Blog: Beauty from the Inside Out
Posted: September 28, 2010
Nothing creates more discussion, joy, heartache and confusion than; relationships. In spite of the fact that we are saturated with information, surveys, studies, workshops on relationships in friendship and marriage, we are extremely cautious and even more isolated. In my next book, called SAND TO PEARLS: Making Bold Choices to Enrich your Life, (Release date-January 2011) I devote two chapters on the topic of friendship. This subject always causes the greatest conversation, heartache and mystery when I speak to women across Canada. In each of us there are basic needs, and when they are met, we can have vibrant, lasting relationships. Here are my top nine needs, and I am sure most of them will be yours as well: I NEED YOU TO: 1. Listen to me. I mean pay attention, look me in the eyes, nod now and then (not drifting off to sleep kind of nodding) but “wide awake” attentiveness…
Posted in: Beauty from the Inside Out, Beauty Unleashed, Encouragement, Expectations, Friendship, Making Wise Choices
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Posted: September 11, 2010
You ask your teenage daughter to clean her room. When you walk in the house you are amazed that she also cleaned the entire house and you smell the garlic and basil of an Italian dinner. The bathtub is filled with hot water, and a plush thick towel is laid out so you can enjoy your leisurely spa bath. Your husband tells you he will wash your car. Then you find out that he also vacuumed the inside of the car, cleaned out the trunk, polished all your black shoes and folded your laundry that’s been sitting in the dryer for three days. That is BEYOND your wildest expectations of what you dared to ever ask or dream of. Yet, that is what God promises for us. “Now glory be to God! By his mighty power at work within us, he is able to accomplish more that we would ever…
Posted in: Beauty from the Inside Out, Encouragement, Making Wise Choices, Overcoming Stuggles
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Posted: August 20, 2010
The deadly 3 “D’s”. It starts with discouragement, catapults into despair and may end up in depression. For some unknown reason you ventured into a dark cave and found there was no light to guide you out. Your aching body feels heavy and fatigued. Your mind is ruminating, you can’t focus and you keep chewing over the scene of your mess, failure or loss. I know every one of you reading this has experienced at least one of the deadly “D’s”. It’s a horrible place to be in, and we need help getting out. That’s where you come in. Yes YOU! We all need to take part in being God’s hands and feet on earth to lift up those going through one of the 3 “D’s”. If you are the one going through one of the “D”s right now, I pray that someone reading this blog will jump in…
Posted in: Beauty from the Inside Out, Encouragement, Friendship, Making Wise Choices, Overcoming Stuggles
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Posted: August 7, 2010
Pause, and envision the future. I own a greeting card that says, “The biggest fear in my life is that this is not just PMS but my real personality.” Whenever I read this out in front of an audience, I hear a loud gasp and chuckle. Then a few women lower their heads-I imagine with some embarrassment. Those words probably hit a nerve a little too close to home. Women are the most exquisite, fragile, influential confusing creations on planet earth. We have to be aware and guard those exquisite sensations and eruptions so that our life is not about one week of emotions, and three weeks of apologizing. God has given us our feelings to help us navigate through life with wisdom and power. Our feelings can be like a red flag that warns us of danger, or guides us with gut intuitions on the choices we make. They…
Posted in: Beauty from the Inside Out, Making Wise Choices, Overcoming Stuggles
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Posted: July 30, 2010
We all crave to be accepted and recognized for who we are. When we sense we have been overlooked, rejected, put down or devalued, I believe our dark side kicks in. This starts when we are very young and someone gets a bigger ice cream cone or more recognition at a school play. We ask ourselves. ”Am I not as important or valuable as the other person? How come she/he gets more rewards or recognition?” When my children were younger and I took them to swimming lessons, they would constantly shout at me. “Look at me mommy; watch me swim. Look at how I can do the back flip.” If I got into a conversation with another woman or happened to look away, they would remind me afterwards, “Mommy, you didn’t watch me.” As we get older and become somewhat more mature, we become better at hiding our desperate need for…
Posted in: Beauty from the Inside Out
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Posted: June 4, 2010
A balanced life is over-rated. Before you call me a fanatic and burn me at the TIME MANAGEMENT whiteboard; I want to ask you. “So how is time management” working for you? Over the past ten years we have been saturated with “how to” steps for managing our most precious commodity – time. It wasn’t until the day I threw my palm pilot into the garbage that I realized I had become a slave to time management. With all the time balancing, de-cluttering, workshops, fat day timers, Microsoft calendars and every piece of technology known to mankind to help us with our 24 hour days, we are still rushing, sighing and feeling overwhelmed and frustrated. A balanced life sounds like a wise, wonderful concept; but what happens when all of our best laid “one hour increments” in our day timer fall behind and we fall apart? In a question…
Posted in: Beauty from the Inside Out, Beauty through Boldness, Freedom from Busyness, Obligations and Offenses, Overwhelmed and Undervalued
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Posted: May 21, 2010
“Why would you try; you might fail and end up looking stupid.” Those words have the potential to be burned into our subconscious like a non-writeable dvd. Each morning when our feet hit the ground, the power button gets turned on and the brain kicks into action, taunting us by whispering ancient, crusted worthless lies. One thing we battle almost every day is a powerful, invisible false belief system that is steering us off course for what God designed for our life. This false belief system is a deeply ingrained habit of seeing the world through a set of lenses that was formed by our perception and interpretation of external events and words. These influences came from our parents, neighbors, siblings, teachers and other people that were part of our day to day activities. They are false because most of them are manmade rules and perceptions and they don’t line…
Posted in: Beauty from the Inside Out, Beauty through Boldness, Overcoming Stuggles, Uncategorized
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Posted: April 27, 2010
Why do we talk like t his? “I could never decorate my home the way you do.” “I could never possibly walk into a room and speak to strangers.” “I could never pray like you.” I could never……….” (you fill in the blanks). With shoulders hunched and eyes lowered, we succumb to the subtle menacing foe of intimidation. Dr. Dobson of Focus on the Family, says that the biggest struggle for women is their lack of self worth. Countless women battle intimidation-an enemy that is actually camouflaged as fear of indequacy. We cower because we are afraid that we are not enough for this world. “Surely, we say, “everyone must be smarter, prettier, more accomplished than I am.” I love the poem “Return to Love” by Marianne Williamson”… …”You are a child of God, Your playing small does not serve the World. There is nothing enlightening about shrinking so that…
Posted in: Beauty from the Inside Out, Beauty through Boldness, Overcoming Stuggles
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Posted: March 18, 2010
“Limbic Looping” We all need to feel pleasure. Consciously or sub-consciously we will do whatever it takes to feel it. If you think you are beyond pleasure seeking; read on. There is a portion of our brain that is called the “limbic system”, and it is the seat of our memory and our gorgeous emotions. It is the part of our brain that releases our pleasure chemicals. In the book Social Intelligence, the author Daniel Goleman has done intensive research on the human brain and how it responds and functions in human relationships. This book is loaded with so much valuable information it will make your head swim; but I want to focus on one aspect-the “looping”. We have all experienced the phenomenal delight when we smile at a baby or toddler. Here is what happens: We smile at the baby, the baby watches our faces and breaks forth…
Posted in: Beauty from the Inside Out, Beauty Unleashed
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Posted: February 27, 2010
Don’t spit in the wind. Living in Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada is a windy proposition. I don’t know how many times my coat got caught in my car door, or the wind knocked me sideways while I was carrying bags of groceries. The trees along the Court House stand at an angle, and it is crucial that you have a hairdo that easily flows backwards. Those struggles are not much fun, and although I loved living in Lethbridge for thirteen years; I never got used to the wind storms. After the third fierce windy day, employees in our office would start to gnarl at each other, and I was told that by the third day of a full force wind storm, the psychiatric wards were full. There is something mean about a wind that whips at your relentlessly and endlessly. So I developed a new Heidi’sm. When something seemed futile or…
Posted in: Beauty from the Inside Out, Resentment
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