Your story is everything.

It can set you apart. Make you stick in your customers’ (readers, followers) minds. Motivate and inspire your employees (if you’ve got those).

Your story can evoke emotion. Emotion evokes desire. Desire inspires action. And action is what we all want our potential customers, readers, followers to take.

Do you tell your story?

Too often I see people focusing on what they do.

I sell great custom made dresses. I sell great soaps made from organic ingredients. I am a great life coach. I am a great social media expert.

Great!

But I probably will forget about you in two minutes if all I saw on your website is focused on “what”.

Tell me your why. Tell me who you are. Tell me your story.

Don’t try to be someone you are not. Take time to find your story. We all have one.

Your story generally consists of 3 main elements:

1. Your values and beliefs. In other words your “whys”
2. Your experiences
3. Your personal unique characteristics

Let’s take 30 minutes and write your story.

You might add more to your story later as more things surface. Self discovery is a never ending process. But let’s start now.

Take a blank sheet of paper. Answer the following questions. Don’t think or over analyze. Just answer. Write whatever comes to mind.

What do you do?

What comes to mind when you hear that question. Write it all down.

My example – I help people to gain clarity on, discover and deliver their unique value. I also inspire people to believe that the world needs what they have to offer.

What are you attracted to?

Concepts, things, people etc.

Again, my example – Simplicity, elegant solutions, passionate people, deep conversations,  love,  beauty, cool pens and notebooks, unique websites that reflects owner’s personality, Rumi, fire, ideas, creative  ideas, lots of them, people who live their truth. What about you?

What do people praise you for the most?

Creativity, intuition, ability to clarify and get to the core. What about you?

Any significant events from past life that shaped you, changed your worldview, shacked you to the core or just come to mind at the moment?

Think career, relationships, childhood or just anything. Write them all down, don’t over analyze.

Now think specifically about your business (career, vocation). How has your relationship to what you do changed over time? What did you learn on your way to where you are now? How did you affect others by what you do?

Think former clients, blog readers or anyone you affected by what you have to offer.

Why do you do what you do?

This is the most important question. Why do you think the world needs what you have to offer?

What are you passionate about the most in your business (career, vocation)? What makes you feel alive?

What are your goals for the future?

Favorite color, food, books, movies, objects, places – anything favorite that comes to mind?

Any personal quirks?

Procrastinator, perfectionist, like eating ice cream at 3 am, sleep only on white satin sheets? I know you’ve got them, now come on, tell us about your quirks.

Three words that describe you.

Just three.  Quick. Don’t think.

Now look at your answers and tell me your story.

See what’s appropriate to include and what’s not. See how you can incorporate your values, your experiences, your personality traits that make you unique into your story.

Play with it.

Most important thing to remember -  your story should support your core brand message.

What is your message? How can your story support it?

Where to put your story?

• Put it on your about page. About page is one of the most visited pages on blogs and small businesses’ websites.
• Write a press release.
• Include it in your sales copy.
• Take the highlights of it and include them in your social media profiles.
• Craft a 30 second cocktail line out of your story and use it when introducing yourself.

Your story is the most important part of your brand. Use it everywhere you go.

In my next post I’ll show you how to align everything you do in the world with your story so you can start sending clear and consistent message to the world.

Until then, Atlanta peeps check out my authentic branding workshop. We’ll take your unique story out of you and figure out how to deliver it to those who need it.

“Mark my words, if you want to stay competitive in the coming years – I don’t care if you’re in sales, tech, finance, publishing, journalism, event planning, business development, retail, real estate, you name it – you will still need to develop and grow your personal brand . Everyone-EVERYONE-needs to start thinking of themselves as a brand. It is no longer an option; it is a necessity. “   Gary Vaynerchuk, Crush It

If Facebook was a country it would be the 4th largest country in the world. Youtube is the second largest search engine after Google. Twitter, Linkedin, Tumblr, Flickr… What are those social networks all about?

Personal brands.

We live in the era of personal brands.

Your personal brand is what sells your services, gets you hired, helps you develop relationships. Your personal brand is what makes your business recognizable and sets it apart from others.

Here is where a lot of people get stuck. Everyone tells you that you have to create a unique and compelling brand. And you probably have been thinking long and hard what your brand is all about and how you can make it unique and different.

Let me tell you the truth that you already know.

You don’t need to create a brand. You don’t need to come up with anything unique and different.

Why?

Because you ARE a brand already.

And this brand of YOU is as unique as it can get. You can try long and hard but you won’t find anything more unique than YOU. You are one of a kind. Don’t look any further.

All you really need to do is embrace your DNA, get clear on your core message and learn to clearly communicate that message to the world.

That’s what authentic branding is all about. And authentic brands are the ones that crush it.

Here are some of the steps that will help you:

1.  Get clear if the business you are in is really the business that resonates with who you are.

Are you passionate about what you do? Is it YOUR business? The best test to find out if you are truly passionate about something is to ask yourself – would I do it for free. If yes, then green light to you.

2. Get clear on your core message.

What is unique about you? What is your story? Come up with a compelling tagline that clearly communicates your message.  Brainstorm for ideas until you find the one that resonates with you. Don’t do anything else until you find your core message. This is the most important step.

Your brand starts with your authentic core message.

3.  Get clear on your Ideal Customer.

The clearer you are on who your Ideal Customer is, the clearer your message is going to be.  Getting clear on your Ideal Customer is a whole blog post in itself, so I’ll write about that later, all I want to say here – don’t be afraid to narrow down as much as you can.

Who is he? How old? Is it he or she? What does she do for a living? What dreams does he have? Kids? Married? What else do you know about your Ideal Client?

Can you imagine how much more clarity you get by knowing exactly who you write your book or your blog post or even Twitter and Facebook updates for.  Your website copy, your sales pages – everything is going to be transformed once you know exactly who you are writing for.

After you’ve got those basics covered, it’s time to start communicating your brand to the world.

4. Make sure that everything you do communicates your message in one way or another.

When people land on your website they should understand within 7 seconds what you are all about. Your blog posts should communicate that message directly or indirectly. Everything you put out there should be put out with your core message and your Ideal Client in mind.

5.  Be consistent.

Have the same look and feel on every platform you are on online.

Logos are overrated, often your picture and your unique style is enough to create consistency. But logo can serve the same purpose too.

Make sure your style is consistent with your message. Meditation retreat with a tagline Rejuvenate your mind and calm your soul and a busy website with crazy colors – Not Good.

Start with you. Then go from there.

I love simplicity. I love Clarity. Look at my website. Clear. White. Simple. I also love color red. Fire. Passion. Again, look at my website. Look at my logo. Look at my Twitter and Facebook. You get the point.

6.  Start blogging.

I don’t care what business you are in, if you are not blogging yet, start. Blogs show the personal (human) side of you and your business.  Blog tells your story. People want to buy from people. Stories sell.

7.  Tell your story.

You have a story. We all do. What’s your story? How did you come to where you are now? Tell us about your failures, about your successes. Why are you qualified to solve the problem that you are solving?

The about page is usually one of the most visited pages on blogs and small businesses websites. People want to know your story.  They want to know You.

8.  Don’t write from the third person.

Your customers will connect with you much quicker when you write from the first person.

9.  Don’t try to please everybody.

It won’t lead you anywhere. Speak your message.  Don’t apologize for who you are. There will always be critics, but those who connect with you, will follow you everywhere you go.

10.  Be YOU. Don’t be afraid to show your personality.

I like color red. I am introvert. I hate small talk.  I am vegetarian.  I am from Russia and I speak with sexy accent. I sometimes make mistakes when I write blog posts. My man just started checking some of the stuff I write, but overall it’s all me. Raw and unrefined.

What about you? Your customers/readers/followers want to know YOU.

“Be yourself, everyone else is taken” Oscar Wilde

In Atlanta? Check out my September authentic branding and blogging workshop. We”ll take the brand of you out and come up with a strategy to deliver it to those who need it.

Along with the ups and downs of my divorce and the unexpected entrance of a new {amazing} relationship into my life, I was doing a lot of inner work to help me gain more awareness and clarity and get rid of some of my fears that I had.

Some things scared me. Some didn’t surprise me at all. One of the biggest fears I became aware of that was literally determining what I did professionally, my relationships (especially romantic relationships) and much more was my fear of rejection.

Most of it was coming from my childhood and the fact that I grew up without a farther and always felt rejection because of his absence in my life. This fear explained a lot of the things to me starting from why I dated a certain type of man, relationship patterns I had with friends and family members to why I often tend to procrastinate starting something new and big and why I always had a desire for standing out, being noticed for who I am.

Anyway, this post is not about my fears. I became aware of them and let them go. At least I hope I did.

This post is to tell you about my professional or “vocational” plans for the future and some of the lessons I learned on my path.

Getting clear on my fear of rejection helped me realize that I was afraid to embrace and claim my true value. I believe a lot of us do that. I never fully believed that what I have to offer to the world is truly useful and valuable.  (Plus what will others say about me?)

We often take what we already know for granted. It seems to us that no one really needs what we have to offer or that they already know it or that there is someone else out there who is more qualified than we are to do what we want to do.

Even though all of us, all without exception, have some knowledge or skill that others would benefit greatly from, we often resist to fully embrace it.

There will always be someone out there who knows more than you do. But there will always be someone who knows less and who needs you to share your knowledge and experience with them.

People who need you and what you have to offer will come to you.

All you really have to do is to embrace your gift and start offering it.

I was always too scared to call myself a business and/or branding coach. I thought that my reputation is not enough to back up my claims. (What will others say about me? What will they think? – Fear of rejection kicking in)

And even though I have great success stories from my clients, I didn’t feel qualified. I needed someone to give me validation.

The only person who can validate you is you yourself.

I realized that if I truly believe in my value and if I see tangible results from people who worked with me, all I have to do is to offer. Those who need what I have to offer will come. Those who don’t  – won’t.

It really is that simple (by the way, you are also absolutely allowed to reject clients, this way you can truly work only with those who you feel you can help).

I’ve done clarity sessions in the past helping people get clear on their authentic vocation. I am taking it further now. I now offer business brainstorming sessions where I can help you get clear on your unique value, your authentic brand, your core brand message and much more. And I also start offering branding packages for those who are starting out.

I’ve done that in the past already. I just called it differently.

I still feel highly uncomfortable calling myself a coach. So we’ll brainstorm. Sounds so much better to me.

This blog will always be about clarity and self-discovery as those are the cornerstones of everything I do but I’ll also start writing about entrepreneurship, marketing, discovering and branding your passion.

I also plan on starting local workshops related to authentic branding.

Fully embracing and allowing myself to be who I am has been a long journey but I don’t regret any step of the way.  All of those steps were leading me closer to my vision.

What is your value that you are looking for validation in order to fully embrace? What do you want to do but don’t feel you are fully qualified to start doing? Where in your life does fear of rejection stop you from fully sharing your unique gifts with the world?

Claim your value. Give yourself permission to be who you want to be. Sharing your gift is truly the only thing that matters.

Allow yourself to do it. The World validates you.

P.S. My divorce is coming to a conclusion for those who are wondering. Thank you for all of your support, guys, and for sticking with me. I feel bad because I kept promising to start writing on the blog consistently again and didn’t keep my promises. All I can do is admit it and move on now. Life is coming back to normal and I am back to sharing my journey with you here on this blog.

Neutrality is not a new concept. Lost your job? Neutral. Marriage sucks? Neutral. Found the love of your life? Neutral. It’s all neutral. It’s all just an experience.

Your mind gives “good” or “bad” interpretation to it, but ultimately…neutral.

What are you resisting in your life now?

You know that what you resist persists. We all know that.

Theoretically sounds great – just stop resisting the situation. Be in it. Accept it and see it dissolve on its own.

Stop worrying about money. Stop worrying about your marriage. Stop worrying about – how much longer I am going to be here. Here… where I don’t want to be anymore.

When will Change come? Easily and effortlessly. Preferably without me doing the hard work.

My divorce has been going on forever already. I am so ready to be over with it. But it doesn’t seem to end any time soon. How do you not resist something like this?

The thing is – it won’t end until I accept Here and Now. Until I stop resisting.  Hard work might not be necessary but dropping resistance is.

Sometimes it might happen naturally – when you are resisting something for too long, eventually you’ll get tired. You’ll say – who cares. But it might take awhile to get to that point. Often it works faster to consciously decide to stop resisting.

“When you surrender and stop resisting and stop trying to change that which you can’t change, but be in the moment, be fully open to the blessings you’ve already received and those that are yet to come & stand in that space of gratitude … and look at where you are and how far you’ve come and what you’ve accomplished …- when you can claim THAT and SEE that, the literal vibration of your life will change.” Oprah

This quote goes perfectly with today’s post. Few things that help me to stop resistance are:

1. Compared to what?

Each time you notice yourself judging anything as good or bad, ask yourself – compared to what? I don’t like how my body looks. Compared to whose body? My relationship with my partner could be better. Compared to what? I don’t have enough money. Compared to what?

When you ask yourself those questions you realize that your good or bad are so relative. Then you realize that everything is neutral. Then you realize that you are doing much better than you thought. And then hopefully you stop resisting as much.

2. Physically relax into the situation that causes resistance.

Think of your situation. What do you resist? What are you unhappy with? Feel the resistance and tension in your body. Now breathe into it. And relax.

3. Most importantly stop resisting your own resistance. I’ve done that for awhile. If you are already resisting a lot and the situation really sucks (according to your mind’s interpretation, of course… but still), admit it. Claim it. Say that it sucks. And that you hate it. And wish it was over …like RIGHT now.

Only after that do steps  1 and 2. Denial is not necessary.

And then keep reminding yourself that everything is just an experience.

Look back at your life. I bet you’ll remember many situations when what looked not so good at the time turned out to be for the best after all. It truly is all for the best. There is a lesson in everything. The one that will bring you closer to who you are meant to be.

Stop resisting. Let go.

I hope

My dream comes true

I hope

My dream is you

I know

My love is endless

I know

I will give you my best

I will

Honor and worship you

I will

Love and protect you

I can

Make you happy and loved

I can

Give you the love from above

Short but true

I love YOU.

This poem was written for me 7 years ago by my soon to be ex-husband. He wrote me over 100 poems since then. I’ve been rereading them all today remembering how this Love started.

These days we have hard time speaking with each other and some of the things he does make me think –where did love go?

But today he was getting our son to go to the park in the morning while I was still in bed and Nicholas ran upstairs to get something from my room. David chased after him and got him out of the room quickly, whispering – “Mommy is tired, let her sleep. ”

He thought I didn’t hear. But I heard. And that one simple act made me realize – Love is still here. It is buried under layers of hurt and resentment but it is still here. It didn’t go anywhere. It is Love after all. It can’t go away.

Sometimes Love is not enough. Not enough to stay together. Not enough to be happy.

But it is everywhere. If you are willing to see it. And no matter what – it is beautiful.

I made more mistakes in this relationship than I can count. He made lots of mistakes too that I know he regrets about now.  I forgive him, have forgiven a long time ago actually.

And today I forgive myself too. For everything. For breaking my vows. I said “I am going to be with you always” when we were getting married. How silly was I assuming I knew what future holds.

I’ll never promise “forever” to anyone anymore. I will promise “Now”.  I choose to live in the present moment. With less expectations. And more joy that comes as a result.  That seems to be working much better so far.

There are so many  things that I am grateful for. Lessons I learned, experiences we shared, our son, new life I got as a result of this marriage. I am truly grateful. And I let go. I am sorry for all the dreams that didn’t come true. But in place of those old dreams new dreams came into being. More authentic dreams.

I hope he finds what he was looking for in this marriage with a woman who’ll be able to truly appreciate him for who he is.

I know that I will always be grateful  for all we had together and for the person I became because of this relationship.

I will stay happy and optimistic no matter how messy this divorce might get.

I can get through this and so can you if you are going through a difficult period in your life.

Love is everywhere. Take a deep breath. Feel it. It’s right next to you.

Where do you want to go next?

No matter how difficult things might be now, get clear on what you want next. It might look too far stretched. It might seem too unbelievable at the moment. But get clear now.

You never know what the Universe has  in store for you. It really might surprise you.

I got clear on what I want my new relationship to be like before it was even time to start thinking about thinking about anything new. And I think I am really close to getting what I wanted.

Find a new dream. Write a new poem. Sing a new song.

This world is abundant. It loves you. And it wants to give you what you want. Just get clear and allow yourself to accept it.

P.S. Thank you to everyone who commented, emailed and called me after my last post. It feels really great to know I have so many supportive friends around me. I love you, my darlings!

In the past few weeks I’ve been going in and out of the state of depression without realizing it. I don’t even want to use this word here  – depression. Too strong for me. I never viewed myself as someone who would experience something like this.

I am an optimistic person. Sometimes to the point of where it is stupid. The sky might be falling and I will be standing there and thinking –It is for the best. And everything truly is for the best. But sometimes being always positive and optimistic is not the best thing to do.

In the  last few weeks I went numb. I bet you noticed that considering there was almost no posts on this blog.

Main reason? My divorce. Divorce that I tried so hard to make not a big deal out of.

Let me tell you. It is a big deal. Freaking big and quite stressful deal. Especially when there are kids involved.

For whatever reason I was afraid to admit it. I was afraid to face it.

I painted a nice picture in my mind of us peacefully getting divorced but staying best friends who share a child and spend time together often. Didn’t quite work out that way. We are to the point of hardly speaking with each other.

And our son is in the middle of it all. I so wanted to prevent him from seeing us like this. He sees it all now.

So there I was. In the middle of a quite stressful divorce trying to convince myself that it was not a big deal. I would repeat over and over again to myself and everyone else around that it was just an experience. I am moving to a better place. Everything is good. I would also throw a joke there when someone asked.

Complete denial.

And to make the situation more ironic I met an amazing person who I really like and who likes me back. When I am with him life is secure, exciting, unbelievable. But then I get back to reality where there is “soon to be ex-husband”, his “moods” and all other kinds of stuff related to our divorce.

So I went numb. At first I thought that I just needed a little break. Read my previous post. But turned out it was more than that.

I literally wanted to become invisible for the outside world. Opening my email was a painful task. I haven’t checked Facebook or Twitter in forever. I wasn’t checking my voicemail, nor returning phone calls.

My dear friends and everyone who emailed or called me in the last few weeks and didn’t get a response, I really hope you didn’t take it personally.

All I wanted to do on the most days was sleep.

The funny thing is that I was still not realizing what was happening.

To make it worse I stopped working almost completely. I wasn’t promoting my coaching nor my newly released product in any way and wasn’t even responding to coaching requests I was getting. Quite an irresponsible thing to do when you are getting divorced with a child.

Everything that had such meaning to me became meaningless.

So when the stack of bills on the desk became bigger and the feeling of “I don’t even want to look at them because I don’t know how I am gonna pay all of that now that I don’t know who I am” became unbearable, it finally hit me –  something is really wrong.

That’s when I  faced it. The denial was over.

Yes, I am in a damn stressful situation. Yes, it didn’t work out the way I wanted it to. Yes, I am not as strong as I always thought I was. And, yes, divorce sucks. It really does.

Tony Robbins always says that to change the situation you have to see it as it is first, and only after that see it better than it is. I was avoiding seeing my situation as it was.

Awareness. I preach it every day. And there I was not allowing myself to become aware.

Why do I write all of this?

Because I know that there are people out there who experience something similar. It might happen to anyone one day. And usually when you expect it the least. I was happy releasing my new product. And right before the launch this happened. And then it got worse and worse. And I got number and number. It felt like I was paralyzed and even though I knew I had to do something, I couldn’t do anything.

Here are the steps that helped me to get out of that state.

1. Face your situation. See it as it is. Admit it. If it sucks, say it. It is ok to be negative from time to time. Stop the denial.

2. Ask yourself – What do I want to do right now? For whatever reason this step is crucial to be able to get to the next ones.

Forget about what you should do. Forget about what you need to do. What is it that you truly want to do right now? Take a nap? Go for a walk? Call you friend you didn’t talk to in years?

I felt like going to the park to a special place I and my son love spending time at. And there in the park, sitting on the bench by the river my mind started clearing.

3. Clear your mind.

My mind was so foggy and jumpy that I couldn’t focus on finding the solution. Sometimes meditation might help with calming and clearing the mind. But in extreme situations like this one meditation often doesn’t work.

What really helps me is to do a brain dump. Take a piece of paper. And  start writing everything that you have on your mind. Don’t worry about it making any sense. Just write. And write some more. And more. Until nothing else comes out. Mind clarity you’ll feel after doing this is unbelievable.

4. Find the underlying conflict. Often putting my thoughts on paper leads me to the core of the issue.  If you don’t see the core, start asking yourself – Why am I numb? Where is this coming from? What is the core limiting belief that is causing it?

The core is usually some deeply hidden limiting belief that often comes from your childhood or some kind of painful experience from the past. Your subconscious got so impressed by the feeling that you experienced because of it that now you repeat the same pattern over and over again without realizing it.  I learned that just remembering the core experience and becoming aware of it helps to release the limiting belief.

No belief – no pattern anymore.

I won’t tell you the exact experience from my childhood that I remembered but the feeling that it left behind was  – “I am not responsible for my life. I am not in control. I am helpless. There is not much I can do to change the situation.”

And that’s exactly what I was experiencing this past few weeks. That’s exactly why I went numb. Why I wanted to become invisible. Because it felt like there is no sense in doing anything. I can’t change it. I felt helpless.

I am always amazed how all the answers are already there. All I had to do was to ask. What is the core? Where is this coming from? And right there and then I remembered the situation that happened over 15 years ago.

Your mind has all the answers for you. Just start asking questions.

Like I said often just becoming aware of the past painful experience is enough to let limiting belief go. I used EFT and Sedona method to make sure I really let it go. Google them. There are plenty of info online about both.

5. Figure out the next steps. Only after you cleared your mind, found internal conflict and let go of the limiting belief, can you start thinking of what’s next. And usually the next steps will come to you easily once the mind is clear. Write them all down.

6. Do something right away. To keep the momentum rolling take some action. No matter how small it is, do something right away. It will be a signal to you mind that you are serious, that you started moving.

7. And as a bonus step, I really recommend to get rid of the clutter in your physical space. My home never gets too cluttered, I make sure to get rid of the stuff I don’t use/need often. But sometimes I clear everything out just for the sake of clearing my mind. It works each and every time. There is definitely a very strong correlation between clutter in our physical space and clutter in our minds.

Those are the steps I used. I feel better. And so much clearer now. And even though the situation is still stressful, I face it. I am not numb anymore. I take full responsibility. I am not helpless. If I got myself into it, I can get myself out.

I learned lots of lessons on the way. And I am sure there are more lessons to come and more limiting beliefs to clear.

I am moving. Moving forward. And it feels good. Feels like myself again.

When I got married 5 years ago I told to my husband at the time that I wanted to be a stay at home mom. I was so burned out at the job I had that I sincerely believed I didn’t want to ever work anymore and would be satisfied raising kids and taking care of the house.

The husband was thrilled with the idea, that was what he wanted his wife to be. The idea was nice theoretically, but didn’t last too long.  I got bored and got a job 3 months after we got married.

When my son Nicholas was born I realized that I can’t take him to daycare and I don’t trust babysitters, at least while he was little. That’s where the dilemma started. How can I be someone who is not just a stay at home mom and at the same time stay at home with my baby? Home-based business was the only logical answer. So my business started not as a result of me wanting to follow my passion. Passion came later. It started as a desire to do something meaningful in the world and stay at home with my son at the same time.

Fast forward couple years.

I tried many business models online. Made money. Lost money. Scratched everything and started over.  Rediscovered my passions. Decided to get divorced.

I burn meals. Often. I let go of the desire for everything to be clean and organized and don’t freak out anymore when the house gets messy as if it wasn’t cleaned for two weeks just two hours after I cleaned it.

I make business calls while chasing my son on the playground or playing Lego with him. I have two calendars that I update – one for business related activities, another one for our trips to the zoo, kids birthdays, children’s museum, pumpkin patches or strawberry picking. Two books that I have on my night table at the moment are – Unleashing The Ideavisrus by Seth Godin and The Five Love Languages of Children by Gary Chapman.

Life is full. And wonderful.

The thing that I realized lately is  – what I am doing is good enough. Really. It is.

I used to think that my business should be growing quicker and that I should be able to squeeze in more activities into our schedule. I even used to try and figure out how I can get by on even less sleep.

But recently I decided to relax. Yes, my business might not be growing as quickly as I’d like it to. This is the choice I made. I don’t want my son to go to a full time day care. I don’t want babysitters. That means I obviously can’t dedicate as much time to my business as I’d like to and that’s ok. I am making a progress for sure.

Being a mother and CEO might seem easy when you look at others but turns out to not be so easy when you do it all yourself. And that’s ok too.

You are doing enough.

Just relax and enjoy the ride. Get rid of the nagging “not good enough” thought in your head and decide here and now that you are enough. You truly are.

Realizing that took so much pressure and stress out of my life. I still do everything I used to do but now it feels different. I allow myself to take more breaks. I don’t feel like I am in a constant chase all the time.  I even started dating!

I feel more balanced. And you know when you are balanced your child will be much more balanced too. Which means  less meltdowns and more cooperation. Which means less stress for both of you.

Life becomes better just with one decision – decision to think of yourself as good enough.

Can you make this decision now? I bet you can. Because you really are.

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P.S. I know there is too much “baby talk” on this blog lately:) I promise to get back to writing about “real” stuff soon:)

Do you remember a time in your life when you just wanted to take a break from everything you were doing? Work, business, blog whatever it is… Just take a break and not think about any of those things (even if you do love doing them) anymore?

After releasing Clarity Manifesto last week, I realized I needed a break. Well, the break from blogging started even earlier, but last week I decided to take a full blown break.

A complete turn off from everything I was doing – blogging, marketing my coaching, Twitter, Facebook, Linkedin,  reading and commenting on other blogs (I love you, my dear fellow bloggers and learn so much from you, but I still felt like I needed a break from your genius), creating content, submitting articles, newsletters,  answering emails,etc… – if you do any business online, you know what I am talking about.

 I love what I do. It almost never feels like a job. I love writing. I love helping people. I love my coaching sessions and “a-ha” moments my clients and I myself experience.

But I realized that I do need a break from that too. And I decided to not resist it this time. I gave in. Yes, there is always a fear that people will unsubscribe from your list and stop reading your blog and everyone will forget you on Twitter and no one will ever sign up for your coaching anymore.

But I refuse to live this way. It feels like another box, another rat race to me. I choose to believe in abundance of this wonderful Universe that always provides. I choose to believe in ease. I choose to believe that I am my only judge and if I consciously decide to not judge myself, no one else will.

I don’t believe in balance. I believe in rollercoaster. Work hard, rest hard. It works for me.

So what did I do on my little break?

I spent lots of time with my baby, my son Nicholas. I also spent lots of time with an amazing person who I met few months ago but only recently realized his amazingness fully. That was probably the main reason the break started, but more updates on that later. I took lots of walks in the park. Heck, I even got back to going to the gym. In short, it was a good break.

Now I am back. And will be updating the blog regularly again. This blog is something I’ll never leave. I might be taking breaks (not often) but I don’t see myself quitting blogging anytime soon. I love writing. I love the creation process.

I just signed up for Leo Babauta’s A-List Blogging bootcamp, so not only am I nowhere close to quitting, but I am taking it to the next level.

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Check out my Clarity Manifesto that I released last week. It comes with a workbook + unique guided visualization CD + weekly videos to keep you motivated and on track.  The end goal Freedom and Meaning and Life in alignment with Your Truth.

Clarity works in amazing ways. I am still surprised sometimes how fast and easy it often is.

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Anyway, that was my little update. I am glad to be back.

Hope all is great in your world!

This is a totally inappropriate post for the week of prelaunching my product. Don’t I need to do some convincing of why you need clarity and why you need to buy my stuff to help you with that? Oh, screw it, I go with the inspiration as always.  You do need clarity though, so check out the preorder page.

On December 22 of 2006 my life turned around. My baby was born.

I don’t write on this blog about my son often. This is something I decided to keep private, and I never could really relate motherhood to clarity.

But today is different. Today I can relate it. Plus my soul wants to write about my baby, so I will. I know a lot of you will resonate. Those who won’t (if you don’t have kids), it will give you a glimpse of what you are getting into if you ever decide to have one…or two…or more.

Nicholas. We didn’t have a name chosen when we went to the hospital. We had a list of 5 names to choose from. Kyle. Ryan. Alexander. Daniel. Nicholas was the last choice.

My mom liked it. I never really did that much. He came and it was clear. His name is Nicholas. Victorious. This name is a most pleasant sound to my ear now.

He was born at 4.46 am. I am not into astrology and horoscopes much, but I do believe in it somewhat. The labor started on December 20^th.  That’s Sagittarius. My sign. Fire. Aiming at the stars. High flights. Passion.

I was sure he would be Sagittarius too and was kind of excited about that. The labor was 28 hours. He was 4 hours 46 minutes late to be Sagittarius and entered Capricorn on December 22.

Am I happy he did that! He has all what I have – fire, passion, but it is different. His fire makes you hot, lights you up but doesn’t burn you.

He is the only person in my life who can keep my fire burning steady without flaming everything around. He is Earth. He grounds and balances me. When I get too high he is the only one who can bring me down in an instant. He says: “Mama, breathe. Deeply.”

And it’s not what he says, which is pretty amazing in itself for a 3 y.o.,  but How he says it. There is calm confidence in his voice. Calm knowing – that is what the best to be done is. And I listen. I am back to Earth. Still lit and high but grounded.

Pain.

I remember the anticipation of joy and happiness I had when waiting for him to be born. There was no joy or happiness. Pain. No, not physical pain. Physical pain of labor is forgotten 2 minutes after the birth (funny how our minds and bodies work).

But pain in your heart. Checking every 15 minutes – is he breathing? Why is he crying? I don’t understand and even when I do I often can’t help. That hurts.

Responsibility. Choices. Who knew there were so many choices you have to make!

Vaccinations? Should you? Shouldn’t you? The risks are “unknown”, but if you read the internet you’ll know. Enough to be afraid. The benefits are…well, you know the benefits. Pretty unknown too if you read the internet again.

And you choose. And then you choose again. And again. And then you doubt and second guess. And explain to everyone around why you made this particular choice. (We do vaccinate but on a special schedule.)

C word. Hate it. I apparently live in the only country in the world that performs one of the most unnecessary and painful procedures to boys without any medical or religious reasons for that. Circumcision.

My baby was just born, going through the most difficult and painful experience of his life – labor. You want to do what to him now? You want to put another pain into his subconscious?

I couldn’t let them do it.  But what about society? What about the fact that up to 80% of boys where we live still go through this procedure and those boys are going to be his classmates.  I still wake up at night thinking if that was the right decision. And pray to God, if I ever have more kids -  girl, please.

And then it comes down to the most important “entity” that has the biggest impact on your baby and that you have total control of but at times seems like you have no control of at all – You. How do you make sure that you are the best you can be? You can’t. You’ll never be perfect. But you learn to roll with it.

Guilt.  I could have done that and I could have done this better.

Fear.

And fear. Constant fear. You can diminish it. You can learn to become more trusting and hope that the Universe/God/World will take care of your baby when you are not there to take care of him. But you’ll never trust 100%. That fear will always stay. Somewhere deep inside. But it is there. It won’t let you go.

And you’ll never look at any accident or child abduction on the news the same again. You might look calm on the outside, but inside your heart will be screaming in pain.

Love.

Love. Not much to say here. Love is Love. He is Love. He is the proof that miracles exist.

I won’t tell you that it was all worth it. That sounds too cheesy. It goes without saying.

Back to clarity now.

How did my son help me with clarity?

I wrote before many times that the question “why” is the most important question of all. “What” is important only if it is backed up by strong “why“.

Nicholas is my reason “why” to so many things.

He is the core reason I decided to divorce his dad. Yes, there were many other reasons. But at the core of it was desire for Nicholas to see an example of relationships where there is deep connection and love between two people so he doesn’t ever settle for anything less than that. I hope I’ll be able to show him that example.

And he is the core reason I didn’t give up on my business when things were not progressing and I felt like saying: “Screw it, I’ll go get a job”.  Behind my desire for freedom and meaning there is desire to be able to look my son in the eyes when he grows up and say: “You can do it, you truly can create your life the way you choose to”

I can give up on my own freedom and meaning. I’ll never give up on his. And the only way for me to give it to him is to get it myself first.

Thank you for coming into my life, my baby. I love you.

OK, my dears. Clarity Manifesto pre-ordering is open. The Official Launch: May 5^th.

If you pre-order today you will get Chapter 2: Life Purpose – Why Are You Here?

This will give you a week to get fully clear on your Life Purpose and on May 5th we’ll start aligning, convincing your lizard brain to shut up and taking action on your dreams.

I put my heart into it. It will get you clear. On the way to Freedom. Having Meaning.

Read all about it here.