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I smile as I stop to consider the title of this book.  Yes it makes me smile and it’s nothing more than saying this is who I am.  Stripped of all false pretense, I now stand in a very different place.  Naked.

I realize that some people don’t recognize me anymore.  Some individuals have known me all of my life and some most of my life.  A lot of people don’t recognize me since I’ve decided to ’strip’ down and simply show everyone all of my wonderful imperfections.  What has become really exciting for me now is that some who never noticed me before or recognized me for who I am, are seeing me for the very first time and are marveling at me and with me.

Stripped down to the very core of my being was what it has taken me to change my life around completely.  I never thought that being ‘naked’ could be so fun.  Needless to say, there is a definite lightness to it.    I feel the cool breeze now that I didn’t feel before.  I hear things that I didn’t recognize as being nature and beauty.

When you stand ‘naked,’ there is nothing left that anyone can say or do to you that will make a difference in your life.  If I had of known this sooner, I would have stripped long time ago.  Now my message to everyone is, “Get Naked.” 

I now go where my body leads me.  Before I chose to get Naked and Decloak, I didn’t have an understanding of what it was to allow my body to lead.  When my body was covered and hidden by old beliefs and stories that were not mine, I felt alone and couldn’t imagine being naked.  Now I have shed a lot and now standing in the raw, I have more to offer of my true Self.  No one noticed me before because I didn’t have anything to offer anyone else, let alone myself.

There’s a sense of being humbled by my nakedness.  It has nothing to do with my physical body as much as it has to do with the core of my being.  While chatting with a friend I shared these thoughts with her.  “Wouldn’t it be nice if people could get excited for us just by noticing a glow in our face.  Wouldn’t it be nice to have others notice a change in us that has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that we’ve lost weight?”

There were times in my life when I thought that I had ‘the’ answers.  There were times in my life when I thought ‘I’ was the answer.  There were times when I also thought that making others happy was more important to me than being alive.  What I thought was keeping me safe and sheltered were the very things that were smothering me and keeping me small.

We can’t be all things to all people.  What I know now is that I’m many things to many people and all I had to do was shed some layers and show up in my own life.  What sparks another person to get on with their life is seeing someone getting on with theirs.

My naked body may not be so appealing.  My naked ‘being’ is loved by many and most importantly, is loved by me.

I have a belief that there are many people who would love to be naked and experience the lightness of it.  I have a belief that if they experienced it, they’d continue to shed more layers until they stood completely naked.

Ladies, the fall is here and I encourage you all to shed old layers of the past that no longer serve you.  Allow yourself to experience what it’s like to be naked and strip yourself of false pretense.  Shed the layers and relax into yourself and discover that other individuals will love you for who you are and not for who you aren’t.

I came into this world ‘naked’ and now I’m thinking that it’s time to experience it ‘naked’ again.

Have a wonderful evening,

Amy

Here I sit outside early on a Sunday morning.  Once again the birds are all around me.  The air is crisp today and it feels rejuvenating.  Ah yes, it is I who is reflecting to the outside world what I am feeling on the inside.

The day is bright, and I feel alive within myself.  I stop to consider what it is that allows me to feel this alive and full of vigor and velocity.  Of course I know why I feel like I do.  The fall has arrived inside and out.  This is a time of ‘gathering.’  This is my time to relax into myself knowing that I have planted many seeds through the year and the fruition is happening around me.

My life had to be about me before I could allow it to be about you.  What is it that I have to offer you?  I offer you the gift of sight.  If at this point you can’t ‘see’ through your own lenses, I encourage you to look through mine.  Come and see what I see.  Witness the magic of who I am and what I have to offer you.  Know that I am you and you are me.  When you see the wonder of who I am and what I see, know that you are seeing a reflection of your own magic and potential gleaming back at you.  Connecting at a level unimaginable to most and incomprehensible to others.  And yet, this is my reality.  I show up and I don’t have to even speak words for you to understand or know who I am.

The animal totem suggests that I AM Grasshopper.  Yes indeed I AM.  I am able to move up or move forward.  I AM incapable of moving backwards.  This too is my gift to you.  What enable’s me to continue being me, is you.  As I witness you embracing your own vibrancy and potential, I Grow – I Evolve – I Transform.  By bearing witness to the magnificence of the seeds that I have planted.  I evolve by witnessing your evolution.  And then the calming is in my body knowing that who I am and how I have invested my time has not been fruitless.

The wind is blowing.  It caresses me and tells me that as I plant more seeds, they will be carried further than they were before.  You are my wind.  As you share with another who you have become, another seed gets planted.  The velocity of lives that will be transformed is gaining momentum.  Evolution and Transformation is at hand.  I am bearing witness to it and I marvel in it, in you.

Women around me are ‘awakening’ to the possibilities that lay within themselves.  There has always been a knowing in the body that more was possible.  How to tap into it was the question and know one had the answer not until ‘Grasshopper.’

Have you ever wondered why we look at animals of the wild and insects and marvel at their presence?  Could it be that they too are an aspect of ‘grasshopper?’  We look at them and we squirm and feel uncomfortable around them sometimes?  Why?  Could it be because the discomfort that comes from our in-ability to move up or forward?

What becomes of us as we embrace our own instincts as they do?  Does it become second nature for us to know that moving up or forward is a state of evolution and transformation?  Do we embrace it or do we pull back and sink into the intellect of what  isn’t  possible, as opposed to what is?

I encourage you to come play in My Meadow.  A Meadow of Endless possibilities where seeds are constantly being planted.  It’s o.k. to embrace what you don’t know, you don’t know.  In fact, give it the biggest hug possible because in it, in the unknown, is where your potential lays waiting to be, ‘Grasshopper.’

Once again in this moment, there are no more words to be spoken.

Amy

Since I allowed myself to discover the difference between Standing alone and Standing my ground, I pondered what it was that allowed me to make the shift.

In a breath I realized what it was.  I chose to ‘Embrace my past.’  I’m not saying that I embraced and loved it.  What I’m saying is, I embraced my past, gave it the ‘hug’ that is so deserved (my way of saying ‘thank-you’ for what I learned from it) and then let it go.  It’s difficult to move forward when you have one foot stuck in the past.

I knew that I was standing in a very different place and that my life would probably shift yet again.  And now I know that things have shifted and the momentum is picking up for me.

Since I started my journey of what I’ll call ’self discovery,’ my life has been very transformational.  No longer living in a limiting view of my world, I choose to believe that everything is a yes until it is 110% a no and even then I consider…’maybe.’    What I know for myself, is that until I was ready to Embrace my past and looked at it differently, there was little or no chance of me moving forward.  I could have easily given a new definition to ‘incremental’ change.  It’s hard to move forward a step when your mind keeps on wondering back to what your life was like.  What others did to you.  Why they were so mean to you.  And how everything was really miserable.

O.K. enough already.  It may be time to consider that like others, ‘they’ only new what they knew and now that you have the experience of what it was like for you, you get to move forward and create something different for yourself.  You would have never had that opportunity if you hadn’t of experienced what you have.  You now get to choose for yourSelf…..if you ‘choose’ to.  Or live in the past and continue to create what you’ve had all your life.

If you look in the mirror, you’ll notice that you’re no longer a child.  You’re an adult able to choose differently.  Claim the past and all of its aches and pains and give it a hug and know that this is where you get to draw your line in the sand and say, “No more.”

I know of people who can readily call up the past ‘if they needed to’ so that they could put it back into someone’s face.  “There you did this to me when I was only six and now look at me.  My life is the shits because of you.”   Imagine if you’re an adult still lugging around ‘baggage’ of what other people did to you?  Where is the potential to grow or change your life if you’re only living in the past?

Our own personal history is a learning opportunity which enables us to choose differently and move forward.  It is only a ‘noose’ if we don’t allow ourselves to speak up and speak out and choose differently.  There is no one putting a ‘choke hold’ on you except yourself.

I remember my father used to say this to me sometimes.  I never fully got what he meant and he never elaborated on it and…I never asked.  Here’s what he used to say.  “The wound will heal, but the scar will always be there so that I don’t forget what was done to me.” And in a breath he would follow with, “Forgive and forget.”  I never got that one either.  Can you ever fully forgive (whatever that means) if you haven’t forgotten?  If you’re still looking at a scar that reminds you of the pain that others’ have caused you, how do you look past it and consider it as having had an opportunity for growth?

I pause and I stop to consider, am I rambling?  ‘Nonsense!’  Now that’s an old one for me.  You see that last paragraph that I wrote allowed me to ‘remember’ my past and I know that it is no longer relevant to me in this moment.  No different than you are, I remember being looked at and being told that “you’re crazing and you don’t make sense.  All of what you’re saying is in your head.”  Those were someone’s words to me when I was about37.  How easy is it for us to ‘recall’ the past and stay living in it?  We grow up and continue to grow older and I wonder if we ever allow ourselves to grow up?

Since I’ve ‘Embraced’ my past, I am moving forward in leaps and bounds.  I shared with a friend of mine yesterday that I sense that I’m like a child again.  In the sense that everything is new and I look at everything through new lenses with a sense of wonderment.  There is nothing that doesn’t amaze me or that I consider as ‘common.’  There is beauty in things that I would have never considered to hold beauty before.  This is what happens when you ‘embrace’ the past.  You get to see things differently and get to experience everything from a different perspective, your perspective of what ‘can’ be.

I walked in a Meadow yesterday and I saw chickadees, dragonflies, butterflies and wild flowers.  I listened as I heard the crickets and other bugs letting me know that I wasn’t alone.  I would have never noticed those things before.  I would have possibly noticed what ‘wasn’t’ there.  And, I stand in a different place and know that the world, ‘my world’ is meant for me to explore my potential and consider my life as endless possibilities.

So I really encourage you to consider embracing your past, look at what you’ve learned from it (because it was a learning experience) and move forward and start new.  See through new lenses.  Consider what is possible rather than only seeing what isn’t.  Honestly, there’s very little in my world that I don’t see as being possible.  And…it’s my choice as much as it is yours.  You get to choose what is meaningful for you as much as I do.  If you like what others have, consider what choices you can make to create what ‘you’ want in your life.

Growing Forward is a Choice

Amy

Yesterday I found myself reflecting on who I was and how people you to see me.  There was great comfort in the way that I ‘used’ to be because people knew what to expect.  It was comfortable for them and It Was Not Comfortable for Me.

Today, in the way that I choose to live my life is quite different for me (and for others) than what it used to be.

I used to worry so much about how family and friends viewed me.  I’d be concerned about what they thought of me, if they were talking about me.  And I can even say up until a couple of days ago I cared ’somewhat,’ what they thought of my writing or what I was doing.  Yesterday in a breath, I really discovered that no, it isn’t always easy because I would love family and friends to be happy for me and what I realized is, I care more about what I think of myself and….there opinion is none of my business.

So the awareness yesterday was that most of my life I’ve felt as though I’ve stood alone.  I’m not saying that other people weren’t in my life, I’m saying that I ‘chose’ to stand alone.  What I did discover is that there’s a huge difference in standing alone and standing your ground.

Standing alone for me was about me choosing to curl in on myself and worry about what other people (friends, family, co-workers) thought of me.  Standing my ground is about me standing tall in who I am and not apologizing or feeling the need to explain my choices.  This is a very different place and a very powerful place to stand and…it’s mine.  It’s mine in the sense that I’m allowing myself to show up in my own life  and not worry whether or not you’re showing up in yours and what you think of me.

In a conversation yesterday, I shared my thoughts with someone.

There’s a point in your life where you can easily hide from others.  Then there’s another point where you can still hide from others but it becomes difficult to hide from yourself.  And then…there’s a point when you’re simply no longer able to hide from yourself and you’re not willing to hide from anyone else.  That is a point of transformation.  How do I know that?  Because yesterday I inhaled possibilities and I exhaled my potential.  I became more because I’m no longer willing to be less…even if it makes you feel uncomfortable.

If I look to the outside of myself and allow other people’s opinions to ‘infiltrate’ my being, then all of the hopes and asprirations that I have will disappear and so will I.  Health issues will arise and I will disappear.  And ya know what?  I’m not willing to do that anymore no matter what others think of me.

Go get your own dream and make it a reality and then come back and we’ll have a great conversation about ‘what’s possible’ in our lives.  I’m not interested in small conversations or even living small.  This is my life and you can’t have it.  And since it is my life, I’m living it large whether or not it makes you uncomfortable.  Living small is what makes me feel uncomfortable and I’m done doing what makes me feel dis-comfort in my body.

In hale possibilities.  Exhale potential.  Live life large and don’t apologize for it, just have fun with it.  Eventually others will wonder what you’ve got going for you.  Imagine when you share with them that it’s as easy as consciously breathing in and out and…Conscously Choosing what’s meaningful.

Transformation and Evolution is a state of being.

Amy