Joyful Abundance: Day 4

Happy Easter!

We enjoyed a fun-filled day of family, peeps, peanut butter eggs, darling toddler girls in dresses, sunshine and daffodils, deviled eggs, and all things Easter-y!

Today's Joyful Abundance:

1. Spending time with the whole extended family
2. Slept in until 10am (awesome!)
3. Lilies
4. Sleeping with the windows open
5. My TranquiliT all-in-one wrap

Joyful Abundance: Day 3

Today's Joyful Abundance:

1. A day spent soaking up the sun & walking around Goat Island with Megan
2. California Red Wine
3. First Saturday off in months
4. First time opening the windows and enjoying the breeze (it was like summer here in Niagara Falls today)
5. I don't have to set my alarm for tomorrow!!!

Day 2: Joyful Abundance

Today's Joyful Abundance:

1. Black patent leather peep-toe flats
2. Grilled veggies (yum!)
3. Spending time with my sister, brother-in-law, and niece
4. Polite & helpful customer service
5. Lemonade sorbet

Joyful Abundace: Day 1

Today's Joyful Abundance:

1. Running outside in the sunshine

2. An iPod loaded with good music

3. Hot coffee + 30 minutes with my visual journal in the morning

4. Homemade pizza

5. My little brother (it's his birthday!)

Image Credit

Monthly Goal Reflection: April 2010

Bonjour!

It's that time of the month again! Time for Goal Reflection! Let's review...

March goals:

• Brainstorm how to fit more exercise into my weekly routine. Yes! My new plan is simple: move everyday for at least 15 minutes. Everything counts: yoga, walking, running, biking. This has really been working for me and I notice a difference in my mood and energy now that I am moving more. It feels fabulous to be outside more as well now that the weather is getting warmer. I took Free Spirit out for a 15-minute ride this afternoon and it was lovely!
  
• Decide on a set time for meditation. Well... I decided on a set time of 7:40am. However, I am so not good at getting up early in the morning. I know, I know! 7:40am is really not that early! But it IS five minutes earlier than I need to get up and so it is "early" in my mind. I do feel that I have been spending more time meditating than I was (even if it is not at 7:40am each morning) so I am still counting this as progress.
  
• Purchase wallpaper for our upstairs bathroom. I have looked for wallpaper, but I have not purchased yet. There are so many options and the hubby and I have not been able to commit to one yet. So I will roll this goal over to April.
  
• Sketch out a plan for a backyard garden. No. I did ponder this and peruse magazines for ideas, but no sketch has come to fruition. Another goal to roll over to April.
  
• Outline new Stress Management course. In progress. The outline is there, but it is not complete.
  
• Call two insurance companies and ask about taking insurance for yoga. Yes! This has been on my to-do list for literally an entire year! Finally! I made the calls (confession: it was today, partially because I knew I would be reviewing my goals). One call was a bust, with the representative saying the network was closed for my area, but the other went well and my application is in progress.
  
• Carve out some time to brainstorm about marketing plan, preferably with someone who knows something about marketing. Yes! The hubby and I met with a marketing professional about several options. Now I have a bunch of ideas so it is a matter of sitting down and deciding which to pursue and in what order.
  
• Facilitate Introduction to Meditation Workshop at studio. Yes! I really enjoyed this workshop! We will likely offer it at the studio again in the near future.
  
• Host Women's Wellness Retreat on March 13th from 10am-4pm. Postponed until May 22nd.
  
• Teach mother-daughter yoga at Shakti Yoga to raise money for the Priscilla Project. Yes! I will be teaching there again April 10th at 1:30pm. We are also changing the class to Family Yoga in order to open the class up to all family members.
  
• Celebrate family birthdays at party complete with bounce house! Yes! A great party! All of the kids had a fantastic time in the bounce house. I even took a turn myself! I am so thankful for our ever-expanding clan :-)
  
• Honor my brother's girlfriend and my nephew-to-be at a splendid baby shower. Yes! Yay! I cannot even wait for the newest munchkin to arrive!
  
• See Our Lady Peace at The Riviera Theatre! Yes! OMG! This was amazing. I love OLP!!!!
  
• Host Do Yoga. Do Good. Book Club to raise funds for The Niagara County SPCA. Canceled this month. But I am so excited for the June selection Tranquilista, with proceeds benefiting Tranquil Space Foundation.
  
• Attend Megan's (possibly last) Elementary School Play. Yes! The Granny Awards was a great show! All of the kids did a wonderful job!

Goals for April:

• 30 Days of Joyful Abundance: As you may recall, my focus for 2010 is Joyful Abundance. As a personal challenge for the month of April, I will be posting 5 things EVERY DAY that I am thankful for. Please feel free to join in by posting in the comments section, on your own blog, and even in your own private gratitude journal.
  
• Purchase wallpaper for our upstairs bathroom.
• Sketch out a plan for a backyard garden.
• Complete detailed outline of new Stress Management program.
• Secure grant money for further office renovations.
• Create marketing plan for the next quarter.
• Yoga for Living Wellness CD finalized.
• Take a semi-vacation from work. A few days (mostly) off from the office/studio so that I can: Spend more time with my family, Sleep in, Stay in my pajamas all day, Do nothing, Read, Take a bath, Have a picnic, Go for a walk, Watch a movie, Play board games, and Whatever else my heart desires!
  
• Travel for 4-day yoga training.
• Attending networking event and continue to work on my networking skills.
• Check out the Earth-Spirit Expo.

It seems like a short list, but I am going to stick with it! Hopefully that will help me honor the semi-vacation! What are your goals this month?

Happy April 1st! And Happy Birthday to my brother!

Visual Journaling

Thanks to the Tranquilista e-course, I have been spending more time with my visual journal. Collage above is from my reflections of bringing mindfulness into my work life.

Business Brainstorming

Deciding on business names, slogans, logos, and the like is very fun! It can also feel a bit stressful because it is such an important part of your business.

When I was deciding on a name for the wellness center I went through a creative brainstorming process. I use this process often for creating workshop titles and the like as well. I even used it when I was naming this blog!

Here is my process:

1. Brainstorm any and all names that I have in mind

For the wellness center some of the ideas were Women's Wellness Center, Women's Voices Collective, Alive Wellness Center, Living Well Center, Wellness Living Center, Wellness for Life Center, Niagara Living Wellness, Living Wellness Institute, and several other permutations. Eventually I decided to remove women from the name because I didn't want to exclude like-minded men.

2. Define the purpose of the event or business as best I can

I knew the purpose of the business would be to promote health and wellness in a variety of ways.

3. Jot down key adjectives of the experience I hope my clients will have

This is probably my favorite part! I spend a few minutes with my eyes closed breathing deeply and focusing on my intention. Then I just let the descriptors flow! For the wellness center these were: community, dynamic, joyful, inspiring, ageless, timeless, listen, life, love, lotus, laugh, look, lively, live, life, learn, local, lush, reflect, renew, rejuvenate, rediscover. I adore alliteration so often I will focus on one letter for while...

This process eventually brought me to the slogan for the center: look within, love who you are, live out loud! I feel it perfectly sums up my intentions for the center.

4. Review the above and write mission statement

For the wellness center I created this mission statement: To provide an inspiring, peaceful space that welcomes the community in to nourish their health and wellness through a variety of healing arts.

It has the key words of inspiring and peaceful - the feeling I hope to evoke in clients - and community - I envision the center as a gathering place for like-minded individuals - and health and wellness - the main purpose of the business - and healing arts - a broad descriptor of the type of services the center will offer.

5. Sit with all of it for as long as needed

Usually I like to let it be for a few hours or days. Sometimes once I've gone through this initial process and I stop focusing on the idea for a bit I will get some unexpected insight or idea about the project.

6. Eventually settle on a name that encompasses as much of my intention as possible

Hence... Living Wellness of Niagara: look within, love who you are, live out loud!

Image credit