Extravagant Love

Posted by Kathy on Jan 16, 2010 in Blog | 3 comments

“Grace was in all her steps. Heaven in her eye, In every gesture dignity and love.” — John Milton

Last week I was reminded that my engine runs on love.  Without it I don’t get very far.  Lucky me. Sometimes it humbles me to think that I need it to keep going. Other times I feel like I hit the jackpot.  It is not just quirky line in my character that God doodled during a dull moment.  It his way of reminding me, I can’t do anything without him.

So, I will take a deep breath and admit to you that I have been discouraged. It isn’t just one thing, but many little things that sort all ganged up on me at once.  I came into this year dragging my heart behind me.

Maybe you are there with me.

It is an understatement to say that we never know how God will deliver the fuel to keep us going. He is a master at showing up with the goods just in time. I got a picture this week of just how well he knows me and how incredibly creative he is.  A woman who I have never met posted a photo and wrote on my facebook page, “This photo of my daughter and granddaughter’s feet arrived in my E-mail this morning. I sent your book to my daughter, she took it from there. Thanks for your uplifting words.” I laughed out loud. There were the red converse from the cover of my book, Run Like A Girl! How fun!

The next day a package arrived from a woman who I met through a speakers bureau, when I needed someone to fulfill a speaking obligation I had.  She graciously went in my place and we have been friends ever since.  Here is the picture of what was in the package. Handmade refrigerator magnets in a metal tin, spell out Run-Like-A-Girl. How Creative!

These were both acts of love—an inkling of Heaven where our next word will be anticipated and our inner workings known. My wish for you this year is that you get the fuel you need—God’s fun, creative extravagant love.

Five Things Every Girl Should Know (Week 5)

Unlocking The Traps -- Fulfilling Our Destinies

Posted by Kathy on Jan 1, 2010 in Blog | 3 comments

Down the street is a monstrous willow tree. The trunk is 10 feet in diameter and its cathedral-sized dimensions fill an entire lot. It holds court as the most beautiful tree for miles. Everyday, I pass under it just for a moment and let its soft tendrils sweep across my face. Inside this willow sanctuary, I try to breath-in the green and exhale the stuff I obsess about.

You know, what I’m talking about?

I am referring to the times in my life when I am petty and want everything to be fair.
When it has been more important to be right, to be justified, or to be vindicated. I attempt to own up to my struggle to be acknowledged, valued, and important. As I stand there it is clear to me that these things make me small. They diminish God in me. They cut me down to size and impair His vision for my life.

The number 5th thing every girl should know is that Unforgiveness robs us of our power.

So many times in my life, I have held on to old wounds, refusing to forgive and move on and I can tell you first hand, it has blocked and impaired me.  The problem with unforgiveness is that it continues to give power to the person or situation that hurt you.  While we may think we are punishing someone by not forgiving, we are really robbing ourselves. It doesn’t really matter whether anyone deserves forgiveness, you deserve to be a person who can forgive and get moving down a life infused path.  You deserve to LIVE WEIGHTLESS. This is the the key to unlocking the trap of unforgiveness.

Are there areas in your life where old wounds have impaired your vision? If you don’t know I am betting your kids and husband know. Your close friends know.  Even my dog, who I think is part therapist and Den mother, knows when I am acting out of this place. She knows when I am not present, pawing the ground over life sucking emotions that rob me of my energies.

What I really want is to be like that willow tree. To let my life stretch a across the sky giving sanctuary to all who stand in my neighborhood. I want to flourish with deep roots that allow me to be steady and cool in times of crisis and sadness. I want to in the flow of life, always growing, moving and adapting.

I challenge you to put the spotlight on the things that hold you back. Get support to let them go, enlist the help of a mentor, a coach or counselor. These thoughts and emotions do not serve you and they will not let you go to the places God has designed for you.

Consider these questions:

1. Who are the people and circumstances in my life that have hurt me?

2. Where have I robbed myself of power by giving it over to my anger?

3. What do I want to do about the unforgiveness in my life?

4.  Who do I need to forgive?

Today is the first day of  2010. As we face this New Year I think the world could use a few more willow trees. Places of sanctuary and refueling, where our God given power can be restored and refreshed.
My wish for you in 2010 is that you will commit to LIVE WEIGHTLESS and once again find the vision and power for your path.  The world is waiting…

Five Things Every Girl Should Know (Week 4)

Unlocking The Traps -- Fulfilling Our Destinies

Posted by Kathy on Dec 30, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments

“Yielding to Jesus will break every form of slavery in any human life” Chambers, Utmost

“Throw Mama From The Train” is a movie with a plot that revolves around a blocked, writer (Billy Crystal) and one of his writing students (Danny Devito). Neither man can move on in their life, both blame this on a pivotal relationship in their life.

I get that.  My mind has a million ways to file and process the simple truth.  The truth that regardless of my circumstances or relationships, it is always me who gets in my own way and the old stories that I act out over and over that remind me to stay safe and never risk too much.

The fourth trap every girl should know is that We all get in our own way .

It is so tempting to believe that my life would take on a newly waxed sheen “if only…

“If only I could land that job?” “If only I could sell that book.” “If only I could meet the perfect partner.” This kind of thinking is so insipid and sneaky, that it has taken most of my life to realize that no one and nothing has this power. In other words, I am the only one who has the ability to keep me from experiencing the life God has for me.

Here are a few ways we block ourselves.

1. Procrastination:  Not doing something that we can beat ourselves up for later and rob our energies.  Example: writing your next chapter, taxes, mowing the lawn, cleaning out the garage.

2. Do-it-yourself mentality: It is not empowering to be a control freak. I have found great freedom loosening my grip and letting others do some work, make mistakes and find their own success. Example: housework, my kid’s life choices

3. Asking For help: I struggle with this, because somewhere along the way I was convinced that to ask for help shows weakness. Instead, I have found that being willing to reveal my greatest vulnerabilities can be a great asset to connection and empowering others. Example: marketing, grammar, and weight loss

4. Polishing my ego:  Okay, so I don’t actually polish it, but I have been known to dust it off over just the perfect sentence, or spend too much energy trying to look brilliant. Sometimes this has even been spiritualized as a form of Godly excellence.

5. Fear: Life is scary and so by all means, stay safe, don’t risk anything. Of course to get anywhere worthwhile, you must stretch out of that nice, comfort zone. We must be fiercely convicted that we are called to be risk-takers. Example: getting married, having children, writing my first book and starting my own business.

6. Negative thinking: This is the one two punch.  If we can convince ourselves that something won’t work, most likely it won’t.  Example: learning to ski, joining a gym, or organizing anything.

So how do you get out of your own way? The key to unlocking the trap of getting in your own way, is to LET GO OF FEAR. If you trace the path in which you block your own growth, you will find a root base of fear.  Getting in your own way always begins with something you fear, whether  it is failure or success.

The Word says, that “love casts out all fear.”  I used to wonder how love would ever help rid me of my  fear of public speaking.  After years of surrendering my fear to God, I discovered it is indeed love that removes fear. Now, when I speak, I think about all of those people who God sent to me.  My job is to love them, truly want to be there for them and help them get what they need. When I am not obsessed about me, when it is not about me then the fear takes a back seat. Now the butterflies I feel are a sense of readiness, not something I fear.

We all must be willing to surrender fear, because it gets in our way.

Take some time today to think about the ways you have gotten in your own way in 2009.

1. How do I get in my own way and how have they impacted my life?

2. When in the past have I pushed through my fear? What was the outcome?

3.  What will I commit to changing in 2010?

4. Who can I enlist to help me stay out of my own way?

Now you have a few tools to prayerfully make a commitment to be conscious to the ways you have gotten in your way and begin to make changes. This will enable you to move beyond traps that enslave you and live in the freedom that Christ offers.  This is one task you can’t afford to procrastinate about!  My wish for you is that you will make personal growth and freedom your cause for in 2010 and let go of what you fear.

Five Things Every Girl Should Know (week 3)

Unlocking The Traps -- Fulfilling Our Destinies

Posted by Kathy on Dec 20, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments

The number three thing you need to know is that You have a Saboteur in your head.

Inside our heads is a voice that stands in our way from making progress with our intentions. I refer to her as “the bad girlfriend”, because if she were a real woman we would have nothing to do with her.

Unfortunately, she lives inside your mind and took resident there long ago.  Maybe you have met her.  She is the voice that encourages you with words like “Who do you think you are?” or “You aren’t a very good mom”. She makes keen observations like “Man, You look old today”, “Wow, you’ve put on a few pounds.”  She inspires you with” You never were any good at that, what makes today different?  The bad girlfriend knows every button of your subconscious mind.  In stealth mode she runs your life–her goal was to keep me in a small place where she held all the controls.

The first step to unlocking the trap of the saboteur is to identify, spotlight and Dismiss the Bad Girlfriend. After all, the sooner she leaves the better.

How do you identify the bad girlfriend?

Notice what comes up for you when she is speaking?  Do you feel uplifted or taken down a notch?  Do you feel like you need to work harder or longer?  These are her identifying features. Notice your indicators, does your blood pressure go up, do you worry or feel anxious. DO YOU FEEL DE-ENERGIZED?

When you bring her out into the open and put her under the light, she begins to loosen her control and you get back the keys to moving forward towards a bigger life.

How do you dismiss the saboteur? Dismissing the bad girlfriend begins with deciding to become a friend of your mind—to guard and protect it from inside out.

1.    Notice themes and schemes of her voice. What are things that are always on your mind? Those extra pounds, your friendships or your job? What is the running dialogue? “You’ll never stick to eating better, you never finish anything?” “You must have said something wrong, because your friend isn’t calling you?” “You need to do a better job or you may get fired?”

2.  Decide what is true. I can guarantee you that the Bad Girlfriend is not telling you the truth—or at least not the whole truth.  So decide what you believe and dismiss the rest.  Take back control; remember you get to choose what you believe about yourself and your life.

Homework for this week:

1. What are your own personal indicators that you have a Bad Girlfriend in your head?

2. How much time do you spend trying to deal with fear, anxious thoughts, and low self worth?

3. How can you decide what is true about what she says?

4. Who can you enlist  help from?

Be a friend of your mind and stop the conversations inside your head that defeat you before you start.  I am reminded of SNL’s Stuart Smalley, who would look in a mirror at the end of every show and repeat, “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.”  He would say anything less was just “stinkin thinkin.”  I agree, a woman who has dismissed her Bad Girlfriend, is a woman that is free to focus her heart and mind on her intentions and knows she will get there. That is my wish for you.

Five Things Every Girl Should Know (Week 2)

Unlocking The Traps -- Fulfilling Our Destinies

Posted by Kathy on Dec 14, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments

The number two thing you need to know about being a girl is that,  All of us are lonely.

“A good friend is a connection to life – a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world.” ~Lois Wyse

Our need to compare, to be the most beautiful, the most competent, and the best mother not only disconnects us from the great signature, but we are disconnected from friendships we are desperate for. The key to this trap is to intentionally Build Our Team.

Women find strength in each other—we are born collaborators who need each other to be at our best. Our weakness is our inherent need to look like we fly solo and can do it all. We trade our need for a tribe for the perception that we are Superwoman. This one blind spot can take us out of the game and off our path. Not to mention, it is not nearly as satisfying or fun as being in the company of great women!  My friend Sue Donaldson says it like this, “We don’t have to connect with everyone – too exhausting. There’s laundry to do, besides. But, God does want us to be radical in our connecting – every day.”

While it seems obvious that we all need support team, many busy women see time with these key friends as a luxury. We do not place importance on building and maintaining these kinds of relationships. We may also assume that people we like are part of our support team. Not true. A personal support team, even if it is one or two people, must offer the kind of support that is truly helpful. For example, if you have a friend who is over-critical or who takes precious energy to be around, this person is not an effective support person. She is not part of your tribe.

A personal support team is a small group of close friends, who accept us for who we are, get excited when we win the race, and will be there when we feel lost or overwhelmed. Members of a support team are good listeners and confidents. They will pray for us, help us keep perspective, maintain our balance and be focused on our life goals.

What are the indicators that you do not have a team, or believe that you somehow need to fly solo? Well, look around you. Take an inventory of what needs to be finished in your life. Do you have clutter, a half-painted kitchen, disorganized closets or other projects that aren’t completed? Do you whip yourself over things that you somehow don’t make time for, like your intention to walk everyday, finish that bible study, book, or manuscript? How about the dreams in your life that you just lack the energy and support to put on your radar? All these things make us feel like we are somehow just surviving and that is sure sign that we have been trying to do it ourselves and have not been investing in our team.

I have 6-10 women in my life that are my support team. They live all over the country—only a few are close enough for coffee. These friendships hold keys to my successes and my survival.  This last week, I went over to sing Christmas carols with one of these friends and ended up bending her ear. She listened, didn’t try to fix it and gave me some Taco soup. It was an equation of comfort. There simply is no better place than in the company of a woman who gets us and knows we will survive—anything.  I can’t imagine my life without this group of women and count them one of God’s great blessings to me. I intentionally care for these friendships–check in with them—make time for them and make them a priority.

How do you build your team?

First, be intentional. Make a list of what kind of women you need on your team. Here is my list. Women on my personal team are open and honest. They make me laugh. My tribe stretches me, accepts me and celebrates me. These women are invested in my best interests. They are all problem-solvers, positive thinkers, and risk-takers. Feel free to steal my list or add to it.

Second, put together a plan for finding these kinds of women. Where do you think you might find them? What organizations, church groups or events do you need to check out? I found one in a belly dancing class, another in at an Ad club meeting, a couple through my blog or other writing projects.

Third, make a list of the friend or friends that currently fits your list. Some of us have old friends from our past that we have lost touch with. Find them and reconnect. Enlist their help. One of my closest friends introduced me to several women that became good friends and supporters.

Fourth, be the friend you need, rather than the friend who needs to save others. For example if we act as though we have all the answers, we attract women who are looking to us for the answers. If we feel obligated to solve our friend’s problems, we will attract women who want us to solve their problems. None of us really wants that in our lives, we want friends that believe in us and have faith in our ability to be innovators and problem-solvers. Be that kind of friend.

We all need a personal support team. It is like water or air. You will live longer, be far less lonely and be strengthened by the presence of your tribe. I call them my true believers. They believe in me, no matter how many times I might stumble. Begin today by giving this some serious thought and action. Let me know what kind of friend you are looking for.  Trade your Superwoman and your need to compete in and ask God to help you find your tribe.

These are my simple rules:

• I am not a superhero. Most of my friends are fierce and incredibly smart. They don’t need me to save them. What they want is my best listening skills and my honest, yet loving, view of them. I have learned to set my oh-so–valuable, super powers aside.

• I don’t need to be right. Sometimes I disagree with my friends on any number of things. That has to be okay. Bottom line, I am more interested in having the friendship than being right.

• I am not a professional counselor. I have learned that just because I think I know what my friend should do, does not mean I should share it. I say, stay clear of counseling, unless you are a counselor. Be the fan club and not the friend with the couch.

• It is almost never about me. If I don’t hear from my friend for a while or if they seem snippy or curt — my rule is simple. It is not about me, it is almost never about me, and so it will most likely not be about me anytime soon. Don’t personalize what friends do or don’t do. Trust in the friendship.

So for this coming week I want you to think about the following questions

Who are the true believer friends in your life and what do you need to do to connect with them today?

How many women will you need/want on your team?

What old relationship mindsets or ways of being do you need to let go of?

What places could are you willing to go to meet new friends?

What small, stress free form of hospitality could you practice to connect with your tribe?

We need each other. Women are just better with a tribe, a team, a pack that knows our scent, our foot prints and sees us differently than we see ourselves. It is worth the time, the energy, and the cost of postage and phone calls to have this in our lives. We will live longer, get more done and, in general, be happier in the doing. Besides, who will sit next to us on the bench for a rest when we are out of breath? Who will remind us that we are formidable and get on our last nerve when we are old women? Who indeed.

Five Things Every Girl Should Know

Unlocking The Traps -- Fulfilling Our Destinies

Posted by Kathy on Dec 3, 2009 in Blog | 0 comments

In the next five weeks before the New Year, I wanted to remind you of the things that get in your way, the universal traps that every woman experiences.

Most importantly, I want to help you find the keys to breakout of these common traps and to come into the New Year with full knowledge that you are God’s fierce creation–a combination of power and beauty that crowned our world.

Today, I would like to talk about the trap that keeps us from walking in confidence. Why we often don’t feel beautiful—causing us to seek recognition and affirmation in ways that may not honor our creation.

Five Things Every Girl Should Know
The number one thing you need to know about being a girl is: You Have A Target On Your Back—an enemy that prowls this earth looking for ways to deceive and rob you of your inheritance so that you will never know your own power.  He knows that when you not aware of your own origins of beauty, genius and calling, you are disconnected from yourself and your God given power.

This struggle with beauty and worth goes back to our roots and the fingerprints of our creator. There we find the great Artist who intentionally expressed his own image into the creation of all women. Women are God’s ultimate expression of his beauty here on earth. In the book, Captivating John & Stasi Eldredge say, “She is the crescendo, the final astonishing work of God. Woman. In one last flourish creation comes to a finish not with Adam, but with Eve….”

“Given the way creation unfolds, how it builds to ever higher and higher works of art, can there be any doubt that Eve is the crown of creation? Not an afterthought. Not a nice addition like an ornament on a tree. She is God’s final touch, his piece de résistance. She fills a place in the world nothing and no one else can fill”. page 25.

When we acknowledge that have a target on our backs it changes everything.  The fight for our self worth is not just in our heads as it is a universal experience for all women. We are survivors of a war waged against us since the beginning of time.

So if we are God’s signatures of beauty on earth—why aren’t most of us buying it?  No matter what we weigh or how much makeup we apply, most of us do not walk in the knowledge that we are beautiful. Our story is all about the truth of where we come from and how we were made. When it is altered, so is our future story of what we will become.

From the beginning it is clear that the great Narcissist has hated our gender. We represent everything he desires–to be the most beautiful creation of all. He knows that if he can disconnect us from own beauty and worth, we will never come into our own power. By tearing down what is uniquely beautiful in each of us, he steals God’s expression through us.

For hundreds of years the fashion, media and cosmetic industries have used 29 points to compare us. They call these points the golden ratio—the perfect equation.  Breaking us down into 29 points that take our creation to task.

A girl like me knows that I will never be a beauty. Or at least not in the sense that girls dream of. God made me a Picasso, one eye smaller, one leg shorter, one hip twisted. I arrived here with buckteeth and an affinity to gain weight like most people drink water. The golden ratio is not in my equations.

For fleeting moments I have felt beautiful, lovely, and sparkly. At one point in my life I lost weight, ate nothing, and exercised like a fiend. I made friends with clothing sizes I had never seen before.  My pictures show a girl not really believing, but striving on a treadmill of beauty.  Those pictures make me ache for that girl–she operating on fumes.

My awakening to my own beauty didn’t come until much later, and strangely as a plus-sized middle-aged woman, who began to finally put the pieces together. It is not a one size fits all kind of process, but at some point I began making peace with what I had, finding what tools I had been given and developing a much different sense of what beauty really is.

My definition of beauty here is something that transcends the physical. It is the full presence of a woman-her soul and spirit.  It is the kind of beauty that takes your breath away. I am thinking most of us would have found Mother Theresa’s presence very beautiful.  I remember once buying nosebleed tickets to listen to Pavarotti whose voice never failed to move me to tears.  We all recognize beauty in others, we just need to trust it exists in us.

Someone once told me that every woman he had ever met had something about her that was beautiful. Evidently, he had never heard of the golden ratio, choosing rather to look for evidence of God’s signature.

At some point in my thirties, I began to trust in this new image of beauty, and finally began to feel beautiful. Interesting, Huh?  I hadn’t lost a single pound, had no plastic surgery–I just walked into the room a little differently.

And here is the second part of the secret, we were never meant to stand alone in this battle. We are all part of a great composition–together we are a work of art. Where did we every get the idea that we needed to be the most beautiful? When did we begin to compete with each other to get the affirmation that was already ours?

From our childhoods, talking mirrors have answered us when we asked, “Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the most beautiful of all?” Our beauty, and self worth becoming something to compete for, is alienating us from the other pieces of the composition.

There is no clearer picture of this battle than the one we see waging in young American girls, who have cosmetic surgery to look like Britney Spears or Angela Jolie, changing the very things that make them unique.  It is like a great musical score changing chords to sound like another song.

My daughter and I used to read Phenomenal Woman, by Maya Angelou out loud together, complete with body moevements. It never failed to make us laugh when we recited it and made us feel awesome.  It is one of my favorites and I hope it will become one of yours and share it with your daughters.

Phenomenal Woman

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit
a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.
Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need of my care,
‘Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Maya Angelou

So here is some thoughts for you to think about between now and next week.

The key to unlock this first trap is to act as though all of the above is true and begin by putting yourself back on the list. Ask yourself these questions and enlist help if needed from your friends, family or husband.

1.  What is beautiful about you? What physical attributes do you have that are spectacular?

2. What is compelling about you? What soulful qualities or attributes connect you to the great composition?

3. How do you enter a room?  Do you immediately head for the back or do you walk into a room like you are captivating?

4. What is the story have you bought into regarding your own beauty and self worth?

5. If you could wave a magic wand what would change about how you see yourself?

You and I are all part of a signature of beauty— we are phenomenal.

The key is to believe our beauty and value is already established in our creation. We are God’s Pièce de résistance that made the enemy tremble and rock with jealousy.

Now that is power.
Now that is beautiful.