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This little light of mine, I’m going to let it shine!

Do you know that song? I learned it in Sunday School when I was a very young girl. For some reason, this song has always popped into my head on days when life seems harder than normal. It’s interesting that this song comes to me mostly on my down days. Those are the days I feel like ‘shining’ the least.  Possibly a Higher Power knows this and that is why it comes to mind in these moments.

There are months that I won’t even remember this joyful little song exist. Then there are times in which I sing it out loud and to myself, for the whole week. When I do, it feels like a simple sweet soothing lullaby for my spirit. 

I don’t believe in coincidences. I believe that when things happen in a pattern or synchronistic way, that this is a message from the Universe, just for you.” Emy Minzel

It’s taken me until my forties before I realized how significant this song has been in my life. I often pray to the heavens when uncertain. Often saying. “Just let me be the light.” I’ve found being the light in the world is not all that hard and doesn’t have to look large or be a grand gesture. I simply do my best to be kind to everyone I come across; this is how I shine.

I think the best form of light comes from just listening. Like when someone is trying to tell a story, but the rest of the room is talking over them. That’s when I choose to make eye contact and nod in an affirmation that “I hear you and I see you.” Being heard is a powerful confirmation that shows people. “Hey, you matter! I care about how you feel and what you have to say.”

This kindness has been mistaken for weakness by some. There have been times it felt like they even tried to extinguish my pilot light I protect fiercely. These people have learned not to take this kindness, light and the power of my intentional connection for granted. I will remove myself and my light from their vicinity permanently if necessary.

Though my actions, personality and heart often reflect me as a tender spirit. A simple gardener of love and light in a life that sometimes feels like war. I am indeed a warrior in my garden. The garden is where I tend to this little light of mine and grew the skills necessary to protect it. It was these hard days, and lessons that came from those closest to me that turned me into the elite and highly trained spiritual warrior I am today. It is a skill I intentionally keep hidden.

I am beginning to think this short, sweet, song (I learned so long ago) is a divine message sent to remind me, even on my hardest days, God/The Universe still sees me and is listening. I know the Universe responds to my energy and my vibrations and this song is sent to remind me to shine; by being kind and treat others as I want to be treated. I believe this song reminds me to listen closely to those around me.

There is a sign on my wall that says. “Attitudes are contagious, is yours worth sharing?” I believe this to be true. Lifting others around you will help raise your own spirits as well, that’s just the way it works. The opposite is true as well. Going around spreading shit instead of sunshine comes back around too.

Even though this week has been a little rough. Spirit came to my relief with whispers of this sweet tune in my ear. Reminding me to be the kind and nurture my light with compassion as I would all plants in my garden. This is the energy that will come back to me.

As you go about your week, I encourage you to do your best and let your light shine for yourself and others too. Even if you do not feel like shining brightly, remember, even the humble act of listening can be a wonderful way to spark the light in the eyes of yourself and others. Sometimes all it takes to keep the pilot light lit is to sincerely show up and say. “I hear you. You matter.”

Give yourself permission to light up the world in the way only you can. Shine your uniqueness as you go through the adventure that is life.

Shine so bright that your light changes the world as only you can. Authenticity is your power. There are people who love to see you shine. Stay close to them. Distance yourself from the others. Protect your light. It is an imperative life skill when you learn it is safe to shine. No matter who is watching, even if and when others don’t like it. That is authentic living. Creator designed you to be you for a reason.

I believe in the light in you. I believe in light in me. The lighthouse is within all of us.  I believe we can do this and we must.

“The brighter we shine love in the world. Together we stand as a shining grid anchoring light into the Universe. Together we are spiritual warriors defending against darkness in The Lighthouse Collective.” Emy Minzel     

This little light of mine. I’m going to let it shine.

This little light of mine. I’m going to let it shine.

This little light of mine. I’m going to let it shine.

Yes, let it shine! Let it shine! Let it shine!

Love, light and blessings,

Emy Minzel

https://emyminzel.com

@EmyMinzel

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I gotta say, it was a good day!

Do you ever have an unexpected change of plans that turn out to produce a really great day? I like to think every day I get, is a blessing, but some of them are better than others. Recently I was planning on spending a Saturday taking clients and working around the house. It was going to be a very regular day with nothing particularly exhilarating about it. That soon changed.

The Friday night before; I got a text from a friend telling me their plans had changed and wanted to know if I could accompany them to a pancake breakfast event on Saturday morning. We had discussed this before, but my friend had plans, so I decided to work. On a whim, I texted my client to see if they could come in at a slightly earlier time, and they said: “Yes, that works great for me!” Yay! It worked out and we made plans to attend the event.

Saturday morning, I woke up early, looking forward to my new plans. I had a Reiki session scheduled and energy work is always a great way to start the day! You simply cannot offer energy healing without feeling healed yourself. It raised my vibes and my spirit which helped set my mood for the day. My friend picked me up and we got to the DFL breakfast event in time to see another candidate friend speaking. I also had the chance to catch up with friends I had not seen in months. I love that!

The food was good, the company was great and, for the first time in a long time, I got in front of a crowd and spoke without shaking in my shoes. I spoke from my heart with confidence about my experience running as a Candidate and if I would run for State Representative again. In all honesty, I disclosed that I was not sure if I wanted too. So, the answer was a firm. “I don’t know. But if I do, I will take what I learned and not hold back one bit. I would do my best to leave it all out on the field.”

Simple as sounds, I felt like I had my full confidence back and it was nice to just be me. Growing faith in myself and my voice was a byproduct of running in an election that was scary and completely out of my comfort zone. Looking back, it was a wonderful life lesson and growing opportunity that was good for me. I am enjoying the feeling of truly believing in myself.

After the brunch, I got home to find my husband had cleaned the house! What a wonderful surprise! We were expecting our good friends Stacy and Marty for a visit that evening, so I was thankful for his help. This left me time to rest a little bit, eat lunch, and do my Nabhi Kriya Kundalini Yoga set before they got here.

When Stacy arrived, I had forgotten that she and Marty had decided to donate their old car to me that afternoon! She pulled up in my ‘new to me’ car and gave me the keys. How exciting! We had been running as a one car family, after I crashed my truck this past winter. I am super thankful for the generosity of my friends. I just needed to put some new tires on it and do some other maintenance. And now I have my freedom back and a way to get my kayak to the water this summer!

The evening continued with yummy dinner and lively conversations with our dear friends. Simply happy days like these do not come around as often as we’d like. Lately it seems that there is always something... so I wanted to write about this experience, to remember and cherish the day. Or maybe I feel moved to remind you to notice the small blessings in our every day regular lives? I feel blessed and thankful for this day of unexpected joyful experiences.

I wish for you to have lots of these ordinary yet extraordinarily great days full of blessings and joy too.

Sending love and luck your way,

Emy Minzel ~ Adventure Sister

https://emyminzel.com

@EmyMinzel

 

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Have you heard of Binaural beats?

I was introduced to binaural beats, several years ago from my friend Bobby, who is a spiritual teacher. It was a wonderfully relaxing experience, but for some reason, I never kept it as a spiritual tool in my toolbox until lately. One-night last week, I noticed my headphones dangling from their spot before bed and I thought to myself. “I am going to listen to a guided meditation before sleep.” I joked to myself “This must be how tired and busy people cram in self-care. They do it while sleeping!”

From what I knew, binaural music was safe, and I really was not concerned about side effects. (I did read one caution. It said do not use binaural beats if you are prone to seizures.) That does not pertain to me, so I felt safe. What is the worst that could happen?! I mean, who doesn’t want to have a spiritual experience when sleeping or is that just me? Truthfully, I was not expecting to have an awakening during slumber, I was just hoping for a good night’s rest while letting the peaceful sounds relax my mind.

When you pull up YouTube, they have literally thousands of beat choices to choose from and it took me a bit to settle on one that sounded right to my ears. I experimented with a few and let my intuition tell me which one I needed that night. There are several ranges that are said to help you sleep, reduce anxiety, help with depression and negativity as well as increase creativity.

According to Medical News Today some research findings have even proven a 70-80% decrease in cortisol, the stress hormone that keeps us from losing weight, when using the correct range. The recommended frequency for weight loss is 295.8Hz. I tried it, and while it wasn’t my favorite tone, I listened anyway as I drifted to sleep. I will try it for a week and see if it has any effect on my weight or my thoughts about my diet.

I’ve also tried other tones that are quite pleasing to my ear. While listening to this music, it seemed to have the same effect on the body as meditation, and all you must do is lay there. I have also been wearing my headphones and listening while I write, work or sleep, letting my brain do the rest. I like the flexibility of not having to pay complete attention yet knowing that at a cellular level I am encouraging self-healing.

This experiment has led to some good sleep, and at first, some crazy dreams. One night I used one tone at 741Hz to clear toxins and release negativity, a spiritual detox of sorts. Maybe it pulled those innermost negative thoughts to the surface of my dream world for me to be aware of? But wow! I believe our dreams are full of messages from our higher-self, doing its best to communicate with the waking our version that does not like to pay attention to our inner world. But our dream world is another conversation for another blog!

This has been a fascinating experiment that genuinely does seem to be relaxing my mind. That is why I wanted to share my findings with you. If you feel called to try, make sure you wear headphones because it works better sending slightly different tones to each ear. I am including some links below but feel free to experiment with the sounds that your intuition pulls you too!

I’d love to hear about your experiments and experiences. Wishing you love, light, and healing!

Love and blessings,

Emy Minzel

https://emyminzel.com

@EmyMinzel

 

YouTube links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zEhZ9vv35k4 – Music for weight loss

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZenGWoURv6s – Detox

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94tp6DIFy4s – Inspiration

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifxmvbUf7ls – positive energy and creativity

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Self-sabotage: Do you do it?

I consider myself a continuous student of life. I love to learn about the world around me, and even more mysterious, the world within myself. Self-growth has been an important catalyst to get where I am today. Having the guts to look in the mirror and call myself out on my BS, has been life-changing for me, in the very best of ways. However, I know that I will never really be done learning about the world or myself.

There are habits I have that are clear as the noon sun glaring in my eyes. I figured I better pay attention to these signs. Often when I am feeling uncomfortable about a situation, this is when I know it is time to do some growing. Lately, I have been focused on changing some very ingrained habits. If you have ever tried to do so, you know how hard it can seem.

This got me thinking, are these habits just self-sabotage in disguise? Because I love to learn, and Google knows everything, I did some research and found a great article on Psychologytoday.com that laid it all out in black and white. According to Ellen Hendriksen Ph.D. article, “Why do we self-sabotage?” There are several reasons! (I will share the link with you in references) In short, this is what I learned.

  1. Self-worth – Not feeling worthy of success, or confident enough to try.
  2. Control – We are controlling our failure. In our minds, a controlled dumpster fire is a better option than publicly failing, so we sabotage.
  3. Perceived fraudulence – Not acknowledging our growth and view others to think of us a fraud or fake. We may reach our goals while secretly worrying about the judgment of others.
  4. Scapegoating – The blame game. Saying, because of one mistake, you chose to scrap the whole thing.
  5. Familiarity – If we are used to being overlooked, put down, underestimated and even dismissed, the feeling of attention is uncomfortable and success or accolades feel weird!
  6. Boredom – Stirring up drama and conflict, to use our power in some way to cause disturbance for a distraction.

She even states that; “the root of all self-sabotage is the fear of failure!” What a coincidence! I just wrote a blog about free falling through fear (https://emyminzel.com/2019/04/05/free-falling-through-fear/)

I was so caught up with the fear of the unknown, that I recognized it was stunting my growth where I was working to improve. These habits I wish to quit, are my very own weapons of self-sabotage! Indeed, I was on to something here!

I finally see that I am a great warrior. All the unhealthy habits I cling too, are just the same ones that keep me stuck. Ellen’s article states these behaviors spring from a subconscious fear that, trying my best, won’t be enough.  Whoa… busted.

I find it comforting and magically synchronistic that I happened to see this article at this exact moment. While I am acutely aware of the persistent pestering of demanding negative habits, that keep racking my brain, I am working on letting go of these habits, though I seem to want to keep them as badly as I want to let go.

Doing my daily exercise of Kundalini Yoga Nabhi Kriya, I got an idea for a mantra that I plan to use when feeling the tug of these old habits. It wrote it down on a note card and taped this mantra in a spot I see often. I may even put it in the bathroom with the others. It says.

“I keep the promises that I make to myself. Because I am worthy of the life, I desire.”

It’s nice to recognize why we do the things we do, especially when they are harmful so that we can move past them. When I find out more information about myself or my tendencies, I use this knowledge to make the changes I wish to see.  This lesson has come in the right way at the right time, and I am thankful for hearing it.

The Universe is asking me to level up again, and as wonderful that is, I do worry that I am not good enough. I know I am not the only person who worries about their abilities. I also believe the only way we can find out who we are, is to do it even though we are scared. I am willing to do all I can to get to the root of any self-sabotage and defeat my fear of failure.

I trust the Universe to send me lessons through joy, because I know that’s what I truly desire!  Proving it simultaneously by practice various personal and spiritual growth rituals. Doing my best to nurture better habits for our wellbeing. I tell you what. Making change is hard!

Sometimes, we fail and fall hard flat on our faces. But we encourage each other to get back up. We remind each other how worthy and able we are of achieving our goals if we do not quit. I wanted to encourage you to keep with the promises you make to yourself today. And remind you that you are worthy of all you desire too!

I love you.

Love and blessings,

Emy Minzel

https://emyminzel.com

@EmyMinzel

 

Reference;

www.quickanddirtytips.com/savvy-psychologist

www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/how-be-yourself/201710/why-do-we-self-sabotage-0

*Photo taken on the Babtism River, Tettegouche State Park, Minnesota

 

 

 

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Decisions, Decisions…

It’s no secret that our life path is just made up of decisions we make along the way. In our careers, family, friends and even our health, the path is a product of decisions we’ve made prior. How my life looks today is directly because of the things I chose in the past. Sometimes we make bad decisions because we just don’t know, what we don’t know yet!

We must not kick ourselves in the butt when we do find out. It is then that we can use that opportunity to make an even more informed decision and move on from there. Who I am now, recognizes that in my younger years I would sometimes try to blame others for my failings instead of taking responsibility for my decisions. I had to get out of my own way and grow. I had to learn it was all up to me and my decisions to get the life I wanted.

Even when my decision was to be lazy and unproductive with my time, affecting any progress, the old me would think “Well if it’s meant to be it will be!” When really, it will be if I decide to make it so!

When Stacy posted her blog Let’s talk about Desire yesterday on stacycrep.com she hit the nail on the head talking about desire and distraction. I wanted to share my expericence of chosing destractions over what I truly desired and how I changed my thinking to prioritize what I truly wanted.

This thinking ‘if it was meant to be will be’ was justifying behaviors and decisions that were not getting me anywhere! I just didn’t see that it was me, standing in my way to the life I really wanted. It took years before I was ready to admit that my dissatisfaction was my own fault. That the decisions I made each moment of the day was the product of how I felt about life. Then, I had my “Ah ha!” moment and realized that nobody can change my life but me!

After this awakening, I started experimenting with mantras and found one that I loved and motivated me to take responsibility for my decisions. I still have it on a post-it note on my bathroom mirror. It says “I deserve the best! I take charge of my schedule and my life!” This simple yet powerful mantra moved me to get off the couch and start making progress towards the career and life I know I wanted but wasn’t making any progress getting too. I finally saw it because I stopped procrastinating and started doing what I knew I needed to do.

For years I knew I wanted to be a writer, yet I just did not believe in myself. So, I did not even attempt to write. When I did, it was in my journal and for my eyes only. I complained about it a lot because I was so unhappy with my lack of progress. Instead of taking the initiative to write something worth sharing, I would nap, clean, veg on the couch or anything at all besides write. How in the world did I expect to be a writer if I wasn’t confident enough to even try?

It was one small, yet life-changing decision several years ago, that got me fired up about my life goals again. Adventure Sister Stacy had encouraged me to start writing and she decided she was also going to write too. This sister solidarity gave me just enough support that I was willing to give it a shot. When we started writing, Stacy and I set a small goal of 500 words a week to keep us accountable. The best surprise was that we both ended up blowing the doors off that goal and had a great time while doing it!

We kept writing and writing and now have three books waiting for us to publish! As it turns out, editing is not cheap, and we needed to find a way to pay for the next step of making our publishing goals happen. A year after we got just our book proposals edited and paid for, we still needed the money to edit the rest of the books. We sat on this conundrum for a while and together made the decision to start putting together women’s retreats to help raise the funds to bring our books to fruition!

This is a very exciting next step in our writing careers, and all came about organically from our decision to keep making progress towards our goals and dreams. When it occurs to me that I wasted several years of my life because of my decision not to believe in myself, it can bum me out at times. Yet I know I cannot get down on myself too bad, because you don’t know, what you don’t know until you know! When you do, look at the progress you can make!

I am so thankful that I made myself take initiative to make one of my dreams come true. I did this by taking responsibility for how I was spending my time and energy and changed it to what I needed. These small decisions added up to big changes in myself and my life. I do my best to make good decisions and take responsibility with this life I’ve been blessed with. Doing so has increased my self-esteem and motivates me to keep moving forward with my goals and dreams; one small decision at a time.

Wishing you love and blessings,

Emy Minzel

https://emyminzel.com

@EmyMinzel

*Photo taken at Candie Kitchen in Knife River, Minnesota