Time alone

I was laying in the bathtub this morning just reflecting back on what a nice holiday weekend this has been so far, every minute of it.

For starters I spent Thanksgiving day alone at home with Bella doing just what we wanted to do and nothing more.  I slept in, which I rarely let myself do anymore, and it felt fabulous  - to me it did, to Bella I think it was an exercise in extreme patience as she lay starting at me waiting for my eyes to open and my hands to come out from under the covers.  ;-)   We went for a nice long walk, it was in the 60's and sunny ... Colorado in all of it's gorgeousness.  Eventually I started preparations for my dinner, which was delicious and just what I wanted.  I baked two cornish hens with a super-simple gluten free sausage stuffing inside and a small acorn squash, accompanied by mashed sweet potatoes and a small green salad.  I set the table with a linen napkin, candles and drank some flavored sparkling water out of a champagne flute (a Christmas gift I received a few weeks before deciding to get sober - alas) and watched Indiana Jones while I ate.  It was, in a word, lovely.

The rest of the weekend has gone much like that day - mellow, serene and completely to my liking. My meaning there is much more about what's happening in me and less about what's happening in the world around me.   In this moment, no matter what is going on around me, I am ok with it.  Will I always be able to claim that  - who knows?  But for someone who has been dreading and numbing away the holidays for at least the past 15 years, I am completely good with this current state of affairs.

Tonight I am going to be taking another big step away from living in the past by replacing many of the framed photo's around my home - all of which are currently of my family, my childhood street, myself as a child and other connections to the past to the exclusion of any current photos - with pictures that bring me more into the present.  I've written on here before about my recent realization that letting go of the past means more than just releasing the pain.  It means really living in the present, seeing the present for what it is, and even seeing the past for what it truly is, not through those proverbial colored glasses.  Once that  began to fully sink in, I looked around and realized this state of framed photos in my house - it is really hard to let of a point in time when all you surround yourself with are photographic memories of that time.  I am not suggesting that having happy memories of our past is a bad thing at all.  I had a very happy childhood, for which I am so thankful and I will always cherish those memories.  But I can see that there's something deeper going on here, and I can change that, I can make the present feel like a cherished time as well.  So I've printed up photo's of me with the dogs, some beautiful shots of Italy, Costa Rica and Mexico, and a picture of my friends and I on my 50th birthday.   These are happy recent moments that make me smile when I look at them, and they have little connection in my mind to the crazy, out-of-control way I felt when I was drinking.  I have spent enough time, more than enough time, looking back and I am ready to begin looking forward now - with enthusiasm, excited anticipation and joy.

Hoping you all had a very happy Thanksgiving, with a lot to feel thankful about and grateful for.  With blessings and all my best to you,

Allita

Life lessons from dogs

Bella, my terrier, is six years old now.  She's the one on the left with the wacky ear, that was her brother Milo who passed away earlier this year.  We used to nickname her Scrappy because of that crazy ear thing, and her personality is totally that of a little scrapper.  In fact,  I have in mind to write a book about her character.  But I digress ... and by the way her ear doesn't do that much anymore.

The beauty of dogs is that they get total and complete joy out of a very small list of things, and the joy is as intense for them on the 6000th time as it was on the 1st.  Take walks for instance - every single time I get the leash out and prepare to get her hooked up for a walk, her exuberance is off.the.charts.  She never, ever ever ever (you get the point) gets tired of it, and she never will.  Something so simply joyful as a walk outside, smelling and peeing and pulling on the leash like she's a sled dog in the frozen tundra hauling me across the ice, can provide this little crazy canine with enough joy to turn her into a verbalizing maniac.  She NEVER makes as many or as much noise as when I'm trying to get her leashed up and ready to go.   It's completely hysterical and I wish I could video her.

Dogs have very simple needs - food, water, exercise and love.  That's it.  They don't care about things, money, competing, racism, winning, their weight (or yours for that matter), they have no ulterior motives or hidden agendas, they adore you when you think you're at your worst (including loving the smell of your worst morning dragon breath) and they live for one thing - to see and be with you.

As humans we think we are superior because we have opposable thumbs and deductive reasoning, we walk upright and can drive a car.  None of which, in my opinion, make us superior - that simply makes us human.  With all of our "superiority" we are killing each other off, destroying our planet, wracking up more debt than we'll ever pay off in our lifetime and spreading un-curable diseases like wildfire, with new ones popping up regularly.  So who exactly is the superior one between humans and dogs?

Bella's constant joy at seeing me, being fed, getting treats and going for a walk teaches me so much about letting go of stuff that doesn't matter.  Her unbridled excitement at the beginning of each new day, with absolutely no left over resentments or baggage from the day before, is endlessly fascinating to me.   Humans hold onto everything, we torture ourselves over and over, continually reliving every painful moment - animals don't do that to themselves.  The minute after you've hurt them, stepped on their tail, or scolded them for chewing your panties (at least she doesn't chew up my bras or shoes anymore), they've forgiven you and themselves.  That doesn't mean their spirits can't be broken, I have also seen that happen and it literally weighs on my soul.  But the readiness of a dog to forgive with a head rub, a dog treat and a sincerely uttered "good dog", is a powerful reminder (to me anyway) of the gifts of not being so complicated.  They let go of the past, they are happy, full of joy and they sleep ... well, like themselves.  And going outside to, gasp,  run & play(aka exercise, something we humans seem to dread doing) brings out a puppy-like enthusiasm no matter how old they get.

Yep, I think dogs have it pretty much figured out, I am a huge fan.  :-)

My debt

So many things are going well with my life, and it feels good (and important) to recognize that from time to time.  It's easy to get caught up in wanting everything to be "perfect".  When I step back and look at how far I have come, all that is going well and how truly great I feel, I realize the word perfect pretty much sums it up.

My coaching business, Ellaquent Coaching, feels a little stuck at the moment, and it's stuck with me needing to get some website content written.  I need a website that gives people a place to get more info about me and what I do.  Tomorrow I have nowhere to go and will be focusing on this all day if need be.  I've gotten some really great ideas and info, along with other great website examples to follow, so I think it will be fun to see what comes out of me.  AND, laying on the massage table yesterday I had an epiphany about another target market I want to go after - more on that after I have fleshed it out some more.

There is always so much to do, so much I want to do - for instance, keeping up with this blog, I want to write more, updating my website, joining a leads group, getting new business cards and other marketing materials printed up, I want to do YouTube videos and post them on FB and my website.  There's so many things I want to do, that I feel I'm supposed to do, need to do.  It's like, in my mind, getting my life back comes with a price, a debt that I owe - paying it forward, giving back, passing on what I've learned and gained.  I think I just have to stay mindful that I can not do it all today, or even tomorrow.  :-)

Blessings to you all. xo

Business and personal updates

So yes, once again it's been a while since I've been here.  I think part of that is that my website is being built, and so my blog will be moving over there in a few weeks, or sooner.  Not to worry, I'll be posting much more about that as it draws nearer.

A lot of positive and exciting stuff has been happening on the business front.  I have an awesome client that I'm working with pro bono, and have had a few conversations with other potential clients.  I've filed my application for a federal tax id, met with a bookkeeper to get things started on that.  Soon I'll be opening a business account and getting set up to accept credit cards.  A new website is in the works, I'm working today on web content which will also be the basis for marketing materials.  Since doing my Feminine Rising webinars, I know how to create short videos using Google+ and promote them through my YouTube channel on social media.  I've done NONE of this before, and sometimes I think "this is crazy, I have no idea what I am doing", but no one knows what they don't know, until they know it.  So, as I tell my clients, I am just walking through this one step at a time. And it's all very, very exciting, empowering and a little scary at the same time.

On a personal level, there's nothing negative going on at all.  If that sounds like a "but" is coming, you're a very perceptive reader.  The "holidays" are upon us and it's just not my favorite time of year.  I feel very lonely, and kind of sad, and I miss my parents something awful, especially my mother.  I don't tell many people how I feel for a multitude of reasons.  Mainly because I do not want to dampen anyone else's holiday spirit.  But also because people, meaning well, think if they invite me to their family gatherings that will make everything better for me.  And it just doesn't.  It's MY family that I miss, and that is simply gone.  I had hoped when I got married that the feeling of "family" would return, but it never did.  Maybe one day I'll fall in love with a man and together we can create our own meaning of the holidays, and it most likely won't be about shopping and gorging on sugar, as lovely as those things can be in small amounts.  :-)   So again, nothing negative in my personal life, just a sense of wishing it were January already.   And that feels odd to me as I also try to live in the present moment, knowing this moment is really all I have.  I suspect I am not alone in this, and maybe someone reading this will realize that neither are they.

So I'm procrastinating on writing that web content, I better at least try to get into that head space.  It really requires - Squirrel!!!  LOL  Seriously, here I go now.  Bye for today.