How Speaking Up for Yourself Transforms Your Relationships

How do people react when you stand up for yourself or ask for what you want/need?  I’ve been working on this a lot these past few months, and even more since my meditation retreat (see my video Why Meditation Causes Natural Healing).  I’ve come to realize how much I freeze up when it comes to asking for what I want or need, and yet how eagerly I help everyone else do so.  In fact, I have a new agreement with myself that  I can only help others fulfill their needs and desires when I am fulfilling my own.  I can only help others love themselves more when I am loving myself.  It’s like the old adage that people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones, only with a positive, self-love spin.  If I don’t honor and respect myself, how can I honor and respect anyone else?

Speaking up for ourselves is so important, but that doesn’t make it easy.  In fact, the only thing harder than speaking up for ourselves is not speaking up!  When we do not speak up for ourselves, often it’s because we feel the relationship is more important than our issue.  How silly!  If we don’t speak up, what happens?  Resentment builds, frustration builds, and then one day when we finally do speak up, we are fed up and really do damage the relationship.  Isn’t it better to speak up right away in a calm, loving way?  Our truth is our truth, and it isn’t likely to change.  Anything based on less than our truth is merely an illusion, not a deep, loving, mutual relationship.

So then, how do speak our truth and do the least damage possible if we know they may not like what we’re going to say?   Saying things as gently yet firmly as possible, coming from a place of love is a great start.  It often helps to consider how it would feel if the person were going to say the same thing to us.  How would we want to hear it?  Saying things like “I feel…I need…I want…I love…” are indisputable truths about you, rather than critical statements about the other person that usually begin with,  “You always…you never…why don’t you…”.   This compassion helps as much as anything can, as does understanding that it’s not personal!  No matter how much it may feel personal, their response is about them and where they’re at in life and growth.  (See  The Four Agreements for more on this).

Once we’ve had our difficult conversation, silence often follows.  I’ve recently been reminded of how that silence can grow into misunderstanding.  I understood it as withdrawal from my life, and it was actually an attempt to give me the quiet and space the other person thought I wanted.  Lesson?  Gently break the silence and observe what follows objectively.  We may be quite surprised at what follows, but we won’t know if we don’t take a risk and go there.  We both felt silly for our misunderstanding and peace is now restored.

The final piece is usually the hardest….patience!  We have no control over how another person feels after we speak our truth.  They deserve the same time to process what has been said and feel their way through it that we had in developing our approach and timing initially.  They may want/need hours, days, or even weeks.  Eventually, one of two things will happen.  Either they will get past their hurt, resolve any anger, feel your love and return to an even stronger relationship based on reality and truth, or they won’t.  The deepest and most genuine relationships heal stronger than they were; less authentic relationships not intended for our path any longer show themselves as longer true for us and move out of our lives.

Often as we grow deeper in self-love and rediscover/use our voices, those in our lives who are used to (often unconsciously) molding us to their will become uncomfortable with these changes. They need time to get used to the shift and then ultimately decide if they wish to share a more mutually respectful love with us or move on to someone more easily manipulated to their desires.  This is painful to recognize, I won’t lie, but these are the changes we must allow to unfold, standing in the comfort of endless Divine Love and our own self-love to comfort us through the transition.  Thankfully, beautiful new relationships also appear in our lives that reinforce the amazing feeling of giving and receiving healthy, respectful love.   When we allow this new joy as well as any pain that may surface to unfold, we transform our relationships within and without, finally embracing authentic connection and joy.  This is a gift we can only give to ourselves; if not now, when?

Have you had an experience like this?  Maybe you’ve tried this but met with challenges?  Please share your comments, experiences, and ideas with us as we Journey together in this amazing experience of life.  Sending you Divine Love and Light!

Namaste,

Sheryl Sitts

Journey of Possibilities Founder & Chief Inspirational Officer

FREE EBOOK “HOW TO JUMP OFF A CLIFF AND FLY” available thru our website

NEW SACRED WISDOM CIRCLE coming to Montgomery, Texas starting 11/11/12 and monthly thereafter.  Won’t you join us?  Click here for details.

VISION BOARDS work!  Want to start bringing your dreams to life?  Contact Sheryl to schedule a fun Vision Board session at your home, office, or social group!

Our Journey to Consciousness

How did we get so caught up in judging each others’ paths to consciousness that we forgot the purpose?  Within each religion are factions or denominations arguing over rules and interpretations of their holy scriptures.  On a broader level, we fight wars over who has the right God or savior.   I don’t claim to be an expert in such matters, but to me this really seems to miss the whole point!   We can’t be loving and supporting and encouraging if we are busy dividing, judging, and condemning.

Religion failed me as a child, and for years I blamed God.  I thought that the differences and disillusionment that had left me church-less had actually left me Godless, but then how much clarity would a hurt 12 year old have about such matters?

Over the years, I have explored a lot.  Like clothing, I try on belief systems and teachings and ideas, keeping what fit and discarding the rest.  Possibly more importantly, I found great peace and healing in the Journey to consciousness itself.

I don’t claim to have all, or more likely hardly any, of the answers to life, faith, or Divinity.  However, what I do have is a deep joy in that I have never known before, and that I would wish upon every person.  We all deserve happiness and peace.

Whatever your Path, know that the choices you make and how you arrive at them matter little.  It is the Journey itself that means everything!

Namaste,

Sheryl Sitts

Founder & Chief Inspirational Officer

Journey of Possibilities

Lay Down Your Cross

Last night I was blessed to spend time with my spiritual healer to go back and piece together the broken little girl somewhere in my past and bring her wholly forward into the present.  In the multitude of lessons that followed, I got really clear about how we protect ourselves from pain by not talking about the truths of our lives that others have taught us were ‘ugly’.  In not talking about our pain and in always trying to make everything look good, like we’ve got it all figured out, we don’t heal or grow.

In going back to find my little girl, I discovered that I had been sexually abused once while very young, long before the other incest I’ve been counseled about for years, by another family member I’d never considered.  (No wonder I’ve been stuck on some deep core issues!) It happened in his favorite chair, which I have since inherited.  That truth so wanted to be uncovered all of these years that I’ve unconsciously drug that chair from home to home without ever considering why.  I never sit in it.  I always try to decorate it in a magazine-ready photo setting and then ignore it.  Now that the ugly truth about this cross I’ve carried with me is in the light, I can honestly say I HATE that chair!   I cannot WAIT to take it to the resale shop and get RID of it! (Even my beautiful cat pictured here on “the chair” doesn’t seem to feel too good about the energy there!)

There were many more lessons in that journey about my own mother, generations of pain, lies, and secrets, and how their broken, pain-filled truths have transferred unconsciously into my world-view.  No one in my family has felt ‘good enough’ for many, many years.    I am excited about the new possibilities that arise for me out of illuminating that very dark, musty hallway. Today, I know I’m good enough just because I Am.

My prayer for you is that you will discover a cross you may be carrying, however unconsciously.  Pray for the strength and opening to shine a bit of light there.  What awaits beyond the pain we so dread, which by the way isn’t half as strong as the pain of hiding, will be Possibilities beyond your wildest imaginations.  Take the Journey of Possibilities my friend, and find your new beginnings!

Namaste,

Sheryl Sitts, Founder & Chief Inspirational Officer

Journey of Possibilities

Blooming Where We’re Planted

To create the best possible Journey of Possibilities for you and me and everyone involved, I decided to take Brendon Burchard’s Experts Academy.  He’s such a phenomenal business development teacher for anyone desiring to share their message and make a difference, and part of the course features video interviews with famous successful people.  Today I watched Paula Abdul and developed a deep respect for all she has overcome and achieved.  Did you know she was born 3 months premature and crying as a baby was fatal?  Have you ever realized how petite and soft-spoken she really is?  Yet this small giant stood firm in her heart and knew all she needed was a chance, often funding her own ventures to prove herself and then blow them all away with her talent and results.  She’s now such an accomplished choreographer, dancer, singer, and yes, even a judge with heart on American Idol.  (She thanks Simon for being one of her greatest teachers by being off-camera exactly who he is on camera!)  Anyway, one lesson she spoke of that resonated strongly for me is that of nurturing the success that presents itself right here and now, and leveraging from that space to catapult into new arenas with open-hearted authenticity.  Or, as another friend of mine put it so simply years ago, “bloom where you’re planted.”

It’s so easy for us to become frustrated about where we are when we feel ‘stuck’, especially when we know we are capable of so much more!  Believe me, it has happened each time I learned enough about myself and my role somewhere to feel like I’d outgrown that job or relationship or place to live or whatever, and prepared to move on.  Between my need to be challenged, my pesky ego’s need to be fed with new spaces in which to shine, and my A.D.D. ways, it’s so easy for me to quickly set my sights elsewhere and set sail for my next opportunity, be it personal or professional.

However, as Brendon Burchard, Paula Abdul, and many other happy and successful teachers and business professionals attest, staying in that space and exploring further for more opportunities to expand that success is how we can best grow and achieve our own greatest heights.  All of these individuals have found new avenues within the same space to let their talents shine to expanded audiences, in new ways, and their happiness and success truly skyrocketed.  I see the lesson as deepening our relationships and successes right where we are.

What a great lesson!  Instead of moving on to a new space and comfortably creating again, we can live in the discomfort and awkwardness of stretching our familiar self and surroundings into new possibilities and relationships, and then following those into new things from exactly where we are.

The topics that I share with you are not just to update you about where I’m at in this Journey, but in hopes that you will see connections to your own situations and the posts will help you.  Can you see yourself in this week’s message?    Are there new ways you can explore what may currently be a frustrating situation by opening your heart and allowing more of your true gifts and passions to emerge?  Are there others “stuck” there with you that you can love through it who may then be able to see possibilities for themselves?  Why not try?  What have you really got to lose?  Believe me, you will all  begin to bloom where you’re planted this spring!

Namaste,

Sheryl Sitts, Founder & Chief Inspirational Officer

Journey of Possibilities

Don’t Be Vulnerable – Surrender!

This week, I have been consciously seeking to be in a place where I see all that is possible for myself personally and professionally.   In that light, I had the privilege of spending an evening with a very spiritual and gifted healer whom I’m blessed to know.  One of the messages that I received loud and clear during our meditative, prayerful, openhearted time together was to use my innate gifts from a place of vulnerability and humility.  Only then, with love and focusing on others, will I find my most rewarding Path and blessings.  I spoke of this to another wise spiritual woman later during the week, and she pondered a moment before correcting me. “Vulnerability is a state of weakness.  Don’t be vulnerable.  Surrender.”

That sentence has sat in my mind and heart for a few days now and come into my awareness at different moments and conversations (like my radio interview).  I have prayed and meditated to feel the difference and be conscious of that in my actions.

I have seen and experienced that being vulnerable while we have an open mind and heart can place us in dangerous positions with other people that actually do more harm than good.  If we are being vulnerable, we allow others to hurt us with their words and actions and diminish the Light that we shine in this life.  We give away our Divinely gifted Power and endanger ourselves physically, psychologically, emotionally, and economically.

Conversely, when we surrender to God, we walk in Divine protection and healing, and we have the greatest love and protection possible.  We give up trying to understand and control, and we allow ourselves to be guided by our heart to our brightest and most rewarding Life.  We stop holding on to what we THINK we need, or THINK will protect us or provide for us or love us, and we allow ourselves to FEEL that we are safe, loved, and protected.  We feel forgiveness and forgiven, safety and protection, and above all, LOVE.  Our feelings are a Divine voice when we allow ourselves to hear them.

May you find your way to the next step in your life and through whatever is frustrating, hurting, or worrying you by living in a state of surrender to the Divine orchestration of the Universe…God as you know and understand God.

Namaste,

Sheryl Sitts, Founder & Chief Inspirational Officer

Journey of Possibilities

Hiding In Plain Sight

How EXCITING; I FINALLY found it!  There I was, waiting patiently for God to answer my prayers, and the answer was already right there in the place I was least willing to look!  Ah yes, isn’t that how it usually works?  That which we refuse to let go of blocks us from our own joy and success.  Here’s my story…

While Journey of Possibilities will always have an inspirational Facebook page here to help us all renew, there is more to it.  Ten years ago as I finished my BA in family communication, I had my first vision of Journey of Possibilities.  I sat with families and individuals in beautiful nature while we worked together through many of the same challenges I’ve faced.   More visions through time reached a pinnacle last year as I met exciting new people to help me expand it, and found I’d been laid off from work.  However, the WHERE remained a mystery.  I trusted God to deliver, but wondered when.  I also dreaded the idea of buying, building, and managing a place.

When I sold the home I’d hoped to grow old in during my divorce, my broken heart was not into searching for a new one.  My spirit navigated, and I kept returning to this quiet rural subdivision I’d seen before.  One day, continuing further down a dead-end than we’d done previously in an attempt to turn around and leave again empty-handed, we passed a grove of trees and stumbled upon my house.  I knew God had led me home.

I have really found peace here.  There is only one neighbor who has been a challenge, and it salted a very old wound when they glossed over their negative behavior by blessing others and displaying crosses like immunity badges.  Needless to say, I have avoided these people and their aggressive pets to the best of my ability, and deliberately do not look down at their end of the road anymore.

Back to Journey (trust me, it all ties together amazingly), I’ve resigned myself to renting facilities for events until we can find and fund our own place.  I scheduled yet another visit to a retreat center nearby (White Eagle Lodge), and discovered this one is very close indeed.  Arriving, I fell in love.   I had found a place so perfect I knew I was again home.    We laughed that if my street punched through where it is now a dead-end, I lived less than a mile away.  We tried to get bearings on my house from there, but I only had a general idea.  As I left, I basked in how we equally wanted to work together.  Divinely perfect!

Two days later, I returned from my morning walk.  As I topped the hill to my house, I reluctantly looked toward ‘that’  end of my street, three lots down from my home.  There shining clearly just above my neighbor’s cross archway I could now clearly see the center…

It is always my  hope that something of my journey may be of help to you in yours.   My lesson:  trust God and look past the negativity.

Namaste fellow Journeyer,

Sheryl Sitts

Founder &  Chief Inspirational Officer

Your Own Wizard of Oz

Remember a few years ago when you were going through that really difficult time?  At the beginning you felt like it was just too much and there was no way you could possibly do it.  You wondered if you could be strong enough and you just knew that everything was not alright.  You even doubted if it ever would be.  The days seemed to last forever as you went through challenge after challenge.  You felt a bit like Dorothy and friends fighting their way toward the great and mighty Oz and finally trembling before him.  Can you take yourself back for a moment to all the fear and anger and insecurity and determination that you felt during that time?

One thing is certain.  You overcame that period in time and discovered that the mighty Oz (whatever the nature of the problem, person, or time) was not as big and scary and ominous as he seemed.  You learned the most important lesson that Dorothy and her friends discovered in their travels: you had everything you needed inside of you all along!

Why dredge up our ugly past or talk about a movie so old that it was the first film in technicolor?  It’s simple.  Today you are facing something that seems overwhelming in your life again.  Even worse, possibly you’ve given up and decided it is simply too much for you.  You feel just like you felt back then, forgetting that you overcame that struggle!  You CAN overcome this one too.  All that you need is within you to heal, move mountains, create possibilities, and attract all forces of the Universe to your aid.

Here are a couple of great life secrets from The Wizard of Oz.  Stay on the path and keep moving forward no matter what.  Journey with someone who will encourage you through the fear.  Take your Yellow Brick Road one row of bricks at a time.  Embrace your Good Witch angels and let your Bad Witch fear melt away.  Remember that all you seek is already Divinely housed within you waiting to be used and embraced.  Confidently and gratefully trust and enjoy the Journey!

Yours In Spirit,

Sheryl Sitts, Founder & Chief Inspirational Officer

Journey of Possibilities

The Best Driver

Have you ever found a ding on your car and wondered how it got there?  Welcome to my world.  Actually I have many.  Mine aren’t parking lot dings…unless I put them there myself!  It’s actually become a joke with my friends.  The brutal truth is that I’m not the best driver.  I may not harm others on the road, but I don’t drive as slowly or carefully as I could. I enjoy driving and tend to get in my own world behind the wheel when no one else is around.  I’m careful of other people and vehicles, but inanimate objects don’t fare as well.  I’ve jumped plenty of curbs and am generally rough on my poor little car.  I always think I’ll fix the dings but I never really get around to it.  My rear brake light has been burned out for a few…weeks (ugh!)…and it’s obviously not real high priority.

The other day I realized I drive my own life about as haphazardly.  Unlike my car, my life can look great on the outside while feeling very different on the inside.  The dings are on the interior!

When I fail to surrender the wheel driving my life to the Divine to receive the best dreams, visions, and Journey for me, things are  not pretty.  Despite doing all the right things, I have way more than my necessary share of curb jumping, internal light burnout, etc.  Nothing flows, and it is a lot of work.

Surrendering my life to receive and follow a Divine vision from within brings order back to the chaos.  My relationships, career, health, goals, and life finally fall into place.  Even when obstacles (curbs) manifest,  another (drive)way is revealed and flow resumes.   By getting out of my own brain and need for control through prayer and meditation, the right answers, people, opportunities, and resources that I have been searching for will suddenly appear.

I may not have a choice about needing to drive my car, but thankfully I’ve surrendered the wheel in my life to a very skilled Chauffeur.  I have reminders to routinely check myself and make sure I haven’t taken control of the wheel again.  After all, my car is replaceable, but this is the only life I get.   Have you given any thought to Who is driving yours?