Your childhood dreams ☺

Hello gorgeous,

I just had a short week holiday and I took the opportunity to read 2 fiction books, which I never do otherwise because I get so engrossed in them that I can’t stop!

The first one motivated me to write this email, here’s the pic!

First of all, I recommend this book! Secondly, it made me think of my childhood dreams, did I have some and what did I do with them. That’s what I want to share today and ask you to do the same!

When I was a kid, I wanted:

• To be a fairy with a magic wand (so I kept dressing like one and using my wand but no magic came out…)
• To never be a school teacher, as I saw my mum coming home every day with a pile of corrections to do!
• To marry an Englishman so that I could have bilingual kids (I was about 6 at the time, go figure where that came from!)
• To be a vet (I guess, like 80% of the other kids ;-))
• To learn to read tarot (when I was 12, I was fascinated by the fact my step-mum could read the future in the cards)

So what did I do?

• No magic wand for me I am afraid, although I can say I have some magical powers, like knowing where things are when my husband is asking for his keys for instance!
• I did become a teacher – even though not for small kids!, and it has taken me some time to embrace that part of me 😉
• I married a Dutchman and got 2 perfectly bilingual kids Hooray!!!
• I did not become a vet (as I changed my mind many times, and then changed jobs many times too!)
• I can’t really read Tarot yet but know some basic meaning and am letting my intuition speak more and more, so that could still come!

So…. Do you remember your childhood dreams? If yes, did some of them come true? Could you still make others come true? I would just like you to take some time to reflect of those, and if you can’t remember any, to then focus on your current dreams, what are they now? And how can you make them come true?

Remember, “A goal is a dream with a deadline”, said Napoleon Hill!

I wish you a wonderful week!

Who makes your decisions?

Hello gorgeous,

After last week’s mail, I thought I had still more to say on decisions… Hence this one. We often think we are the ones to decide how we live our life, but we also often forget that our motives are not always as pure as we think they are.

Have you ever found yourself in one of the following situations:

• Not shining your bright light in order not to sound too arrogant?
• Planning your agenda in order to accommodate the whole family (instead of yourself)
• Not moving house/country because it would disturb the kids in their organized life
• Staying in an unhappy relationship/marriage because “it’s not done” to divorce?
• Not doing something you would like to, because you are afraid of what people might say?

I could obviously use a few more examples but you get the point… And yes we always have a good reason for doing so, we have been educated a certain way, with values our parents gave us, but the truth is they might not really serve us anymore, as we are grown up enough to decide for ourselves, without having to comply to a way of life which is not really ours…

How about asking yourself those questions when you are busy making a decision:

• Could you hear one of your parents whispering the answer in your ear?
• Are you trying to please anybody else than you?
• If there were no one else involved in the consequences of this decision, would you still go the same way?
• Are you being the best version of yourself right now? Or are you keeping yourself small?

Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying you should not take anybody else into account when making one, I am simply trying to get you aware of your motives so that you can look at them and decide if they are worth it (or not!).

Whereas a spouse is definitely worth taking into account 😉 (unless they have a narcissistic personality) I don’t believe it is the same with conditioning, education, but sometimes that is so engrained within ourselves that we don’t realize it…

I wish you a wonderful week!

Making the right decision

Hello gorgeous,

I had already decided of the topic on the week when that note came to my inbox:

Here’s how to view every decision you’ve ever made, Madeleine: It was right.

Here’s how to view every path you’ve ever chosen: It was right.

Here’s how to view every trend, friend, and dance you’ve ever moved with: They were right.

And here’s how to view the fact that you even exist at all: “I” was totally on fire.

Ts-s-s-s-s!

    The Universe

Some of you will recognize the famous notes from the universe written by Mike Dooley, for the others (sorry just in English) you can register there to get those daily notes.

I would like to address the topic of making decisions, I know for some of you it is a really difficult thing to do. I know most people believe there should be a right one and a wrong one and they are afraid they are going to pick the wrong one. My personal view is that there is no bad decision; simply decisions you make and you then live with. And you are also allowed to change your mind, how great is that?! If you look closer, there are not so many decisions that are so definite that there’s no turning back. Even when you resign from a company, you could still come back at a later stage and in a different job. When you split up, you could then realize it was a wrong move and work it out so that the relation continues on a different basis.

I got married (for the first time) at 26. During that day, before going to church, I scared my mum saying: what if I am making a mistake? Although I don’t remember I did that, I perfectly well remember that honeymoon, the fight we had, and realizing getting married was the biggest mistake I ever made. And yet, I don’t see it like that anymore. I think that if I hadn’t gone that far in our relationship, it may as well have lasted longer (that would not have been a good idea either ;-). Getting married made me become conscious that I was in the wrong place (and in case you wanna know, it took me 3 years to try and save our relationship, not succeed, find myself on the way, and get a divorce). So at the end of the day, that was probably the best that happened to me at that time!

I have more examples like that in my sleeve (maybe for another post!), and for the outsider I might be someone making really bad decisions sometimes, but I don’t see it like that at all! Remember, we do our best with what we have and from where we are….

Still need help to make a decision? Here’s a tip: follow you heart! Yes you heard me, there is no need to gather all the different pieces of information you need before making that decision. The only need is to be able to listen to your heart! You listen to the bonus MP3 I sent you during my 7day e-course, to really connect to yourself.

Another alternative is to think of option A and feel in your body, does it expand or does it shrink? And then repeat with option B, and C if you have a 3^rd one! Which is the option that felt the best in your body?

And yet another one is to talk to somebody about it (preferably someone who can listen without giving you an advice directly after, as that’s not the point ;-). Often, talking about it and trying to explain to another person will make it clear for yourself which one it is.

I wish you a wonderful week!

Self-Care

Hello gorgeous,

You might be wondering why I picked this as a topic. Some time ago, I would not even have considered an email that would have that as a title, thinking: I am taking care of myself, I don’t need anybody to tell me how to take care of myself….

Well, I am not going to tell you how to do that (well, maybe a bit then) but especially I want to tell you how important it is to take care of yourself.

You see, we are wired to take care of people. Specially us, women… Sorry guys, but you might still recognize yourselves 😉 We take care of our kids, our spouse, our parents, and sometimes all of them at the same time! And some of us are also wired to please people, like taking care is not enough, we have to go even further…

But the thing is, by doing that, we forget ourselves, and we forget that we can only take good care of others when we first take good care of ourselves. How good are we with our kids when we are exhausted? I know that I tend to cry, to get upset easily and to shout a lot more easily when I am tired, for instance… That’s even when I recognize I have been too far and I need to take a step back! And relax, do less, sleep more etc. (plus, with the heat wave here, it’s a good reason to slow down!)

But I also realized I have a blockage to doing less (and even more so to doing nothing!). That is, I am afraid that if I stop doing things (and take real holidays for instance, where I disconnect from FB, emails etc), I will completely loose all motivation and it will be difficult to start again after the holidays. Talk about limiting beliefs 😉 …

So, knowing all that… I negotiate with myself (and with my hubby who wants me to stop too), and I am very conscious of the things I say Yes to and the things I say No too. So for instance when I get the chance I have a nap in the afternoon – even 15 min – even if I don’t sleep, just for the sake of doing nothing for a while. I book quality time with a friend for a tea together. I can also decide to not take another appointment when I feel I have enough on my plate.

The key here for me is to accept that you come first, and to check in with yourself every time, so that each Yes and each No are exactly the right thing to do at that time. And to be proud of yourself (and even to celebrate) for taking good care of yourself. Do you think you can do that?

I wish you a wonderful week!

“It’s not selfish to love yourself, take care of yourself, and to make your happiness a priority. It’s necessary.” – Mandy Hale

Setting boundaries

Hello gorgeous,

Setting boundaries seems to be a trendy topic these days 😉 I keep stumbling across articles and getting into conversations with people who are struggling with setting them. So I thought I should give you my 2 cents on this topic 😉

You might have difficulties saying No. Maybe not to everybody, but maybe more to your parents, spouse, or your close friends. You tend to agree to their requests and suddenly realize you are doing a lot for others, but not really taking care of yourself anymore. Where did it go wrong?

Maybe you are someone who wants to please others (potentially as a means to be loved/appreciated more, but I won’t go into more details for now…), that’s how you have been raised, and you kept that without realizing that it does not serve you anymore. People do not seem to appreciate what you do for them as you would like them to, and they may not reciprocate (as would seem normal to you). Maybe, as you seem to say Yes every time, they even ask you more and more and you feel trapped but still unable to say No…

If you recognize yourself in those situations, here are a few tips:

– Start small to build your self-confidence and build it up: by that I mean say No to something relatively small, mean it, and really be conscious when you do it that saying No to that other person meant saying Yes to yourself. Practice, practice, practice…

– You can also buy yourself some time before agreeing (or disagreeing) by saying you need to think about it first. Say someone asks you to mind their dog for a week, say that you first need to check if it’s feasible. And during that time, what you need is to check with yourself how you feel about this favor they are asking you to do for them, does it feel good or does it feel, well, constricted inside? If it does not feel good, say No, it’s not possible for you, maybe another time but now not.

– If you realize afterwards that somebody went too far, for example said something to you/about you that made you feel hurt, sad, or even aggressed: it’s the first step in becoming conscious of your boundaries. And it’s never too late to react and admit that you don’t like what just happened. You can come back to the person and say that you feel hurt, sad. And you can make a promise to yourself to pay more attention, so that you can then stop it before they go too far.

I wish you a wonderful week!