Hope and Inspiration

In this high place
When your vision has gone
no part of the world can find you.

Time to go into the dark
where the night has eyes
to recognize its own.

There you can be sure
you are not beyond love.

The dark will be your womb
tonight.

The night will give you a horizon
further than you can see.

You must learn one thing:
the world was made to be free in.

Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet
confinement of your aloneness
to learn

anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.

~ David White, Sweet Darkness

Are you in need of a daily infusion of hope and inspiration?

As many of you know -- or might guess -- I'm a big collector and believer in the power of inspirational quotes.

I use them to keep my mind focused on what I know to be true. I print them out and place them around my home ~ their energy beautifully infuses my space. I use them as a muse in my journals ~ expanding on their wisdom and envisioning how I might grow by incorporating their truths into my own life.

I invite you to find inspiration and hope through 21 of my favorite inspirational quotes -- one sent each day from Monday, August 1 through Sunday, August 21. The perfect gift for you or for a woman you love.

Just e-mail me at info@awomansway.com and you’ll be added to my Hope and Inspiration daily e-mailings ~ AND THEY'RE FREE! My small gift to you.

Warmest inspirational wishes,
Karen

In the flow . . . to dream again . . .

I’m reading a wonderful book, Drive, by Daniel Pink. It’s a book about what motivates us and I’ve been really energized by his revelations. He talks about the importance of flow in life . . . those optimal moments when we’re in a heightened sense of focus and joy. “In flow, people lived so deeply in the moment, and felt so utterly in control, that their sense of time, place, and even self melted away.” And he describes scientific evidence that as little as 48 hours without flow in our lives can lead to states of deep anxiety, loss of sleep, depression, headaches, and irritability. And, even more surprising, these findings show that we’re most likely to reach states of flow at work.

“Small children automatically careen from one flow moment to another, animated by a sense of joy, equipped with a mindset of possibility. Left to their own devices, children seek out flow with the inevitability of a natural law. So should we all.”

Do you have enough flow in your life? I encourage you to take a week and record activities each day that you undertook not out of obligation or to achieve a particular objective, but just because you enjoyed them. It might be an enlightening exercise and possibly life changing.

I am a woman finding my self . . .

Somewhere between childhood and middle age (not that any of us are that old!), we lose our self.

We spend so many years being everything to everyone else that we wake up one day and wonder . . . if I'm not someone's wife, someone's daughter, someone's mother, or a teacher/doctor/accountant . . . than who am I?

I reached that point at 40 years old. I peeked my head out of the hole I'd been living in (and it was a lovely hole!) and realized that I had no idea who I was or what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

At that time, the only women I knew who were stepping outside of the accepted roles were writers. So I avidly read every book I could find by a woman who had set out on a journey of self-discovery . . . and found her self along the way.

It is that lost woman that I was at 40 that forms the center of A Woman's Way's vision and mission. If you're at that point in your life and would dearly love to join other women yearning for the same sense of self, then join us at one of the upcoming workshops or sign-up for my one-on-one mentoring program.

It's never too late to discover that you're already the amazing, extraordinary woman you're aspiring to become.

"I didn't know how amazing I was until
I came to your workshop and discovered
that I had a chance still to make something of myself.
I just had to get out of my own way."
~ Jeri, NM

Click here to see a list of upcoming programs and click here to see information on my mentoring program.

Happiest of summer wanderings . . .
Karen