Simplify Your Life

Re-align with what inspires you and motivates you to get out of bed every morning, excited to start living a life of greater fulfillment.

This talk offers three steps to free yourself from obligations and harness your passion to purposefully move in the direction of your higher path.

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Transcript

Hi,

I'm Jennifer Regular from Lighting the Path.

Some would call me the Soul Illuminator and I am here to light your path to how you can simplify your life.

I'm going to share three key areas or tools or strategies that are going to support you in doing that.

I'll tell you the number one secret to simplifying your life is to devote it to what you're most about.

So the first thing that I'm going to share with you is how you can find room to breathe.

Yeah,

Imagine that being able to allow flow of breath,

Which is life,

To move through you and guide you and inspire you in exactly the direction that you're meant to go.

So you don't have to push so much anymore.

There's so much that can burden you and weigh you down and close up your heart,

Which carries all your desires for how you truly want to be living your life.

So if you allow that space to open up and find some room to breathe,

Then you can create more freedom and flow in your life.

So we'll go over some strategies and how you can do that.

The second thing is to realign with your core values.

What are you most about?

What is it that would create the most meaning and fulfillment for you?

And you know what?

What it is now might not be what the values were before.

Your life is different now in many ways,

Even though it seems like the same things around you day in and day out.

There's something different about you and how you're living your life.

So we're going to talk about ways you can realign with those core values with a strategy that can help get you in touch with what those are and what's true for you now.

And that third thing is going to be how to direct your time and energy to create more freedom and flow in your life so that you can move with more ease and be able to do less and be more,

To experience more peace and joy,

And really think about and decide what it is that you're choosing to experience and create your life with.

What kind of approach do you want to take from this moment forward?

So those are the things that we're going to be exploring here in the session on how to simplify your life and devote it to what you're most about.

So going back to your views and beliefs about life,

If you're feeling like it's hard or complicated or you're just so crazy or insanely busy all of the time,

Then think about how you got there.

What made it that way?

Along the way,

There were choices you made,

Things you said yes to that maybe you didn't mean to,

Or you got so passionate and excited about so many different things that you piled it all on and now you're struggling to keep up.

That's probably true for me,

Actually.

I'm so multi-passionate and interested in so many different things and I get excited about this webinar and this workshop and reading this book and doing so many different activities or then the sun's out so now I want to go outside.

There's so much that's pulling at our attention and it's important to be aware of what that is and what's moving you or motivating you to be distracted or diverted by that and to be able to pull yourself back,

Ground yourself into,

Okay,

What's important now?

W-I-N,

Win.

That's how you regain control over your life and your schedule and what you put into it and win at life.

What's important now?

Consider that.

I know there was a time when I was working two jobs that equaled beyond full-time hours,

Plus I was volunteering,

Taking care of the home and the husband and the pets and all of the things and somehow I had the energy to do all that but when I stopped,

I realized just how exhausting it all was.

Sometimes our mind has this going way beyond what our body can handle and that can really show up later in life with health issues and disease and disorders that are created when we move things out of sync,

When it becomes unbalanced.

So healing becomes a way of realigning,

Of rebalancing and getting back to our core values,

What we're most about and how we want to be showing up in the world and what place we're moving from as we continue to go forward and evolve and to move upwards.

There's so much time that we spend looking in the past or getting anxious about in the future that we miss the magic of what's right here in front of us and to love that and know that and really be in touch with your emotions and your bodily sensations and where your spirit wants to take you.

There was a time in my life where relax actually made me cringe because who had time for that and I don't want to hear that and I'm just,

You know,

Happy and doing what I'm doing and just leave me alone kind of thing,

Right?

I'm not going to stop.

I was unstoppable.

However,

Not in the good way.

It was more fear-based of trying to get everything right,

Of trying to be perfect and trying to have some sense of control over my life until I realized that my mind was playing tricks on me and actually had the opposite effect.

I wasn't truly pleasing anyone.

I really didn't have anything to prove or justify and I was so concerned about whether people were going to like me or not that I tried to be something that I thought that they wanted me to be and that wasn't true to who I truly was.

So then I started to look at what was really important,

What would give me meaning and purpose and value in my life.

So I took some time to do that inner work and when you do the inner work,

Then the outer work becomes effortless because you become realigned and back in sync with your flow and just being in that flow makes life easy and you simplify it by devoting it to what you're most about.

So I did learn to relax.

In fact,

I went on retreats.

I would take personal retreats,

Sometimes silent ones,

Sometimes just out in nature for a little while,

Being in touch with the natural world and interacting with the plants and the trees and the ocean and the animals are a great way to get back in touch with life and what's truly alive for you.

What gives you that charge and that joy and that spark of vitality.

So taking time to retreat,

To move away from your usual routines,

To move beyond the mundane and align with the highest path that's available to you at this time because you have many paths and choices that you can choose and even create and be a trailblazer to direct the life that you're meant to live so that you can feel on purpose,

That life can have deeper meaning and you can have greater life satisfaction.

Would you like that?

Would you like to experience more joy in your life?

What are you willing to do to support yourself in living a life of joy,

Of peace?

Take a moment to write down now,

What is it that you need more of in your life?

What do you want to be experiencing?

And I don't mean adding more to your to-do list.

In fact,

Scratch out your to-do list or just put it aside for a moment because of course you have things to do.

Put that aside for a moment though and get out another piece of paper or use your phone or computer if you prefer,

But it really comes from a different place when you can actually write it out.

So I would suggest doing it with pen and paper if you could and make a to-be list.

How do you want to be in your life?

How do you want to be showing up for yourself,

For your loved ones,

Your family,

Your community?

How do you want to be?

Sometimes though,

If you really are just so busy,

Everything can feel overwhelmed.

So even setting up a little task to be able to go within feels like so much because you literally don't have the space in your mind to do that.

So sometimes a different environment and surroundings can help you.

Maybe going for a walk,

Spending some time in nature.

Maybe there's a special space in your room where you can just go and sit for a minute.

Even if you allow yourself to just close your eyes and put your hand to your heart and feel your heart beat,

Giving yourself a moment.

That moment can become your refuge.

And if there's so much going on inside your mind,

You can try this reset.

It's only 20 seconds and it actually balances the left and right sides of the brain so that you can come back into balance.

So just take a minute or a moment to notice how you're feeling right now.

Okay.

And now taking your right hand over the crown or top of your head and breathing in for five and exhaling for five.

Here we go.

Now gently switching with your left hand over the top of your head,

Breathing in again for five and exhaling for five.

Very good.

And now how do you feel?

Notice any sensations.

Great.

Now take that pen and paper and try again.

How do you want to be?

Now that you've made your to be list,

I want you to put that one aside too.

And there's this quote by Rumi that I love.

With those lists laid aside,

The wild iris blooms alone in the dark forest.

What still pulls on your soul?

I'd like you to consider that.

Go into your heart space and ask,

What still pulls on my soul?

That's an important question to ponder because it gets you back in touch with what it is within you that has yet to be born.

To tap into and access that untapped potential.

Perhaps there's still something that's waiting to be birthed through you,

Whether that's a creative project,

An actual human being,

Or just the way that you want to be experiencing your life and did all that hard work for so that you can have a life.

There's another quote that you have two lives.

It was Confucius that said this.

Two lives.

And the second one begins when you realize you have one.

Simple and profound.

When you realize that you have a life.

And now it's important to study yourself and align that life with your values.

When you're aligned with your values,

It's your true source of happiness.

It flows that authenticity and grace that comes through that alignment.

So I'm going to give you a link to a tool from Mind Tools that helps you understand what your values are now.

And this isn't just circling things off a list and trying to narrow it down.

Although that can be helpful too.

This goes deeper than that.

This helps you look at what it is that makes you feel proud.

Helps you to recall moments that brought you that joy and happiness and ease.

And gets you in touch with what you actually find satisfying.

So this is going to be a great tool.

I loved it.

I've tried a lot of different values exercises in the past to get in touch with my values.

And being multi-passionate,

Of course,

Adds so many different values.

Because I just love life.

I have great reverence for life.

And that's part of my mission too,

Is to reawaken the wonder of life.

And what I discovered when I did the same exercise is that my top three values were autonomy,

Integrity,

And spirituality.

So everything I do is guided in those principles.

So I'm all about directing the life that you're meant to live and infusing spiritual wellness to actually free your spirit to direct the life that you're meant to live.

And to take care of your soul and what it needs so that you continue to grow and self-actualize and not operate at a place of lack that looks like having to get right and enough exercise and sleep and so on.

But to actually find ways that help you love and belong and grow and evolve and master this human experience.

And integrity is how I walk through life.

That's how I approach life.

I also approach life with curiosity and courage and compassion.

So now it's your turn.

Get in touch with what you value the most and how you like to move through life and show up for it.

And I'd love to hear what those are.

If you want to share them with me.

But right now,

I want you to access your inner resources,

Your inner guidance,

And let that be the source of what propels you forward.

Okay,

Now that you're clear on your current core values,

You can use those as your guiding principles to direct your time and energy to living your best life this moment forward.

So now go through your schedule and your list of to do's and see what is congruent,

What is consistent with those values.

Give yourself a yeah,

Yeah,

Right on for those things that you've listed because that means that you're living a life of purpose and meaning and deep life satisfaction is going to be come a result of that.

Perhaps there's some things on your list though that doesn't align with your values.

Then you need to ask yourself,

How important is this?

Do you need to keep that commitment going?

Do you need to maintain that appointment and that relationship?

How important is it?

Or is that time and energy better spent on something that is more aligned with your values?

Can you make some kind of shift or change to allow for that?

So that's what you want to do.

Just take a little bit of time each week if you can,

Because it's really going to save you a lot of time and energy in the end.

So invest that ahead of time to make sure everything is congruent,

That is consistent with those values,

Because that's how you start living authentically and in integrity.

By doing this,

You start moving from a place of passion rather than obligation.

Have you ever experienced a dense fog?

You can think of fog as fear,

Obligation,

And guilt.

F-O-G.

And you can't see clearly through that.

And it feels really dense and just like,

Where am I?

Where am I going from here?

You can clear your path and create more freedom so that you can flow when inspiration hits and act on that,

Taking inspired action that comes from your level of passion,

Your level of being able to align with your soul's expression.

You see,

Passion,

When you dissect the word,

Is pass I on.

That I is your soul's expression.

When you're living in alignment with your values and you're passionate and bring energy and vitality into what you're doing,

No matter what that is,

If it's coming from love and from your soul,

Then that's lots of vital energy.

Another acronym for love,

By the way.

So what is it that you are passing on in this lifetime?

Pass I on,

Your passion.

Start living it.

I'm going to share something with you now that you may not want to hear,

But it's important to realize this.

Time is not a renewable resource.

That means that you only get 24 hours in a day.

And I know many times it's not going to seem like enough.

And sometimes it's like,

Wow,

24 hours.

Today is a good day to live.

And with that 24 hours,

How do you want to spend that?

You get to choose.

And by giving yourself room to breathe,

Realigning with those core values and knowing that you have the power to direct your time and energy,

What choices will you make now to fill those 24 hours?

And how would you want to feel by the end of it?

Setting a morning intention and a tone for the day is so important.

It really sets up the conditions for how you're going to live and experience that day.

And that's the best time,

At least for me,

To create the kind of experiences you want to have that day.

Looking at your to-do list,

Looking at your to-be list,

Being guided by your inner source of power and what your values are is going to keep you in your own natural rhythm,

In your own flow,

And allow you to experience more freedom in your life.

So what would you do today if you were brave,

If you were living in your values and in your integrity?

How would you walk upon this earth?

Would you be following what still pulls on your soul and be able to take a stand for what you believe in and be a role model for others and pass that on in this lifetime?

Simplifying your life is devoting it to what you are most about.

To live through passion rather than obligation,

To experience more joy and love rather than operating from a place of fear,

Obligation,

And guilt.

What are you ready to commit to and support yourself with?

And I've listed a lot of different actions that you can take.

It's important to take time to integrate the changes that are taking place in your life and be patient,

Compassionate as you shift some of these new ways of being out into the world and also to know that it's already set up,

It's already laid out.

You came here for a reason and it's just tapping back into remembering who you are,

A spiritual being and claiming that spiritual sovereignty to get the most out of this human experience that we came here to have.

So if you were to do it all over again,

Which you can in this moment,

Not do it again,

But in this moment forward,

What are you creating?

Because you have so much life still to live.

So I mentioned all these different actions you can take and giving yourself time to integrate that it's really important to rest and digest all of these changes that you're making and that are happening.

But it's also something you can do to eliminate any energy drains.

So I mentioned earlier about your schedule and looking at that and seeing how aligned it is with your values and the way you want to be directing your time and energy and how you want to be living your life.

But also start to notice what is it that drains you?

What can you eliminate so that you do have more energy and vitality to pursue your interests and your passions and be available to your loved ones?

Decluttering is also a great way to create some room to breathe and allow some space in your life and to honor those transition spaces too.

Also important,

Giving yourself room to breathe and to grow.

Realigning with those values and bringing healing support to your life and giving yourself an opportunity to direct your time and energy so you can experience deeper life satisfaction.

And all of this will help you integrate a higher consciousness model of living.

Another thing to remember is that attitude will determine your altitude.

How far that you can grow and evolve and self-actualize depends on your attitude.

So looking at things from a more positive perspective to focus on what's working,

What you're grateful for,

That will help elevate and reinforce the good in your life.

Not to discount or minimize the bad,

But to focus more of your time and energy on,

Again,

What's important,

What fuels you,

What you love,

What makes your heart sing,

Focusing on what's strong in you rather than what's wrong,

What you feel is wrong in your life or that self-doubt that comes up or things that you say to yourself that decreases your self-worth.

Instead of looking at what's wrong,

Look at what's strong.

Look at what fuels you.

Start to notice those things and have a positive attitude.

When you wake up in the morning,

You can say,

Something wonderful is going to happen today.

And that just opens you up to this whole world of possibilities and reconnects you with that magic,

Reawakens that wonder of life,

Simplifying your life by devoting it to what you are most about.

And as Thich Nhat Hanh says,

That you then make each moment an occasion to live deeply,

Happily in peace.