Today I want to talk about what a lot of people face—how do you know if you’re making the RIGHT choice? When you have a decision to make, we can often get stuck because we are afraid of making the wrong choice and getting on the wrong road. And other times we think we know exactly where we want to go but then find out, it was the wrong road. What do you do when you find out that you are on the wrong road?

Well, over 10 years ago I was traveling in Costa Rica. I was absolutely sure about where I wanted to go, but I got on the wrong bus. Instead of getting on the bus that I was hoping would take me to the small beach town, I ended up on a bus going in the opposite direction to The Big City. This is what happens when you’re in a foreign land with very little Spanish on your tongue. Anyways, it was not that far into the ride that I got a bad feeling that I was on the wrong bus. So I asked the driver “Manuel Antonio?” and he replied “San Jose!”

Oh shizzle! I had to get off. I mumbled some words that he was able to understand enough to let me off the bus right there in the middle of the highway.

So there I was in the middle of the highway miles away from my destination and step by step I started walking my way back. Luckily, a taxi stopped for me, but I told him “ No tengo dinero,” I have no money! But he was so nice and drove me back anyways!

You know what I learned that day?

“You can’t fail unless you quit” ~ Russel Simmons

Have you ever not done something because you were afraid to fail?

A common block to even getting started on a project is the fear of failure. For some reason failure is a scary place to be because it means that all our hard work and energy was for nothing. It will prove to us our biggest fear­: that hard work doesn’t always pay off. We would rather not find out that we might fail, just so that our mind can hold onto an imaginary idea that really we could win, but we are choosing not to.

But when you make your choices from a place of fear, you are being held hostage from your own mind. Yet, somehow this is easier than daring to push forward, and daring to step into the unknown where failure is possible.

Didn’t Edison fail a thousand times before he learned to create the light bulb? But you see Edison had it right. He never failed; he simply learned a thousand ways of how NOT to create a light bulb!

“I am teaching you to be selfish. Let me repeat it, because the word "selfishness" has been condemned so much that there is every possibility you will misunderstand me. But the word is really beautiful. To be selfish simply means to be yourself. I say to you: don't consider anybody else in the world, just consider yourself; and in that very consideration you will have considered the whole world.”  ~Osho

Osho is a hilarious wise teacher who eloquently speaks of why we need to be selfish. The word itself feels “bad,” and filled with guilt. If you have ever been told “You’re selfish!” it probably was not a compliment. However, if you do not take time to take care of yourself and to be true to yourself, in essence you help nobody in an authentic way.

When you are trying to please everyone at the detriment of your own health and life satisfaction, sooner or later, you will hit a wall, and your physical, mental and emotional health and happiness will pay the price.

I re-discovered something super awesome today, and just had to share it. You see, I was cleaning up and found an old back up cd. I slid it into my computer to discover a bounty of old stories and reports, as far back as my University days when I studied Psychology. I started to get intrigued by one document called “awareness”. What? I was learning about awareness 12 years ago? I guess so! As I read through the 13 page report, there was one study that really fascinated me:

It was a study on intuition. If you’re thinking what—people study this? Yup, they sure do.

Well, in a study on intuition, they discovered, in a controlled scientific study that those who were able to shift into a positive state with ease were more intuitive. 

 
The Power of the Body-Mind Interaction

How we treat our body has a direct effect on our state of mind. Likewise, our state of mind can majorly influence how we treat our body.
For example, if you do not feel good about yourself, it is easy to fall into a cycle of emotional eating. Similarly, when we make unwise food choices such as grabbing a doughnut, this can cause our mood to go from high to low.
Essentially how we treat our body effects our mind, and our mind effects how we treat our body.

I have a whiteboard at home which allows you to write on the wall and then you can wipe it off with a damp cloth. Well, today I decided to clean my whiteboard as I’ve had things up there for months now. Well, let me tell you, it was not easy to wipe those words off the board. The marker seemed to cement itself deep into the white board, and I was scrubbing and scrubbing. I wanted to give up, but as I persisted to scrub, the marker slowly started to make its way off. It occurred to me that this is exactly like what happens when you are trying to create mental white space in your mind to reach a deeper state of clarity.

Happy April!
Don't you love getting inspired by the most random events? Well, last week I walked in to teach my corporate yoga class and was greeted by one of my students telling me how she really needed a yoga class to relax and couldn’t wait for the week to be over.

The door of the room was locked, so a quick call to security, and the door was unlocked by a smiling comedic security guard telling us how he’s been told that he should start yoga. “Yup. My doctor told me it will help me live longer. But heck, I don’t wanna live longer,” he said in a joking comedic tone. As we both laughed, he said, “Yeah, life is too short. You have to enjoy it, appreciate it, and complaining about things won’t make life any better.”

Don't be afraid to give up the good to go for the great."
~ John D. Rockefeller
It takes a leap of faith to be willing to let go of a good situation in order to move towards a great one.
When things seem fine, but inside there is a knowing that “there is MORE than this,” that feeling, is the indication that you need to be brave enough to take the leap of faith to give up the good, in order to move into your greatness.

Living an exceptional, empowered, happy, and healthy life means using every avenue for whole wellness.
If you only eat healthy food, but spend all day thinking negative thoughts, is this true health

Sometimes life events can trigger us so badly that in that moment we are not able to shift our focus as quickly as we would like. Our emotions can take longer to resolve than our mind, or intellect would want.