Live What You Know

June 2020 Update

I don’t have a story anymore really… but, I remember wanting to include the versions below. All I can say is that there is much more to awaken to than we can ever imagine in this experience we are having. We chose to be here so let’s make the most of it. Nothing is as it seems, so why judge any of it?

August 2015 Update

Seems time for a brief update to the original “story” that has held this space since the creation of Live What You Know (below). It’s been two years since I started sharing here. Having this creative outlet and place to share has been a wonderful blessing in my life in countless ways. For the last six months, I have taken a break from sharing and I now feel excited to get back to it and energized at the thought of endeavoring into the unknown a bit as I expand my willingness to share in more ways. I am ready to challenge myself to let Live What You Know push me further down the path towards my truest self and also to stay focused on all the little things that make it possible to actually Live What I Know as the blessed and effortless way Life would have me live It.

I believe in the power of truly living what you know. I know for sure that we are constantly being shown what we most need to learn or understand in order to grow and embody more of who and what we really are. I believe we are meant to share these “knowings” as we live with the focused intention to become our best selves and create a space around us wherever we go that encourages others to feel the love and connectedness we all share. We are all human and we sometimes face the challenge of living from our soul while still inhabiting this human form. Sometimes seeming setbacks can bless us more than we know. I love knowing that I can always get back up and do better whenever I have let my zest for living all the blessings life has shown me dwindle a bit. Whether it’s not meditating, not reading, losing my patience, struggling for energy, forgetting to focus on the things that help me most or however else I may stumble…I always know and never ever waver from my deep awareness that all is well and I’ll find my way back to my true voice, honest intentions and deepest self soon enough.

Energy and balance became a challenge for me in the last year. I found myself lacking the ability to focus on all the practices I know bless me and those around me so very much. I slipped into a bit of a funk and disconnectedness from my real self a bit as I just couldn’t do it “all” the way I wanted to. I finally figured out a health issue that may have been contributing and I recently had surgery to address it and hopefully bring much more health and wellness my way. I am feeling much better these days and I can feel a renewed swirling of energy brewing. I intend to grow that swirling into a tornado of love and enthusiasm that can bless my life and everyone and everything in it, as well as, as many people as I can possibly imagine blessing.

Living What I Know now includes dreaming bigger, living deeper, loving courageously, flowing with Life, letting gratitude guide everything, bringing it All together and simply trusting what Life has planned for me as I allow it to flow through me with enthusiasm, acceptance, love and grace.

August 2013

Greetings! I am a wife, mother, daughter, friend, home-school teacher, vegan, and so much more and none of these things at the same time. I am not really into labels so much anymore, so it is hard to describe myself. I believe in doing your best at everything. I love knowing and watching how “your best” can change. My favorite definition of success is from Coach Wooden:

“Success is peace of mind which is a direct result of self-satisfaction in knowing you did your best to become the best that you are capable of becoming.” –John Wooden

This definition means so much to me; our family has studied it and the Pyramid of Success that comes with it in-depth. Sometimes my best is great and sometimes it leaves room to remember to live what I know.

I believe life gives us perfect lessons constantly if we are willing to listen. I believe we also get little messages along the way to let us know how we’re doing on the path…when we’re off track, the message may be a headache or heartburn (worse if you don’t listen) and when we’re on track, the messages feel like a big hug from the universe. I want more hugs from the universe and that is why I am creating this blog to communicate and learn and teach and grow and try to remember to always live what I know.

I am not really all that into the past or my childhood or anything like that anymore. I spent years attached to it and being so locked in with “my story” and my little life; it is nice to leave that behind. Because this is section is titled “My Story” I suppose I will go into minor details. I guess I had your typical childhood, but to me if always felt so traumatic. I was very sensitive and I let things cut deep and trouble me for years. Childhood had some knocks, just divorce and family stuff that many of us go through. There were lots of details along the way that felt like hell to me. I always kind of had a reason for my unhappiness (or maybe I found reasons to justify my heartache and loneliness inside). I had what I called “the lonely feeling” and because of that I started conversations with God during my childhood and those conversations kept me company and gave me strength (I didn’t always remember to use those conversations, sometimes I made stupid choices and looked for company in the wrong places – that is what childhood is for I guess – learning the hard way sometimes). Although I was going through lots of hard stuff (and lots of hard choices of what to focus on), I still felt lucky inside and like my future would be very bright. I believed my dreams would come true.

Random story – on a particular day when I was very young, there were some disturbances going on inside the house…I distinctly remember being outside in the front yard on a little hillside of clovers. I was determined to find me a four-leaf clover. I made the choice that I would not leave that hillside until I found one. I believed that if I could just find a four-leaf clover everything would be okay. After hours of searching – I found it! It was in there waiting for me and I made it mine. That experienced changed me. I got the message from the Universe that day and I kept that feeling with me always. No matter what happened, I felt like the lucky one and I believed with all my might that everything would be okay. I had no idea how powerful this feeling is, but I have watched it work over the years and I am so very grateful I was able to let that knowing guide my life. It is so true that everything will be okay.

The goals and dreams I set for myself did come true as an adult. I found myself in a great life situation that far exceeded my dreams in that I had found a wonderful man to share my life with and I had a baby girl to adore and more. I had always wanted to be at home with my kids and felt so blessed to have the opportunity to do that. My “feeling lucky” and believing I could make things happen really worked. However, the same internal dialogue within myself was still there (this is a nice way of saying that I was still a mess in my head). The happiness or lack thereof was about the same and actually declining even with my dreams manifesting. It is a terrifying feeling to have your dreams come true and be miserable. To be so close to your dreams and not be able to feel them is dreadful! Having a reason to be unhappy is so much easier than not having one and still being unhappy. Scary! I am so thankful that this was my situation. I knew I had to seek and search and figure this out. I embarked on a journey and changed and grew so very much. When you ask the universe to show you how it works, it will. I learned and faced the fact that it was me who was creating the problems in my head. I realized how this is the human condition and many of us do this and create our reality. Who knew “its not you its me” is so very true! It really was me making life harder than it had to be.

Once I figured out that it was me and that I could do the work to change my inner peace, I knew immediately that I would spend my life trying to help others find inner peace too. I want to share the message with everyone that you cannot wait for whatever you think is going to make you happy to happen! You can do the work and go inside and find the peace now and only now. Waiting for all the things we think will make us happy is such a waste of time and a silly distraction from the real work. You may get all that you want to and figure out it isn’t the answer and then your mind will create other things you need to add to make you happy…you could spend your entire life in this state. Or, you may never be able to get what you think you want and spend your life blaming your unhappiness on that. Either way, a waste. You can create the life you want by going inside to do the work and create the peace. What you are able to create inside will manifest in your “reality” on the outside as well – I promise!

Favorite saying – the thinking mind that created the problem cannot solve the problem. I want to share this message and what it means and ways to get still and create peace and stillness and ease of being. I know this is my life work and I am so grateful for every amount of suffering or peace that led to this knowing. I wish everyone peace and love and I am grateful for this space to share with you!

Looking back now, I am so at peace with every stage of my life! I am so very thankful for my life lessons! All those around me have always been “doing their best” and I was always “doing my best.” I now realize that I can continue to improve what “doing my best” means. My best can get better and better all the time. Often times now I am kind of amazed at how I truly feel inside much of the time or how my initial reactions to things has evolved, even what gives me pleasure now has changed so much. Also, I just feel like my real self underneath everything that was holding me back is so much better than I had ever expected it would be and I know that is true for everyone else too. I hope to connect with more people realizing their True selves as well! It is great to find out that you are much better than you thought you were (even more exciting is figuring out just what you really are and how connected you are to everyone else). When you clear out all past noise and future noise, who and what you are is spectacularly amazing! Now, the trick is to just practice living it all the time!

Another way of looking at success that sounds as important to me as the one above from Coach Wooden is this – success is knowing that timeless and eternal part of ourselves and sharing it with the world around us in a way that can help others know and share more of their timeless and eternal selves too. This is creating Heaven on Earth now and we can do it together. The best part about my story is that it is your story too…we are all deeply connected to each other and we are all the same…at the deepest part it all becomes-our story.