a little scary. I had to read my own blog and remember to stay grounded, take time to sit in silence and hear the guidance. I had to be present. I got off work early last week and took a few hours to give my plants some tender loving care and now they are happy again. So am I.

The next month look at your life as a new beginning filled with new lessons, new healing, and new opportunities. This can show up as new knowledge, new friendships, new jobs, new relationships and a new way of doing things. We honor our past because it made us who we are and we walk into our future with all of it. We don’t carry it with us as baggage that weighs us down, but instead we carry it inside; it is all the knowledge and experience we need to lead the way to another new beginning.



In love and light,

Fran

Looking Back

Hope everyone is doing well. This first monthly blog, I wanted to just do a list of all previously weekly blogs, in order, so you can see if there are any titles that jump off the page and maybe a sign that you would like to re-read that one again. You can go to the archives on the right of the page and click on those monthly links to view a previous blog.

This journey is never ending, so always do a check-in with yourself and see where you are and where you would like to go. Sometimes we get tired and find ourselves slipping back to old ways of doing things, back on autopilot, and why it is important to always stay present and be in the moment, so we don’t ever give our power away to situations or to someone else. Remember you are the creator of your own life and in charge of your own happiness.

.. and the journey continues.



List of previous blogs to look back and reflect on:

February 2025

Blog 1: Out of Darkness

Blog 2: The Journey Begins

Blog 3: Ready for Change

March 2025

Blog 4: Let it Go (Journaling)

Blog 5: Baby Steps

Blog 6: Self-Care of Your Body

Blog 7: Chained to Your Past

April 2025

Blog 8: Love vs Darkness

Blog 9: A Spiritual Life

Blog 10: Self-Care of Your Mind

Blog 11: Your Inner Child

Blog 12: Self-Love

May 2025

Blog 13: Healing Thru Prayer

Blog 14: Being Present

Blog 15: Obstacles

Blog 16: Build a Routine

June 2025

Blog 17: The In-Between

Blog 18: Raise Your Vibration

Blog 19: Gratitude

Blog 20: De-Clutter Your Life

July 2025

Blog 21: Manifest the Life You Want

Blog 22: You Got This

Blog 23: Signs from Above

Blog 24: Trust Your Intuition

Blog 25: A Reason, A Season, For Life

August 2025

Blog 26: Reflection

Blog 27: Unleash Your Creativity

Blog 28: Change is Here

Blog 29: Relax and Just Breathe

September 2025

Blog 30: Pause

Blog 31: Find Your Safe Space

Blog 32: One Day at a Time

Blog 33: Seasons of Change

October 2025

Blog 34: Living in the Moment

Blog 35: Boundaries

Blog 36: Creating a New Life

Blog 37: Choices

Blog 38: Go with the Flow

November 2025

Blog 39: Positive vs Negative

Blog 40: A New Life

Blog 41: Reflection

Blog 42: Give Thanks

December 2025

Blog 43: Fill the Well

Blog 44: Time

Blog 45: A New Normal

Blog 46: The Holidays

Blog 47: Looking Ahead

January 2025

Blog 48: The Path

Blog 49: Our Mental Prison

Blog 50: The Path to Here

Blog 51: Protecting Your Peace

February 2026

Blog 52: Keep Going



In love and light,

Fran

Keep Going

Here we are at the end of our year-long journey together. The moment for me is a little bittersweet since I am looking forward to the next chapter, but also this is the completion of a deep connection I felt with myself and all of you through my weekly writing. This blog is something that slowly became a big part of who I am and what I did, and for the past year I scheduled everything I did around being able to post weekly on Wednesdays at 11:11am. The hardest part for my perfectionist self was allowing life to happen and being ok when it was a little late, like today, or not losing it when a photo didn’t work or had computer problems during an upload. There were many lessons for me in learning to go with the flow and not setting unreasonable expectations and learning to adjust my time when needed. A new version of myself emerged as I learned to trust myself a little more with each passing week.

When I look back at where I was fifty-two weeks ago when I decided to make a commitment to writing a weekly blog, I really wasn’t sure where it was going to go and who it would speak to. I always had a goal to write a book and title it, Out of Darkness, so the most important task I had was to sort through ten years of notes that I wanted to get on paper and share with those who needed it. The surprising result was how much of a healing experience it was for me, as well. The person writing today is not the same person who started a year ago, because I tapped into a new, very unexpected layer of myself that needed healing and came out of this experience a little stronger and a little wiser. This blog also became a way to use my writing and love of photography as a creative way to stay grounded and express myself while going through the many changes this past year brought to me. I am in a new space and now see myself and my surroundings with a new set of eyes.

This journey requires a lot of work and self-discipline, so I hope that you can look back on the past year with pride and see how far you have come. My plan is to post a monthly blog the first Sunday of every month to check in and touch on the healing tools you may need moving forward. When you commit to anything for a year such as the gym or eating healthy, of course you expect to see change, but when it is healing, and not keeping track of something as tangible as gym equipment or food going into your mouth, it is a little harder to gauge how well you are doing. We have touched on so many topics to help you on your healing journey such as showing gratitude, self-care, self-love, decluttering, boundaries, every topic we touched on required your commitment to healing. The only way to move forward now is to trust that all the knowledge you have and everything you have worked so hard for to improve self and heal self was for your highest good and is a part of you. The ironic part is that when you are on a healing journey your focus becomes mind, body, spirit, so you may decide to eat healthier or start walking or going to the gym, because you started to focus on you.

My niece reached out to me last week about the topic of self-trust and the perfect topic to end our journey together. I mentioned to her that I always see trusting my intuition as self-trust, but her question gave me an understanding that self-trust goes even deeper than trusting your intuition. Trusting your intuition is just a part of it; self-trust is incorporating all the knowledge you have with all the pieces of yourself and allowing everything to come into play. Trust in yourself is what keeps you from avoiding the steps needed to walk towards a healthy future and keeps you moving forward. Self-trust is what allows you to take on the steps and obstacles with full force. Self-trust allows you to shine your light and remove all darkness, doubt and fear because you know that you have everything you need right inside of you. You trust that you have the knowledge and the strength you need to do anything. The external world doesn’t change – we do. Then once we do, our external world changes. That is self-trust. That is the lesson.

A year ago, I wrote that “Healing is a choice and once that choice is made you learn to love yourself again, break free from old patterns and negative ways of thinking and create the life you want. That was my experience - and if you make a commitment to yourself to embrace change, it can be yours too. My plan for the next year is to blog weekly about everything I learned from my studies and from my experience. My hope is that it can help others on their healing journey, and I also look forward to seeing where the next year of blogging will take me on mine.” The past year of blogging took me in a new direction and changed everything about my life. I have a new apartment, a new job, a new career, I went back to the gym, I found a spiritual community where I go to weekly Meditation, I have new people in my life and a stronger sense of self than I did a year ago. I hope you have found a new path for yourself to work on doing the same. I have learned that this journey is never ending and just when you think you have it figured out, you don’t. There will always be ups and downs, highs and lows, shocks and surprises, but no matter what life throws at you keep going. Hold your head high and keep going.

Thank you for being here with me for the past year and wishing you well on your journey. May you find the peace, love and happiness you seek. 

In love and light,

Fran

 

Protecting Your Peace

We are now a week away from completing this year-long journey together, and I was trying to think of something valuable you could take with you, and needed, as you continue along on your own healing journey. Protecting your peace. Now that you have worked so hard and made all these changes, the most important thing for you to do is protect your peace. Your body was so accustomed to chaos and noise, so once you find your happiness in the calm and in the silence, protect it. That progress is yours and boundaries will be very important. This is not your new normal yet, so until it is, you will be tested by people and situations trying to veer you off track. Stand your ground and protect what you have worked so hard to attain. Never give your peace or that power over to anyone but yourself.

This is easier said than done, so why remaining present in your thoughts and decisions is still important. Being on autopilot is the easiest way to go off track, so remain in the moment. I have been on this journey for a long time, and still reminding myself to stay present. Old habits and toxic, chaotic ways of doing things are always trying to creep back in to deter us from who we are now. The good news is the old ways will begin to feel uncomfortable. The new you embraces the quiet and enjoys the silence because you are growing comfortable in who you are now. Once you get there you will feel the need to protect it with everything you are.

I have mentioned in previous blogs, how you can tell me that two plus two is five and I will say ok and be on my way. That is because I do protect my peace and will choose what situations require me to engage and what ones require me to take the high road and walk away. I no longer feel the need to be right or prove I am right if it means a disruption in my energy field. The knowing I am right is enough for me. Once you engage in negative and toxic situations or conversations, watch your body and mood change. Be aware of what you want to take on because you are not required to take on everything, especially other people’s stuff. You have the choice. There is always a choice to engage, to pause, to walk away, to forgive, to discuss, you make the choice. Self-love and self-care are how you make those decisions. Remember there is no wrong choice, as long as you aren’t coming from a vengeful place. Always make decisions coming from a loving place, and that means a self-loving place as well.

Boundaries are something I have always struggled with from a very young age. When you are codependent and trying to live your life being a good person, sometimes making decisions for yourself becomes hard because you are afraid of hurting someone’s feelings – or afraid of what people will think. We don’t understand self-love, so we become people pleasers. The best advice I have picked up along the way is to stay confident in your own decisions knowing that people react to your decisions based on their own “junk”. When someone isn’t there for you or supportive of you, then that usually has to do with their perception, not yours, so important to know who you are and be secure in who you are. We must live our lives the best way we know how based on what is right for us. That is how we stay in our strength and that strength allows us to keep giving. When we do things for other people, not in our own best interest, then we slowly give our strength away to the point we have nothing left. We get lost. That is when we grow angry, and resentful, and eventually shut down and have nothing left to give. We allowed someone else the control. We give away our peace.

This healing journey is a never-ending journey of self-healing, self-care and self-love. You will take three steps forward and then one step back. You fall, you get up. You will notice that once you reach a goal or milestone in your life, you will reach another. Your boundaries and your intuition grow stronger every single day. You learn to trust yourself and rely on yourself like you never have before, all while learning to balance mind, body and soul. You now understand that it is all dependent on self.

Setting boundaries and trusting my intuition are the two most important things I work on every single day, and for me, they work hand in hand. I understand that I can never be balanced or happy if I am working on one without the other. When I trust my intuition and my gut knowing that I oversee my own life, I am finding my peace. When I set strong clear boundaries of what I will and will not tolerate, I am protecting my peace. Once I understood the combination, I became more comfortable in my own skin. I run the show of my life. My thoughts, my decisions, my choices, my struggles, my failures, but also my accomplishments are my own sense of self. The peace I found and worked so hard for I protect with self.


In love and light,

Fran

The Path to Here

I know I have been very open with this blog about my healing and my struggles, but I should have formally introduced my story a long time ago. Sometimes it takes us a while to be comfortable being that vulnerable and opening ourselves up to other people and this is something I have been working on for a very long time. I grew up trying to hide so many things about myself, so as an adult opening myself up has been an ongoing process. Years ago, is when I decided to just embrace everything about myself good, bad, pretty, ugly and just put it out there. I have no secrets, and I am an open book. I remember years ago thinking that when I die, I want everything about myself to be known. I never want to die with a secret that comes out after I am gone. I want to make sure my loved ones, especially my kids, know everything about me while I am here. I never want them to not know a part of me or find out something later that I’m not here to explain to them myself. I’m pretty sure that’s why my kids and I have such a close relationship. We have all been through a lot together and decided a long time ago, let’s just own it. This is who I am, this is what we went through, take it or leave it. This is who we are, if our pain is too much for anyone to handle, we respect that and can part ways amicably. Other’s perceptions don’t really matter because at the end of the day, we know who we are, we know our story and we will always have each other. I think also with age comes that take me or leave me attitude which I now embrace wholeheartedly.

I have mentioned many times throughout the last year that one of the main reasons for starting this blog was so that I could pass all the information that I’ve learned on to you. While attending The Southwest Institute of Healing Arts (SWIHA), where I did my spiritual studies, I had the honor of meeting so many instructors who were very generous with their knowledge and all the tools I needed to be on this healing journey and to help others along the way. I also had a friend I met right before that when I was at my lowest, about fifteen years ago, who taught me so many things that I will be eternally grateful for. She taught me about healing. She introduced myself to my true self with words like intuitive, empath, vibration, and positive and negative energy. She also introduced me to essential oils, crystals, teas, baths, tarot, and just learning to be ok with myself and my relationship with God. She taught me to embrace my spiritual side and everything I had been hiding and pushing away since I was a little girl. She ran a business at the time, and I didn’t have the money to pay for her services, so we bartered babysitting and laundry services. I had something practical she needed, and she had the wisdom I needed. Her Grandpa was Native American Indian, and he always told her that we have everything we need right here on this earth to help us to survive, and to heal. After over a decade later, I can honestly say I believe that, and I live that.

I always say that I am more in touch with God and my spirituality now than I was during twelve years of Catholic school. The reason for this could be because, at that age, I did not want to be told what to do. I did not want to be told what to wear. I was more focused on trying to figure out where I fit in. It didn’t help that I was also growing up without a mom, so I already felt different and that I didn’t belong anywhere. I honestly believe that all my struggles from a young girl to a teenager combined with all the wrong decisions I made, as well as the right ones, all got me to the place I am right now. I wouldn't trade my life for anything. I have a wonderful relationship with my kids, and I finally have a wonderful relationship with myself. I have family, I have friends, I love where I live, and I have a sense of community again and I’m allowing myself to open up to a new way of living and be seen and be heard. I am learning to love.

She also taught me about being an empath. My whole life I could feel what others are feeling, but until I understood what that meant I couldn’t decipher others’ feelings from my own. I was a chameleon. I understand now that’s why I struggled so much in my second marriage. He suffered from PTSD but, at that time, I had zero boundaries and couldn’t tell his feelings of despair from my own. Without understanding the boundaries that I needed to have in place, I thought his feelings were mine. I slowly became him. His pain became my pain, and his anger became my anger. That time in my life took very long to recover from, and the most impactful event in my life that finally sent me on this journey. When you hit bottom and feel so broken and so lost in who you are there is no other way but up and to heal. I can still remember the day with clarity when I picked myself up off the floor and knew that if I didn’t, I was going to die. Maybe not that day, but if I didn’t heal my soul and find a better way to live, then my body would eventually fail me. My kids were my whole world, and they needed me, and I knew at that moment I had to do this.

Once that choice was made the healing showed up - and the people to help me heal also showed up. I always say that my studies at SWIHA saved me, and I didn’t find the school - it found me. I was introduced to a world of people who were just like me and found myself in an environment of healing and spirituality where I finally felt like I belonged. The crazy part is everyone I studied with in my classes said the same thing, they were guided there. I embraced two years of studying and received my Integrative Healing Arts Practitioner Diploma which allowed me to add Spiritual Coaching and Hypnosis to my resume. A few years later I also became a Reiki Practitioner. The world of combining my background in art with my spiritual studies is the healing through art existence I strive for. That decision to work on myself knowing I was the main ingredient in my life that had to change, is where this journey really began. I went back to the beginning of who I was and who I was meant to be in this lifetime - and that is when I began to heal. That is when I became a healer.

Thank you for reading my blog and getting to know me, and I hope in doing so, you have been getting to know yourself again as well.


In love and light,

Fran

 

 

Our Mental Prison

 

As we get closer to the end of our year-long journey together, I thought the topic of brain health would be important since the topic has come up twice for me this week. Once someone sent me a video talking about the brain and success versus failure, and the other time I was at mediation class and the instructor was talking about self vs ego and how we are in a constant battle with ourselves every day.

The mental prison we put ourselves in is usually a product of past experiences and our ego trying to protect us. What happens is we are protected from the negative, but our ego is also shielding us from all the good things we could be experiencing. Fear, comfort, safety, these are all words I have mentioned before and obstacles we must get through. Our mind starts overthinking and going to worst case scenarios, rather than focusing on the good that can happen, the love and the joy that could be found if we could only change our perspective. Our outer world doesn’t change until we do. The change always lies with us and changing our perspective.

The way it was described is that our brains find it easier to focus on failure rather than success, danger rather than safety. When you think about the lives our ancestors lived, how cavemen lived, this wiring makes sense. In our modern world, our brain doesn’t need this wiring and has to be told we are successful, we are safe, it is ok to do this or that. We no longer have to look at the negative or worst case scenarios just to survive. That is why we find it so hard and feel like we must rewire our thinking, it is because we do. The ego hasn’t adapted much to our modern way of thinking so is always still right there screaming to be heard. We must learn to silence it, train it to feel safe, let it know that the self is in charge. Once the ego learns to take a back seat that is when our true self appears.

Now that I am years into my healing, I can look back and see where my true self was just lying dormant in the background allowing everything in my external world to control me – and that included situations and people. At the moment, I didn’t understand what I was doing, but looking back now I can see it clearly. I was always focusing on something, but my focus wasn’t on the right things. My focus was never on myself, it was always on responsibilities and a list of things to do. I didn’t know how to put myself first and thought it was selfish not understanding it was necessary. Self-care and self-love weren’t words in my vocabulary. I was living my life as just a product of my upbringing, instead of seeing that I could break free if I wanted to. I always felt like a prisoner in my own mind, in my own life, never understanding that I was the one holding the key the whole time.

We can get lost in our ego mind when we feel like we are being diligent, because we are busy with work, responsibilities, our everyday life and not leaving ourselves a minute to think. Our ego wants us to be that way because then we don’t have time to stop and think, we won’t have time to work on ourselves, we won’t see that there is another way, an easier way. The talk I was listening to the other day focused on being the right busy and the wrong busy. The wrong busy is filling up our day with work so that we can avoid everything we should be dealing with. The right busy is understanding that there should be a balance and there should also be a focus on just being. We should never use work as an excuse to not deal with ourselves. We should never put work over our feelings. Love and relationships are what makes us feel whole. Love for others and self-love included. When we are busy being diligent with everything but ourselves, that is when the ego takes over – that is when we lose ourselves.

Our mental prison is filled with self-doubt, low self-esteem, fear, avoidance, procrastination, everything that the mind uses to talk ourselves out of what we want. When we learn to quiet that mind, that is when our desires will take the forefront. Meditation and visualization help us do just that. Focus on what you want your life to look like rather than what you don’t. Danger and failure are easier to focus on that is why this will take time and training yourself to think differently, feel differently. Once we do that then the people and situations which once controlled us no longer will. They no longer can because our authentic self is in charge. We unlock the prison; we break free.

Moving forward this week, take stock in how you move throughout your day. Are you running? Are you trying to fill a void with things to do, so you don’t have to deal with your life? Are you using work distractions and responsibilities to keep yourself from feeling? Avoidance is just putting off the inevitable. All the pain and disappointment that we spent a lifetime stuffing must be dealt with to move forward and live the life we were meant to live. Remember the only thing keeping you from getting to the light at the end of that tunnel is you. Learn to dismiss the negative lies of the mind. Learn to just be. Face your life and feel everything and then let it go. Don’t ignore your pain, your anger, your depression, whatever you are dealing with. Be with it. Acknowledge it and work through it. You, alone, hold the key to that mental prison and to your own happiness.



In love and light,

Fran

The Path

Here we are in the first week of the new year. Goals are set, gym bag packed and already it has started. What did I say I wanted to achieve this year, how am I going to get there, what do I have to do? Oh, that’s right, stay focused.

The photo I chose for this week was a reminder that if only the path was that easily defined, then I would have no issues staying on the lit-up path. It would be easy to see what is right in front of me and just walk easily ahead. But right there is the darkness, the voices, the delays, the obstacles, just waiting for me if I veer off the path just a little bit or look too far up ahead. I know that in the darkness I can’t see clearly, and I understand that my journey is that of light and to just keep moving forward. I do know that, so why do I look like a cartoon character who walks in circles that look like a hundred infinity symbols rather than a straight line going from A to B. The answer is because I am human. The answer is because I am still learning and I am still healing.

I did start my goals for this week for the new year in order to forge ahead on my path, but in doing so, I also realized that part of myself still moves through darkness, still living in survival mode. This is the reason why I walk the lit-up path looking intoxicated, unable to walk a straight line, rather than with grace in a straight line. While working on career goals with my coach at the office this week, I realized that part of my outlook and reasoning is still attached to a past that no longer serves me. I make plans and I have goals, I know what I need to do, but when I get down to the details of what I need to do there is a block. There is confusion. There are parts of myself still on auto pilot and stuck in a protective mode that I no longer need. I am not allowing myself the full vision. I am cutting myself short. Yes, at one time I had to walk around with a suit of armor and looking too far ahead was a scary place. Yes, at one time I had to be careful that my thinking was my own and I wasn’t being controlled by people other than myself, but that is not who I am now. I have come a long way since then, so now I must remove that protective suit of armor and allow myself to just be who I am. Trust myself and trust my intuition. I must allow myself the room for growth and to embrace everything that I want to be and do for myself. After over sixty years of being on this earth it is finally time to make plans for my future and the life I always envisioned for myself. I am giving myself permission to be happy.

Some people who read this would say who does that. Why would someone need permission to be happy? Those of us on this healing journey don’t need an explanation and understand that statement clearly. Words like guilt, shame, anxiety, depression, trauma, overwhelmed, confusion are words that remove happiness from our dictionary. Our word becomes protection. Our word becomes survival.

This week I had that lightbulb moment where my biggest goal for the new year must be to come out of survival mode so that I can work on my goals. Seems like a twisted way to look at it, but it made complete sense while trying to make a detailed list of what I need to do to achieve what I want by the end of the year. My goals session felt more like a therapy session when seeing how many blocks I have when trying to focus on the details of my life. I have studied Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, also known as the pyramid of life, so you would think by now I would be more towards the top of the pyramid where self-esteem and self-actualization lie rather than at the bottom step of survival. But I am more like a runner in training going from the bottom step up to the top step, always mentally and physically exhausted from the up and down, the in and out. But I think that’s ok too, at least I am not staying in the same place.

If you aren’t familiar with the hierarchy of needs, please do a quick google search. You may see yourself struggling in the same way, but that is ok too. We aren’t meant to be so strict in our thinking and not see that it is part of the process to go through many stages and many different situations throughout our lives. One change, one job loss, one divorce, one death in the family, can put us back at the bottom step in survival mode. The lesson is to not stay there and keep moving and growing. Change happens quite often, and we must be willing to adapt to the changes. We must also remember to remove our protective armor and let down those walls when we are ready. We hinder our own growth with fear and lack of trust in ourselves when we don’t. That’s the part I struggle with the most. I have to remind myself that I have everything I need for success. I have done the work, I have done the healing, now it's just one leap of faith to get to where I want to be.

As you move forward this week on your path, remember slow and steady and break your focus down to small actions. This week my plan is to look at the path ahead. But then my plan is to bring that focus inward and look at the month ahead, the week ahead, and then take each step one day at a time. Ask myself everyday what I need to do today to achieve my goals, what do I need to do to make myself happy. This journey is all about self and that means self-love, self-healing, self-focus, and self-development. Once we focus on that, everything else in our outer world will work itself out.

In love and light,

Fran

 

 

Looking Ahead

 New Years Eve and wrapping up the holidays while getting ready for 2026 seemed like the perfect time to write about looking ahead. I read something today that said if we take care of the past, then we can enjoy the present while making plans for the future. I loved this because it reinforces another saying I embrace, which is that living in the past brings pain, living in the future brings anxiety, but living in the present brings peace. They are two totally different perspectives which force the same positive outlook on life by remembering that the only place to be is in the present. At first it may seem confusing but remember that living in the past and taking care of your past are two completely different things, the same as living in and stressing about the future is different than planning for it. The philosophy I hold near and dear to my heart is to look back when you must, look ahead when you can, but the only place to be is in the moment. When we are hanging on to people and circumstances that no longer serve us, we get stuck. Let go of fear because avoidance and procrastination will try and hold you back from the future you deserve. The fact is the past is gone we can only learn from it, the future isn’t here yet so all you can do is plan for it, and the only place in time that you can fully enjoy your life is in the here and now.

I am a former live in the past, carrying my baggage tied to my ankle kind of gal, so I know how hard it is to let go while trying to deal with your stuff and still look ahead without freaking out about it. Sometimes looking ahead while trying to live in the moment seems like trying to achieve the impossible. The one thing that helped me was acceptance. Acceptance that this is my life now and everything I thought to be true wasn’t and maybe it was all for a reason and now I must find the power in my pain. The goal is to be open to anything and everything, embrace who I am, and learn a whole new way of living. Detach in love with what isn’t working. Hate no one and regret nothing. Remember that hurt people, hurt people. Respect their journey. Forgive everyone for what they didn’t know and respect their place in the world. Accept when it is time to part ways and be grateful for the love or the lesson or both. Try and see everyone as a teacher and everything as a learning opportunity. Trust a force outside of yourself and go with the flow. This is how I live my life now and it allows me to look ahead without fear and look back without pain. This new outlook on life allows me to just be.

Every year right before New Year’s Eve I like to set goals for myself for the upcoming year. Long term goals vs short term goals, wants vs needs, practical vs wishes and dreams, words vs pictures, anything and everything. That is my look ahead. That is my vision. Then I make notes for my notes of the steps I need to make those visions come true. Then I let it go and focus on the daily. Every small task I focus on everyday should bring me to the bigger picture. The year ahead is all baby steps. Small and steady.

Vision Boards have always been a great way for me to get ready for the new year and can also be a tool for you to bring out your creativity. I used to go crazy with them. They can be as big or as small as you want. Making it a collage is the best way to get words and pictures into your vison. You want a new car? Put a photo up. Want a new relationship? hang a photo of that face. No one in mind and just want more love in your life then just put a heart. Want a new job? Find a photo in a magazine of what you would like to be doing. This is how you manifest your life. Not a vision board type of person, then fill out sticky notes of everything you want to do the upcoming year. Make notes and lists and reminders whatever you must do so that you see it and read it every day.

Your thoughts become your life so pay attention to what you are thinking about. Always think about what you want and not on what you don’t. Fear based thoughts can become your reality the same as positive thoughts and why it is very important to censor your thinking. Do the same with how you speak. I spent way too much time clearing toxic energy from my life, so you will never hear me talk negative because I am very careful not to ever feed that type of energy. That type of energy tries to work its way into everything but can only get in if you allow it and if you give it the room to grow. Shut it down before it starts. Darkness can’t live in the light so just stay positive and shine your light.

We have been on this journey together for a while now, so before the time strikes midnight, please look back at the past year to see how far you have come. Look ahead to see where you want to go, and then tomorrow, the first day of the year, just enjoy the day. Be grateful. Be in the moment. Be proud of who you are and how much work you have done on yourself. Live your life being fully present because that is the only way to experience all the joy that life has to offer.

Wishing you a very Happy New Year.

In love and light,

Fran

 

 

The Holidays

This blog will be a little shorter than usual, but I did want to make sure to post this week. I understand that not everyone celebrates Christmas, and I also wanted to make sure to touch on this subject because the holidays come with so many mixed emotions. There are many people who dread the holidays because they are just a trigger, and it takes everything they have just to get through them. They walk around with a smile so you may not even notice who they are. They may open to a select few or no one at all. Be nice to everyone you meet the next few days because you never know what they carry inside.

When I look back over my life and the holidays, some are wonderful and some not so wonderful, some I had money some I didn’t, some I was happy and others filled with sadness, some I was out shopping and looking forward to Christmas Day, and then others I put on my holiday face all while just wanting to hide under a rock until they were over. The holidays can be a time where it feels like every other day in the week and doesn’t stop throwing curve balls at you just because the calendar says it should. Life happens and life goes on. There is one holiday season particularly, a few years ago, that was surrounded by confusion and sadness knowing a loved one would soon be gone but is also one of the holidays I hold dearest to my heart. Watching my cousin plan and participate in a holiday cookie party from her bed is always a reminder that the holidays are what you make of them.

This year I decided to put up a Christmas tree and decorate a little, which I haven’t done since 2019, the last Christmas before my youngest little birdy left the nest and I sold our home. At the time we didn’t realize it would be the last year we would be decorating the house and turns out it was the same year my son and his friends surprised me by decorating the whole outside with lights while I was at work. It was such a magical moment. I didn’t realize it had been that long and that was the last time, until I went to show someone a picture of how much I love to decorate for Christmas and had to scroll back so far through my photos. It was in that moment I realized it has taken me this long to find myself again since losing my cousin who I spent almost every holiday with and being on my own while navigating through life trying to figure out who I am other than someone’s mom.

A friend had suggested I put up a Christmas tree since I just moved into my new apartment, starting a new life, and she knows I love the lights. I am so happy I did it. I may not have visitors this year, but the beauty found in Christmas this year was for me. Those on this journey know everything happens for a reason, so no surprise that decorating my tree also became part of my healing. That night became a trip down memory lane since my ornaments are a history of my life with my kids, my cousin, and being in Florida for thirty years. I was not ready for my solo celebration to be a healing moment filled with such nostalgia and missing them, but it was. Always funny how that works out. I couldn’t be with my boys this year because I started a new job, and then ironically by myself while putting up a tree after six years, stuffing how much I missed them and not ready for them to be adults and no longer need me like they once did came flooding in, along with the realization that maybe that’s why I haven’t put up a tree since they all moved out.

After shedding a tear or two, I decided not to read too much into it and take it as a lesson to be grateful for the time we had together when they were young and acknowledge that this is my life now and my boys are grown and I’m getting old … and that’s ok. When I pack up my tree next week, I am going to separate all the ornaments for myself and each of my four sons. My plan is to set them aside as a gift for each of them for next year so they can get as much joy from them as I have all these years. My Christmas tree this year holds every decoration and emotion tied to my past, and next year will represent a new chapter of whatever I decide. My tree moving forward will represent a new beginning embracing a twinkle of my past along with who I am now.

Those in my small circle know that when I’m not at work I prefer to spend a lot of time solo, so I had a friend reach out to me today to make sure I wasn’t planning to spend the holiday alone. I told him I’m working Christmas Eve and Christmas Day counts as my day off so yes, I want to be alone lol, but I’m not, I’ll be traveling after work to spend two days with the fam. Sometimes solitude for healing is ok and then you must take notice of when it no longer is and make yourself do things until it becomes your new normal. It becomes your healing. It becomes your growth and becomes a part of the future you.

I would like to take this time now to wish you all a very Happy Holiday. This blog did end up being the same length as always and maybe a reflection of my healing. This is not an easy journey and not an easy time of the year. As you navigate through the next week and your own healing, remember that this time of year can be hard, but it can also be where you find your strength. Do what you must to stay in control of your emotions and your life. Practice self-care and self-love. Do not give more than you have and remember that the people we are with is what makes it special and makes it memorable.

In love and light,

Fran

 

A New Normal

Now that we are coming up to the end of our year journey together, I am trying to be more selective of the topics I choose to write about. The purpose of this blog is to share with you everything I have learned from my experience with healing, and I want to make sure I share all of it with you. The one topic that came to mind last night as I was fumbling around with my new life, is feeling comfortable in your new normal whatever that may look like for you. The most important thing to remember is that you must get comfortable feeling uncomfortable until the changes you made for yourself have been there for a while, until they become your new normal. The in-between is that place where you are no longer in the old way of doing things, but your new normal way of doing things is a very uncomfortable place. Time and staying dedicated to your new self and your new life is what helps with that. We are creatures of habit, and we get comfortable even if that place is unhealthy and uncomfortable, and it is what we know so we stay there. That’s why so many people will make plans for change and then choose to stay stuck. It is also why we will make changes and then go right back to the old way of doing things. Change is scary and coming out of our comfort zone feels very uncomfortable. We must have trust and faith in the changes we made for ourselves while we are in that part right before it becomes our new normal. The ones who take the leap of faith and never look back are the ones who can tell you that the other side of that uncomfortable feeling is a new life, a better life. It is a place where your new normal is better than anything you ever imagined for yourself. It is the place you find peace.

The holidays are a great time to notice when life looks different and the changes that happened in the previous months aren’t our new normal yet. The other side of that is people wanted to make changes, but didn’t, and now feeling angry, sad and sometimes just pretending they are happy. The holidays are here, and the commercials say we should be happy, so the masks go on. But we must give ourselves permission to be who we are and remember that life happens no matter what day of the year it is. Allow yourself the time to process all of it. Marriage, divorce, birth, death, children moving out, children being born, combining families, retirement, losing jobs, finding new ones, life happens and asks us to evolve with it. The one thing we can rely on is that life always changes and maybe the lesson is to not get too attached to any of it. Go with the flow of change and trust in the plan of God and The Universe and be open to all of it.

This topic came up this week because I am at that place right now where I am extremely uncomfortable. My kids aren’t with me for the holidays, there’s snow, I’m cold, finally made it to the gym so everything hurts, I’m in a new job, a new apartment and nothing right now for me feels normal. But then I remembered that this is exactly what I signed up for. I signed up for a change. I made the choice to move where it’s cold and where it snows. I made a choice to have the next chapter of my life look completely different than the last. It does and I did that. The lesson now is to trust every single decision I made. I must have faith and trust in what I can’t see up ahead. I must have the confidence to keep going. I must remember that I have learned so much and the decisions I make now are based on knowledge and healing, they are never based on fear. That is my new normal, trusting in myself and my intuition is my new normal, and what is going on externally in my world right now just hasn’t caught up yet; but it will. The place where life delivers me only the good that I ask for isn’t something I am used to, so it isn’t my new normal yet, but I am starting to trust that it is.

Most of us on this journey spend our lives waiting for the other shoe to drop and believe that good things don’t happen to us, so I am better off staying stuck than risking being hurt or disappointed. I am here to let you know that’s just negative self-talk, all an illusion, and the opposite is true. You are deserving of a new life and a happy one. Take that leap of faith and then stay in that uncomfortable place for a little while knowing that feeling shall pass, and once it does you will be living the life you always dreamed of.

In love and light,

Fran

 

 

Time

Time is a gift. Time is also one of our most important teachers. Time is one of those things in life where we have many different emotions attached to it. Time is what we use to analyze our life. Sometimes there is too much, sometimes not enough. Time has a mystical, magical quality which guides us in the way we relate to our day, our lives, and to each other. On one occasion, you can be at work anxious to leave, where ten minutes feels like a lifetime, and then on another occasion, you can connect with an old friend after forty years and feel an overwhelming sense of joy like not a day has passed. Twenty-four hours in a day can sometimes feel like it’s not enough, then when you are involved in an activity you don’t like or with someone you don’t want to be with, it feels like too much. Not enough time, too much time, it is all in our perspective and the emotions attached to it. The lesson that I have learned is that time is a gift, and we should use it wisely. Time should never be wasted or taken for granted no matter what the circumstance, because we never know what tomorrow will bring.

When I look back on my life, I can see with clarity the moments I wasted time and the moments when I was present and cherished it. I can remember the times that now feel like wasted time, because I did things (or didn’t do things) out of fear or just not having enough confidence to move forward. I can look back and see the times where I was stuck or confused and know for a fact that I would do things differently. We can never get back the time lost or wasted, but we can always move forward with the lesson that time taught us. We can never look back with regret because we were just doing our best with the knowledge we had at that time. We learn lessons and gain knowledge and then do better. We get wise with age. The mistakes I made in the past are part of who I am now, and all those mistakes and lessons molded me into who I am now. Now that I am older and have learned a lesson or two, I navigate through my day, my work, and my relationships very differently than I did when I was younger. I am no longer in survival mode, now I feel present. My day to day, yes if you know me, then you know that I fight the clock because I am trying to squeeze too much in a day and get lost in what I am doing; but when it comes to respecting the time we have here, that I am fully aware.

My biggest lesson attached to time is learning patience. I am learning to balance what I have learned with the reality of knowing that time is not going to rush things along for me just because I took half of my life to figure things out and now would like things to unfold quickly. The reality is the steps, and the lessons are still there, and you have to go through them. I must respect the Divine Timing of how my life unfolds and the way other people around me navigate through their day and their lessons. I must respect that time is different for everyone and their perception of time may be different than mine. Our timelines and lessons may be the same or they may be different, they may lag behind, or they may pass me by, they may be my students, or they may be my teachers, they may be in my life for a short time, or they may be in my life for a long time. Only time will tell.

We live in a world of instant gratification, phone in hand expecting instant replies, so patience is something that isn’t as part of the norm as it once was. I grew up waiting for the bus, waiting to find a pay phone, waiting to get home to listen to the answering machine, waiting to turn 18, 21, 25, 30, 40, 50. Now that I look back you would think I had patience down to a science, but I don’t. I am a part of this world now and want things quickly and love my next day shipping. The lesson for me, and should be for everyone, is to not put that same expectation on people and relationships. When it comes to certain things, I have all the patience in the world, but when it comes to other things, patience is something I am learning to navigate through. I always say when my time here is up and I am asked what the hardest lesson to learn was, my response will be patience and forgiveness. Patience with myself and with others, and forgiveness for myself and for others for what we didn’t know. Patience, forgiveness, healing, they all involve time, and the lessons learned in that time, and I am still learning to respect and navigate my way through all of them.

As we are approaching the New Year, I like to set goals. This is a great time to set goals for yourself on how to use your time wisely. Be present and be in the moment. Make that call, see that movie, take that class, go on that trip, see that concert, whatever your heart desires. Our time here doesn’t have to be measured in years; it can be measured in how much we loved what we did and how much we loved who we were doing it with.

In love and light,

Fran

 

Fill the Well

We are officially in the Holiday Season which is why I would like to take this week to talk about taking care of you. Before time gets away with a list of things to do, please take a moment to take a break and regroup. You must give to yourself first if you expect to be able to give to others without resentment and/or exhaustion. When we are tired, we tend to say yes to where we should have said no. We agree to things we shouldn’t or don’t stand up for ourselves because we are tired, and we think it is easier to just give in. We are learning that is not true, we are just being avoidant of our feelings. Every action has a reaction, and giving your power away to someone else is never a healthy choice for yourself because you will end up feeling resentful. When we are taking care of ourselves and standing in our power then we are present and making decisions for ourselves that come from a healthy place. What and who we give to is coming from a strong foundation we created for ourselves. The only way to do that is to Fill the Well and take some time and give to yourself so that you aren’t giving to others from a depleted place.

When you are first learning about self-love and self-care, filling the well can be as simple as going for a walk or taking a few minutes for yourself to just breathe. Once you are more comfortable with putting your needs first, filling your well will be a normal part of your life. The flowers I have posted in this week’s photo are from a store near my sister’s house and I love them because they always have all the colors of the color wheel. Every time I see them, they are a reminder for me to live my life in color, no longer in the darkness of black and white. When I go and visit her, I do the same routine every time and it is a conscious part of filling my well. I wake up earlier than my sister, so I walk to the corner store and say good morning to the nice lady that works there, order coffee and a bacon, egg and cheese on a roll, I grab water and bananas for us, I take a photo of the flowers at the front counter, and I walk down to the bridge and have my coffee. I take in the view, send a friend a Good Morning from SI photo, and I make sure to be present and mindful in that moment. The whole process takes about 20-30 minutes but fills my soul in a way that nothing else can. I start the day feeling grateful instead of frazzled because I woke up and ran out the door to head home without taking the time to slow down and take advantage of the moment being presented. We are never promised tomorrow, and for that reason my sister and her dog and the beautiful view right down the street from her apartment, are a part of my world now that I will never take for granted.

When I first started this journey, filling my well was as simple as taking a moment on my back porch to journal. I didn’t yet understand the importance of self-love and self-care and was at a point where I was completely depleted. I was being taught the importance of giving to yourself first if you want to be able to give to others. I wasn’t doing that and was left in a place of complete emotional and physical exhaustion. I am here to share with you that there is another way to give, a healthier way to give, and that way involves putting yourself first. It is not selfish, it is necessary. I take time for myself now and have more left over to give than I ever have in my life. The biggest difference is that now I can feel when I am giving too much or working too much and not taking the necessary time for myself, so I immediately stop and regroup. I look around and take inventory if I am getting enough sleep, taking the time to eat, drink water, rest, listen to music, journal, do things that make me smile and make me feel good. I am a bit of a loner, so I have to make sure to set time aside for the people I love. Be grateful. Be thankful. These are all the things that fill my well and keep it full so I can keep going. Most of us on this journey are givers by nature, but the lesson we are learning is to also give to ourselves. Once we do that, we can give so much more than we ever imagined.

My life looks very different than it did a decade ago, and today part of filling my well includes making a yearly dinner trip to the city with my sister and my nieces. I am looking forward to it because I know that my heart will be full. This holiday season, I encourage you to do the same and give to yourself too. We are the creators of our life, so make sure to plan things for yourself that you know will make you happy. Buy yourself a small gift, go somewhere that makes you smile, call a friend, anything you can think of that will fill your well. Those of you who are just starting out on this journey, if that feels too overwhelming, then just make a list for what you want next year to look like and get mentally ready for change. Make yourself a promise to not agree to anything you don’t want to, honor yourself and your feelings. Give to yourself so you have enough left over to give. Allow yourself to be who you are. That is always the best gift you can give to yourself, and that alone you will notice that your well will slowly start to fill again.



In love and light,

Fran