Inspired Heart Coaching

Love- What Does It Mean To You?

Not long ago, my boyfriend and I were

having a conversation about

our previous relationships.

 

Well, actually, to be more specific,

MY previous relationships since I have

... uh, a few in my past.  My boyfriend

was married for 19 years before his

divorce 9 years ago, so his list is a

tad bit shorter :-)

 

He asked what Love is to me now…

I couldn’t come up with an immediate

answer.  But after giving it some thought,

I came up with a few ideas.

 

So, in honor of Valentine’s Day,

here are some thoughts on Love,

and I'd love to hear yours as well.

 

Love means…

trust, acceptance, respect and appreciation,

those are the 4 biggies.

 

Love is…

the willingness to grow and be there for

someone, while also realizing that the goal

is not to ‘arrive’ somewhere in the future,

but to be fully present and appreciative

of where you are right now.

 

Love is…

an action and very often a choice.

And the goal is not to ‘fall in love,’ but to

‘grow in love,’ so you can become more of

who you are, not less.

 

Love…

should never make you feel like you are

‘less than’, but ‘more than’.  It should feel

expansive, not constrictive and restrictive.

 

Love is…

about looking for and seeing the best in

someone, even at times when they may

not be able to see it for themselves.

 

Love…

and fear can’t exist together, so I think love

is about letting go of fear and learning to trust.

 

And here’s the biggest thing I’ve learned about

Love…

you can only give Love to someone else,

when you’ve learned how to give it to yourself.

 

When you’ve learned to really trust, respect and

be honest with yourself, only then can you offer

those same things to someone else.

 

Only then can you make really wise choices

about the people you choose to be with in

your life, because those choices are based

in trust, respect and honesty with yourself,

and not based in fear.

 

I don’t know that earlier in my life,

I was completely conscious of the choices I made

about partners BEFORE I made them and why.

 

In part because I hadn’t taken the time to really

know myself and figure out what I wanted and why. 

 

So that’s my definition for Love.

 

And the best part is I realize that every single

experience I’ve had has allowed me to finally

learn all these things about myself, who I am

and what Love is to me.

 

Now that I can look back on every experience

I’ve had with love and appreciation for what it

taught me, I can look at the present and the future

with only love in my heart.

 

And ya know, that just really feels good.

 

I’d love to know what Love is to you…

 

My Valentine’s wish for you is that

whatever you do and whoever you’re with,

you treat yourself like the best Valentine

in the world… because you are.

 

And that’s what Love is really all about...

loving and appreciating who you are,

just as you are,

so you can share your wonderful self

with someone else.

 

With love, light and blessings,

 

Dawn

 

Past Relationships- How to release them so you can step into the future

Have you ever been in a relationship where you felt like no matter what you did or what you said, you were still attached to the person you were trying to leave behind?

Been there.  The last time, after I had exhausted all my resources for doing everything I knew to let go of the past, a very powerful visualization came to me one morning while I was meditating.

While I was going through this process, I wanted to feel like I was letting go of the past in a peaceful and harmonious way.

I wanted to feel like I was moving towards something I wanted rather than away from something I didn't want.

I've had a quite a few clients recently who were in the same place... needing and wanting to move on from the past, but not knowing how.   

This visualization worked so well for me, I now take all my clients through it as well, and I wanted to share it with you...

Feel free to pass it on if you know anyone who might be needing to leave the past behind, because until we fully complete and release our past relationships, we will continue to carry our emotional baggage into the future.

Take your time with this meditation and do it as often as necessary until you feel a sense of completion.

Find a comfortable place to sit and relax.

Close your eyes, take a few deep breaths.

Allow your awareness to rest gently on your heart.

Visualize yourself standing someplace quiet and peaceful.

Now visualize the person you would like to release from the past standing across from you.

You are each holding one end of a cord that runs between you.

This cord represents your attachment to each other and the energetic connection of your relationship.

You can visualize this cord as a golden rope of light, or a piece of heavy white cord, whatever feels right

for you.

Take a few minutes to tell this person anything you need to say to feel complete with the relationship.

You are speaking to this person’s higher self, so whatever you say will be understood.

Visualize them being appreciative of your telling them how you feel and accepting of anything you have to say.

When you feel complete, lovingly tell this person good-bye and thank them for everything you learned

while you were with them.

Very gently set your end of the cord that you were holding down on the ground.  By setting down your end of the cord, you have released your attachment to this person and the relationship completely.

There is no longer any energetic connection between you. 

You can visualize them setting down their end of the cord, or perhaps they have chosen to hang on to their end of the cord, whatever they choose to do in your visualization is fine.

But since you have set down your end of the cord, you are now free of your connection to the past.

Once you have said good-bye and set down the cord, visualize yourself turning and walking towards a beautiful, white light.

Within this beautiful white light is everything you now want to manifest in your life… all your dreams, goals, and desires.

Now that you have released and let go of the past, you are free to walk into this light and know that

everything is there waiting for you.

Your only job now is to feel what it’s like to be surrounded by everything you desire; your dreams are there waiting for you, you just need to open your arms and let them into your life.

The only thing that was holding you back was your attachment to the past.

Now that you’ve let that go, you are free to receive all the good waiting for you now and in the future.

Spend some time thinking about everything that this beautiful white light holds for you.

Write it all down… your ideal relationship and partner, your ideal career and financial resources, your ideal home life, your physical health and well-being.

Tap into the experience of what it would feel like to be living in your ideal life.

Place your hand over your heart and anchor those feelings of joy, happiness, peace, love, success, prosperity... whatever feelings represent your ideal life for you. 

Anytime you start to feel worried, doubtful or insecure, go back to this meditation and visualize yourself again gently putting down the cord to the past and walking towards the light of everything you want in your life.

Every time you do this visualization, you will be freeing yourself more and more from the past, and strengthening your connection to the future, your desires and effortlessly attracting them into your life.

I'd love to hear from you, and as always, if I can support you in any way, please let me know.

Until next time...

With love light and blessings,

Dawn

 

Dawn Allen, M.S.

Love & Law of Attraction Coach

Certified Dream Coach

Certified Passion Test Facilitator

541.608.0508

http://www.InspiredHeartCoaching.com

dawn@inspiredheartcoaching.com

What if love really is all we need?

A very dear friend of mine sent me this video for the Starbucks Love Project.

It's so inspiring I wanted to share it with all of you.

Just think...

What if love really is all we need?

How would we treat each other differently?

Even more importantly,

how would we treat ourselves differently?

Enjoy the day...

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nh7D2g5v-Sg

And remember, you ARE indeed loved.

Until next time...

Dawn

Love- Healing Your Wounded Heart

"Healing Your Wounded Heart with Love"

 I have a confession.  If you haven't read my bio on my website or blog, you may not know I've been engaged twice and married twice, all to different men.  In addition, my daughter and I were both molested by my former stepfather.

Healing from heartbreak is something I know how to do really, really well. 

I've learned that once you know how to heal your heart, the process is the same, regardless of the circumstances.

Marianne Williamson said, "It is not the love we did not receive in the past that hurts us.  What hurts us is the love we are not extending in the present."

The place to extend that love when you've been heartbroken is to yourself.  It took me a long time to learn how to do this.  My initial way of coping was to distract myself and to bury my feelings.  From the time I was 16 and my stepfather came into my life, I had an eating disorder for the next ten years that did a really good job of distracting me from the pain I was feeling.

When we've been heartbroken, one of the things that prevents our healing is resisting what we're feeling.  In my case, having an eating disorder was a way for me to resist dealing with my painful feelings.

If I had known then, what I know now, and had someone to walk me through the process of healing, I would have saved myself years of anguish. 

It took me a long time to learn how to embrace and accept what I was feeling, no matter how unpleasant.  But once I did, it finally allowed me to gradually move through my feelings and eventually release them.  It didn't happen overnight.

Grieving and healing from heartbreak is a process, but it doesn't have to take years, as it initially did in my case.  If you know the steps, you can recover much more quickly and come out of the process an even stronger and more loving person than you were before.

The first step is to bring yourself to the present moment and allow yourself to feel whatever it is you're feeling.  John Gray wrote a wonderful book called, "What You Feel, You Can Heal."  Feeling is the first step in healing.

Allow all your feelings to come to the surface.  Breathe through them.  If tears come as well, then let them come.  Tears are very cleansing to the soul and they put us in touch with our hearts.  Getting in touch with our hearts is a big part of the healing process, so tears should be welcomed.

The next step is to express your feelings.  Expressing your feelings is critical to your healing.  You need to have a space to release whatever is going on inside of you, without having to be kind, spiritual, or worry about what someone else is going to think of you.

Through the years, my saving grace was expressing my feelings in my journal.  Having the outlet of my journal as a safe place to express all my emotions literally saved my life at times.

Now I have the benefit of a coach as an additional haven for me to express my feelings.  Only recently have I realized how powerful it is to have another person acknowledge and witness my feelings and intentions.  Having that supportive relationship in my life made transitioning through my last divorce, a thousand times easier than my first one twenty years ago.

It is essential to have a way to express all your feelings, whether that's in a journal or by talking to a friend, therapist, or coach.  Until those unexpressed, painful feelings are released, you'll stay stuck.

My grandmother passed away when I was eleven.  It took me ten years to complete the grieving process.  I bottled my sadness up inside me and pretended everything was fine.  It wasn't until I took two dozen sleeping pills on my 17^th birthday as a loud cry for help that I finally broke down.  I started expressing my grief, releasing what had been pent up inside me for years, and at last began to heal.

As you become present and start expressing all the feelings inside you, extend all the love you have to give, towards yourself.  That is where all your healing begins... with a heart full of love for yourself.

"You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire Universe, deserve your love and affection." - Buddha

Love- Are Your Perceptions Hiding A Gift of Love?

I recently learned a valuable lesson about how our perceptions can lead us to misinterpreting events and profoundly affect our relationships. 

     

Not long ago, a dear friend of mine was away on a trip visiting his parents.  His parents are elderly, so he spends most of his time taking care of them when he’s with them.  His siblings have the caretaking responsibility when he’s not there.  He and his mother love to go shopping when he visits.  On this last trip, he called me when they were shopping for clothes to find out what size I wore.  I was excited to see what he bought. 

After he got home, I didn’t hear from him right away, which initially I didn’t give much thought to.  He had been swamped with work right before he left, and since he’s self-employed, the work doesn’t get done unless he’s home to do it.

As a few days passed, I started to wonder why he hadn’t contacted me.  All kinds of thoughts ran through my head.  Was he upset with me for some reason?  Had I done something wrong?  Trying to figure out all the possible reasons of why he hadn’t yet called just made me feel worse.

I finally mentioned what was happening to my mother and told her how I was feeling.  My brilliant seventy-five year old mother, who is my greatest coach, told me to refocus my attention and energy back on my own life, and let go of wondering what was going on with him. 

My mom reassured me that he’d obviously been thinking about me or he wouldn’t have been buying me clothes while he was away.  She also reminded me how painful it is to visit parents you haven’t seen for months, and see their physical and mental health rapidly declining.  It takes time to regain your emotional equilibrium after such a stressful and challenging trip.

Listening to her talk, I suddenly viewed everything from a completely different perspective.  I felt a huge sense of compassion.  The trips to visit his parents had become increasingly difficult for my friend.  I had not even considered all these other aspects to the story, and the way we interpret events are indeed our stories.

The hurt and rejection I’d been feeling disappeared as I hung up the phone with my mother.  I wrote a short email to my friend letting him know I was thinking about him and hoped he was well.

He contacted me the following day.  He said he’d been working non-stop ever since he got home.  He was still overwhelmed with work, but asked if I’d like to come over that evening, so we could dance and go for a motorcycle ride together.  As soon as I got there, he handed me a present wrapped in green paper with a red bow.  It felt like Christmas.  Neatly folded inside were the clothes he had bought for me while he was away, and some others he had purchased after he came home. 

All the thoughts and feelings I’d had when he first returned from his trip seemed immaterial.  The pain and suffering I’d put myself through were a result of my initial perspective and how I had interpreted not hearing from him.

When I changed my perspective, and was able to see the situation from a different point of view, my interpretation of what happened changed too.  Instead of hurt and anger, my feelings shifted to love and compassion.  That shift opened the door to a positive response from my friend.

When we’re feeling stuck in our pain, it is invaluable to be able to step back from our perceived point of view and see events and circumstances through someone else’s eyes. A negative, painful interpretation can shift to a more loving and positive one simply by changing your perspective.

*****************************************

Your Assignment:  Take a look how you interpret events and circumstances that happen.  Explore these ideas in a journal, and you’ll gain clarity, objectivity, and perhaps a new perspective on the people and events in your life. 

Seeing events through another person’s eyes is not only a gift to them, but also a loving gift to yourself. You are giving yourself the power of choice to reinterpret painful events, and instead choose to create a life of love for yourself.

Fear- Is Your Faith In Your Fear or Your Future?

My daughter started cheerleading practice this week.  The team appointed her their flyer.  She'll be the one that climbs to the top of the formations as all the other girls support her.  She had to push through her initial fears to trust that the other girls would be there to support her standing on their shoulders, and then to catch her when she jumped off.

It reminded me of how many times my own fears have kept me stuck.  Fear kept me trapped in the past.  Fear of the unknown, fear of rejection, and fear of abandonment kept me repeating old patterns and behaviors in my relationships and in my life for years.

The fearful questions would run endlessly through my head.  What if I end this relationship and find out it was as good as it gets?  What if I'm not good enough?  What if I get hurt?  What if I try and then fail?  I had more faith in my negative beliefs and fear of repeating the past, than I did in new possibilities for my future. 

I had no clue that fears were actually running my life.  Anger, worry, resentment, and insecurity showed up on the outside, but underneath everything was fear.  My way of dealing with it was to try to control everything and everyone in my life.  It was exhausting.  And I failed miserably.

When I was finally so tired of my excuses and even more tired of trying to control everything, I let go.  I realized the only way out of my perpetual cycle of fear was to surrender control, and move forward in faith.  I had to trust in something beyond myself to give me the faith I couldn't muster on my own.

It takes courage to surrender; to trust and have faith; to step beyond what you've known and experienced in the past; to believe you can create something different for yourself.  Ultimately, the faith we learn to have is in ourselves, bolstered by the knowledge that we are not alone.  We do not have to face our fears by ourselves.  We can reach beyond to a higher power greater than what we have and tap into faith.

"Faith equals trust.  Faith offers us hope, and opportunity and promise.  If we choose to live in faith, we will be blessed with the support and the partnership of the universe."-Debbie Ford

Your Assignment:  Ask, where is your faith?  Is it in your fears, or in the belief that you can create your future?

If you had complete faith in yourself and in your future, what would you do differently?

If you knew you could not fail, what would you do?

You deserve to have the best life you can possibly imagine.  The only question is, do you have the faith to step out and create it? 

 

Find Your Soul Mate Coaching Session - Limited Time Only

Remember back when you were a little girl, did you ever daydream about the man you would marry and the life you would have together?

Have you become slightly jaded about daydreaming now because of the broken relationships of your past?

Does it feel like all the "good ones are taken" and there are no really great guys left in the dating scene? - Don't give up just yet...

Deep in your heart there's a part of you that still has hope and longs for a man that understands you and wants to co-create an amazing future together.

There's a powerful secret to attracting the kind of man you really want And it's not based on appearances.  It's based on something much deeper and more magnetic.

There is an energy force that runs the universe and helps us to create anything and everything we focus on.  Unfortunately, we're not always focusing on what we want and therefore we often create things we don't really want.  Let me give you an example...

Have you ever started dating a man that you really thought could be the one and you started to worry that he might lose interest in you?  If so, what happened?  Did he in fact, stop returning your calls or end it?  Why did that happen?

There could be a lot of reasons for this.  But, one of them is that your fear and your focus on him leaving harnessed this universal energy force and created the reality you imagined.

Bummer, huh?  But, there's good news in this.  You can actually apply the universal law of focus to attract and keep the man of your dreams and I'd like to help you do it.

For a limited time, I'm offering women that are ready to attract love a special 25 minute "Find Your Soul Mate" Coaching Session, where we will work together to:

=> Clarify & crystallize your vision for your ideal man and ideal relationship

=> Create key milestone objectives so you know you're on the right path to create exactly what you want

=> Develop a 3 step attraction plan that will help you get started attracting your ideal partner

=> We'll uncover hidden challenges that might be sabotaging your success

And...

=> You'll leave the session with renewed energy and inspiration to manifest the love you desire with grace and ease

This exclusive offer is only available for the next 10 days or the first 25 people (whichever comes first) and you can have this special session with me at NO COST whatsoever.

Normally, a session like this would cost $197 to work with me personally, but because I've been running into so many women that are struggling with this, I wanted to reach out and offer my support.

If you would like to take advantage of this very special offer while it lasts, please click here to complete a brief questionaire to get signed up today for your Free "Find Your Soul Mate" Coaching session!

With love, light, and blessings,

Dawn Allen, MS, CDC, CPTF
Love & Law of Attraction Coach
Founder of Inspired Heart Coaching
"Helping successful, savvy, single entrepreneurs attract the love of their life... "
541.608.0508
www.InspiredHeartCoaching.com
dawn@InspiredHeartCoaching.com