The past few months for me have been all about focus. I’ve been focusing with laser-like precision,  dedication to discipline, attention to detail. I’ve been focusing on my relationship. On my parenting. On my work, especially, as In Arms Coaching moves through the biggest up-leveling it’s experienced to date, from “maybe-this-will-work” to “Hang-On-Here-We-Go!!!!”

And I’m looking inwards as we move into New Moon in Pisces, a time that encourages us to tap into the less-focused, the more laid-back, more highly sensitive time, to let go of our go,go,go drive and roll more with our creative side, our visionary, inspired parts…

And here’s what I’m hearing.

There’s a time for detail, for drive, for hard-core discipline and focus. And there’s also a time for sitting back, letting the pen drop from your hand, and loosening your focus to dream a little. To take your mind of the minute-by-minute details of what you’re working for and to instead dwell a little in the feelings, the intentions, the experiences I want to be having, not just the literal results.

Here’s what I’m dreaming up: laughter. passion, feeling heard and loved. a home that feels safe, joyful, light-filled and mine. jumping out of bed in the morning joyfully into my day. long, happy days with my kid, partner, his kids, dogs. ease. peace. loving treatment of self. time.

What are you dreaming up? How do you want to feel?

*Want some tips to make changes in your own life? Sign up for my low-traffic mailing list for my newsletter with lots of tips, wisdom and articles that you can put to work for yourself. Sign up at www.InArmsCoaching.com to get your copy sent right to you!

I can get all wordy and write a few pages here full of self-help-speak, new-age-y terms, and psychology-babble, but I’m going to just cut right to the chase and hand you my lesson for this month:

In every day, situation, relationship, and interaction, we can choose to focus on the crap, or on the gold.

What you focus on will multiply.

What do YOU choose?

As a wise woman says, marinate.

Want some practical work for applying this to your life? Click on this link:   www.inarmscoaching.com to sign up for my newsletter with lots of resources, practical work for you, and tips on how to move forward with YOUR goals.

Even after years of doing my own work through my coaching program with my life coach it still feels strange to say that I can see how scarcity served me.

But in my determination and excitement at leaping from a life-long perception of scarcity to the brand new creation of abundance (and not just of money – we’re talking an abundance of love, of passion, of self-care and good health, of community and loving friends, of support…) I’ve been unable to disregard looking at how living with scarcity has served me (or how I’ve thought it served me, which is the same thing).

Again, this is a kind of personal bit of myself I’m sharing, so if you don’t really want to know any more about me, stop reading here.

Living in scarcity is sort of a pattern in my family. In my house growing up there was a constant fear of scarcity, fights about scarcity, repercussions of scarcity, and yes, bonding together in the face of scarcity.

Stepping away from that scarcity, refusing to believe it anymore and instead believing in abundance, in magnificent gobs of luxurious goodness, of the concept of “enough” and stability, of comfort, of making decisions instead of living at the mercy of scarcity means something.

It means stepping away from a family paradigm. It means going out on my own. It means, in the heart of the little, younger-me that lives inside the adult-me, to some extent moving away from my family and their beliefs and ways of living.

And there’s sadness in that. Until I find new ways to consciously honor my family of origin, new ways to bond with them, with their memories, new ways to honor my deep, deep love for them.

But I will no longer do it by buying into the belief of scarcity.

My work this month: keeping an abundance log! My amazing marketing coach, Payson Cooper (check her out if you’re ready to CATAPULT your dreams into the world! http://www.paysoncooper.com/#) assigned me this homework, and I’m LOVING it.

I had my assistant make me an abundance spreadsheet where I enter every single penny that comes into my life – including the ones I pick up from the street (which I’ve started doing again…thanks, Universe!!) and I’m getting to watch the abundance add up.

Something interesting that I noticed: the more self-care I invest in, the more abundance shows up in my log. Watch out, world!!!

And to my fellow New York women here’s a tip: Charlotte Blake of www.mamamovesnyc.com has been KEY in my self-care these days– she’s guided me in losing pounds, knee and back pain, low self-esteem and increased core strength, energy, flexibility and self-confidence! She is an AMAZING personal trainer, working with women in New York City. Check her out and tell her Britt sent you!

Want To GET SOME for Yourself?

• Ready to move from scarcity of love, money, community, meaningful work TOWARDS abundance that really serves you?
• Ready to give up the idea that you have to do everything alone – ready to work in a small, supportive group of like-minded women?
• Ready to move forward in sustainable, structured and supported action steps into creating joy in your life?

Contact me to find out about The Manifesting Abundance Program – a 10-week group journey into:

• creating clarity
• blasting through old beliefs and fears that hold you back
• and tapping into the abundance that you’re longing for
• all within a small, supportive group of like-minded women sharing the journey with you…

Call me at (917) 971-5347 to speak with me about what this can mean for you!

It’s almost Halloween, the days are getting cooler and darker and energy is sinking inwards. I spend a lot of time watching the trees shed their leaves, letting go of all their external pieces and their weight to sink their energy deep into the roots for winter.

And like the trees I’m eager to shed exess weight to begin all the inner work I have brewing this fall. So many delicious things bubbling on the fire and all the baggage just holds me back — in the form of excess pounds that make me feel sluggish, negative feelings that keep me boiling and stewing inside my head, and one particular toxic and poisonous person lurking in my family’s life that keeps me stuck in a place where I’m boiling over with fury and resentment.

So here are my updates, progress-wise, via the inspiration from the trees

I’ve hired a persoanl trainer! Her name is Charlotte Blake, of Mama Moves, and she is SO amazing — in just 3 weeks of working with her my body feels stronger and leaner, and all my achey parts hurt SO much less! My jeans fit better and I feel saucier. So in terms of shedding the physical weight — with Charlotte’s help that’s in the works!

Here’s where I out myself. I’m currently working REALLY hard to manage energy around the most toxic, poisonous person I’ve ever come across — and she’s smack in the middle of my life. My old-love-turned-new and his two amazing kids come attached (for now) to the most malicious, toxic, hurtful, dramatic and unstable woman I’ve ever had in my life, and with my love in the middle of a horrible custody battle this woman and her messes are becoming a daily part of our lives. The Libra in me is grinding her teeth to nubs with the unfairness of what my partner and his kids are having to put up with, and sadly the court moves slowly and semi-intelligently through the process. There’s also daily drama and hatred and insanity coming from her that impacts my whole family.

So I’m REALLY getting to practice not going ballistic (which sometimes works and sometimes doesn’t, if I’m being totally honest with you…) at something that’s pretty much out of my hands.

Do you have toxic people in your life that just have to be there for the time being — in your family, your workplace, your relationships?

Here’s what’s helping me:

• I’m staying really connected to what I DO have power over. Right now, that’s helping my love raise the money for court so this can get dealt with. I have power over that.

• I’m remembering what matters: I’m in this situation because I LOVE this man and his kids — and that’s why I choose to be here. So I can try and stay in the place of love by focusing on what he and the kids need here — a hug? Some relief with the kids so he can sleep a little after working all night? How can I HELP him here?

• Stabilize and care for myself: lots of extra self-care in the form of grounding, setting boundaries, etc… LOTS. And venting to friends (not him — which would stress him out more– but to other sympathetic and supportive friends) to get some of the weight off my chest when I need to.

I want to hear from you: write in and tell us what helps you let go of extra weight — physically or emotionally. The more tools we share, the more we have to use.

And I bet reading this has made you want to really examine your own life for any toxicity or negativity. Get some support in my newsletter by subscribing here:  Subscribe me!

Guts clenching and churning in anxiety. Mind racing to create 10 different fear-based stories. The urge to run to escape the discomfort. The voice of “I told you so!”

Feeling sick. Feeling depressed and helpless. Getting angry – at the other person, at the circumstances, at someone else’s actions, words – even at their bravery or perceived lack of fear.

Ever feel any of these as a reaction to fear? I spent most of the middle of the night last night in this truly uncomfortable space, feeling like a complete idiot for even being back in this place that I knew so often, so long ago.

For each of us the fear is different, highlighting old beliefs, old patterns of thinking that we’re just SO ready to confront, expose, and release out of our heads, out of our hearts, out of every single cell in our body that it creeps into.

My fear right now is around making myself vulnerable to this old-turned-new relationship – it’s been SO long since I’ve been in an honest, loving, respect-based partnership– it feels completely new again. And honestly? It’s setting off every alarm I have. Every boundary alert, every systems alarm – they’re filling my head and heart with the clanging of old fears. If I hadn’t been doing this work for so long I’d be listening to all the terrified voices in my head, unable to hear the inner wisdom, my authentic voice among all the frightened, old voices.

Patty Lennon wrote a guest blog for My Daily Joy (check it out — Inspirational My A**) that really highlights how when we talk about personal growth we tend to linger on the “Aha!” moments and sort of gloss over what she calls the ”snot filled moments that come with personal transformation.”

I want to share my snot filled, middle-of-the-night, heart-clenched-in-terror moments of my current transformational period with you for a really important reason.

Here’s what I’ve learned from the years of painful, exhilariting, down-in-the-trenches work I’ve put myself through:

Our feelings do not have to dictate our actions.

Hear me? Write it down and tape it to your bathroom mirror, your desk, your fridge, your forehead – this has been SO crucial in my growth through fear.

Our feelings do not have to dictate our actions.

So I can be terrified of being in love with this person. I can imagine him lying to me, cheating on me, betraying me, falling out of love with me, leaving me, being mean to me, (and ten other things that I thought of between 3 am and 6 am this very morning)….

 AND…..

At the same time I can choose to love him, open my heart to him, be present with him, and continue to grow our partnership.

How are you hearing your fears yet CHOOSING to act in a way that honors your inner wisdom about each situation?

(Click here to subscribe to my free bi-monthly newsletter and read a GREAT story about feelings and actions that I share with each and every one of the women in my private practice. Subscribe me!)

Want practical ways of applying this crucial work to your own life, your own relationships, your own heart-centered projects? Click on the “subscribe me” link above to get my In Arms Coaching newsletter with homework for you to do on your own.

Overcoming Overwhelm

I’m in such a great mood– In Arms Coaching has a new tag line! Let me know what you think: “Changing the world…one happy woman at a time!”

I love it. It makes me so happy to have that one sentence contain pretty much my entire mission statement for In Arms Coaching.

It makes me SO happy, I want to give you something cool for FREE. And here it is.

This is a call that I recorded a few months ago that I would like to share with you.  I hope that you find it useful and inspiring — it’s at the CORE of a lot of the work that we do in the private programs for women that I offer. Please comment below and let me know how it resonates with you. And remember: Bella Nysa reminds us that Sharing is Caring!!!

Giving it up, any-which-way you look at it, is about offering our selves up to others in some sort of service.

And to offer ourselves up in ways that nurture and honor both ourselves and the people we’re in service to, we need to do the down and sometimes dirty work of connecting inwards and aligning ourselves with h our authentic voice, our inner wisdom and our center.

I’ll get really honest with you here — 5 years ago I felt like I had no friends. Or I had people in my life that didn’t feel like friends — that made me feel hurt, put out, misunderstood, even angry with myself for becoming someone else around them because it didn’t feel safe to be myself. And part of that (even though it’s hard to write to you about) was because I didn’t feel like who I was really deserved loving, supportive friends. I felt like I had to take what I could. And I did. And the relationships made me wither — sometimes literally.

Taking what I felt I could get landed me in a horribly wrong and dysfunctional marriage, in a house I hated, with friends who were so bent on self-destruction that they couldn’t be there for me.
And in this place of disconnect, of sadness, of inauthenticity I wasn’t serving any of the people in my life, either — the fault wasn’t (by a long shot) all theirs.

Oh, and this was fun — all the stress and sadness also was making me sick all the time. With a 12-month old baby whom I was alone with most of the time. In a house I hated. And completely broke.

What I want to share with you was that even though I sobbed for a quick life change, even though I prayed and begged the powers that be for my situation to change….it didn’t until I DID. For real. I had to risk everything (and here’s what I lost: my husband, my house, my money, and my health, to start with) to come back to center and start over. I had to tear down the structure of EVERYTHING that was rotten and molding (but that I was clutching onto because I was afraid of being without it) in order to rebuild from the foundation up.

And guess what? When I did the down-and-dirty (and tearful, and heartbreaking, and financially staggering, and terrifying) work of going back to step one and rebuilding from my authentic self (after I even figured out who that was anymore)….my structure DAZZLED the eye.

Connecting to my authentic self and really building my life from my heart-center created amazing friends who love and support me (and whom I commit to showing up for), work I LOVE that pays the bills before they’re due (WHAT?!?!?), a man I can’t stop touching who makes me laugh out loud in the middle of the night, a kid who knows mama can put aside work for an hour to play a game with her on the regular…and more.

How do your relationships reflect who you are in this place in your life?

Want some work you can do on your own? Go to subscribe box to get your FREE copy of my newsletter with exercises and a free downloadable visualization just from me to you that will help you take the next step forward with this crucial issue.

My Heart-Centered Call To Action for YOU:

Women and boundary work go together like group trips to the bathroom.

Are you ready to connect deeply enough with yourself and receive support, tools and structure for looking at how your personal and professional relationship have held you back in your life?

Are you tired of feeling like you can’t be, or aren’t really yourself in relationships?

Do you need to move into a place where you have relationships in your life that nurture and support you?

I’m opening space for 3 new private clients this month. To see if one of these spaces is for you I have 5 complimentary call slots open — and two of them filled as soon as I announced it.

Is one of the remaining 3 yours? Seize it today by calling me at (917) 971-5347

Find out more about the complimentary call by visiting: Your Free Call — go ahead- seize it!!

And my 6 year old, Bella Nysa, wants to remind us: Sharing IS Caring! So send this to other women in your life so they can create relationships that serve them, too.

Much love, women.
xo Britt

by Patty Manning Lennon

I have a really inspirational story about my life.  I tell it often in presentations to groups of women.

The summary of that story goes something like this:

From the outside I looked like I “had it all” but inside I was dying.  The day I admitted the truth about my life – the truth that the “all” I had wasn’t necessarily the one I wanted – my life changed in an incredible way.

I abandoned my post as a Vice President is a huge bank and started my own business.

I lost 25 pounds.

I took up kickboxing, rock climbing and I resuscitated my social life.

I fell more in love with my husband and children.

And on and on the list goes of the glories that came from finally being honest about who I was and what I wanted.   The story is 100% true.  I’m thrilled to share it.  I’m overwhelmingly grateful to have taken this journey.

But I have been noticing something lately.

I’m not sure we need inspiration as much as we need honesty.

The story I tell leaves out most of the dark moments.  Someone recently commented to me how great it must have been to stop worrying what other people thought of me and embrace life without that constraint.

Huh?

Where’d she hear that?

That is definitely not the way it went down.  I spent many sleepless nights worrying about what others would think of me.    I cried huge pitiful tears of self-loathing and existed in angst most of the time.  I wondered over and over again what was wrong with me.

Although inspirational stories are peppered with pithy references to the darkness before the dawn they rarely describe in detail the snot-filled moments that come with life transformation.

So what’s my point?

Well I guess I just want you to know that if you are going through your own particularly snot-filled, ice cream binging, self-loathing period of time you are not alone.  You are on the journey that will lead you to your own inspirational story.

And by the way while I was going through that “dark” period I never thought it would end.  I was in incredible pain most of the time and I wasn’t sure I was headed in the right direction.

So if you are feeling any of this I want you to know it will end.  The pain will transform to joy and you are headed in the right direction.    And all of this will one day be a pithy reference to your period of darkness in your own inspirational story we’re just waiting to hear!

Patty Lennon is a life and business coach, mom advocate and CEO and Founder of Mom Gets A Life at:http://www.momgetsalife.com. Her mission is to help every mom fall as deeply in love with her life as she is with her kids.  She also writes a blog for female entrepreneurs at www.gettingintheflow.com.