Why keeping simple this Christmas is the most powerful thing you will do for your business

'Practice presence -- embrace the place where life happens.'

Eckhart Tolle

After spending the best part of 6 weeks recovering from a bad bout of illness and asthma, I am now almost fully recovered with plenty of time out from being online and working hard on my business. One of the lessons I have learned and have reflected on during the latter part of this year is the message that’s been on my mind and in my heart for months now - Karen you need to KEEP IT SIMPLE.

I had heard the message, received it and passed it onto my connections but not acted fully on it myself! Isn’t it always the way in our businesses? It’s so easy to get caught up in trying to do everything at once and it’s one of the major reasons small businesses fail in the first five years.

If you’re always doing doing doing with no pausing for presence, you’re on the road to destruction, and that’s not the reason why you started your business. Keeping it simple means, connecting back with your heart, working from within and focussing on gratitude and the love for your work (why you started in the first place!).

I have realised deeply that don’t want to just keep my head above water, but actually soar in my life and work and that’s going to take commitment to keeping things simple not just in my business but in my whole life, my bigger picture.

So what does keeping things simple actually mean when it comes to your life and work and why does it matter?

• It opens up space for ideas and inspired action to come through

• It allows you to conserve and share your beautiful energy with the world

• Keeping things simple brings that focus you need to be really amazing at what you do.

• It helps you to communicate better with your connections, clients and collaborators about your vision and the value you can bring to the world.

So how can you do that and why start now at Christmas when everyone else is throwing caution to the wind and drowning their sorrows that second bottle of wine?

Keeping things simple this Christmas can mean putting the POWER back into your life and work ready to the New Year by:

• Reflecting with pure honest gratitude for what has already passed and for what you have in this present moment.

• Using your intuition, the present moment and your heart space to actively create your daily experience over the holidays. 

• Having some fun and laughter - let go! You’ll be amazed at how this opens up your energy!

• Doing simple things that bring you joy - I’ve been enjoying being fully present by doing some baking, swimming, drawing and of course walking my Harry bear!

• Setting a powerful and emotionally connected intention and theme for 2019

Practicing presence can have an incredible transformational effect on you and your work. It brings you back to a place where you can fully work from your uniqueness and help you stand out from the crowd!

If you’d like to get into the art of simple presence, practice these skills and begin your New Year working with intention and inspired action, so you can focus and be in your own flow, I’m sharing my best tips and exercises on how you can strip it right back and keep it simple this Christmas in my Radiant Leaders group for connected, heart centered women leaders. Join us here.

Let me know how you’re getting back to basics this season!

I'm done with being unkind to myself! Share the love...

I am declaring war on unkindness…

What will it take to stop those negative thoughts of not doing enough, not being enough, not achieving enough?

What are we all trying to achieve anyway? Where are we all rushing off to anyway?

As I am recovering from an illness at home at the moment, I don’t have much choice to rest as I’m still a bit weak after being incapacitated. It’s #WorldKindnessDay today too, and as I was playing with some graphics I decided to write myself a little note to remind me to be kinder to myself today. I really don’t need to rush back into my business, rush to try and join in on social media, rush to get all the jobs completed in my home, rush rush rush. The voice in my head telling me I have to get strong, I have to be back achieving again asap otherwise ‘this’ ‘that’ ‘the other’…

My little note to self!

This is the note I added to my desktop.

I then thought I wonder who else is feeling like they need this message today?

So I just started sending it on messenger to a few people, then I thought I’ll just keep sending it to a few more, and a few more. Before I knew it I was feeling the compulsion to send it to everyone. I was a little worried that people might think I was spamming them! A little reminder, we all need it don’t we? We can all be so unkind to ourselves through our thoughts and actions without really realising it.

I had an amazing response from many, I was astounded really! Here are just a few and they are still coming back to me. If you want to feel better, first do something for others!

The real secret to healing through fear and change

Four weeks ago I began to feel unrest in my breath. It started in my solar plexus and this began to affect my practice and my walks out in nature. I am very connected to my breath being a strong advocate and teacher of mindfulness, and I had noticed that something felt off.

After then experiencing a bad cold, I was feeling a shift coming. Not just physical but a much deeper shift inside myself and my world. Over the weeks my breathing got worse, after attending a silent meditation day retreat, I was back at the doctors being given an inhaler and antibiotics for a chest infection. I hate being unwell and for a few days I resisted the complete rest that I needed in the present moment, tried to carry on and then the most scary thing happened at the end of that week.

I couldn’t catch my breath, even with the inhaler. I could not control my breathing and by the middle of the night I was shaking all over, for the first time in my life I was really terrified and in deep fear, I called 111 I needed to truly surrender and ask for healing support. I realised deeply in these moments that my breath is my life force and my source of connection, that I had taken my breath so much for granted, that I had not let go into the present moment and I began to lose a level of trust in myself when I intuitively felt something was out of alignment for weeks.

A deeper connection creates light, diminishes fear.

But why had I not asked for help at the first signs of feeling off? Well of course, it is the reason that so many of us do not ask for support. The compulsion to keep going out of FEAR. Fear that we are not enough, that others many not see us for who we really are, that we don’t want to appear to be weak in some way. That as a woman in the business world we are ‘always on the upward trajectory’ and not showing what is really going on inside.

I’ve been shifting strongly in my life and work path for around three years now and each time a change comes, fear invites me to go deeper. Each time it happens I further allow it show me what needs to be shown and peel off another layer to my true self.

I decided to share what was happening online in my Radiant Leaders group. As soon as I did a chain reaction began, others who were feeling the shift came forward to support me back to love and alignment with myself. Even when we can’t see our own way our of the dark, our connection with ourselves and others never gives up on us. Love never ends, it always finds a way to connect back though us, even if that is through our fear. I have learned this last week to truly surrender to my breath, to my connection to my life force, to receive with grace that I needed connection and support with this process. No surprises that this strong shift happened in the lead up to 11/11, a time of strong connection and burning healing in the world. As I watch the news of catastrophic events in California this feels even more poignant this week.

To enjoy the rainbow, first enjoy the rain. Paulo Coelho

As a highly sensitive and through my quiet practice I feel energy strongly, not only in myself and others but in world events and I believe that we are all being called to connect with ourselves on a deeper healing level to allow more love and light into ourselves and our own world.

Over the last week I have been called to look for rainbows a message of a union between the sky and the earth, the rainbow serves as a bridge between the two.

As a result of this awareness, some of my connections came forward and offered support as we shared with each other about what was currently happening for us. Connection! Connection brought me back. I began to breathe through the discomfort and pain and as a result my own connection began to come back to myself and through others…

One of those beautiful souls is Liz Carreira who connected with me via my closed Facebook Group Radiant Leaders. Liz offered me a distance reiki healing…

“Karen and I had been talking about which essential oils could best support her with her symptoms. After going through it we met for coffee where Karen took away a sample of an oil blend with how she could apply them”.

”When Karen posted that her symptoms were quite bad, I felt guided to get in touch and offered Karen a distance reiki session, and results were incredible. On the follow up after session I mentioned which oils i used and these same oils were perfect match for how Karen was feeling. I absolutely love what I do and enjoy helping people by giving them the space to allow healing to take place. And combining it with therapeutic grade oils just amplifies it even more.”

Another one of my Radiant Leaders Anna Alcock also supported me. Anna said “As an Empath and woman of Intuition, I felt called to support Karen through a time she needed to be held. To nurture her energy and emotions through a period of massive transformation. When your body is processing change, the fears, emotions and physical symptoms can sabotage the opportunity to evolve. I wanted to support Karen to grow through these changes, recognising a significant point in her journey back to her truth”.

I believe I was offered these guided healing supports because I energetically called for them through my own connection to myself and the present moment. My connection to who I really am is strong and even though I temporarily went into deep fear and isolation, my connection brought me back from fear to love for myself, my breath and those around me.

When you feel disconnected from life and fear kicks in, remember that it is always temporary, as everything is, this too shall pass. As a result, my breath-work and practice is now becoming stronger than ever. I feel a detrimental connection to my breathing and what it means to breathe and be fully present. When fear of change kicks in, remember who you are, breathe deeply and reach out for support, connection and healing. The love will always be there, ready for you to reconnect, waiting for you to let go, surrender and remember who you are, to know that ALL. IS. WELL.

“Always say “yes” to the present moment. What could be more futile, more insane, than to create inner resistance to what already is? what could be more insane than to oppose life itself, which is now and always now? Surrender to what is. Say “yes” to life — and see how life suddenly starts working for you rather than against you.” 
― Eckhart Tolle

If you’re currently feeling the deep fear of change in your life and work, connect with us in my free group Radiant Leaders for women who want to create their lives from truth and love. Creating high vibe connections are vital for your energy and growth. Join my amazing FREE tribe of supportive & authentic leaders who are born to shine their light in the world just like you. JOIN RADIANT LEADERS

About my connections…

Liz

Liz Carreira enjoys helping people by giving them the space to allow healing to take place combining Reiki with therapeutic grade oils which promotes healing and recovery.

You can find out more about Liz and her work in her Facebook Group here.

Anna

Anna Alcock is an intuitive guide, artist and energy Healer. She works with all the elements and your energy to align people back with their soul, to their truth & what brings them joy. To recognise the signs and synchronicities that show up as sign posts along their way giving them the courage to share their voice . You can find out more about Anna and her work here in her Facebook Group.

Thrive not Survive Campaign #WomenWhoThrive

Enough! I’m starting a Thrive Not Survive campaign this week! We’ve been running on the hamster wheel of exhaustion for long enough, going round on the carousel of overwhelm for too many years, putting ourselves down for not achieving our goals and not getting there!

This is NOT what life is about.

Life is about experiencing and bringing your FULL self to the world. It’s about waking up to becoming more conscious of our thoughts, our fears, our responsibility to the world, our true power!

Inside us all are the answers to what the world needs, but we are suppressing this power by accepting fear into our hearts and minds. We are numbing out pain and therefore remaining asleep not fulfilling our full potential! Most of us haven’t even scratched the surface of our full potential because we are living life by upside down rules that are not allowing us to have a relationship with our inner world. We need to allow more space for our dreams, our visions, our purpose. But because we are going round in circles of constant action, constant trying hard to ‘get there’ where ever that is! we have forgotten to live now, in the present.

We are living in a world where everything outside of ourselves is deemed more pressing and important than our well-being and our true power of vision and creativity.

I see so many women pushing too hard, berating themselves for not getting somewhere, seeing their time running out to live out their vision for their lives and that’s causing massive overwhelm.

The TRUTH is you don’t have to live like this. You CAN wake up to the real world and live without this roundabout of overwhelm and procrastination, personal criticism and self-doubt.

This week, I’m running this campaign on social media and I am sharing one of these top tips each day to help your awareness of when you are going into fear and overwhelm.

• Practice speaking your truth every day - It’s OK to stick up for yourself and act from a place of your values, your integrity and your well-being. Speak from your heart in your daily life.

• Be your best self by creating each moment - Remember that you have the power inside you to determine how you feel. We are constantly creating our future so take a few moments every now and then in your day to ask yourself “ Am I creating the way I want to live right now in this moment”?

• Don’t settle for less! - It is your BIRTHRIGHT to be happy and feel alive. Your thoughts may try and tell you different, but the reality is that you are free and have infinite power inside you.

• Look to the light - Every day! But especially on those days when you’re feeling defeated, unmotivated or in fear of taking action that you know is your calling. Seek out happy experiences!

• Stop denying your truth - Get real honest with yourself about who you are & get clear on your values! There are jewels of wisdom buried inside you that hold your unique value in the world.

• Seek support and assurance - have faith in yourself and the bigger picture and people and opportunities will begin to become visible to you. Ask for help - a biggie I know but it’s a massive game changer when you do! I recently had a round of coaching that supported me through a bout of overwhelm and it’s changed my perception to clarity and focus again.

• Be flexible - you always always have choice! Some of the greatest leaders have tried and changed direction when something didn’t fit. It’s more important to be true to yourself than to continue doing something that doesn’t work! Seek out things that bring you more satisfaction and less pressure.

  And last but very much not least:

• GROUND YOURSELF EVERY SINGLE DAY - Get outside for a short time each day to ground yourself in nature’s energy, consciously breathe in and out slowly, and take this time to use your senses to connect. Enjoy just being for a few moments.

  I’d love it if you’d share your own tip for keeping fear and overwhelm at bay using #WomenWhoThrive and #ThriveNotSurvive

I’ll also be sharing practical tips in my Facebook group Radiant Leaders. Join in here.