Category: Love Your Life Blog

The new year always brings new possibilities for your life. It’s a time that creates momentum to look at your life, to create a life you have dreamed of.

Begin by reflecting on YOUR 2015:

• What went well? What do you want more of? Did you settle for less than your best life?
• Were there turning points?
• What do you want differently than what you experienced?
• Did you measure the wrong things? Who is guiding your life?

Take time to release those things that you do not want to carry forward. They will create baggage for you whether they are events, beliefs or thoughts.

You can write them out on a sheet of paper and burn them.

Then, the next step is to write out a gratitude list of all that happened for you, even if you perceive it as negative. Those situations help clarify what you don’t want. They can be helpful in your growth if you can see the benefit. After you write out your list, look at “why” you were grateful for these items. You want to acknowledge what you want more of in your life.

For instance, I wrote out excited about my coaching clients. I am so appreciative of them, how I help them but also how they have expanded my world as well as the financial benefits I receive.

I wrote out losing weight (even though not nearly where I want) but I am eating healthier, making better choices – less process, less meat, more organic. I am loving my body more as I see how blessed I am to be as healthy I am. I see it from a larger perspective of healthy well-being rather than just my weight. Big growth for me.

Then as you decide what YOU want for 2016 from your discovery, choose a plan that will work for you. Here are three different ways or use a combination of them.

1. How about using a little help from your inner wisdom, God or the Universe to help guide you? Instead of forcing or doing what you think you should or ought to do, how about using a power greater than you?

Take time to go within. Think and imagine all that you want to happen for you in 2016. Feel it, get excited about it. Then ask for guidance of what you need to do to make that happen. What is one thing that you want to experience to create “that” for 2016? Make your plan, break it down in chunks of doable actions.
What a great model this can be for helping shape your life! Commit to being still, going within, meditating for 5 minutes each day first thing in the morning.

Watch your life change.

You will feel more peaceful, more empowered, more focused just by this little change.

2. Another way to look at designing 2016 is the One Word Process by Jon Gordon, getoneword.com.Choose ONE word that could help create the life you want. Let it be something you can use in all areas of your life. Like fun, joy, healthy or action.(Can you imagine how much your life would be better and the world if we all chose any of those words?)How could your one word keep you focused for the year? By having one word it is more likely that you will follow through on what you want for the year. Share in the Facebook group your ONE WORD for 2016.
3. Iyanla Vanzant shares in Until Today sometimes you aren’t sure of how what you are doing plays a part of the purpose for your life. She explains that YOU“

• gain character as you lose ego
• gain integrity as you lose dishonesty
• gain strength as you lose fear
• gain compassion as you lose disappointment
• gain appreciation as you lose resentment
• gain discipline as you lose willfulness
• gain enthusiasm as you lose hostility
• gain tenderness as you lose rigidity
• gain optimism as you lose inadequacy.”

Where in your life could you use one of these ideas to propel your life in the direction you need for 2016?

Living your best life doesn’t have to be complicated.
Take charge of your life.

Become empowered to create the life you want.

Use this new year as motivation to get started. Choose something that matters to you.

Know your why it is important to your life. What will you need to do or who do you have to become to make it happen? Is it taking a course that can help you create the online business you’ve always wanted, is it losing weight or is it building your legacy?

Michael Hyatt shared in a recent blog, “Almost 40 percent of people in their twenties achieve their New Year’s resolutions each year, but not even 15 percent of those over 50.” And, also he shared as well as a few others I follow, “Dr. Gail Matthews of Dominican University found you’re 42 percent more likely to achieve your goals just by writing them down.”

Take time, write them down.

What are you willing to do to commit to create 2016 as your best year ever?

I’d love to help you by providing you with a FREE complementary Discovery Session. Go to dottiehager.com and sign up NOW.

As this holiday season is nearing the destination of Christmas and New Years, how are you choosing to live in peace and love? How are you sharing the Good News?

It’s so easy to get into the frantic mindset of all the events leading up to the holidays as well as the feelings you have about what gifts you are giving.

I want to simplify that for you. How about thinking about giving your gifts from the “language of love” your recipient receives from?

Sometimes you work so hard to figure out the right things to give, only to be left feeling unappreciated or not valued for what you gave. These feelings can be changed when your focus is on how the person you are giving receives. That is usually backwards for most of us. Often gifts are given from what you love.

What if instead you shifted your focus to how they receive?

In the Five Languages of Love by Gary Chapman, he talks about the necessity to understand how each person in a relationship receives love. Because often, you feel like the other person doesn’t get you, doesn’t really know what you like. Generally, left frustrated because what they do doesn’t speak to your needs. For greater love and understanding of the people you share this life with, check into his five languages of love.

They are:

• Acts of Service
• Physical Touch
• Words of Affirmation
• Receiving Gifts
• Quality Time

“He suggests there are three ways to discover your own primary love language:

1. What does your spouse do or fail to do that hurts you most deeply? The opposite of what hurts you most is probably your love language;
2. What have you most often requested of your spouse? This is likely the thing that would make you feel most loved; and,
3. In what ways do you regularly express love to your spouse? Your method may be an indicator of how you want to be loved.”

(To find out what your love language is and others in your life, visit www.5lovelanguages.com and take the quiz.)

So for me, my husband loves acts of service. What acts of service can I do for him this holiday season? I can give him “tickets” of things I will do for him that I know he appreciates such as empty his suitcase from our travels, help him with the computer or get the beer for his geriatric biking group celebration. When he sees those tickets, he will know that I value what he loves. Then it makes me feel really good that I can feel the joy he has from receiving something HE loves. It’s a win, win, greater love and deeper connections.

What’s it for you and those you are sharing time and gifts with this holiday season? The Languages of Love is the gift that keeps on giving. Take time to know what matters to them.

So as you are finalizing your GIFTS for this holiday season, use the “good news” of the languages of love as your guide.

Let me know if you could feel the good news of more peace and love by sharing from their language of love. Post what your language of love is in our Facebook group.

Happy Holidays!

Life is always giving back to you what you give out. As you think about what guides your life, what are those principles for you – be kind, compassionate, and do unto others as you would have done to you?

“How are they working for you?”

Do you truly allow your principles to help you as you make decisions, as you interact with people and go about your day to day discussions? I know most people say those things but how are you about walking the talk?

It’s so easy to get caught up in the media, politics and horror of things around you if that is your focus and the world you are surrounding yourself. How can use those situations as guideposts of what you don’t want, and spend more talk, energy on what you do want like living your life principles? How can you be part of the solution rather than keeping talking and engaging about the problems? Work on your circle of influence – your own life, your family, your extended family, your job, your friends, your colleagues, your church, and your environment and see where you and others in your circle can be kinder, more compassionate or whatever your standards of life are. It all starts with you and me DECIDING we do want a world, a community that is kinder, compassionate and lives the golden rule.

Take a moment to look where there is some disharmony in your life, and ask how you could shift that to be more in harmony with what’s most dear to you.

I know as I was growing up, I was in a very traditional church for more decades than not of my life. During my time there, my church taught me it was the only one, that its principles were the only way it was. But as life happened over and over there were situations that had me questioning those truths. Then I realized that yes, some of those principles were good but some were very judgmental, hurtful, hateful and cruel. One of the early ones was when a friend of mine was getting married in a “different” church and I wanted to go. I was taught, and interpreted, that if I entered that church I would go to hell because I was to only go to my church. How could I not feel guilty, hurt? Which do I choose, my friend’s wedding or the church I go to? What guilt and shame I felt for years. That builds up and creates inner disharmony. Such as,

Crazy ways I made all that mean in my life was:

• “My church” was better than yours.
• My way vs. Your Way
• You were bad or wrong if you chose a different church.
• I was Good vs. Others choices Bad
• Our way of thinking was the “right” way.
• I’m Right vs. Others are Wrong

What was kind, caring about those thoughts? I felt conflict about differences, differing opinions or ideas that weren’t “my” church or their doctrine. Those thoughts of separation built over the years.

I let “others” influence my decisions. Until I realized, I had a choice. I have choice with every situation to decide if it fits my principles of how I want my life to be. Does it take work, yes. For sure at the beginning, but it also creates harmony and joy because I am listening to my inner guidance of what is right for my life, my serving the world to help thousands live a life of more joy, love and abundance.

Sometimes it seems so crazy the things you pick up in life and follow as the way it is. I ask you take some time and make sure you are following the path that is right for you.

I am so thankful that my world burst open from my righteous ways even though it was quite painful. I now see things from a more loving, kind, compassionate way rather than being the judgmental, limited person I was during that time. So freeing.

Where in your life can you begin looking at places in your life you aren’t living to the highest? Where could you open to more loving, joyful ideas of how life can be?

Take this holiday season to look at all you have to be thankful for and why you are thankful for that. What does it add to your life? Cherish all the ways your life is in harmony. Find ways to share more of that gratitude and appreciation.

As “tis the season to be jolly” is approaching, how can you be more joyful, merry and give more of that?

Life gives back that which you are giving.

The secret to having the holiday season you want is to be clear about what you want.

With Thanksgiving and Christmas coming, there is a tendency to have feelings of being frantic and disheveled. The holidays can bring up anxiety, hurt and frustrations. Or, you could love the feelings of celebration, busyness, and family get together s.

I have always loved the holidays as they represent time our family gets together. Even if it feels busy, frantic or whatever, I can put that aside and choose to cherish the time we are together. My family of origin chose Christmas as a priority to spend some time together. No matter where we were across the country, we made it to my parents for Christmas. It became trickier when we had children but still got together. We loved the chaos of all our children and families being together.

Now we are in a new phase of our lives, have grandkids and adult kids married, it makes for some concerted effort to schedule in our time together. There has been transitions and changes to try to accommodate the different family needs and our desires. But foremost for us is to have some time together. Sometimes schedules don’t allow that to happen and we try to make the most of the situation. Our top desire will always be trying to be with all the children.

What is your idea of how you want your holiday season to be? What does it look like, feel like? Is it joyful, festive, quiet and/or peaceful? Does it include family or time for solitude? Is it time to begin separating yourself from people who no longer serve your highest and best good? What fits YOU best?

Use this holiday season to begin creating the life you want. Start paying attention to the choices you are making and what they are creating in your life.

Know how this time of year effects you. Honor your feelings whatever they might be.

If you feel anxious because of past holidays, what is coming up for you? How can you change that? You can’t change your past but you can create your future differently. Awareness of what you are feeling is the first step to healing and creating something better for yourself.

• Did you have an alcoholic family member that was abusive?
• Did you feel abandoned during these times?
• Did you feel financially strapped?
• Were there family arguments?
  

What can YOU control about that situation today? How can you move beyond those scenarios? Do you feel pressured to attend functions that make you uncomfortable? If so, then how can you protect yourself to ensure nothing happens to you again? Who can you lean on to help make sure “those” people are not around you? And if they are, what is your game plan to remove yourself from the situation? You cannot control other people but you can make choices to live the life you love.

Take time to note what feels great to you and what feels off. Make a plan to change what doesn’t feel good to you. Decide to change one thing you no longer want to do. For instance, if you are tired of going to so many parties and functions.

Choose 1 or 2 of them to no longer go to. You will be amazed at the freedom you feel. Note why you feel the pressure to attend – does it make you feel important, like you have lots of friends, like you belong or is it what’s most important to you to be a part of those type of functions?

Know what matters to you and how it fits with what you value for your life. Do more of that.

You are in charge of creating your life.

Decide that you are taking charge of your life, and creating your life the way you want it to go this holiday season. Get rid of things that don’t give you joy and happiness.
One step at a time.

Decide that you are no longer going to let outside circumstances control your life.

Decide your past is not going to create your future, unless it is in of your plan.

Life is precious. Let this holiday season pave your path to your brightest year ever.

What is one thing you need to change to make your holidays more peaceful and loving?

Share with me on Facebook.

Sign up for a complimentary 15 minute coaching session to help create the holiday season you want.

Success is an inside job. “What man can be he must be. This need we call self-actualization.” Abraham Maslow

To know is to experience. Initially for most people success is how much money you make, the positions you hold or all the degrees and awards you acquire. But after awhile, you begin questioning is this all there is in life.

If you follow this void, you will find something deeper and more fulfilling. This questioning can lead you to what Victor Frankl calls Man’s Search for Meaning. You find a connection to a source greater than yourself. You see success in new light.

Just like in October, 2015 Fortune magazine, editor Alan Murray shares how even though the top 40 under 40 on his list have acquired phenomenal financial success, they say that’s a side benefit, not the main goal. Success is having a purpose. Such as the examples he shares, “Success is helping patients, says Michelle Dipp who helped parents of the first baby born with her breakthrough fertility treatment.” Vas Narasimha says, “Success means being on a journey where I can positively impact the world and those around me.”

For each person the path to self-actualization will take a different course. A course that is messy, rugged and transformative.

Success is making a difference for you and others.

How has your Hero’s Journey changed your view of what success is? Did it go from something outside of yourself to something more intrinsic?

My image of success has vastly changed from my journey to:

• Success is being on purpose. Seeing how my work can impact a greater cause.
• Success is a feeling, enjoying where I am, taking in all I can to appreciate, feeling grateful for all that is happening in my life rather than feeling that success is how much I’m doing or making. Yes, that’s all part of the fun but now the satisfaction comes from inside.
• Success is being all I can be without the judgments of how it needs to be, living up to other’s expectations but just living the life that I want, creating that.
• Success is being a contribution. It’s doing what I love, what brings me joy, love and abundance. It’s what lights my soul, my heart while making the path easier for others.

I have realized that it is just in me to be driven, to want more, to be the best I can be, the self-actualization. But what is so great about where I am today, is that it isn’t in competition to be seen as successful or because I don’t feel good enough, trying to prove myself. It’s the inner knowing, living the meaningful life that I feel successful.

It’s a shift in my focus, my perspective of what’s most important in life.
It’s bigger than me.
It is being in alignment with my BEING not my doing.

I value that I have discovered true success. How do I know, because I am at peace with where I am. I feel part of the greater whole.

Share with me on Facebook one way you can find, or have found, greater purpose and meaning in your life by shifting how you view “Success

Life can be full of challenges.  One thing to help you become a happier person is to balance your life.  Take charge of what’s most important to you.  Where is your life out of balance?  Often the hardest balance is between work and family time.  Especially if you are trying to establish yourself at work, or you are a new parent, or you are now a single parent.  One of the things to pay attention to if you are noticing that work is encompassing your life, what needs are being fulfilled there that aren’t being fulfilled at home?  Work may provide some kind of significance for you and maybe you are not feeling that at home so you overcompensate at work.  Have you made work more meaningful than parenting? Whose voice are you hearing making that true for you?

Tony Robbins talks about all humans have 6 basic needs – the need for certainty, for uncertainty, for significance, for love/connection and two spiritual needs – growth and contribution.  You will have those needs filled either in a positive or negative way.

When your life is out of whack, you will try the best you know how, to have your needs met.  Like, do you want to be a better parent but feel pressures of work? Take time to see how you are having your needs met.  Awareness of what you are doing in negative and positive ways in each of those categories is valuable to finding your happiness.  A reason for unhappiness or frustration with life is when you know things are happening in your life you don’t like.  Usually, you ignore it or justify it rather than addressing the problem. What you want to do is to find positive ways to have those needs met but you first have to see it to know it.

Write out how your life is fulfilling each need both positively and negatively.  It can be telling.  When I did this activity, significance and growth were my two strongest.  I saw how much of my significance was negative where I was trying to be valued, be important like obsessing over being the best at my work.  It’s important information because it’s a beginning place to being happier.

The first step is to become aware is to know how you are operating right now.  Don’t make it bad or good but information you need to feel empowered to make the changes you want in your life.  Next, seek to understand how your needs are being met negatively.  Then what are some small steps to begin shifting those so you can feel more contentment and lead a happier life by having your needs met in the ways you want.  In other words, how can your negatively fed needs turn to fulfilling needs?  For example, you drink too much.  What need is not being met that you are now having met by the drinking – significance, connection, uncertainty?  Own it.  Decide to change it.

Once needs are met in a positive way, you choose different behaviors more in alignment with what you want.  Then your life is happier and you are less effected by trivial things.  You are living in harmony with the life you desire.

Share with me on Facebook, what’s one revelation you have had about how you are trying to have one of your needs met in a negative way and how you are planning on changing it.

Recently, I sent out a survey to find out what is of most interest to you, my readers and clients.  A number said they were interested in how you move on from your relationship.  It is a topic dear to my heart as I spent years trying to heal.

It is so hard:

• When you know it is time to let go because there is great safety and familiarity even when you know that relationship is no longer serving you.
• To be alone (at the beginning).
• To experience the feelings of loneliness.
• When your days and nights were designed around that person for so long.

Oh, yeah, and what about the money worries for so many women?

Once you KNOW, and you know way before you take any action.  You know the relationship has lost its zest, its purpose, the commitment, the love and joy.  You know there is more pain, struggle, darkness and often are just afraid to make the break.  Afraid of the unknown, feeling worthless that you couldn’t keep your relationship together, feeling like a failure, feeling like life is over or afraid of what others will say about you.  STOP. That’s all your self-talk, it’s not the truth about who you are.  Find the next better feeling step for you like connecting with someone you know that has made it to the other side or hugging your kids. Take some action.  Begin letting go. See yourself doing it.  Feel the next step out the door or telling them to leave on a given date.

Or if you are the one that was left, honor all you feel, the betrayal, the loss, the loneliness, the changes to no longer having a partner.  It hurts, it’s painful even if the relationship was abusive.

A key is not to stay in the story or drama of what you are telling about that relationship for too long.  You can’t change what has happened.  It served you for a time, a reason or a season.

What I know and why I love helping is that you don’t have to stay in that darkness or hurt for as long as I did.  You must go through the grieving process but know there is hope, there is love and you can be loved again (if you choose).  It can be the glimmer of light or hope you need to move you forward.

If you can hear anywhere in your being, there is something more, that in the bigger message of your life, there is something greater calling you.  I stayed stuck looking at the past and “what if” for way longer than it served me.  I spent so much time in shame and guilt.  Those feelings keep you stuck.  They do not help you or anyone around you.

I did a telesummit on Living Free from the Pain of Divorce to help people see what life can be on the other side of divorce.  You can get the audio recordings on my website, dottiehager.com and listen to the different speakers.  Most of the speakers talk about how their painful divorce pushed them to something greater in their life.  As Debbie Ford says, turn the darkness into gold.  I wanted that summit to be a support for people, a light to see that life has more to offer  even though at the time it might not seem like it.

I ask you to believe in yourself, believe you CAN have the relationship you desire.  Yes, it can take time to heal and can take time to even want to think about a relationship again but it IS possible to create something greater.  You deserve to have the love you desire. 

First, trust and honor all you feel.  This is your life.  Find support to love you, lift you up, listen to you, and help you move through the pain, the losses, the anger and resentments, and all the craziness that happens.   Girlfriends are the best. Coaches, therapist, clergy, support groups can  help you make any move you need and work through to the next phase of your life.  They are there for you, if you ask.  Surround yourself with what you need.

And, years and years later when:

• you have done the healing work
• know who you are
• know what’s most important to you,
• know what you value in a relationship,

Then you are ready to open up to new possibilities and can work on creating the relationship you love for the next chapter of your life.

Did you ever want to give up on your relationship?  Everyone thinks they know how to love.  I realized how much I really didn’t know about the skills and strategies needed to live in a passionate, loving, fun relationship until after my divorce.    I learned the hard way.  But I have benefitted because I have used those painful situations as opportunities to dig deeper into what it really takes to create a relationship you love.  What have you used as your model of relationships?

Once you are in an established relationship, the very traits you admired in your partner initially can cause conflicts a few months or years later.  Then it is tempting to focus on what you don’t like about them and the relationship spirals down.  Why is that?

“Relationships are a path to consciousness, healing and growth.” Shakti Gawain

Your relationships, especially those closest to you serve as mirrors. They are here to teach you and show you parts of yourself that you have disowned, hidden or suppressed. Any time you are triggered, blaming, or judging others as being wrong or the cause of your unhappiness, you are likely in projection. Projection is your way of saying a situation is about them rather than realizing it is about you. When you are upset with others, the truth is there is something that you can’t be with about yourself.

The secret is if you could take a new perspective . If you could see that whenever another person does something that upsets you,  it’s an opportunity to heal that part in you.  It’s not about making them wrong or lamblasting them.  It’s about you. 

• The other person is there to deliver a message for you.
• The other person is there to show you a part of yourself that you can’t see, consciously or unconsciously.
• The other person and the relationship is there to serve you to become the greatest, grandest version of you.

I’m sure you are saying, how could that be, they said, or did, this or that to me.  That might be true, but you reacted to it because of something within you.  You have given away your peace and love, you are upset. Have you noticed often the same type of arguments come up, or ways you react to situations? The key is to heal that projection so that you can be happier and live in more joyful, loving ways. Then, you won’t be triggered by “that” anymore.  It’s a wonderful tool to have because you are in charge of your happiness, not someone else.

Relationships are meant to be a wonderful bonding of two people in love.  Too often you don’t have the skills and strategies to help you maneuver through life’s differences and challenges.  This creates unhealthy behaviors and builds up hurts, anger, rage and depression.   Knowing this secret, you can have a more peaceful way to solving the hurt or conflicts that show up in your life.

If you are interested in knowing the steps and process to release these projections and to build the relationship of your dreams, contact me at dottiehager.com or sign-up for a discovery session.