Matters Of The Heart November 30, 2011

No matter where I go, what I do, or who I am with, it always comes down to one thing. Is my heart happy??

I have been a seeker on a journey, an explorer sailing the wild seas within myself, and a warrior of the daily battles that tend to happen inside my head. I may not KNOW much, but I do know that at the end of the day, nothing matters but love. Nothing matters but acceptance. Nothing matters but the Spirit. There is no greater Source than the one within us.

So why can it feel so hard? To be happy that is. Why do so many of us struggle to “find” it? Can it really be found? Perhaps not. Perhaps happiness is like all matters of the heart. It simply exists all the time, and it is always available to those who choose it.

How do we choose it you say?

We choose it over and over again, every time anything but love or but happiness is lurking in the background, and we choose it and we choose it, no matter what, until it becomes our default mode.

Tonight I am thinking of old friends, old lovers, old memories, old ways of life, and really feeling so much I haven’t felt in a long time, but I am ok. I miss pieces of them, but I am still ok. I am always ok if I choose to be. 

As I look ahead I stop myself, and I come back to this moment. I do what matters to my heart. I engage in matters of the heart, and I speak up about how I feel and share it with you. This is how I choose my happiness. This is how I choose love.  Thank you for being here with me.

I love you,

Erin

If Every Day Were A Vacation Day I Would… November 29, 2011

If every day were a vacation day, how would that change the way you feel about waking up? What would you do? Where would you go?

Maybe you would choose to spend your days, dancing from one curiosity to the next. Or perhaps you would never get out of your pj’s and instead snuggle up with your journal and write fantasy stories. Maybe you’d go to the beach to watch the waves crash upon the shore, allowing them to cleanse your busy mind until you found your natural state of peace again.

Whatever it is for you, I invite you in this moment to connect to how that feels inside of you, to get to wake up every day and only do what you feel pulled to do and to do everything you feel pulled to do.

What a concept right?

I am sure you are having thoughts such as “That sounds great but who in their right mind actually believes that is possible?” or “If I did that each day, who would pay the bills?” It is only natural to have these questions come up. However, I am not asking you those questions…I am asking you how it would feel to follow your inner guidance on  a daily basis? If we play with this idea for purposes of this article only, perhaps you can allow yourself to take this ride with me right now.

What kinds of things would you do each day if you could do whatever you felt pulled to do and money just took care of itself? What would life be like it that WERE possible? How do you know it isn’t?

I have been traveling Australia since the end of June. I packed up my life in Los Angeles, CA and carried it with me in my heart to my first Aussie destination, which was Sydney. After a couple of months in Sydney, I was offered a rich opportunity to move to a beautiful place called The Mornington Peninsula, just outside of Melbourne, Australia. I was hired on as the Health and Communication Consultant, to help get an Eco Health and Sustainability Retreat up and running effectively.

Los Angeles, Sydney, and working for the retreat on The beautiful Mornington Peninsula offered me uniquely different experiences and opportunities for transformation. All three journeys brought me great pleasure and joy, but when I was ready to move on I did, regardless of the “what if’s” or the paychecks I was leaving behind.

When I decided to move to Australia, there was no finite plan. Finite, is not a word that I enjoy as part of my vocabulary. It seems to go against everything I believe we are. If I believe who and what I really am is infinite, unlimited, and unconditional love, abundance, and joy, then to refer to anything as finite, confuses me. I have discovered, that to think of my resources as coming from anything finite,  is actually the very thing that cuts myself off from the source of all resources.

I felt pulled to go on this journey, and along with that I felt fully committed and willing to process through any and all fears and limiting beliefs that may try to convince me I am anything other than what I belive myself to be.

You are also infinite, unlimited, and unconditional love, abundance, and joy.

Do you believe me? You don’t have to, but the only person who suffers if you don’t, is you. What if you are? How does that change the way you see your life?  What if every day were a vacation day and you got to play whatever games you wanted?

As I move from idea to idea, curiosity to curiosity, experiment to experiment, exploration to exploration, city to city, I access even more of my true essence and the knowing that comes along with that. I get to create my day every day. If every day is a vacation day, then I know I have no limits, no time schedule other than one I may choose to create, nowhere I have to go other than the places I choose to have fun with, and nothing I have to be other than exactly what I am in the moment. This gives me a sense of freedom. As I am liberated by these feelings, I become open to everything that is possible in each moment. There’s nothing I “have” to do. There is only “What do I feel pulled to do right now.”

Sometimes you may feel unclear about what you are pulled to do. This is ok.

Simply take some time out each day, or multiple times a day, to turn within and to ask yourself, “What am I feeling pulled to do today, what is it I want in this moment. Expanded Self, please show me the way.”

I have this dialogue with myself every day, sometimes 50 plus times a day. As I continue to allow myself to follow what I feel pulled to do, I continue to discover new things, to develop a deeper level of awareness, to connect more deeply with myself, with others, and with the outside world, and I keep getting new opportunities to express even more of who and what I really am, and to create an even more playful and enjoyable dream vacation on a daily basis.

If you’d like more help creating this dialogue with yourself, and to therefore live a life filled with more joy, doing only what you feel pulled to do, keep reading! I have a special offer for you at the end. Please don’t skip to the end…the rest of the article IS worth reading 🙂

So…If every day were a vacation day, what would that change inside of you? I invite you to connect to this feeling inside of you. As we connect more deeply to how we want our lives to feel, it creates an inner shift. 

When we can grant ourselves the permission we seek, to awaken to who and what we really are, and to really do what we feel pulled to do, and only what we feel pulled to do, then what once seemed impossible becomes our greatest terrain for adventure and transformation.

I have recently left The Mornington Peninsula and I am creating the next game I want to play, and having fun laughing at all the rules I made up in the past to make myself believe it wasn’t possible to do what I am actually doing every day!! This makes me excited about all the other once “impossibilities” I am now going to begin living as though they are natural for me and easy to create!

Although I am always a work in progress, I have experienced deep transformation over the last few years. Here are 3 things I have learned that I want to pass along to you:

1) Every time you feel discomfort, it is an opportunity to reclaim your power back from something that once caused you a loss of power. Claim your power back at every chance. Discomfort is there to help you see that you are giving your power away, and actually believing that something outside of you can take away your happy place. It’s not true, that is a lie you told yourself at some point. As you begin to recognize discomfort in the moment, acknowledge the loss of power you feel from it. Then make a different choice. You are infinite, unlimited, and unconditional abundance, love, and joy, and anything that makes you feel otherwise is simply an illusion and not true. Play the game, but this time…claim your power back!

2) Once you take the leap to trust your inner guidance, be prepared to come face to face with all your fears and limiting beliefs, but KNOW, they have no power, other than the power you give them. If you remain committed and willing to move THROUGH them, you will always reach a new way of living on the other side.

3) Question your beliefs and your limitations. Sometimes you will find yourself telling old stories and repeating things unconsciously, not having reconsidered them since the first time you heard them or made them up. Make sure you are living with a belief system, and using an inner dialogue that fully supports your highest good. Who says what you are capable of or not? Who gets to decide what is possible or not? Why wouldn’t it be possible to enjoy every day of your life AND have all the bills taken care of without a struggle on your part?

You choose. What do you want? A life filled with limiting beliefs and fear that stops you? Or a life filled with new opportunities and possibilities that emerge from within the fears that you choose to walk though and thus are liberated from? I want to hear you say it. Let me know.

If you feel pulled to explore this topic in more depth, and to really find out how you can apply this in your life, to liberate you from the daily “have to’s,” then I trust you will enjoy the 6 week coaching program I have developed for clients just like you!

I am offering 6 weeks of coaching for $600! All you have to do is share this article on your Facebook and/or Twitter and then reply to this post with a comment including your email. If you prefer a bit more privacy, you can just share this on Facebook and/or Twitter, and then send me a private email at erinlanahanmethod@gmail.com introducing yourself. Whether you submit your info in reply to this post, or send me a private email, I will be in touch to connect more deeply with you, and then we can can proceed accordingly. I am looking forward to working with you!

Sending you so much support, appreciation, and hugs.

Love,

Erin

What Is Abundance? November 12, 2011

I am writing to you from this window, and feeling abundantly abundant 🙂

We hear of this word ABUNDANCE all the time. It is something we say we want, and something many of us chase and chase, but somehow always feel as though it eludes us.

I am finding that abundance is not something we can capture or achieve, but rather something we receive when we are open, willing, and present in the moment.

Abundance is a feeling within, an inside job, and not a result of any external triumph. Even when we have opened up to receive the always present and available abundance within, external triumphs become less important and we remain aware that they are only the physical manifestation of our inner state of consciousness.

I don’t know about you, but I have won things, been the best, been placed front and center, gotten what I wanted on the outside, and had my life “appear” to be perfect in other people’s eyes.

What those people didn’t know, was how much lack and limitation I was feeling on the inside.

Those short-term achievements made me feel good for a little while, but they always wore off. Do you know what I mean?

If we depend on money, cars, houses, status, property, our looks, etc, to feel ok, then we are in for a pretty hard fall or sharp wake up call. It’s the same as a drug addict depending on cocaine to function and feel ok in the world. What begins to happen is the effects he or she once got from the drugs, diminish, and then they must begin to consume more. The drug addict will consume and consume, only to begin to feel emptier and emptier, and less and less. What once made he or she feel good, will stop working. This is my point about depending on “stuff” for our energy, life force, and abundance. This is what I mean about abundance being an inside job.

Abundance for me, and I will speak for myself, come from things like walking through an organic garden and witnessing the very food I eat growing all around me from the earth. I see that the plants just grow and grow, and there will always be enough.

Abundance comes from the days I sit at the beach and 3 dolphins swim right up to where we are swimming at the seashore to remind me that life is everywhere and that nature supports me. I feel abundant when a koala climbs up and down trees right before my very eyes, thus bringing me pure and utter joy, and therefore completely shifting my day.

Abundance for me, is a result of gratitude for every single day I get another chance at loving myself and others and the opportunities it brings to share even more of my gifts. 

Abundance is how I feel in this moment, as I write this to you, staring out the window at the ocean. This place I am in, at this table, on this chair, in front of this window,  is a vision I had just a couple of months ago. Abundance is the feeling I get on days like today when I find myself living my visions, and becoming aware of myself here, at my computer, doing what I love with a beautiful and inspiring view, just like the vision I had, without ever knowing until this very moment that I was on my way here the whole time. I am reminded once again, of the power we each have when we set our intentions and then let them free to unfold naturally.

Abundance is the feeling I get when I look around at the relationships in my life and feel in awe of the level of respect and support that flows freely between my loved ones and myself.

Abundance is what I experience when I let go and let God, and trust that all my needs will be met, only to go to sleep that night having had all my needs met and more!

Abundance for me, is the feeling I have when I KNOW I can walk away from the things and people who I love but do not serve my highest good, and trust that both of us will be guided to the best life for each of us as a result of my courage to stand up for myself and what matters most in my heart.

Abundance is a feeling, not trophy or a million dollars, unless these things are an extension and an expanded expression of what’s going on inside of you.

What IS going on inside of you? If it is abundance you seek, find it within yourself first. As you make the choice to open up to feeling abundant, only then will you begin to find it everywhere.  

Please share with me what’s coming up for you right now. I am feeling so grateful today and had to share this gratitude and inspiration with anyone and everyone. This is not to brag or make anyone who is currently struggling feel bad, rather it is to help you tap into your own unlimited abundance and expanded self. Please let me know if you’d like any further support.

Lots of love and so many blessings to you all!

Namaste,

Erin

On The Road Again November 1, 2011

Ok, so I have some wonderful news!!! I am off  to study yoga on The Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia! I am embarking on another journey! I have some serious traveling to do in between now and when I begin my training February 4th and I am pumped about it. I will be spending time and visiting with family all around Australia, whom I either haven’t seen in a long time or have never even met. I have just begun those plans so I will keep you posted.

I am also getting down to some serious business and putting all my time and energy into growing and expanding Erin Lanahan Method. I look forward to sharing more of that with moving forward and I appreciate all your support and suggestions.

I can proudly say, by February 1st, I will have been in Australia for 6 months, and within those 6 months I will have lived in 3 different states, and 4 different cities! This is awesome!

I know it may seem as though a lot of change has happened fast, and in a way it has. However, when we work on ourselves and our lives from the inside out, it can often appear and feel as though there is no movement, when quite the opposite is happening.

To move on the inside is the hardest and most important part of the transformation process.

What we ultimately do externally is hopefully just an extension of where we are internally.

Once we shift inside, massive shifts happens FAST on the outside, and what a joy ride it can be!

I have been working on myself from within for a long time. When I moved from Sydney to the Mornington Peninsula just recently, to help open this Health and Wellness Retreat I am working at, I knew it wasn’t going to be long-term. I felt it in my gut. But I also knew I had to come because a part of what I needed to move forward was going to emerge from my time here, and it definitely has to say the least. I have had somewhat of a breakthrough and all of a sudden I am experiencing the power of clarity, inspiration,  and divine direction like never before.

How are you feeling lately? I know for me I noticed a huge shift after October 28th passed. I believe those of us who did the 3 daily practices I suggested doing on October 8th, probably have felt a deeper shift than those who weren’t preparing consciously for such an energetic shift.

It’s ok if you weren’t preparing, but it’s important to remain patient and gentle with yourself now, to allow your body the space it needs to catch up with and integrate what just happened.

I have been feeling more and more pulled to the Gold Coast over the last few weeks. It was challenging for me to trust this intuition at first, but after many hours of processing feelings and confronting my fears, I am absolutely certain this is what I am being guided to do. I have always wanted to study Yoga, to add it to my knowledge base of fitness, so that is exactly what I am going to do. I am going to become a certified Yoga instructor by Essence of Living in Mermaid Beach, Australia.

I also have a few other amazing plans up my sleeve, but I’ll reveal more to you as time moves on and I get solid around the details. If you follow along, you can come with me for the ride!

I am going to sign off now. Time for reflection, contemplation, and meditation before bed time. Lots of love to you. Let me know how you are doing. Thank you for being here with me.

Namaste,

Erin