Author: Kimberly Kingsley

My baby sister’s birthday just passed – she’s no longer a baby, but for some reason I frequently call her Anna (my daughter’s name) by mistake…

Anna and I spent Sunday morning painting butterflies as part of my sister’s gift. We used watercolors and chalk and ended up with a bunch of beautiful, vibrant, butterflies in different shapes, sizes and colors.

So many things about creating those butterflies inspired me. Having fun with my daughter, creating beauty with color and texture, and the butterflies themselves – perfect symbols of life after life.

My sister loved her gift – a simple bulletin board for her home office with the butterflies pinned all over it. She’s going to use it for pictures of her own baby who is growing and changing so fast.

Today as I started to meditate I found myself thinking about money. Making money, saving money, investing money… It occurred to me that I spend a lot of time and energy thinking about what I want. It’s always something – to be more fit, to have more, to achieve more.

Quickly I realized that I was swimming in materialism while trying to meditate. I dropped my awareness down deeper into myself and affirmed, “my life is overflowing with abundance.” At first I didn’t feel it, but something in me would not budge until I felt the words I was saying. So I started to think about all the blessings in my life – too many to count.

After a few minutes I felt it. When I was done meditating I went into the kitchen to get a cup of coffee. I noticed my beautiful fruit bowl that my brother and sister-in-law made me years ago full of bannanas, pears, and apples. I grabbed my favorite coffee mug out of the cupboard. It’s purple and says, “prosperity” on it.

I can still feel it and am so grateful that I remembered all that I am and all that I have.

I have a passion for business. With my father and grandfather both business owners and me the first born girl always wanting to hang around my daddy, it got into my blood. Recently I read two business books that inspired me. The first is “True to Your Roots”, an account of Fetzer Wine’s evolution. The other is, “The Company We Keep”, another memoir about a sustainable home builder in Martha’s Vinyard.

Sustainable living is more than consuming less and recycling – although this is important beyond belief. For me, it also flows into self-care and relationships. It is why we nurture ourselves and each other – so that we can grow rather than wilt. My spirit is hovering around this topic with excitment and possibility.

I am showing my communication students the movie, “What the Bleep Do We Know?” The movie is thought provoking in the way that it looks at the relationship between quantum physics and spirituality. I would highly recommend renting the DVD if you havn’t already seen it.

One scene looks at the molecular structure of uniquely labelled bottles of water. Under a microscope, the water in the bottle labelled “Love” looks like beautiful snowflakes, while the bottle labeled, “I hate you, you make me sick” looks like poison. Our bodies are made of mostly water. The implications for how we communicate with ourselves and each other are astounding.

Thanks to my dear friend Lisa who informed me that he was coming, I GOT FIRST ROW TICKETS TO THE BABYFACE CONCERT!!

Some things you just have to announce to the world. Just call me “Juicyfruit.”

How many of us strive and struggle to reach our goals? One thing I’ve learned from my own “over-striving” is that it doesn’t help. In fact, it hinders progress. Striving invokes constriction. A visual representation might be a narrowing of one’s vessel or container like a skinny triangle.

Keeping our container’s open – more rectangle or oval than triangle – involves adopting a relaxed stance. Because we are such a cerebral society, you can usually feel tightness in your head when you’re trying to hard.

Today my intuition encouraged me to enjoy the ride. Just writing it makes me smile.

It is a beautiful, cool Saturday – the first real hint of coolness after a long summer. Where I am usually thrilled to have a morning dedicated solely to writing, this morning I found myself longing for adventure. I checked my cell phone a couple times to see if anyone miraculously called to see if I wanted to go for a ride on a Harley or hot air balloon. No luck.

I decided to take my laptop on my patio and write, the closest I could get to adventure. Now I am going to go for a run in the park rather than my traditional Saturday yoga class – whew, I’m really on the edge now!

For me, even the smallest variations in routine can provide much needed freshness into my day. Maybe tomorrow I’ll get to ride on a Harley…

I watched “Ray” the other night. The movie portrayed Ray Charles as having a rich and courageous life. He battled Heroin for many, many years. I was particularly moved by a scene of him in rehab when he had a vision (or perhaps a visit) from his mother and little brother who had died years earlier. In the vision they loved him up and released him from guilt he had carried all of his life. I couldn’t help but think that this closure is what gave him the strength to stand on his own two feet without heroin for the rest of his life.

So many of us use addictive behavior to mask our pain – what would happen if we just got rid of the pain?

It took me all of five minutes of talking with my sister (free therapy) to realize that my energy was low – hello! Aren’t I the one who talks incessantly about personal energy management? The interesting part of it all is that I labeled my low energy “discouragement.”

I see this a lot with clients too. It is as if we need to find a cause for why we’re feeling low when sometimes the cause is that we’re low! Funny. I took the morning off yesterday to write and now I feel back to my optimistic, energized self.

My sister-in-law Amy tells of a yoga teacher who once said, “Be where your at…. on the mat.” It didn’t matter that she said the part about “on your mat,” because Amy had already had a profound moment with the “Be where your at” part.

Sometimes it’s difficult to be where your at. Today is one of those days for me. Discouragement is in the air and I’m trying not to breathe it in. Writing is good medicine for me. When I’m done with this entry I will work on my book – trying to remember that passing moods are no excuse to stop expressing oneself.