by Vienda | 4 May 2012 | Psychology + Soul
Life is much like a dance.
You learn the steps, you take one at a time, follow the rhythm of the music and allow yourself to be guided through.
And sometimes you’re just spinning, spinning, spinning.
⥤◈⥢
I’m at the spinning bit at the moment. Life is taking me for a little twirl and causing me to change, to grow, to transform yet again ~ and coming to a whole new level. This is what’s been happening recently:
Less than a month ago I was sitting in one of my favourite cafe’s in Bondi with the lovely Connie from A Life of Perfect Days chatting about life and love and how lovely Bondi is, what a great community it has full of all sorts of people from the ego-centric to the pseudo-spiritual, the yogic and the inane, and how fun and and wonderful it would be to live here.
Less than a week later my landlady decided to increase my rent on my gorgeous albeit tiny studio apartment by $50 a week. It was clearly a sign that it was time to move on. As much as I loved my one-girl-home I don’t love people taking the piss and asking for crazy amounts for rent. I mean, really, the rental prices in Sydney are high enough! So, within hours of receiving the notification in the mail I began looking for a room and home to share. I decided I was ready to live with someone else again. I had a pretty clear idea of what I wanted and asked the universe for the following:
Near the beach
with one really lovely and supportive housemate
who is likeminded;
a spacious, light filled room in a clean and tidy house
full of nurturing and peaceful energy.
Clearly, that is exactly what I found. After a couple of hours of looking online on a flatmate search site I found the perfect place. I just knew it from the moment I encountered it and made an appointment for a viewing for the coming weekend.
As soon as I met the girl who was looking to share the flat and had a look at the place I felt at home and was already a little bit in love. Within half an hour we agreed that we wanted to love together and the next day I gave 2 weeks notice on my studio and started packing.
Such unexpected changes in life tend to signify tremendous changes in myself as well. As without so within. It’s the world telling me that I’m ready for new things. That I’ve reached a new playing ground.
When I first moved into my studio apartment, it was the first time that I had ever lived alone, it was a space for escape and for healing at the end of a tumultuous, emotionally manipulative relationship, which also signified the end and resolution of a lot of unrequited behaviour patterns that I had carried with me from childhood. As challenging as it was, I had to go through this relationship with full awareness in order to recognise the old habits and patters, resolve them and restore harmony in my life.
In saying this, that relationship also gave me many wonderful things; it was a warm and cosy, loving, comfortable place to be in when things were good.
So, living on my own for the first time signified a massive commitment to myself and the need to be selfish for some time, to give myself the space and time that I needed without the interference or consent of others.
Time passed and I grew stronger, happier, more confident. I released the past and learnt from the experiences and became at ease with myself again, something that I felt I had lost somehow along the way.
A year and a half later, life decided that I was clearly ready to leave my introverted nest and spread my wings again. And it’s true, I really was ready! So here I am, living with a lovely new friend, by the beach in Bondi, a renewed person with a whole new host of gifts, skills and experiences to share with you.
I love change. I embrace it. I allow it to spin me around and give myself the time to catch my breath and find my balance again. Right now I’m waiting for the spinning to stop and to find my sweet spot again.
In the meantime, I am going to share with you how I accelerated my inner change through a 10 Day Master Cleanse in the two weeks prior to my move (post will be coming soon) and my current domestic goddess phase with lots of delicious and nutritious food ideas. After all taking care of your health is one of the best ways to nurture and take care of yourself. It is an optimum example of self love.
When I return with a new sense of equilibrium we will continue our journey into the deeper aspects of our soul’s psyche with thoughts and concepts on truth, love and self realisation.
Photography by Metin Demiralay.
by Vienda | 1 May 2012 | Biz + Blogging
aka: how to have you ice cream and eat it too!
Last year I took part in a wonderful business course called Rich Happy and Hot B-School with Marie Forleo and one of the bonus sections of this course was Ramit Sethi’s guide on how to earn your first $1000. How and where to begin.
Now, if you are anything like me with grand dreams of being self employed, then Ramit is your go-to guy. (So is Marie Forleo on that note!) You can find out more about him at Earn 1 K and I Will Teach You to Be Rich. Here’s what he recommends.
Step 1: Define Your Skills: Start by writing down all of your skills in 5 minutes ONLY. Skills are things like photography, html code, writing, driving, etc. You don’t have to be “the world’s greatest…”, just decent at it.
Step 2: Define Your Strengths:
A close friend, coworker or family member can be a huge help in defining your strengths, so you may want to call someone up to get some feedback for this one.
Write down all the strengths you know you have. Strengths can be “good at negotiating,” “personable” or “decisive.”
Step 3: Find Your Interests
Write down everything you are interested in. If you are stuck, think about the types of things you do on your day off. Think about the blogs or websites you visit. When you find yourself with an hour of time, how do you spend it?
Step 4: Put it all together
Take your three lists, and look for intersections. Can you find a common thread?
Write down three potential services you could offer based on your lists. Keep in mind that it you don’t always have to incorporate all three categories.
Step 5: Find Your Market
Research your ideas. You can do some Google and Craigslist searches to see what comes up. Is anyone currently offering what you might offer? That’s a good thing.
Examples: Transforming skills-strengths-interests into viable business ideas
Here are three real life examples of what to watch out for when crafting your idea.
1) Example 1: Test the Waters Before Jumping In
Matt loves dogs, wanted freedom and wanted to try out running his own business bringing these two interests / skills together. Seems like he could put that together into something, right? He ended up coming up with the idea of a dog sitting business (this is a completely true story of Matt Cheney, who worked with me at IWillTeach last year).
In the VERY beginning of the business, Matt had a great time — taking care of dogs, getting some extra income, and doing preliminary marketing for his services.
But a couple of things started closing in on him — and these all had to do with execution. For example, Matt didn’t realize that he would also become the Chief Financial Officer, the counselor, the customer service rep, the cashier, etc, and bad stuff started to happen. If he had tested the model by starting out freelancing instead of jumping right into forming an S-Corp, getting a bad business partner, taking out loans, etc. he would have realized that this wasn’t a very good fit.
Lesson: Start small, get a few customers and test the waters. It’s low risk, and high reward.
2) Example 2: Where’s the Viable Market?
April D. loves yoga, and loves writing. Naturally, she figured she’d simply put the two together and dollars would start raining from the sky. Copywriting and newsletters for yoga studios — perfect, right?
Uh, do yoga studios need newsletters and copywriting? If they think they need it, how BADLY do they need it? Enough that they’re willing to PAY for it?
April was one of my Earn1k alums who went through the entire program and ended up doubling her income AND quitting her suffocating 9 to 5 job to go freelance full-time.
She DIDN’T get these results by copywriting newsletters for yoga studios.
April nailed down her skills, strengths and interests, and used Earn1k to perfect the critical last ingredient — identifying and testing a paying market.
The full Earn1k course — which took April from a stifled cubicle worker to an independent freelancer — includes exclusive HD video of some of today’s most successful freelancers, audio recordings, case studies, and original Master Classes with entrepreneurs who put together some of their top strategies for Earn1k members only.
You can’t join Earn1K right now — it’s closed. But Ramit will be re-opening the course later on. Stay tuned.
Image source.
by Vienda | 17 Apr 2012 | Love + Relationships
What is it that women want from men?
The answer is this: exactly that which you crave for from within yourself.
Women often say “Just be men!” but what does that mean?
Women want men to be warriors, to be honest, to be strong, to be the creative directors of your lives so that we may lay our trust upon your laps and cherish you and spoil you with our love and nurturing care.
Above all women want authenticity and integrity. We want you to be yourselves.
Impress us with your audacity of unbridled rapture. Show yourselves fully, not through a screen of social politeness, but as you would, had you never learnt the formal way to approach us and merely had your instinct to guide you.
Say what you mean and then do what you say.
We want to admire you for your kindness, your efforts, your thoughtfulness, your art and your skills. We adore you for being capable with your hands, flexible with your mind and devoted with you body.
Express yourselves freely, not caged in by what you think others want of you but by what you truly are.
Stand strongly within your own values and beliefs, unwavered by the opinions of others. It matters not what others think. We delight in a man who is true to himself and has the inner strength to assert himself.
Be free. Be wild. Be true to the motions in your loins and the passions of your heart.
The more you accept yourself and are yourself the more we will know how to accept you and love you for it.
We have no desire to control you, to cage you or to guide you. We want to walk by your side with conviction and the confidence that you will always be yourself and thereby do your very best.
That is what women truly want.
by Vienda | 13 Apr 2012 | Love + Relationships
Men are continuously being conflicted to bury their true natures of being strong, individual, unique and masculine in order to become more streamlined, more sensitive, more fashion forward, consumer giants, more effeminate and different to how you are. Basically, you are being told that “you’re not good enough”.
All of these concepts fill your thoughts, your minds, you dreams and eventually you begin to lose touch with who you are as you busily endeavour to be who you think you should be in an effort to gain the acceptance, recognition and most importantly love that you crave and innately deserve. And then, one day, you look around yourself, surrounded by crap and gadgets and clothes you don’t wear, and discover that the one thing which makes you distinct as a human being and more importantly as a man, has been lost.
All the products and material possessions that you have been beguiled to purchase with your hard-earned cash in order to become a better man, the man the you “should” be are worthless in the face of a life and manhood frittered away. In frustration you shout out “How could this be?! I’ve done everything right. I’ve done it all like I’ve been told to. I work hard, I provide for my family, I exercise, I spend time with loved ones, I have bought the car/the house/the boat, I go out with my mates and show them how to have a good time, I’ve wooed women and treated them right and showed them what stuff I’m made of. Why does it all now feel so empty? Why do I feel unfulfilled and no longer truly alive?”
What happens now? Perhaps you go out, get drunk, firmly position your head in the sand and buy something expensive which will captivate and distract you from those questions. This will work, for a while, at least. At this point men begin to question themselves; sometimes this questioning take place as a mid-life crisis, sometimes as a journey of self-discovery. The path is yours to choose.
What if you were to delve a little deeper? What would happen if you were to face yourself, in the mirror, with all your honesty and fears and love and flaws and all that makes you, you and ask yourself “Who am I?”. Actually truly, who am I? Without the the labels, the social conditioning, the job, the family position, the “woe is me” story, the history, the education, the heartbreaks, successes and losses. Who am I?
Knowing who you are is the greatest wisdom any man can possess. Self-awareness is what sets us apart from all others in the animal kingdom. Get to know yourself. Simply by making the choice that you are willing to and want to get to know yourself is all it takes to start the ball rolling. Take time for self reflection. Consider the way in which and what decisions have been made throughout your life and realign them with your beliefs and values on a daily basis. Are you living out your true, authentic self? If not say so, take stand and make some changes. Choose to live your life the way that YOU would like to. Choose to be happy. Choose to be positive. Your life is reflected in the thoughts and beliefs you have about yourself. And no matter what messages you are receiving from the world outside of yourself, know this: You are good enough. You are safe. You are provided for. You are loved. Just the way you are. Because you deserve it.
Image source: Unknown.
by Vienda | 20 Mar 2012 | Biz + Blogging, Psychology + Soul
The Magicians Way
A very wonderful friend of mine actually gave me this book to read and quite serendipitously it was exactly what I needed at the exact right moment. I finished the book quite quickly and then wished it had lasted longer so perhaps I need to go back and read it again! Every single page gives me one of those aha! moments that clarify certain things I have been thinking, wondering or experiencing but not yet been able to put it into words myself or have it reflected back to me. The book outlines the 7 Secrets of Magic and is a novel type guide on how you can manifest your life through positive thought, focus, feeling good and listening to your intuition by staying in your heart. An excellent and entertaining read which I would recommend for the men/ man in your life who is interested in taking charge of his life but gets disgruntled by all the woo woo self help books out there.
You Can Create an Exceptional Life
It is no secret that I have a mega girl-crush on Louise Hay. She is my absolute idol in every single way and I admire here so deeply. She is the mother, grandmother and wise counsellor that I dream of having in my life. So when I heard she was publishing a book on her own practices in living the life of her dreams, I knew I must read it. The book is very sweetly and simply put together, with Cheryl Richardson very humbly interviewing Louise on certain areas of her life. My favourite part is when they meet at Louise’s house in San Diego and Cheryl briefly describes Louise’s sanctuary of a house….. it sounds absolutely gorgeous! Ok, so maybe that’s not my favourite bit but I certainly did fall a little bit in love with the home she has created! Many of the practices I know of and use from time to time but haven’t been doing as a daily practise which I actually want to incorporate back into my life. It was a good reminder, one which I really needed and the book itself left me feeling all warm and happy and full of hope anticipation for the future and gratitude for my life.
Kafka on the Shore
My sweet friend Rachel has started a book club and the first book for us to review is Kafka on the Shore. I friggin’ loved this book and as you can see it was the only novel in the stack beside my bed so it had to to be fun and lighthearted as well as entertaining. Murakami writes like a poet, full of vivid imagination and shades of every colour in emotional prose. You fall in love with every single character and are entranced and find it quite believable when fish fall out of the sky and a human has conversations with cats. The book contains quite a lot of depth, and being set in Japan explores modern culture which is inextricably intertwined with ancient folklore and spiritual beliefs. Every page has a little bit of a philosophical tinge to it leaving you wondering about life in a beautiful, mystical and mysterious way. Gorgeous, gorgeous read! Just go ahead and buy it if you’re looking for a good book.
Opening Our Hearts to Men
I was recommended this book by Tom Starke, the quantum physicist that gave the workshop on Understanding Men which you can read about here. I….. hmmm, let me be honest. I find this book really wordy, boring and kind of obvious but I can see how it would be very helpful for women who actually have issues with men. I haven’t finished it so I can’t give a full review just yet, but I think perhaps the book would be essential for women who have a lot of anger and resentment around men and don’t believe in their own ability or desirability to attract and keep the type of partner in their life that they want. It’s about releasing your negative beliefs around men and moving onto higher ground as well as seeing things from all perspectives and improving and widening your communication skills. A great book if that’s the sort of thing you are looking for in your life right now.
The Art of Earning
I bought this e-guide at least 6 months ago, which I read straight away, and then stumbled upon it when I was doing a clear out a few weeks ago, which was one of those subtle reminders that perhaps it’s time to review this beautiful and important message written by the clever and intelligent Tara Gentile again. If you are an artist, a creative, an entrepreneur or dabbling with making money in a different way, then this is for you. Tara clearly and carefully demonstrates how our beliefs and thoughts around money affect our ability to throw ourselves into the prosperity stream. Often we restrict our ability to make more money by believing that the only way we can get paid is from a salary or even by under-estimating our own worth. She gives simple and clear guidelines on how to get out of your money rut and start being the prosperous and financially abundant person that you deserve to be. Hurrah! (I sent this e-guide to my mum who loved it and all her neighbours asked for copies of it too which made me laugh when she told me; clearly this fabulous fabulous e-guide became the talk of the town in their little neighbourhood!)
The 4 Hour Work Week
This book has been sitting on my bedside table for about a year and for some reason we seem to have this on again, off again relationship. Tim Ferris is brilliant and every single page is jam-packed full of very succinct and practical advice on how to make running your business or managing your work time most efficiently and effectively as possible. It is well written and for me I think, almost too direct with TOO MUCH practicality, which is why it’s taking me such a long time to get through it. Every few weeks I pick it up, open it randomly and read a chapter or two, nod with enthusiasm and valour, am whole-heartedly inspired and then have to leave it for some time to allow my mind and heart to digest it all and take the relevant parts out to practise myself. This book is definitely for left-brainers who would appreciate the way Tim writes and essential reading for anyone wanting to get more time for themselves from their workday. It’s not about working harder, it’s about working smarter.
