Episode #6 with Casey Erin Wood (Copy)

Casey erin wood

I was curious about what authentic brilliance is, and invited Casey on the show to tell her story and why she feels Authentic brilliance is something we all have.

Casey Erin Wood has a simple philosophy: the universe is speaking to us, we should listen.

As a writer, speaker and coach she has dedicated her life to helping women own what she calls their

Authentic Brilliance

, the quality of clarity and confidence that allows you to walk into a room and transform people through your sheer presence.  She believes we each possess this unique essence and that we are on this planet to share it.

One client shared, “I want more of what she's got - motivation, inspiration, excitement, brain waves, illumination and vision.", while another declared, “Casey is your go-to gal if you're looking to shine even brighter in the world."  And another simply said, “She brought me home”.

When she’s not empowering women to own their Authentic Brilliance you can find her nibbling dark chocolate, having dance parties with her daughter or rocking tree pose on her dock.

In this episode we talked about: 

The self-compassionate woman podcast

 why connection the body is important

The self-compassionate woman podcast

 how to access your authentic brilliance

The self-compassionate woman podcast

 what that means

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 how your surrounding and sisterhood support you

You can check out Casey’s new group program here, it’s all about deepening your connection with your intuition!

Connect in Thursday: Look up and around (Copy)

Look up - the self-compassion

On this fine Thursday I would like you to look up. We can get so focused on where we are going, what we need to get done, that we miss little moments of beauty right in the middle of the familiar and ordinary. Curiosity is such a catalyst for adventure and that muscle may need some exercise, flexing and stretching. A simple practice like this can be a good way to start.

Today's practice: Look up and around you right now. What beauty is there to enjoy, take in, appreciate, where you are?

Beginning to open up with curiosity, with presence where you are, to experience in a more intimate way is more simple than you may think. Even if looking up takes you to the grey ceiling in the office. What you do you notice?

Share it with your friends.

[Tweet "Look up and around you right now. What beauty is there to enjoy, take in, appreciate, where you are? #connectinthursday @carinalyall"]

Thursday is connect in day on the blog. I offer a short, free practice or reflection to support you to connect to yourself and others with more presence, self-compassion and care. This is a little nugget of inspiration for you. Allow it move through you, and be open to what it may bring. Stay tuned here on the blog every Thursday.

xo Carina

Episode #5 Inspirational Woman Bri Seeley (Copy)

Inspirational Woman Project

Bri Seeley is here with a strong message and an inspirational project that is going to touch the hearts of many women.

She is an entrepreneur for all things woman that is passionate about sharing her story, and the stories of other amazing women. Her training and passion as a fashion designer led her to create a fashion label dedicated to femininity and helping women connect with their true selves.

Bri has paved her path by surrounding herself with inspirational women, which revealed to her a disheartening trend that she is dedicated to change. She recognized how intensely women search outside of themselves for happiness and validation, losing touch with what makes them women and conforming to external pressures of how women should show up in the world.

This gap between how women define themselves and how society defines them has created an immense amount of discord and unhappiness. Thus the Inspirational Woman Project was born. 

In this podcast Bri and I talk about

The self-compassionate woman podcast

 her upcoming book and the journey that brought her to creating it

The self-compassionate woman podcast

 why women don't feel like an inspiration

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 how digging deeper into the theme of womanhood has changed her, and those who participated, life

The self-compassionate woman podcast

 why this is (still) an important topic to explore

Check out more about the project here and connect with Bri on Facebook,Twitter and Instagram

a tribute to LOVE (Copy)

9 years ago I met the man, it would turn out, who changed me. Tuesday is photo day on the blog showing glimpses of me life, practice and journey. Today is a tribute to the man, the love and the life I have shared with my blonde Scandinavian (who I first thought must be boring - how wrong I was). <3

#1 Before the kids. We look so well rested.

Love life and partnership

#2 Now expecting child #1. I am sure I said something REALLY funny. Still look very well rested.

9 years together.

#3 Ok now way past birth of first child and SO hard to find a picture we're both in . Such a bad photo, but HA! at least the wee one looks pretty fly! The second child is on the way.

roadtrip

#4 Things like this now dominate our camera...

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#5 and this my phone...

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#6 But once in a while we still get time to get away and enjoy each other's company.

Parents weekend out

#7 And here's to the next 9 years my love <3 (not knowing why it looks like you have fangs...)

to the next 6 years.

Episode #4 earthing with Olga Dossa (Copy)

olga3

Olga is a yogini, mama and the founder of Peaceful Mothering with Olga Dossa. She is committed to supporting mothers to step into their radiance by loving themselves first and claiming their desires.

Through her journey with postnatal depression, she learned that she couldn’t give her best from an empty cup. She left her high paying corporate career to pursue a life that would bring her peace and inspire her daughter to live her own greatest life.

Her great love for her daughter took her on the path of yoga, ayurveda and self-love. Olga believes that when mothers love themselves first, their children will thrive.

In this episode we talk about

The self-compassionate woman podcast

 how to stay grounded

The self-compassionate woman podcast

 why taking of yourself, as well as you family, is important

The self-compassionate woman podcast

 how we pass our way of living on to our children

The self-compassionate woman podcast

 working yourself too hard and Olga's personal story about working through postpartum depression

Interested in learning more about Olga? You can find her on her website, on Facebook, Instagram, Pintrest and Twitter.

Make sure to pick up your free bedtime relaxation to help you release the tension of the day and give you more radiance and vitality.

Podcast Episode #3 with Eyenie Schultz (Copy)

eyenie

The beautiful Eyenie Schultz guests with us today and shares her fun spirit and insights on breaking free from the grey Poncho… (yes me I had mine on the first time I met her…) and shining bright.

Eyenie is a SoulStyle Coach and Visibility Facilitator who helps women upgrade their styles so that the WOW they are on the inside finally matches what they wear and how they feel on the outside. 

She’s a “make others feel WOW” junkie, spirit expander, appearance enhancer and style revamper/curator.

Eyenie’s mission is to help you Live YOUR Technicolor Priestess by aligning your inner and outer beauty to create synergy, and enhance all areas of your life. She is a firm believer in focusing on all the magic and electricity inside and around you so that it may EXPAND in your life.

She joined us for a talk about

The self-compassionate woman podcast

 Freedom and self-expression and how we can hide behind clothes

The self-compassionate woman podcast

How to tackle a frumpin' closet and why you don't need a huge budget to shine

The self-compassionate woman podcast

Why it can be hard to allow ourselves to me seen and why clothes is so much more that just being vain

You are going to LOOOVE her. Also check out her free 10 day challenge here... 

the tributes to TRIBUTES (Copy)

I have been playing around for a while. With what you may ask... Well, with how to get my writing going for real, what I enjoy writing about and how the hell to get started on that. Apart from procrastination, nothing has been stopping me really. So here we go, diving into the fun part of writing - running with it. The way I want to do it.

One thing I love writing is a Tribute. I love that angle and giving a hear hear to the oddness of life, to the things that make us whole, to what connects us as people and the things that make us laugh.

For me it is often the subtleties of life. I love describing a brief meet between people, a thought that came and went, a feeling so strong it couldn't be shaken off...

...and the experience of all of the above. I have tried the "how to posts", and steps and letting people in on how to do this and that. And truly I believe that the best support I could ever give anyone, was the space to allow them to listen to themselves - so I stopped doing those posts.

The next writing stream will be a series of tributes. Tributes to life. The things that make it glow and the parts that teach the most profound lessons. It will be tributes to white walls and curve balls, tributes to sleep and the people who actually get some of it. And we will see what it evolves into.

It will be shining a light on common humanity and what allows us to belong here as we are.

I am pretty excited about it, because at last I feel that writers block has lifted and I have something to say. I hope you stay tuned.

Podcast Episode #2 with Julie Genovese (Copy)

bio-image Julie Genovese

This podcast goes to show that the online world hooks you up with amazing people that might have passed you by. I am a true fan of Julie's, and I am so happy she joined us.

Julie Bond Genovese is an inspirational speaker, coach, artist, mom and best-selling author of her award-winning memoir, Nothing Short of Joy, endorsed by Wayne Dyer, Dr. Christiane Northrup & Dr. Bernie Siegel. Being born a dwarf, with degenerative arthritis, was not the poison Julie originally believed - it was the cure.

She's been featured on TV & radio including Anderson Cooper Live, NBC LX, The Aware Show & Oprah.com. Julie mentors spiritual seekers and earthy-crunchy-creatives to transform life’s grief, let the soul lead, and woo our hearts back toward the Light. 

Julie came on the show and shared her wisdom and awesome laugh. This is what we talked about:

The self-compassionate woman podcast

Julie's amazing story and why she chose joy for herself

The self-compassionate woman podcast

 The art of breathing deeply

The self-compassionate woman podcast

The challenges that can leave on in the darker parts of life and what you can get from shifting perspective

You can check out Julie's free ebook "Release the Blocks So Creativity Rocks!" at http://www.nothingshortofjoy.com

On my nightstand... it's overloaded (Copy)

When people post lists or pictures of the books they love or are reading at the moment, I always feel inspired... my fingers type in the url for my favorite online book store and really it all happens so fast, my brain doesn't really understand the chain of events until the confirmation email lands in my inbox. I love books. I see my partner's eyes glaze over every time another brown parcel is stuffed into the mailbox, "Do  you really read all of them, I never see you finish one"... he dares to share. Really I feel he shouldn't have any say, as he might be the last person on the planet who still buys 20 cd's a month.

Anyway, here is what I have my nose buried in right now. Of course due to work I buy a lot of book about meditation, inner work, women and story work. But at times it just becomes too much and I have to mix it up and read other kinds of literature.

So as inspiration, and clearly I don't only have 1 book going at once, this is what's on my nightstand at the moment...

Books I love...

I placed Karl right in the middle, as I am sure he would appreciate it that company...

Episode #1 - With Jess Grippo (Copy)

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The new Podcast is off to a great start, starring the Beautiful Jess Grippo

Jess Grippo is a dancer, writer, inspirational speaker, and life coach. Her work is about inspiring people to dance through life: to become more self-expressed, to find peace with their bodies, and to get out of their own way when it comes to making creative dreams happen.

Having left her dancing and creativity aside for far too long, Jess finally discovered true self-expression and creative fulfillment through making her own dance videos. She now actively creates dance work and integrates this experience into her practice as a life coach. She offers inspirational dance classes, coaching programs, and her weekly blog, Creative Fridays.

She was a recently featured TEDx speaker in her talk, “The Dance Less Travelled.”

Jess is a very inspiring woman here are a few things we covered in this podcast

The self-compassionate woman podcast

 self-expression and why it can be challenging to do so

The self-compassionate woman podcast

 Jess' story and how she came to dance and expressing herself through dance and creativity

The self-compassionate woman podcast

 how creativity and self-expression can bring us together, rather than be a selfish act

The self-compassionate woman podcast

 Jess shares an exercise that she uses with clients and gets our groove on... you don't want to miss it

If you are interested in more info on Jess' work or taking her free 7 day challenge you can find her here...

Sleeping Beauty, the caffeine addict... (Copy)

In the past year sleep has been a luxury and not a given, as our youngest apparently feels that sleep is overrated. I have inhaled coffee as the only way to keep me standing upright. During this time I have been more stressed and moody. And I haven't been getting as much out into the world as I wanted to. By habit doing nothing didn't seem like the best cure for the above. Thursday my partner told me to go away for 3 days, sleep, relax and do what I felt was most called for - wow, uhmmmm are you sure, really, ok see you Sunday. I am lucky in the man department I must say.

Out the door I went and took the train to my sisters. Of course I took some work with me thinking this time away would be productive... HA!

I am tired.

At my sisters I had a cup of coffee and didn't really like the brew she was cooking up, so I drank some tea instead. I left the coffee for the next 3 days. This being the first break from the black liquid in over a year. Friday morning I was so tired all I could do was lay on the couch - I stayed there until Saturday midday only to return a few hours later.

I couldn't believe how tired I was and being honest with myself I knew I had been for a really long time. Work, kids, life, habit got to me and I didn't really "hear" the need for more sleep.

Sleeoing beauty the caffeine addict

I normally listen to my body and respect my limits. I also know that I love cuddling up in the evenings a little late, I don't like sleeping during the day and I have so many ideas and love my work that it is hard for me to leave it be.

I am however even more aware that to keep it all up I need to respect my bodies limits and not drown it in caffeine. In the end it wasn't offering a positive contribution to my life.

And as I dive into the material for the upcoming HEAR*SEE*HOLD course I deepen that listening. As with most areas of self and life there is always more to be discovered. The coffee overpowered what my body needed, and in my case boy did I need to sleep, relaxation and to do absolutely nothing.

I came back with a few lessons learned:

1. I don't like filtered coffee

2. Sleeping on a couch for 24 hours ain't too good on the back

3. That I too have blind spots

4. Ignoring it doesn't make it go away

5. zzzzz zzzzz zzzzz

Put on your Red Shoes... (Copy)

Ruth St Denis in a Burmese solo dance.

Something I have always admired is when people have the ability to play, let lose, dance crazy just because, kind of like Phoebe from friends and the episode where her and Rachel go for a run and Phoebe runs crazy, just because it makes it more fun (have you ever watched that episode?).

Anyway the more I play, dance around, laugh, giggle, fool around with my kids the better I feel. I also know that in stressful times I do less of the fun stuff and it makes me feel stuck and down.

In our house we all love to dance around. Not because we are that great at it, but we just have fun doing it. I love dancing and the music and the smiles that come with it. Everywhere around the World dance and music are a part of culture.

How about making this the week of shaking it?

I would like to focus on DANCE. I want you to turn up the Radio or put on your favorite tune and dance. Invite your kids to join you or do it on your own. Move your body, smile, feel foolish, free and dance. For sure for some it will feel weird or uncomfortable but see if you can push yourself a little with this one.

And for inspiration I would encourage you to watch this little video. I love this dude…

If dancing isn't for you, is there another activity that you feel is fun that you would like to commit to, and that does have a focussed outcome?

With love

Carina

The perfect, imperfect poem (Copy)

Maybe we just misunderstand what it says - I'm-perfect... :)

All I want to do today is share a poem about the icky and sticky subject of imperfection.  It is such a lovely poem and I feel it resonating with  A LOT in my life. Do you?

IMPERFECTION

I am falling in love with my imperfections The way I never get the sink really clean, forget to check my oil, lose my car in parking lots, miss appointments I have written down, am just a little late.

I am learning to love the small bumps on my face the big bump of my nose, my hairless scalp, chipped nail polish, toes that overlap.

Learning to love the open-ended  mystery of not knowing why

I am learning to fail to make lists, use my time wisely, read the books I should.

Instead I practice inconsistency, irrationality, forgetfulness.

Probably I should hang my clothes neatly in the closet all the shirts together, then the pants, send Christmas cards, or better yet a letter telling of my perfect family.

But I’d rather waste time listening to the rain, or lying underneath my cat learning to purr.

I used to fill every moment with something I could cross off later.

Perfect was the laundry done and folded all my papers graded the whole truth and nothing but

Now the empty mind is what I seek the formless shape the strange  off center sometimes fictional me.

Elizabeth Carlson

Hey fatso... you are looking good (Copy)

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Well I guess this a more iffy subject for me. So I will dive into it a little gently.

The foundation of my work is that you belong here exactly as you are. There is no perfect ideal to strive for. You have an enormous amount of wisdom in you and maybe it takes slowing down to listen to that. I wish that this could be the way we all step into our lives. This is not to say that we can't shift, unfold, evolve. I am exploring the starting point and the tendency to feel wrong, to feel that we only deserve a place when we fit and mold ourselves into a certain standard - however we define what that looks like.

I know that for me not owning that statement has been exhausting. In motherhood I read books, looked at women who wizzed through the challenging parts and I felt like a constant failure. The art of comparison once again left me feeling less worthy. The foundation of being wrong or less than, isn't a nice place to be and very very seldom leads to a life with happiness and ease.

I will be digging deeper into that statement in further posts... for now a story of how I was challenged recently.

I was out for drinks with my two sisters. We had a great time and we decided to end the good times with a burger. Now it is no secret that I have put on weight after the 2 pregnancies and what not, but burger it was - YOLO or something.

In the cue some guys felt that we had cut in line, and looked at me and said that I probably shouldn't be in there anyway considering my weight. Well tears galore and I felt shitty. Reduced to an unworthy lump of Blubber (did you every read Judy Blume's book? It's awesome... anyway).

Fastforward 2 weeks and my man and I are away for the weekend for a music festival. As I am coming out of the toilet area a woman stops me. She is a scout for a model agency and thinks I would be an awesome model for the normal size/curve department... huh...

So which "truth" do I go with? A third - my own? How I see myself? How I feel about myself? Or do I let either of their perspectives rule and dictate wether I feel worthy just as I am? Do I wait till I have xx weight to go out again or do I pout my lips and work it like a supermodel? The "you belong here, exactly as you are" reminds me that none of the above is my truth. It is their eyes looking at me. What matters is how I look at me. And this has been such an awesome reminder.

This is what we can work on - how you see you. And knowing that you belong here, you already are. <3

What do you love... (Copy)

 about you...?

So how did it go with checking in last week? If you didn't read last week's post you can find it here..

Rick Hanson wrote the book “Hard Wiring Happiness” . In it he talks about letting short glimpses of happiness expand. Allowing yourself to begin to see happiness instead of all that is going wrong in you life. He also describes how this change in focus and wayof living, changes the circuit in your brain - very interesting!

I believe that this can be linked to self-compassion. You can feel love and compassion, maybe briefly, and then find a million reasons why that isn’t true or why you don’t deserve it, or how you aren't the person you want to be. This is simplified of course, but today I want to shine a light on focus, and a little shift on how you focus on you.

As moms we want to do our best. We feel and have great responsibility and love for our children. This can also bring on the judgment and guilt and sense of 'when will I ever be good enough'? To be in that place is very stressful.

A lot of wise people have said where your focus goes, your energy flows. As I feel Rick is pointing to.

This week I would like you to focus on the thing you are grateful for and/or like about yourself.

Monday practice

I want you to get our your journal and write 3 things down that you like/love/appreciate about yourself. No one has to read it or agree with it- this is for you.

For some it might take time and feel a little uncomfortable, give yourself the space to reflect and sense into the question and start out where you feel true to yourself. For others maybe all the things you dislike come up first. Allow that to come up and pass. Continue to sit with the question. And eyebrows and fingers count as answers just fine (they were the 2 first on my list when I did this a few years ago…).

Do this every night this week and also reflect on how it feels to write it down?

If you feel called to, please share any thoughts in the comments below.

IMPORTANTO: Before I go I would like to remind you to take these exercises as they feel right. You alone know when it is too much, too little or when you need extra support. Be sensitive towards yourself.

What is Self-compassion? (Copy)

Great question!

Some days I feels very unclear and I am judging myself a lot. Other days it feels very clear, and I do not beat myself up.

I believe in exploring, rather than giving answers (to some questions anyway) and I want you to feel into what self-compassion means and feels to you.

When you read the word self-compassion what comes up for you?

But, because it can be helpful to have an wise woman's word I would like to offer Kristin Neff’s thoughts on Self-Compassion. I am truly inspired by her and her work and can highly recommend her book. 

She writes that self-compassion consists of 3 elements: Self-Kindness, Common Humanity and Mindfulness. I feel they interweave, but that the first step is awareness. This brings us to know, and to the only moment we can move forward from.

Practice for this coming week

First step is really to become aware. Checking in and getting intimate with what is. An inner weather report if you will. So I'd like to introduce the short check-in.

Whenever you sit in the car, leave the house, go to the restroom or remember, do the following:

• Close your eyes and take 3 deep breaths
• Connect to whatever is going on right now, thoughts, kids screaming, lists and to do’s etc. As best you can without judging or hurrying to change it, just noticing.
• Sense the body, feet, buttocks, back, hands, head
• Not changing anything just noticing.
• When you feel ready open your eyes and continue your day

Do this as many times a day as you feel called to. What do you notice when you check in? Write a few words down in your journal or share in the comments below.

With love

Carina

What my Mama taught me! (Copy)

So I got an email with the "challenge" to write a post for Mother's Day, about what I have learnt from my mom. I have and why wait till mother's day, all of the following is how I feel most of the year. Ok so this could be the longest list in the world, most of what I know came from her, spiced with the adventures of adult life, but the foundation was created in childhood, from her.

I don't want to go all Forest Gump here, mostly because when eating a box of chocolates I usually don't taste med, I stuff them... anyway...

We are 5 siblings and as I sit with my 2 girls inhaling coffee, my respect for her grows - how the hell did she do it!?!

But we all turned out great, doing awesome things in life, traveling, studying, creating and she taught us that well. I can barely keep up with 2 girls and some days I fear that I am mostly teaching them how to cover insomnia with concealer.

So how do you learn? I remember what she did and being so proud of her. She aimed for things, she seldom sat back feeling sorry for herself. She took chances and got things done (with at least 1 kid on her hip), she did her best, and laughed a lot. She wore the biggest glasses man ever made and her hair matched.

She told us to do what we dreamed of, to travel the world and experience as much as we could. She taught us to do the dishes and cook and to always wear clean underwear when going somewhere.

She taught us love and never ever sent us out the door without knowing how much she loved us. She taught us what is possible if you want it, even on your own with a sh** load of kids.

She taught us that not knowing is ok and that vulnerability is a part of it all. She taught us that there is always two sides to a story. She taught us that Henna dyes your hair orange no matter what color you think you bought.

She taught us to be grateful for what we had and I am so grateful I had her.

I bow in respect for the woman and what I have learnt continues to unfold as I go about in life. I am happy to have the skills and the ability to ask (mostly her) if I don't.

I love you dearly mom and thank you for being my role model.

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My dear Gram... (Copy)

I want to tribute day 7 to her, to our ancestors, to the people who paved the way. Those who lived and passed and forever imprinted their being in our hearts.

Somedays I still want to call her or think that a card from her will be in the mail. Death is such a strange thing. She doesn't feel gone. the memory so present. I miss her dearly. 

My Gram passed this weekend... I miss her so much. Losing someone you love is strange. I feel sad and tired. Guilty and a bit of panic. I know she isn't suffering anymore and that this was her time.

But what I'm left behind with are memories and a fear of those fading. And I guess some of them will. I wish I had gotten her laugh and voice bottled. I wish I had listened to more stories about her life. I wish I had called more. I wish I hadn't been so far away for the past 20 years. I wish she knew how much she meant to me...

An article is going around on Facebook with what the dying wish they would've done more of in their life. I am writing this as a "living" going back and celebrating what I did have with my Grandma Carrie.

I know that as I write this, those close to me and us might say "that's not how it was". But that's what's so great about memories, they are mine. This is how I remember her.

 I remember...

- how they toasted bread on an old coat hanger on the stove and how the bread drawer smelled. I loved her bread.

- how I would get my gram's curlers out and I would do her hair till she fell asleep.

- how after we moved away, and we called home my gram would answer the phone in the living room and my grandpa in the bedroom. Him crying and my gram saying "geez Bud".

- how we would come over for Sunday dinners and everyone (it seemed) was there and how good her salt-beef was.

- how she would always say "I love you right to the bones".

- how she could never pronounce Guelph and hated that we lived there.

- how the last few years when I phoned we would talk for 13 minutes and then she would say "Oh someone's coming to the door, I gotta go" we would talk for another 5 minutes and noone ever knocked. Good way to get rid of me though. :)

- how her vegetable garden looked and how much I loved their yellow house.

- how she taught me how to knit, but didn't really have the patience for me fumbling around with it.

- how when I stayed the night as a kid, I'd stay in her bed and my Gramp would get kicked into the single bed.

- how she would watch wrestling and loved Ricky the Steamboat and how cool I thought she was for liking it.

- how she would save little packs of Fruitloops in their food stash and let me eat Tumbs because I thought they tasted real good.

- how when I think of her my Gramp is along her side. And how much she missed him after he died. She said she would tell him off for dying from her.

- how I know that more memories will come up over the next weeks and I will be sending her my love with each one...

- how she would end a conversation about something hard with a "God eh C'rin".

And so will I. I miss you dearly and know you are in peace.

God eh Gram. <3