lifestyle coach

How To Find What You Need | Intuition

Intuition has been a huge part of my life since I was young.  It has lead me to incredible people, places, successful businesses, and ultimately to live my life in my own paradise while I still have plenty of time to play in it.  I live it and continue to learn it.  It helps me daily and in turn I’ve been able to help others through it.

One of my practices is to read and fill my mind with inspiration from others who also lead by example.  I’ve gotten to know best selling author Angela Artemis and find what she shares through her books and blogs practical thought provoking ideas on how to develop your practices more deeply, or find them to start with if you are one to be asking yourself, “What is my true passion in life?”

Angela has just published her latest book,  The Intuition Principal, sure to go to the top of Amazon as her other books have and I’m honored to interview her here on my blog.  (we are giving a copy away at the end of this article so be sure to enter)

Passion

Jt:  Passion is something I have always lived my life around. Somehow I developed intuition when I was young.   In your book you have a chapter on How to Find Your Passion, Purpose and Authenticity.   It is the burning question people have about themselves when they first discover they want or need to make a change and need to name it.

What would you tell people to do as a first step to finding their passion,purpose or authenticity?

Angela:  The first step is to get really honest with yourself.  Ask yourself if you have been living a life that is true to who you really are or have you been living a life and putting up a front to please others?

I realized that I had been living my life to please others. I followed my father’s advice and majored in accounting….although I later changed my major because I couldn’t stand it.  I went into business (finance) to please him and then drove myself to climb the corporate ladder.  When I bought my first home on my own after my divorce my father told me he was “real proud of me.”  After I heard those words I suddenly realized in a flash what had been driving me my whole life and was freed!

After this, I started focusing on my writing. I became a freelance writer for magazines and the newspaper in my spare time which led to blogging and then to my writing, “The Intuition Principle.”

 To find your passion ask yourself three simple questions:

  1.  What interests have I had since childhood that I still have today?
  2.  What type of books do I read? Is there a theme/subject that runs through all of them?
  3.  What do I easily my spend money on to study/train/pursue?

The answers are there and as I said in the book, “Your passion is not hiding from you,” usually it’s right under your nose.

When you identify your passion your purpose will wrapped up within it like a chocolate candy with a cream filling.  They come together so just “bite into it.”  Once you know your passion it may take a little while to find your way and unearth your purpose but it will come.  Don’t rush it. Allow yourself to develop the ways and the time to incorporate your passion into your life.

Once I realized writing was my passion it took a few years for it to hit me that sharing what I had learned about how following my intuition had changed my life was my purpose.  Just know and trust that when you find your passion your purpose is not far behind.

 Fabulousity Factor

Jt: I personally love the “fabulousity factor” you write about, and again feel it has been part of my own life.  The story of selling the house is so real in that my own story goes when I decided to move my life, my business, my passions to Hawaii it involved selling a home I loved in San Diego.

It was a time friends and business colleagues said the market was at an all-time low. Those types of things bother me.  I can have a tendency to worry that I would be losing my investment, that I was leaving big money on the table.  I could have allowed these outside influences to persuade me.

Yet, I had this feeling, it was the right time for me. I was destined to go cultivate new passion in Hawaii.  Sure enough I put my home on the market, at a price higher than the market said I could get. It sold 7 days later for full price. I moved to Hawaii within 4 months of the first day I felt I should go.

How would you advise someone to develop their own fabulousity factor?

Angela:  The “fabulousity factor” comes into your life when you live intuitively.

Have you ever been so happy you felt like dancing or jumping up in the air and screaming, “YES!  When you are guided to synchronicities and serendipity in your life by your intuition you will have many of these types of joyous moments to celebrate!

When you feel fabulous you have confidence that you are on the right path in your life.  You are tuned in to your intuition and allow it to guide you to the right person or place where you meet up with fortunate coincidences that open the next door in your life. Living an “intuitively inspired life” is what creates the “fabulousity factor” in your own life.

Your “fabulousity factor” will burst forth when you feel currents of joy running through your body because you followed your intuition and picked up the phone on an impulse to call someone you hadn’t spoken to in a long time and they have “just the thing/opportunity” for you that you need in your life to take you to the next level.

How to Get the Answers to Life’s Problems

Jt:  In your book The Intuition Principle you give a clear action plan on what to do to develop your own sense of answering life’s problems.  For the person just beginning this journey without a regular practice of mediation what would you tell them to do to avoid overwhelm and find their own belief in the process?

Angela:  One of the easiest ways to get intuitive information is to “ask for a sign.”  In your meditation ask that a sign be shown to you that will help you decide something or lead you in the right direction.

If you don’t meditate just go somewhere quiet and close your eyes and allow yourself to become calm.  When you are ready ask to be given a sign that will recognize as the answer to the problem you are looking for.

It’s very important not to be attached to one particular outcome/answer/solution. When you are attached to one solution you narrow your vision and because of your expectation that it will “X,” you may miss the creative and more exciting answer the Universe has in store for you.

Tell yourself that you will receive the sign in the next 48 to 72 hours then be on the lookout for it.  The sign may arise in a snippet of conversation you overhear somewhere or through something you hear on the radio, see on television or read somewhere.  It may also come in a conversation with a friend or colleague.  I’ve gotten answers driving past billboards on the highway so, pay attention!

After this, just relax and know that the answer is coming.  You will know it to be the answer you were looking for because it will “feel right” when it comes to you.  You will feel relieved and have a deep sense of knowing that this is the answer you were looking for.  Intuition is a process of “feeling” so focus on how you feel about it.

Cracking the Intuition Code

Jt:  Those who practice intuition tend to get noticed especially in the circles we move within.  There is a general sense of knowing, a sort of magical confidence surrounding us.

What do you say is your greatest accomplishment or sense of well being that has come of your own practice of intuition?

Angela:  The greatest thing that following my intuition has done for me is to finally allow me to create the life I have always dreamed of.  I quit my executive job and went back to school.  My intuition had been screaming to me for seven years to do it until I finally accepted that nothing else would satisfy me in my life until I did that.  When I had lined things up financially I announced to my colleagues and upper management that I would be leaving in a month’s time.

I couldn’t believe the outpouring of support I got!  Here I thought I would be shunned and looked at as a fool for giving up this big cushy job with the corner office and instead I was given accolades!  Secretly, all these people including directors confessed to me that they too dreamed of escaping the corporate trap.

I was shocked but, as you can imagine pleasantly surprised.  I went back to school and got a degree in communications with a concentration in writing.  I graduated with honors and got a scholarship to graduate school.  It was the most exhilarating and magical time in my life! This changed everything for me.  I gained so much confidence and what I learned from it was to trust my inner voice, my intuition.

I realized that my inner voice had been right all along – I didn’t belong in the business world.  I allowed what others thought was right for me to influence my decisions.  Following my intuition allowed me to take back my power.  I now know without a shadow of doubt that when I “feel” that inner tug, that whisper – that longing to do something inside that it is absolutely correct.

The magical quality that people who listen to their intuition exude (their fabulousity factor) comes from the trust they have in their intuition and the confidence they gain from following it.  All you have to do is take that first step – trust your inner voice and take action then….you will see the map of your next step and the next materialize before you.  And, before you know it you too will be exuding that magical quality that comes from following your intuition and living your dreams.

Angela Artemis, an intuition coach, is on a mission to teach readers around the world to “speak intuition” so that they unlock all the brilliant potential that resides within and start successfully living the life of their dreams now – not later.  She blogs at http://www.PoweredbyIntuition.com and is the author of, “The Intuition Principle: How to Attract the Life You Dream Of  Free bonus material is available to readers of The Intuition Principle here.

The Giveaway

Win your copy of The Intuition Principle
How to Enter.  It’s easy….
  1. Follow Powered by Intuition and Big Island Dog on Facebook.
  2. Share your answer to this question in the comments AND on G+Has well do you feel you follow your intuitive notions?
I will announce the WINNER on May 27, 2012


“The Intuition Principle” by Angela Artemis

“The Intuition Principle: How to Attract the Life You Dream Of is a road map to finding your true purpose, passion and path in life.  It is a guidebook for uncovering your authentic self through following your intuition.  Learning to navigate your life by intuition is the most direct way to finding the joyous life you’ve always dreamed of living.  When you learn to go within and follow the ‘intuition principle’ you will bring the world to you in a nearly effortless way.
Now available on Amazon

Or get the Kindle Version

Get your free bonuses.  Angela has recorded a few of the meditations from the book and you can download these as MP3s. Some of the worksheets from exercises in the book can also be downloaded here: http://www.poweredbyintuition.com/free-tools-4-readers/
Enter to win your copy in the comments AND on G+

 

Ulitmate Success is All in Your Head

Going after it. Success. Whether a career or a triathlon or being truly in love with someone, making money or finding our life calling, what is the mistake so many are making to miss out on feeling ultimate success, peace, joy, contentment?

Too much “busy” in our heads? Is it lack of ability to keep our heads in the present and not out somewhere in the future?

Success is so sought after that what is going on in our heads is blocking the view that we are already in the midst of success. The idea that we already have everything we need to be happy, healthy and content is not one we practice.

Instead we spend our time talking in our own minds about shoulda, coulda, woulda. We occupy the space in our heads with busy-ness, not with really embracing all that we have right now.

What we think about, we create. Which do you want, busy-ness or to actually enjoy what you are doing right now? It is a choice.

The habit of staying really super busy trying to be better, have more, be faster, or not be so stressed about making more money is completely stopping us from actually noticing all the cool things that are going on right now. Today. All that we already have.

Staying super busy doesn’t allow us the time to actually create more of what we really want.  Things like a rested mind, a peaceful body, health, good friends, family, manifesting enough money, they all escape us when we are too busy in our own heads.

The Habit of Notice

I moved to Hawaii a little over a year ago. The idea was to slow down. Live. Enjoy. Play. While at the same time I do my own thing, I work for myself.

Working for yourself has it’s challenges. One of the biggest is balance. Time. Not going overboard with it. Especially when one has been known to do 9 Ironmans in 3 years….  if you are one of those types, always going after it… you are like me and you NEED to start focusing on balance! Or true happiness could escape you even though it’s right there for you to grasp, to hold, to have right now.

I realized I had to let go and start noticing what was around me. Focus on all that I already had so that I didn’t start spending all of my time trying to get something more, something that brought me closer to some undefined sense of success. A sense of success based on what other people might be thinking rather than what is important to me.

So I started NOTICING.

So many way cool things happen to us every single day. Yet somehow we have trained ourselves to focus on all the things we don’t have done, or the workouts we should do, or making more money, or going faster at the next race… whatever your gig is.

The focus in our mind is out there on more, or different or something other than we have right now. The truth of the matter is most of us do not even know that we are thinking these things until we slow down and take the time to notice.

How to Start Noticing and Stop Being Too Busy

  • Carry a journal with you.
  • Notice what you are thinking about.
  • Write it down.
  • Make sure you do it several times a day.
  • Set a reminder for every hour to write down what you are thinking.

You’ll probably be quite surprised to find out that though you think you are being a positive person, you have thrown a negative thought or judgement to most things about yourself or someone the majority of the time.

No wonder that is what we get more of. Negative thoughts. Busy thoughts of getting to a better, more joyful place than we are right now. But not being good with what we are doing, or have or feel right now.

Start noticing the patterns in what you write down.  By physically writing these thoughts down you actually have to define what is going on in your head.

Start ReVIBE –

Take what you’ve got and turn it into more of what you want minus the busy negative energy.

Start prompting yourself to write something down that:

  • Gave you a quick smile
  • Stirred emotion of “I like that”
  • Step way out there move yourself forward and write down why you like being you, just the way you are.
  • Write down what your are feeling versus what your are needing.  Once defined you can start filling your time with doing more of what you need to revel in your success right now, starting with “I Like Being Me”.
  • Write down what you are grateful for today.
  • Write down anything you did or felt that is moving you towards more of what you want.
  • Write down the things you see around your that you like.

Your thoughts drive what you do, they are your manifesto to your life’s journey.

You’ll find you already have in you what you need to be successful at life, love, career, money, triathlon, fill in the blank.  You just aren’t giving yourself time enough to even acknowledge it, practice it, or live it.

You are too busy trying to plan for more in your head.  You’ve been saying yes to everything, super hero to anyone that looks like they are judging you, filling your time with what you think you are supposed to do and finding yourself a little resentful, a little tired, a little unfulfilled instead of defining, doing and actually enjoying what really makes you happy.

ReVIBE is about transpiring the essence of who and what you are into what you offer to yourself, to those in your life and to the world.

ReVIBE is about discovering alignment with what you say, think and do, and putting it into practice in a way that finally brings content, peace and joy no matter where you are in the world today.

ReVIBE | Life Habits + Move into Your Paradise + Write + I Like Being Me + Live in Color – Opens for registration June 2012

Jt Clough lives on the Big Island, Hawaii, and practices health, happiness and natural remedies, while working as a ReVIBE Habits Coach for people looking to live healthier and happier lives.  She is a dog whisperer for our best friends and studies natural dog remedies, nutrition and communication.

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A Dog’s Approach To Ironman

The 2011 Ironman is now a wrap here in Kona. It was yet another year of triumphs in so many ways. There were roughly 1800 people who came across that finish line this year. Everyone from the pros to those with a triathlon lifestyle to those who are everyday moms and dads to people like Scott Rigsby, double amputee who got to hear those words, “You are an Ironman” lived their own triumphant day.

The Inspiring Accomplishment in Hawaii

Finishing an Ironman in Hawaii no matter who you are or what time you did it in is an accomplishment. For all those that finished or even attempted to finish the Ironman here in Kona this year…

  • Congratulations.
  • Great job.
  • You did well.
  • You learned something about yourself.
  • You will have gone on a journey that will live within you forever.
  • The memories will be of the journey’s accomplishment; not your Timex, or what spot you finished in.

Ironman Inspiration to A Better Place within Yourself

For many watching an Ironman is pure inspiration. It could be running a 5K to doing a shorter distance triathlon, a Half Ironman or even set your sights on completing an Ironman. It could be as simple as exercising every day, walking, yoga, a daily jaunt with the dog. The inspiration is yours to create.

The important thing in our lives is to have a something that inspires ourselves and in turn inspires others. That doesn’t mean think about it, wish you could do it, or hope to do it in the future. The time is now.

If you are thinking of committing to one of these things I encourage you to start today.

As inspiration coach of both people and dogs here are a few tips on getting started. Those with dogs will see this viewpoint clearly.  And those of you without dogs, start wagging your tail and playing every day as if you had dog recess playtime as one of your required job descriptions!

Training for a 5K, Triathlon or Ironman Like A Dog

First, dogs love to go.  Anywhere.  Any time.  Pick up the leash or a set of keys and the excitement to go comes out in a four legged dance with mad tail wagging on top of all of that.

Do your workout the same. Get a plan. Tons of places to find them, (training plans) but more importantly, decide what you are going to do for a workout in the morning. When you get up, act like the dog, like you can hardly wait to get out the door. It’s soooo exciting.

Get the leash, the keys (shoes, swim suit, bike, or even the dog) and get out the door. As a habit. Wag about it.

It won’t be long and you WILL begin to feel that way.  Really.

Forget about a watch and how fast you are going at whatever specific exercise you are doing. At least at first. Just go. And pretend to be the dog while you go. Wag at each and every little thing. Be grateful for the day and the fact that you get to go out and move.

If people like Scott Rigsby can do it. So can you.

Thanks for reading.  My hope is to give you inspiration and thought provoking ideas to take your very next step in creating your own paradise from where you are now!  Please subscribe to Big Island Dog and follow me on Twitter.   Retweets are cool too.

As a 9 time Ironamn finisher, author and creator of 5K Training Guide | Running with Dogs and K9 Cross Fitness Classes in Kailua Kona Hawaii I encourage you to make that change you want so badly today!

Aloha Wags!