Four Essentials Of An Expanded Life

"Expansion: the action of becoming larger or more extensive. Synonyms:  growth, increase in size, enlargement, extension, development."

Sometime very early in January, I declared 2015 the year of expansion. This was a deliberate act on my part as, like many others, I used to look at the year in passing and give it a name.

"That was the worse year."

"2006 was a rough year."

"Phew, I'm glad that @#%& year is over!"

Being a person who has come to witness and therefore believe that whatever you consistently focus on becomes one's reality, I decided to set my attention and intention for my year. No longer am I willing to live unconsciously or allow another person or society to determine the progression of my life.

Yesterday I shared with my Facebook friends a picture of my mini vision board. This exercise is very central to my way of living - has been for years now with varying degrees of "success" from everything coming to me as envisioned, easily and effortlessly or everything going exactly opposite to my imagining.

This could be no more true than with my relationships, particularly intimate ones. I remember one New Year's Eve posting a picture of me in a wedding gown, getting married to a gorgeous Bruce Willis looking man. Well, would you believe that I did marry a bald headed guy wearing a lovely gown, tiara and all, surrounded by my best friends and my daughter? Would you believe that two years later it was over?

That was one of if not my most profound lessons on Law of Attraction, visualization and relationships - three in one.

Lesson: The Universe will bring you what you predominantly FEEL as you focus consciously or unconsciously.

I attracted the person I was seeing with my eyes but as my predominate feelings around relationships and marriage were: they do not work, I am not good in them, men are abusive, etc., that is exactly what came with the handsome man.

Having learned my lesson, through that situation and a few more after (my head can be quite tough), I cleaned house and changed my focal point.

I turned to my heart.

Over the next few years, from 2010 to 2014, my focus became love. Yes, I have always loved and wanted relationships that are loving but the challenge was I never really knew the type of loving that would attract to me the life, friendships, family bond and even work that I truly wanted.

Unconditional love was something I had to learn, then walk.

I had encountered Her before and that is how I knew what was missing. This time it would take me to bring her back into my experience. The first step was crucial as I had to unconditionally love me first - for all the places, all the things, all the wrong and all the right that I had been and done.

Twenty-fourteen things started shifting. Come December 31, 2014, as I snuggled with my granddaughter on New Year's Eve, it became clear to me that the new year was my time to enlarge, develop more and extend into Me.

Work, money for my needs, the few stuff that I like and empowering platonic friendships have come and continue to flow. Now it is time expand into a spiritual partnership that befits all that I am.

My core understanding and my experiences have taught me that you get not only what you focus on and talk about most but what:

1. You feel and believe to be true
2. You think you deserve
3. You are ready to accept and embrace
4. You hold lightly

Some of us talk a good talk of poverty, poor health, distress, bad relationships and hatred. I was one of them. Now, and for sometime now, I have been feeling, believing and KNOWING that I deserve only the best as I see it.

I am ready to embrace all that makes my heart sing. Are you? Will this be your expansion year? What are you ready to feel, accept and embrace as yours, and hold lightly?

Feel free to drop me a line, comment here or on my Facebook page if you need some practical tips.

Have a lovely and expanding rest of the day.

Claudette

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2015: Expansion Year - Time To Be CUTE

Towards the end of 2014, I shared a snippet from a conversation that I had with one of my closest DOS Sistahs.

Here is what I posted on December 23:

"I was chatting with one of my Sistahs last night and just before ringing off she said something that had me in stitches.

"My intention for 2015 Claudette is to be cute. My kids and I, we will just be cute!"

As I was hanging up, cackling, I thought carefully about what she said and why. We were musing about people in our lives, those who left because their opinion of us was vibrating on a lower level than our own, finances, travel plans and the relationships that were false starts.

"I'm going to be cute!"

Writing this, it came to me that she meant that instead of allowing any of this to drag her down, my friend was going to remain:
* Calm - as she knows her Source
*  Uniquely herself
*  True to that Self
*   Empowered

Dang! My Sistahs are so profound and CUTE!"

This conversation and the insight that I gained from it has really informed my way of being for 2015. It has had the most impact on my decisions as to my interpersonal and even intimate relationships.

Cuteness has and will continue to inform my professional life as well. I am like many of you in that I have a full time job, working for a not-for-profit organization. The difference between some of you and me might be in the fact that my employment allows me a very good work-life balance.

An important part of my life is what I do, using my formal training, professional and life experiences, is providing support and comfort to those who require it. Years ago, my qualifications to do this was questioned by a former intimate partner. Instead of allowing that to diminish me, my desire to serve and share my journey intensified.

So, throughout 2015, as they say in the land of my birth, Jamaica, my cuteness tun' up!

This is Expansion Year for you and for me and I invite you to hang out and be cute with me! Join me on the DOS Foundation page for topical, motivational and inspirational conversations and quotes. As well, bookmark and *Like* my professional, moonlighting page for practical tips and resources on how to be CUTE in 2015.

Namaste.


Claudette is the Founder of and Personal Coach at DOS Foundation, as well as the main Author and Editor this blog.