For Today

Things for which I am grateful today:

Great meeting with client this morn
Bright sun shining in Bryant Park
Healthy, fulfilling lunch:  beets, spinach, tomatoes and beans
Subway reading (currently Ann Voskamp’s One Thousand Gifts)
Phone calls with loved ones who care
Green grass with kids playing ball
The quiet charm of Upper West Side
Divine meetings with strangers
Espresso in a tiny porcelain cup
Rest
Comfy pillows
Friends who host me on their couch
Observing dance classes at Broadway Dance Center
Strong bodies sweating hard
Nice man who offered me free dinner at Energy Kitchen (“Eat better = Feel better” slogan)
Encouraging texts with just the right words
Peace
The chance to breathe, be present, fully feel

Italia

Ciao, tutti!

I am currently visiting my youngest sister, Frannie, in Italia.
It is impossible to put into words why this country is so magical, but I think it’s because everything is slowed down enough that one can fully experience the depth and beauty of so many different things.  We can create this in America -this living fully in each moment and appreciating the wonder and beauty in every breath- but it’s easier when an entire culture is geared toward the same.

Some little joys thus far:

being greeted by Frannie at the train station in Milan
the little pouch with socks, a toothbrush, mini tube of toothpaste, ear plugs, and an eye cover they handed all passengers on the plane to Germany
tiny candies with cute wrappers on the flight to Milan
arriving at Sherman’s!  (family friends)
bright yellow tulips on the table
big glass windows
high ceilings
white walls
brown eggs in a bowl in the refrigerator
deep black coffee
lunch at Pasta Fresca – Giovanni, the chef, serves only pasta that he hand-makes every morning.  Amy (Sherman), Frannie, and I all ordered the same thing – whole wheat pasta with vegetable sauce; it was so fresh and simple and divine.  We shared acqua frizzante (bubbly water) and there were yellow paper place mats on simple white tables and the sun was pouring through the windows.  ‘Twas a perfect first meal in Italia.
fresh flower stands on the street
the natural grocery store
sweater blanket
white dishes
quinoa/berry museli
orange radio
french press coffee maker
journaling in bed with rain pouring down outside
wooden floors
shutters on windows
the sound of vespas and the city waking up below
my sister beside me
yoga in the living room
flower boxes
windows that open wide to the city outside
little kids on scooters
families on bikes
cobblestone streets
the green of the grass, the lights at the top of the castle, and the rain on the street last night
the view from the top of the Duomo
La Librero Ristorante – the yellow walls with mirrors and old beer bottles and little hooks for purses and the old man owner with the big mustache and tiny orange glasses with perfect circle lenses
a spoonful of pistachio Gelato from the nice man at the gelateria last night

Everything here is done with such care.  The way people dress and prepare meals and talk with one another and walk down the street at a pace that is not frantic and speeding onto the next thing – it is beautiful and an art.

We’re off to Prague today – will share details soon!

with love,
Meg

PS:  I don’t have my computer, so posting pics is a challenge.  I’ll make an album when I return!

Own Your Joy

Nashville at Sunrise

Trust your crazy ideas.

A little over a year ago, Own Your Joy was just beginning to gain momentum, and today, I’m booking out a full 2013-2014 school year of engagements!

Watch my new video here.

Baby steps bring big results.  It was working with a life coach that really helped me take my career/wellness/everything to the next level and create a job that I so enjoy.  If you are interested in learning about Own Your Joy or in working with me as your coach to bring about your OWN crazy ideas, shoot me a message.  I’d absolutely love to chat.  If you’re in Nashville or New York, we’ll go grab coffee.

“I have come to the frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element. It is my personal approach that creates the climate. It is my daily mood that makes the weather. I possess tremendous power to make life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration, I can humiliate or humor, hurt or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis is escalated or de-escalated, and a person is humanized or de-humanized. If we treat people as they are, we make them worse. If we treat people as they ought to be, we help them become what they are capable of becoming.”  -Goethe

All love,
Meg

Explore, Dream, Discover.

 “Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.  So throw off the bowlines.  Sail away from the safe harbor.  Catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore.  Dream.  Discover.”
-Mark Twain

love and light,
meg

Sunday

I love Sundays.

Here is what I loved about today:

grapefruit for breakfast
birds chirping
sunshine
walking outside
parks w/ green grass with people happily enjoying the sun
hammocks between trees
coffee w/ coconut milk
time with Ernie and John
an email from Frannie
yellow legal pads
pens that write well
little girls in the Sunday dresses
yoga
“Beautiful Things” by Gungor
soft grey tee shirt
red doors at Midtown 12th South
morning yoga
teal shoes
these:
“so I will call upon Your name & keep my eyes above the waves”
this:

Indian food
insight.
freedom.
wisdom.
grace.

love and light 🙂
meg

How are you coming on your gratitude lists?!

Twenty years from now, you’ll be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did do.  So throw off the bowlines.  Sail away from the harbor.  Catch the trade winds in your sails.  Explore.  Dream.  Discover.
-Mark Twain

Gratitude List Challenge!

Something I love doing is ending each day with a gratitude list.  By calling to mind our little white lights for the day, we can round out our day in a positive fashion and tune into all that we DO have, instead of that which we do not.  It is often easy to get bogged down with fears, worries, anxieties, and confusion, but if we can simply halt our mind from focusing on the negative and turn, instead, to that which brings us joy and lightness, positivity ensues.
The things we put on our gratitude list can range from general to very specific, simple to elaborate, seemingly insignificant to super huge – there are no rules!

Here is my gratitude list for today:
a) waking up before my alarm went off – I love when this happens.  Makes me feel powerful and ready to take on the day.
b) the weather today.  Spring has sprung!
c) walking to my car in the parking garage, feeling the Spring-y-ness in the air and breathing in a fresh new day.  I will forever be grateful for good weather days.
d) the fact that Shakti, my yoga studio, is literally a two minute drive away.  Ha.  This is a huge thing I’m grateful for.
e) my body being strong and healed from my ankle injury last summer and able to fully engage in and enjoy yoga and other physical activities
f) practicing yoga in community with wonderful, vibrant, loving people
g) enjoying green juice and fruit post yoga
h) taking a walk in the sunshine to meet a dear friend before lunch
i) snapping a few pics of the white blossoms on so many trees along the way
j) jade’s (my friend who I went on a walk with), company.  We were roommates in college and it was really nice to be able to catch up a bit today.
h) kale salad at Burger Up, one of my favorite Nashville restaurants, with a dear Greystone family visiting from Georgia (thank you, Burns Fam!)

(hanging with the lovely Olivia Burns :))
i) finding a few birthday items on sale on a little solo shopping trip.  I went by myself just to browse a few things and found a pair of pants I have wanted forever marked to half price.  Win!
j) these hot rollers I have that curl my hair in an instant.  Makes getting ready super easy. 🙂
k) wearing a fun new dress I found on major sale.
l) not having to wear a jacket because the weather is finally warmer!
m) the look of a clean kitchen/counter/home – ah, so nice.
n) new perspectives and insights about a few work things
o) encouraging words
p) comfy pj pants and my hoodie
q) my breath (I just reread this and laughed, as it sounds like I’m grateful for good breath.  That is great, too.   I actually mean breath as in the very breath than runs through me.  Just to clarify. 🙂 )
r) my health
s) a good night’s rest ahead.

I encourage each of you to make a gratitude list at the end of every night this week and see how it makes you feel.  Whether it has three things on it or 30 things on it is not the point; the idea is simply to magnify and celebrate anything for which you are grateful.
Try it, enroll a friend or family member in committing to a gratitude list with you, share your joys on this blog – I’d love to hear about the little things that make your world bright!

love and light,
-and happy Spring, now that it feels like it’s really here- 🙂
meg

Gaining Elevation

Today I had coffee with a friend and we got to talking about those times in life that feel like total overwhelm.  Have you been there?
Maybe it’s that you’re in the midst of a project and can’t seem to find your way out from an ever-increasing pile of tasks that all seem to be demanding your attention right NOW.
Perhaps your relationship with yourself or your significant other or someone else dear to you feels out of whack and is causing a myriad of other things in your life to feel out of harmony, too.
Perhaps you feel completely lost, like you have no idea what you’re doing with your life, and like you’re swimming in a in a big, vast sea of confusion, anxiety, frustration, regret, __________ (you name it), and you feel scared, alone, and totally freaked out.
How do you get out of this place?

As a coach, one thing I help my clients with is gaining elevation.  When we’re stuck in those periods of overwhelm, stuck looking up and down and all around and feeling like we trapped in a box of _________ (anxiety, confusion, sadness, etc.), it’s easy to start feeling like that box is all there is.
It’s scary to be in that place!
But if we can envision coming out of that box, rising higher and higher into the sky and watching that box, once so all-encompassing and terrifying and BIG, getting SMALL, we can then start to see things in a new light and begin to feel better.

I like to take my clients through a process in which we visualize moving from inside that box of overwhelm to way up in the sky, where we can look down and view that box as small, insignificant, even laughable – almost like a little soccer ball or bag of rocks or rubix cube that we can distinguish as real, yes, but not all there is.  We can look down at the box and say ‘Oh, heyyy, little box.  I see now – you’re just a box.  And from up here, there’s a whole wide world of possibility and hope.  I choose this space to live from.’

And then we chat about living from the place 🙂

I hope you’re all having a lovely day.

I spent mine in meetings with a few people at Star Bagel (do yourself a favor and treat yourself to the cinnamon hazelnut coffee here) and Edgehill Village Cafe (here, they have the most amazing blueberry roobios tea!), and putting things in place for my 2013-2014 Own Your Joy tour, and now I’m about to grab a yoga class!

love and light to you all 🙂
meg

I’m a super huge fan of quotes and will be sharing many, many, many of them on this blog!  Here is one for tonight:
“The shell must break before the bird can fly.”  -Alfred Lord Tennyson

My Thumb Is Still Attached!

I had quite the traumatic experience with a blender last night.
I’d just finished making my favorite green smoothie (I will write more about this soon!), and in reaching to wipe off the back of the blender, my thumb got stuck under the engine revolver.
This wouldn’t have been a problem if the the blender wasn’t plugged in, but it was.
I accidentally hit the ‘ice crush’ button while my thumb was near the engine revolver, and in an instant, my thumb was sucked under the piece, I felt my finger being gored into, and I literally thought my thumb had been cut off.
I grabbed my thumb in complete shock, too afraid to look down, but knowing that I had to hold it tight to keep the blood from going everywhere.
Oh, my, my, my.
My immediate thoughts went to my upcoming shows and school presentations and how would I play the piano/guitar without my thumb top!? and God, please don’t let my thumb be broken off!

Long story short,
I still have my thumb.

My thumb is still attached!

When I finally garnered the courage to look down and see what had happened, I literally started REJOICING when I saw my the top of my thumb not hanging by a flap of skin and about to fall off or something dramatic like that.
Biggest little white light I could have hoped for in that moment!
My nail is mostly gone (kinda freaky).  I’ve got a pulverized hole in the middle of my thumb (the blender drilled through my nail and into the skin; sorry for the queasy-tummied out there!).  It’s a bit scary to look at.
But I have my thumb!
I am so happy about this.

So for tonight, some LWLs regarding the thumb sitch:
I still got to drink my smoothie.
My sister, Erin, and my dear friend, Stephanie were there to assist.
I woke up without pain.
I can still practice yoga!
It could have been way worse.

love and light 🙂
meg

Happy Easter!

Happy Easter, everyone!
I hope you’ve had a glorious day.
If you read my first post, you know that I’m at the very beginning stages of this blog and still have much to clarify (I’m not sure on which days I’ll post, I haven’t settled on a layout/theme, I don’t even know exactly what site name or title I’ll use) – but all of that will fall into place soon, and I committed simply to STARTING this thing… so here is a continuation of the start.

What I do know is that part of my content will center around Little White Lights.  Little White Lights (LWLs) are those things in life we can celebrate and be grateful for; those moments, people, and/or things that bring us a bit of joy and lift our spirits.

So for today, some Easter LWLs:

–Early mornin’ yoga.
-Mass with my sister and cousin and friends.
–Brunch at a fun little place in East Nashville called Sky Blue Cafe.
–Barnes and Noble browsing.
-Grocery shopping at Trader Joe’s.
-The sun coming out at the end of a rainy weekend.
-Wearing high heels AND going on 16-minute RUN tonight!  This was huge!  A little over 9 months ago, I shattered my ankle, needed surgery, and now have a plate and 8 screws in my skin.  Today was the first time since my injury that I was able to run for any considerable length of time and wear high heels (not at the same time).  Bright lights.

Cheers to an amazing week ahead.  Stay tuned for more unfolding here!
love and light 🙂
meg

Banish perfectionism. Start where you are today.

Alright.

Today’s the day.  I have been wanting to start (re-start, actually) a blog for ages now, and everyday, I keep getting hung up on details.  “I don’t know how to use WordPress.” (My old blog used to be a Blogger blog).  “I want my blog to look pretty before I make my first post.  I don’t have a perfect name picked out yet.”  These thoughts have been compounded by a host of similar others, and until today, they’ve ended with “I’m too busy to tackle all of this right now.  Nope, I’m not starting my blog.”

Can you relate?  How many times do we totally avoid things for fear that they won’t be as shiny or good as we want them to be?  Or how many days (or months, or even years?!) do we procrastinate on certain tasks because they seem so big and insurmountable and in order to accomplish them, we feel we need to be more ready, more qualified, more knowledgeable right NOW?

So much pressure we place on ourselves!
What if we could instead believe that whatever we created NOW was perfect?
There’s a quote that says, “If you wait for perfect conditions, you’ll never get anything done.”
I have to remind myself of this often.
Today, my stand is about action.  It’s about banishing perfectionism and being willing to start right where I am.
Join me?

And welcome!
Welcome to my blog that is still very much in the shaping process, very much going to change and look different and be different a few weeks and months and years from now,  and very much a place I hope you visit often and find a bit of inspiration and joy from for your own life.

love and light,
(and Happy almost Easter!) 🙂
meg