I absolutely love this quote from Paulo Coelho because it speaks to the impact of the chaos and confusion in life. When 'life gets in the way,' we can become disconnected from what we have been working toward in our lives; from being present or still for even a few moments to hear our inner voice speak to us. And in the chaos and confusion we somehow wander off our path.

Similarly, we may meet people on our journey who are insecure in their own lives, or who are judgmental about  how life 'should' be lived. When these people are individuals we love, respect or even just simply admire, or when they are people we believe to be our friends; who we believe have our best interest at heart, we may allow their voices to become louder than the voice within us; the one connected to our internal compass. We may begin to believe that their voices are the ones to follow, telling us what we 'should' be doing, the career we 'should' pursue, or worse - telling us that we will never be loved or wanted or successful; we are simply not worthy.

It is in situations similar to these that doubt and fear creep into our lives. The force of these two negative emotions can be devastatingly powerful. Think about the effect of doubt and fear building up over time...what that can do to us physically, mentally and emotionally. And that is when the truth of Paulo Coelho's quote comes into play. 

It is the realization that over time we have allowed others' voices and negative forces to shape our lives. Who we have become is only a distant echo of the person we were divinely, humanly, conceived to be. And that is when we realize our human journey is about discovering who we truly are, the person we were always meant to be. And we realize how difficult it can be to release the shackles of the thoughts and directives of others that we absorbed into our being, from society, loved ones, friends, co-workers, some well-intentioned and some imprisoned in their own insecurity and fears.

My wise friend Marilyn DuMont told me, "It's in the moment of inception (of a thought, a knowing, of love...) that there is truth. And then we let life get in the way and we mess it up." The work of our lifetime is to listen to our inner self - to our soul - and to trust it in those moments of inception to direct us on our true, divinely inspired path; the one to the treasure that is ours alone.

For as Paulo Coelho also said, "Remember that wherever your heart is, there you will find your treasure."

I read a blog post that was written just in time for International Women’s Day by a woman who said in her effort to be Superwoman she had gained 50 pounds and was crying herself to sleep almost every night. She said she had decided to quit, to hang up her cape. And she made it sound like a very noble thing to do, encouraging other women to do the same.

Her blog post made me incredibly sad. Women have always been a force for positive, transformative change and for good in the world. The thought of us hanging up our capes and quitting seems unimaginable.

What I realized in reading this woman’s heartfelt post – and I truly did feel for her – is that many women have an old belief system that drives their understanding of what it means to be Superwoman, a woman who elevates her life in all of its facets and who plays each role she chooses with great purpose, courage, and poise. There seems to be an old belief that it involves doing everything for everyone else while making ourselves the last priority. This belief system is fueled by the notion that being Superwoman is achieved through utter self-sacrifice, instead of self-love and nurturing.

The reality is, women do not gain 50 pounds and cry themselves to sleep at night when they are connected to their True Selves, living in alignment with their True Purpose, immersed in their heart energy which empowers them to act from a place of love instead of from fear, resentment, or guilt, and nurturing themselves intentionally with love and positive consciousness. This is what being Superwoman is truly all about.

It is about being all of the woman you were created to be. It was never about trying to be someone you're not, or about losing yourself on your way to being a hero to everyone else.

It requires putting your own oxygen mask on first (full of love and actions and thoughts that are in your higher good and support you) so you can go out and love others more, from a deeper and truer place, fully living your soul’s truest wishes.

When we as women understand this, it becomes clear why being Superwoman is more important than ever, and why it’s so crucial that we support each other being all of who we were created to be! Because so many of us have become disconnected from our True Selves by listening to the messages of society, the media, celebrities, insecure friends, social media or to old belief systems that lay deep within us that tell us we are supposed to sacrifice ourselves in order to prove our value and worth. Many of us have lost faith in our ability to bring our truest wishes to life and we’ve forgotten the path that our soul purposefully placed us on long ago, because we’ve made choices that put others first instead of feeding ourselves the oxygen of life.

So many of us are trapped in the old belief system that putting others first makes us better women. How is that possible? If we were created by God (or whichever higher power you believe in) to be all of who we were divinely created to be, how can sacrificing this be what God wants for us? We all know the truth…that truly and unabashedly loving and caring for ourselves first makes us infinitely more capable of loving and caring for others more! By connecting to our souls and awakening all of who we are, we become infinitely more powerful than we ever dreamed possible. We’ve just lost sight of these truths.

It’s time in history for women to give ourselves permission to be all of who we were created to be! It’s time for us to stop waiting for someone else to give us permission or to grant us power. And it’s time for us to support other women who are ready to be all of who they were created to be, instead of allowing jealousies and insecurities to lead us to put other women down. Instead of feeding drama, gossip or negativity. Everything we need lies within us. It’s source is our divine soul.

We have the gift of being able to raise our feminine energy that empowers us to create fully, to let go, to nurture, to follow, to trust and to believe with our hearts. It’s the part of us that allows us to feel and unleash our intuition. It’s the part of us that millions of women suppress in an effort to succeed in a man’s world by living solely off our masculine energy, without realizing that by doing so we are living as half of our True Selves; that by doing so we are not fully whole. Without realizing that once we raise our feminine energy to equal our masculine energy and are completely whole we can accomplish every goal, every dream, every wish. We have the opportunity to raise our heart energy, our courage (because courage comes from the word heart in Latin!), to live more in our hearts and less in our fears.

After all, isn’t that what Superwoman would do? Act from her heart and not from fear?
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Our truest wishes lay ahead of us…let’s go bring them to life by honoring our True Selves in every moment!

Steve Jobs offered this advice to graduates, imploring them to discover their True Path in life.  It’s a quest I’ve been on myself, lately, and I’ve discovered twelve critical lessons that I’m hoping will prove valuable to you…

1. Look within yourself
This was the biggest surprise of all and the most valuable lesson.  All the answers to the questions of who you are meant to be in this world – and what you are meant to bring to this world – lie within you.  You simply have to know where to look and be open to listening to your own guidance from within.

I have learned the critical importance of spending quiet time each morning being still, quieting my mind, and being open to what my heart wants to tell me.  It’s how I connect to my True Self, and it enables me to lead from within as I move through each day.

Connecting with your inner self, your True Self, is the first and most important step to finding your True Path in life.

When we leave childhood behind we often leave behind our own sense of self.  We become sensitive to what other people think and to what they want us to be.  We may lose our own sense of self-expression, playfulness, and our ability to “let go” and feel a real sense of freedom.  In doing so we slip off our True Path without even knowing it.

Reconnecting with who we are within – who we are in our central core, in our soul – is the only way back to our True Path.

2. Ask courageously for what you need and want in your life
I know how difficult this can be.  You see, I had to ask for a kidney.  When I opened up my heart to believing in my own worthiness to make such a bold request of the universe, and to the possibility of actually receiving a kidney, a woman whom I had never met called me on the phone.  She told me she knew in her heart that if she was a match, she was meant to give me hers.

The courage to ask for what you need, and the sense of worthiness to ask for what you most desire, are critical ingredients to finding your True Path.

3. Accept that there is an inner light within you with power beyond your understanding
We all have a life force within us. You alone have the power to take this brilliant life force to the world.  As a leader, this is a true gift. It should be used wisely and to its greatest potential for the good of the world, and for the benefit of those you lead.

This was truly one of the most important and inherently powerful realizations on my journey.

4. Connect with and accept the beauty of your physical body
We humans spend a lot of time telling ourselves what’s wrong with our physical bodies, sometimes to the point of feeling disdain.  When we do this, we completely disconnect from our true selves and deny the most essential life gift we’ve received.  Discovering your True Path involves accepting and loving everything about your True Self, including the body through which you travel your path.

5. Let go of everything that is holding you back
Letting go can be so difficult, even as it seems so obvious. We hold onto our walls and our fears, sometimes because they’ve simply become comfortable.  We’re not quite sure how we’ll function without them.

You hear this often in regard to people who need to lose weight; they lose the weight only to find themselves uncomfortable psychologically because they have grown accustomed to their mindset of being overweight.  They haven’t closed the door on their old mindset in order to open a new door to the new path they are traveling.

You have to let go of what holds you back to create the freedom to move forward toward your True Path.

6. Stop lamenting and choose to move forward
Again, this may seem so obvious yet it’s easy to spend years and even decades lamenting the past rather than choosing to move forward.  There is a time and place to lament, but to find and travel your True Path you must consciously choose to begin moving forward.

Have you chosen to do so?

7. Observe, don’t absorb
I wrote an entire post on the power of these three words to change your whole outlook, but the gist is this: We are faced with so much uncertainty, fear and stress in our world today.  Our success, and to a great degree our well-being, depend on being observers rather than absorbers. If we absorb the uncertainty, fear and stress – particularly the fear and stress of other people – we lose our own sense of self, and we get easily knocked off of our True Path.

Although this is one of the most difficult steps in the True Path journey, it is one of the most critical.  Why?  Because we will always be around people and situations that have negative energy.  Always.  It is just a reality of our lives and of the world.

Those who live their True Path learn how not to take the uncertainty, fear and stress of others along with them…

8. Let go of what’s not on your path
Just as you don’t want to take the negative energy of others and of the world with you on your True Path, you have to come to terms with what you personally have to leave behind as well.

This was horribly difficult for me.  I had to finally accept that because of my kidney transplant and other factors in my life, I had to let go of the idea that some things I wanted were still ahead of me.  They aren’t. They are simply not on my True Path.  A part of me already knew this, but I hadn’t accepted it or worked through it until my recent journey.

Taking the time to mourn what’s not on your True Path with you is critical to moving confidently forward down the path.

9. Remember Abundance Comes From Within
Abundance lives within you and has expansive energy. Remember as you come face-to-face with “lack” on your journey that it comes from “without” and is not nearly as powerful.

It is the fear of lack that fuels the lack, gives it energy and power, and creates a psychologically debilitating cycle.  When you are in fear it is very difficult to feel balanced, and virtually impossible to travel your True Path.

10. Open yourself up to receiving abundance
It may surprise you, but many of us block abundance from coming into our lives by surrounding ourselves with a fear of “lack.” That fear serves as a wall that actually keeps the abundance at bay.  Read that sentence again because it can literally change your life if you genuinely acknowledge it.

You have to let go of the fear, and you have to let go of the ways you hold onto that fear, in order to fully open yourself up to abundance!

11. Commit to staying in the present moment
You probably never thought of it this way but it is in the present moment that you hold and can wield all of your power.  You have absolutely no power over the past and the only power you have over the future is to affect it in the present.

The present is where your power exists, where doors open, and where your True Path unfurls.
Only in the present moment can you “be the change you want to see in the world,” as Gandhi instructed. If you are not living immersed in the present moment, then you are not living from your own strength and power.

When you are thoughtfully and energetically present with those around you, and when you give the gift of your presence and your energy that come from your inner self, you become more highly attuned to the moments when you stray from – or move closer to – your True Path.

12. Honor yourself
Ultimately, everything about the journey to discover your True Path comes back to honoring yourself. Honor who you are in every moment, every single time.

Be mindful of the words you use.  When you put words out into the universe you give them power to be true. Honor yourself by speaking and thinking in ways that are true to who you are and to the brilliant light and power within you.
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Honor yourself by doing the work to free yourself of what’s holding you back, by starting anew connected to your True Self, and by living on your True Path!

Wishing you all the best of life as you travel your own True Path…

Photo: ​https://www.flickr.com/photos/rockmixer/2917386736/

Are you living in a marriage where you have had to change who you are, or have lost sight of yourself completely, just to avoid conflict and minimize fear? Are you working in a particular job or industry because your parents or spouse told you it was the responsible choice?

Are you a woman who would rather be at home with your kids but other women say your leadership role is an inspiration to many and you would be letting them down if you chose to stay at home? Or a man who would prefer to stay at home and you believe society – and your friends – would judge you negatively?

Are you leading your team down a path you don’t believe in because the executive suite said it was the only path allowed? Are you in a role that you’re not really passionate about, and you feel like there is so much more out there for you?

Then whose life are you living?

​We all have responsibilities to our families that of course must be respected and fulfilled, and it is important to be sensitive to the needs of others. But at what point do we realize how easy it is to use these responsibilities as an excuse for why we are not choosing – on purpose and with our whole hearts – to live true to who we are and what we really want for ourselves? To choose to be all of who we were created to be, knowing that we are meant to evolve and grow over the course of our lives?
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In my current roles I come across so many people who are simply not fulfilled, feeling as though they are missing out on something important but not really sure what that might be. Others know that they are not living a life aligned with their true self, but are unsure of how to make the (sometimes) difficult transition to the life they are meant to be living.

​What I advise each person is usually so personal, but begins with:

• Light a candle (if you have one), find a quiet place where you are at peace and connect with your soul. Think about it as a beautiful light inside you that is bursting forth from within, and that has all the answers you are seeking.
• Ask yourself the questions that come immediately to your mind and listen to what bubbles up from within you. You will be astounded to know how easily the answers come when you call them forward. Often these are answers that you intuitively knew all along.
• Write down what you asked and what you received. Then write down what stands in the way for you, be it fears, old belief systems, or aspects of your life you need to address.
• Think of three ways you can immediately begin working toward moving those blocks so that you are more aligned in your life with what you want – with your truest wishes. Write down these three steps and commit to them wholeheartedly.
• Rinse and repeat

And watch as changes in your life begin to unfold in a beautiful and profound way. Changes that, at the end of each day, empower you to say, “Today I lived every second true to who I am.”

​Photo by Jackson David on Unsplash