Tag: joy

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I gotta say, it was a good day!

Emy Minzel

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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Are you scared to be happy?

Emy Minzel

No, it’s not a trick question. I am honestly wondering if I am the only one with this fear or not? I was standing in the kitchen this afternoon. I just had a couple of clients. I blew off the snow in the driveway and now I am jamming out in the kitchen to Bruno Mars and cooking dinner. I have had a most lovely regular Tuesday that I have had in a while.

As I stand, stirring dinner on the stove top, singing to the dogs and dancing a bit. I realized just how genuinely happy I was feeling! Isn’t that wonderful?

Except, just as quickly as I recognized this feeling of joy, I was like “Oh this is scary. I better not get to happy, I might jinx myself.” Then as I began to recognize this joy sabotaging behavior, I had just put myself through, I stopped. Thinking to myself some more. “What the heck am I doing?! No. I choose to take this joy back, right this minute.” So, I did. I allowed myself to be really gosh darn happy as I cooked and danced.

Then I thought to myself. “Am I the only person who does this? How many of us sabotage our own joy out of fear of being let down? What IF bad news comes later? That’s life. For this exact moment in time, it is okay to enjoy your life!” I am thankful that I noticed this behavior as I could have easily slipped into wondering thoughts of ‘what ifs’ instead of appreciating the moment of joy I had been blessed with.

It’s not like I don’t have any problems, but at this moment, I don’t have anything ‘bad enough’ to derail my well-deserved peace. It was almost as if this feeling of joy was uncomfortable! I never have thought of myself as an unhappy person. I like to stay positive. Yet I have not been allowing myself to truly feel free of worry or concern for some reason or other!

It’s as if I had been so stressed out that I just accepted this thinking as my way of life and “this is just how I feel now.” When my moment of happiness came out, my inner worry wart was quick to smashed it like a mosquito that had just disturbed my summer hammock nap.

I want to know, does this happen to you too?

Now that I have seen this peculiar behavior, I fully intend to change it for the better. This is what they mean by living in the now. Now just happens to be a perfectly lovely ordinary day in which all is okay in my world. I am so thankful for this blessing and the relief that I feel when I allow this joy to flood into my soul.

This big ol’ full moon must have allowed me to release the block/barrier I didn’t see that I had. I can see now that it was preventing me from truly allowing joy into my life. I am thankful for the opportunity to see so clearly and now this should allow me to grow in a positive way. As an energy worker I know that if you are scared to allow joy in, why would it show up for you?

I must not allow myself to associate happiness and joy with and uncomfortable feeling of panic! (Insert high five to my face… Duh.) But like they say, admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery. I am hoping to allow my happiness to flow so large that it becomes contagious to everyone I encounter.

Let’s try an experiment together, shall we? Just how long can you and I hold on to the feeling of joy and happiness? How many hours will we allow ourselves the indulgence? Do me a favor and do not be scared that your joy may shine in some one’s eyes. If they are your friends and love you; they will be happy for your happiness.  Also, they may just be scared to be happy too?!

I love it when life sends me lessons through joy!

Wishing you an abundance of joyful blessings and love to you all.

Emy Minzel ~ I am love.

https://emyminzel.com

@EmyMinzel

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Joys of Sisterhood!

Emy Minzel

A friend and I went camping with our husbands last weekend at Tettegouche State Park in Silver Bay Minnesota. It was a spectacular park with lots of hiking and stunning waterfalls of the Baptism River that led out into Lake Superior. We were only there for a very short weekend, but it seemed to be the getaway that I needed to reset. You know, like an iPhone… power down for a bit and restart so I work on all cylinders instead of just some.

I needed to get out and reconnect with nature. I put my feet in the water, my mind back into the present, and gave my spirit some time to play. My husband and I got to the cozy campsite a few hours earlier than our friends. We had time to set up the tent and hit the trail for a hike and to see the water falls. Jason was a little intimidated by the swinging bridge, but he made it over to the other side. I was very proud of him for pushing past his fear of heights, so we could be rewarded with waterfalls.

The next day we all hiked together, the park was scenic and vast, the steps were handier than BWCA portage trails but brutal in their own way. Luckily the water views and opportunities to swim made up for the stair master level 17 drill we embarked on. I think we all had over 10,000 steps in before early afternoon. I wasn’t expecting all the flights of stairs, but I believe they were totally worth the effort!

After our group hike we had decided to go back to camp and eat lunch. There was a great beach at the mouth of the Baptism river that led directly into Lake Superior. I wanted badly to swim and float on this 83-degree day and Stacy was up for some fun too. Marty drove Stacy and I to the beach while my husband who is not much of a swimmer decided he would be just fine enjoying some quiet time while we all went for a dip. We got to the beach that was made of rocks not sand, yet you would sink in them like it was quicksand in the right spot.

There was a sandbar (made of rocks) that reached like a finger of the earth just for the purpose of creating a pool before the river met the vastness of the Great Lake. All three of us wasted no time getting into the water. It was warmer than we thought it would be if we kept the current from sweeping us into the big water the temperature stayed perfect for this Minnesota girl.

We swam back and teased my friends husband about showing up to the beach with two women. All of us floated together having a great time while watched a young boy try to build up the courage to jump from a rock ledge that many others before had just done. In the end he did not jump, his fear got the best of him even though his older sister had jumped three times before. This makes me wonder about how many times I did not do something I really wanted to do because of my fear?

We swam for an hour or so then walked over to the other side of the rocky peninsula, so we could put our feet into Lake Superior. Even though the two waters were connected just yards away the large lake was much colder and seemed to have a fierceness about it. I walked in on the Lake Superior side and the rocks almost swallowed my legs up to my knees. The water was much cooler, and the energy of it was much different. It was a very cool experience to see how quickly Mother Nature can change her power.

I was in my happy place. I am a water baby. Always have been, always will be. My friend also loves the water and as we turned to leave we snapped a picture of us to document the moment. We didn’t check to make sure it was a good picture. We just took it quickly and kept on our path back to the campsite up more flights of stairs. When we got back to camp, I posted it. Letting our readers know we were out adventuring together. It had been months since we got together, and adventuring is one of our favorite things to do. We were both energized and very ‘here and now’ the moment the picture was taken. I believe it captured the peak of our happiness during that excursion.

I also believe that beauty comes from being happy. You don’t have to be traditionally beautiful to be perceived as pretty when joy radiates from your whole being and that is what the camera captured. Stacy and I are regular women, we have flaws, grey hairs, extra pounds, cellulite and everything else that comes with being forty-something and at that moment we did not give a darn at all, we were happy. Plain and simple.

Yesterday a Facebook fan had commented on our photo. She said, “You two are beautiful!”

It made my heart sing, not because I wanted to be perceived as pretty but because I knew that this woman could see our joy. It is not easy to find joy in our everyday lives sometimes. That’s why it is imperative to make time to do the things you love. I live in Minnesota, there are approximately 3 months of the year in which you can go swimming for any amount of time. Too soon it’s too cold, too late and dog days take over the lakes with algae blooms and other undesirable effects that keep us out of the water.

We made time to do what we love, and we were rewarded mind, body and spirit including a picture to prove it.

Thank you to our Facebook friend Pam for the nice compliment. I was having a pretty trying Wednesday after a great weekend escape, your compliment made my day. It made me feel like there is still good people who are kind, caring and most of all women who do not have to compete, women who lift others up, encourage other women for being authentic, without a beauty competition. It is okay for women to be kind and supportive of each other, we should encourage each other’s strengths, help each other on our paths, because we are intrinsically connected.

I am thankful for a different kind of sisterhood I share with other women I adore, the kind you choose. Neither of us have been blessed with a blood related sister but we seem to have found each other again in this lifetime. Don’t get me wrong, we don’t agree on everything and we have our moments of agreeing to disagree but that does not mean that for one second, I think she won’t have my back or I hers.

Sisterhood can be empowering if you let it. This picture personifies our joy on this day. Joy in just being us! No make-up, photo shop, or special effects can produce a photo that encompass happiness, it all comes from the inside.

My goal is to pull this joy out of other women. To encourage others to be authentic as you can be while doing your best to find joys in your own lives. We do this by sharing how we do it ourselves. Feel free to share your own picture that shows you radiating joy doing what you love! It could be loving your babies, grandbabies, or fur babies. Hiking, swimming, or anything that makes your heart sing. We would love to see it!

Thank you for reading our blogs, thank you for the continued encouragement and support.

Wishing you an abundance of joyful blessings,

Emy Minzel ~

https://emyminzel.com

@emyminzel

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Finding Joy

Emy Minzel

Adventure Sister Stacy and I have a book we wrote on called Lessons Through Joy. We tell stories about how we were tired of learning lessons the hard way and decided it was time we started learning lessons through joy. It was an intentional manifestation of how we were willing to ‘learn our lessons’. Believe it or not, we did learn many lessons through joy after we sent that request up to the heavens in a fire ceremony in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area.

I believe that because we were expecting God/Spirit to answer our request; it happened. We had also made steps to purposely look for the blessings in each of our situations, deciding to focus on the good rather than what we perceived as bad. Stacy and I often consult each other when life gets rocky. We depend on each other to be there when we need to talk or vent our frustrations. I depend on her to remind me of the good, when I have had a bad day.

Bad days happen to us all, often when it rains it pours and somedays it can feel overwhelming. I am human, I have bad days. Lately its been storming, shaking things up in my calm life. I feel the need to step back and look at the big picture. There are things demanding my attention keeping busy and distracted from what was and is truly important to me in my life.

I have big dreams goals and aspirations folks! Sitting on my tush isn’t going to get me there and I know I’m busting my butt for a good reason. I am dedicated my goals. This is not to say that it is always fun or exciting. Some day’s all these goals and dreams take a lot of hours, leaving no time to relax or enjoy nature I love so much. Some day’s make me think can I really have it all? Can I really write books, run for State Office, run a business, enjoy the great outdoors, and have a happy family all at the same time????

Yet, I know deep in my soul, I cannot and will not quit. That’s not who I am. That’s not what I want. What I have decided to do instead is to ask the Universe again, to start helping me learn my Lessons Through Joy. I know it is possible because it’s happened before. I am going to choose to look for the blessings in my situation. I am choosing to be thankful for all the opportunities I am offered.

I believe that Spirit would not give me these opportunities and desire to make a difference in the world if I was not able to achieve them. I believe if by chance I don’t succeed, I will still be just fine.  I also believe the way I choose to look at things is how I choose to experience life. If I think today is crap, then in fact I will have a craptastic day.

If I wake up and decide I am ready to seize the day, I usually do! I’ll admit once in a while I wake up on the wrong side of the bed. My attitude sucks and I need to adjust it, or my day will reflect my energy. Today was one of those days. I spent all day in a miserable mood, sharing my energy with my family and receiving what I had given.

I complained to Stacy and as she usually does, she helped me put things into perspective. She’s not in the thick of things here at my house, she can see the forest and that I am just a tree in it. Stacy reminds me to step back, relax and to see the blessings in the situation. So instead of complaining about to do’s and such, I am going to express my gratitude for all I am blessed with today.

I am thankful for the generous people who have offered and delivered exceptional help to the Emy for House Campaign. These people have been a blessing since the moment I met them. I will probably never be able to repay my gratitude for their time and energy donated to help me win. These people help me believe there is an abundance of good in the world.

I am thankful for my husband who supports all my big dreams, aspirations and goals even when they are a lot of work for him and take time away from our family. He is devoted and takes care of me with stability, strength and love. I am blessed beyond words to be the one he loves this much.

I am thankful for my daughter who I think of as a great friend, she gets me out of the house, takes me and the dogs on walks because she knows just when we need them. My daughter is an amazing, and kind young woman who I am incredibly proud of. I am thankful for that.

My mother and I have not been able to see each other much but I try to be in touch with her more often then we used to. I love her lots and I know she loves me. I am very blessed to have my mom, she shaped the strong willed, big hearted woman I am today, I am thankful for this too.

I have tremendous friends and supportive family. Even though they may not understand my desire to do all I do, they love me and support me anyway.

I am thankful to have a roof over my head, enough to eat and a life that keeps me feeling alive. To feel strongly and feel big feelings is human and what makes me chase my goals. When it feels like a bigger job then I anticipated, its up to me to trust that I will not be delivered anything I cannot handle. It’s up to me to find my Lessons Through Joy every day.

Wow, I feel better after I see my blessings on paper.

I wonder how many times I have counted them out while complaining about trivial situations? I hope not too many. I know many of you understand that life can feel heavy, and somedays it pushes more than you think you can take. I believe all of us feel that way at one time or another. What is important is to step back, count your blessings, be sure to acknowledge there is always, always, always, something to be thankful for.

 

Wishing you an abundance of joyful blessings,

Emy Minzel ~ Adventure Sister

https://emyminzel.com

@emyminzel

Follow the Adventure Sisters on Facebook!

https://www.facebook.com/BWCAdventureSisters

Stacy Crep ~ Adventure Sister

https://stacycrep.com

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Just Dance!

Emy Minzel

It seems to me, somehow life snuck up on me and I got older, my gray hair is showing, the laugh lines around my eyes seem to stretch out further every year. My body acts differently then I am used to, but it still works fine and for that I am thankful. I love the person who I have grown into, my views on growing older have changed since you know, now I am old. The best part of growing older is learning who you really are inside and being confident to stand up for yourself and your beliefs. This may be just my opinion, but I really am enjoying the journey into midlife. I am in my early forties and I am finally able to really embrace the uniqueness that makes me; me.

I had a random thought that moved me to write about a topic that I haven’t participated in since the last wedding I attended. Dancing! I have found one thing I do not enjoy about growing older is the lack of dancing. I love, love, love to dance and now that I am too old to go clubbing on the weekends and attending concerts is difficult because ticket prices have gone astronomically crazy since ‘back in my day’. (Insert old fart saying here) So… it got me wondering, how do I keep the music alive?

I love to jam out, let my soul get all tangled up in the music so it moves me until my hair is wet with sweat, I am out of breath and need to rest before I can start dancing some more. Now the only time I work up a sweat is when its summer, I am in the garden or I am on the treadmill. That’s not okay with me. I need to figure out how to find the right atmosphere for shaking my tush because that’s something I still like to do!

There are plenty of people much older then I, who enjoy or even compete in swing dance or any kind of dance they prefer. Why is it that I can’t seem to find the right venue, time or people to want to dance with? I used to run with a fun rowdy crowd that loved to find local bands or concerts where we could go dance and have tons of fun. This no longer happens because they are older too, kids, jobs, time, good excuses but still excuses not to dance!

Dancing is not a priority in most peoples lives, there are plenty of things that top the list for good reason. I am finding after years of not dancing until there is a wedding it seems there’s no longer opportunities to dance in my adulthood, and this has bummed me out. Dancing is good for your body mind and spirit connection! It is scientifically proven that our bodies and brains react to the music in positive ways and we all know we need more exercise. I find it almost impossible to be cranky when I am dancing don’t you? This may be why I crave it so much???

I think it makes sense to dance MORE when we age so we can add more joy, music, exercise and entertainment to our lives, because this is when we need it the most! Growing older is not a bad thing, we just tend to be more in our heads then our bodies. Just thought I’d let you in on that secret. We don’t have to give up everything we enjoyed because now we are adults. So, don’t believe the hype if that’s what you’ve heard. It’s more than okay to still shake ya rump even if your over forty.

At times when I find I don’t have to have anyone to dance with my husband doesn’t dance, and my girlfriends are busy. I just remind myself “You can’t make others do something they don’t want to do!” that doesn’t stop me from wanting to dance! I choose to take full responsibility to fulfill this need in myself. I choose to take the opportunities of alone time that I am blessed with to turn up the Bose radio and get down in the living room/kitchen at any random time, or even while I am tidying around the house. Because why not?!

Dancing relieves stress, the music pumps up your chakras and basically flips on your happy switch. Its hard to misunderstand, bicker or argue with others when you are dancing,  because dancing unites us and brings all walks of life together. I believe there is power in letting loose and dancing so I am bucking the norm’s of aging letting my freak flag fly and choosing to shake my badonkadonk and rock out right here in the kitchen.

I chose to dance any chance I can get. In fact, There’s a dance party for one in my house today! I hope you find time to let your hair down in the way that brings you joy!

OOOhhhh HOOoooo shut up and dance with me!

Here is a link to a song that never fails to get me moving, I hope it helps you too!

https://youtu.be/6JCLY0Rlx6Q

Wishing you an abundance of joyful blessings,

Emy Minzel ~ Adventure Sister

https://emyminzel.com

@emyminzel

Follow the Adventure Sisters on Facebook!

https://www.facebook.com/BWCAdventureSisters

Stacy Crep ~ Adventure Sister

https://stacycrep.com