In the last few weeks I have found myself a part of a most amazing community of like minded, heart centred, beautiful women in the Beautiful You Coaching Academy. I have been absolutely blown away by the support and encouragement offered not only from the amazing trainers Julie, Jade and Jo but also every other trainee that is taking part in this course.

I have attempted online courses before but honestly have never come across a more loving and accepting environment as I find with these women. I find myself looking forward to my “chat with the girls” on a Tuesday night when I log onto Skype for our live group calls, and love the learning that is delivered by our lead trainer Julie Parker but also from the questions put forward by all the other trainees. I get butterflies when I put my hand up to ask my own question and just so excited when I am called upon and get to chat with Julie and never feel like the question I want to ask is silly or irrelevant. Every question is met with enthusiasm and encouragement and answered with such a wonderful knowledge from years of Julie’s experience with many examples included.

I am so so glad that I decided to take on this course and have been put in touch with this beautiful community. I have found over the years that as you get older making new friends and meeting new people becomes quite difficult. As an adult I feel the opportunity to do this becomes less and less. There is work colleagues and occasionally they will become friends that you socialise with outside of work. There is your partners’ friends and family that you will make connections with and often spend a lot of time with. But other than that there really are not a lot of opportunities to meet new people.

So in meeting the above group of women I have been lucky enough to make contact with one who lives less than 15 minutes away from me. Who would have thought in a group of 67 women spread all over the world there would be two from country victoria so close together? I made the first move, and sent a message via Facebook to see if she would be interested in catching up for a coffee to discuss our experiences so far with BYCA and she replied with enthusiasm. Honestly our first catch up felt like a blind date, I was so nervous. As I said at the start, making new friends, as you get older just happens less and less, so this to me felt quite daunting. But honestly my new friend was just lovely and we spent at least an hour getting to know each other and talking about this amazing course.

Now add to this not only one new friend but a second in my coaching buddy that I have been linked with through BYCA. She is in a different state and we have so far had 2 phone conversations but it already feels like we have known each other for years. Its absurd how much we have in common, and things beyond what the coaching academy knew through our questionaries, to have paired us up. But it’s really lovely to have been put in contact with another wonderful person that I look forward to getting to know even better in the future.

Now I’d like to add something else in to this mix and just say that over the past few years I’ve sadly lost some wonderful friends. Not through death or them moving away, but simply what I now believe is that our friendships reached their expiry dates. I have come to the conclusion that not all friendships are supposed to last forever. Mind you this came after spending what I now believe was an excessive amount of my time and effort trying to make them work, overlooking the nasty or vindictive comments that came my way, going out of my way to make time or catch up, when really this effort was not being returned. Now I know there are two sides to every story and I’ve only shared my part, but in all honestly I feel that I played my part of friend well. Sure there are a few things that I wish I had done differently, but for the most part I think the biggest thing that I noticed as these friendships dissolved was that, when everything that I had ever dreamed of was finally coming my way, and I mean falling in love and getting married, these friends were pulling away. Or they were making many negative comments about my partner, my life, and me. And the worst part was I didn’t even really notice. I mean there were times where I remember defending myself or shrugging things off but when I sat back as these expiry dates got closer I saw all the negative comments the subtle digs, the genuine lack of interest in what was going on in my life, and there were big things going on. It still took something significant to get me to finally call time on these friendships. I honestly think I would have just kept going along in this miserable friendship for god knows how long, had something really not tipped it over the edge. And don’t get me wrong, I am incredibly sad to have lost these friends but in the grand scheme of things it comes back to surrounding yourselves with the positive and wonderful people that are there to support you and lift you up and join in with all the fun times in your life. So that’s what I am doing from here on in.

On Saturday I spent a lovely afternoon having a couple of cheeky wines with an old friend and a new friend and we chatted and laughed and just generally had a lovely time. These are the people I want in my life. Easy and relaxed and carefree wonderful women who would support me and encourage me and genuinely just be happy for me and whatever successes come along in my life, Just as I will be for them.

Thankyou to all the lovely amazing women and friends in my life, both the new and the old. You know who you all are and I cannot imagine my life without you in it. I look forward to many more wonderful moments with you all.
Emxxx

So this week, it seems the penny has finally dropped. After many months of planning and researching, and dreaming of creating the ultimate capsule wardrobe, it has taken the new and amazing blog of a friend, check out One Hundred Hangers, to finally make the commitment to de-clutter and reduce my wardrobe. Now this might not seem like a big deal to some, but from a newly reformed clothes and shoes hoarder, the stress and anxiety that goes along with letting go of these items is sometime emotionally crippling.

As my (new) husband found out when we moved into our new house 18 months ago, I am a collector of crap. Anything from cd’s, old photos, clothes and random piece of material and balls of wool, throw in a multitude of unfinished craft projects or research materials for new fads or hobbies. I kept everything. There were tears and tantrums as he attempted to help me let go of the crap that I didn’t need, use or want. Deep down I knew it was just stuff that I would never need again but for some reason I kept hanging onto it. I think this was the beginning of me learning to be ruthless and release. To let go.

This however did not translate to my wardrobe until just this week. Over the past couple of months I have done heaps of research into capsule wardrobes and how people made these work and how great they felt with fewer options and reduced stress in decision making of what to wear. It all seemed that less really was more and that the minimalist wardrobe was the way to go. This year already I think that I have sent about 10 garbage bags full of clothes and shoes to Vinnie’s, and still my wardrobe was bursting at the seams. I do have a massive walk in robe that was one of the biggest selling points of our house, I even had it completely re-modelled when we moved in to make the most use out of the space, but it has always just looked messy and cluttered. Previously in my single life I lived in a three-bedroom townhouse with a three door wall of wardrobes in my master bedroom, which was full, and I had turned my second bedroom with single closet into a “wardroom”. With 2 clothes racks full of dresses and over 130 pairs of shoes it was epic.

After being introduced to Jess’s amazing new blog this week, reading each post more than once, and following some of the links to where Jess’s inspiration comes from, I was officially hooked. I was finally ready and determined to commit to a 30-40 piece capsule wardrobe for Winter 2015. Last night, I purged another 2 bags of clothes for Vinnie’s, filled a bag to bring to work to sell, listed a heap of stuff on ebay and started selecting the pieces that will make up the basis of the capsule wardrobe collection. It felt amazing. Gone was the stress and anxiety of removing items and placing them in garbage bags. Gone was the need to keep things simply because once upon a time (5, 10 or 15 years ago) they were my favourite, or I bought that overseas, or I wore that to an amazing party, function, or wedding. What was once so difficult to do, letting go, was all of a sudden so much easier and it felt good.

I still have quite a bit of work to do in the cleaning out and tidying up of my wardrobe and I will be shopping for a few key pieces that will complete the overall capsule wardrobe I’m working towards, but after that I’ll be on a shopping hibernation for the winter. I look forward to the reduced stress and time wastage that was me trying to pick an outfit. And I look forward to the clarity and calm that I hope will come from living with less.

Right now I am focusing on my studies with the Beautiful You Coaching Academy and I feel that this is just another piece of the puzzle falling into place. Clearing one space to make room for another. After all the craziness of our recent wedding and honeymoon this cleansing feels so timely and so satisfying. I wonder what I will find to minimise and de-clutter next ;).

Em xx

*Please go and check out Jess’s Blog and read for yourself at One Hundred Hangers.She writes beautifully from the heart and has surprised even herself with the amount of love and acknowledgements she has already received from this little blog that I’m sure will provide inspiration to all.

Well hello there. I’ve been a little, actually a lot, absent lately. My apologies, but wedding planning and organising has taken over my life and this house, ha ha. Only 3 sleeps to go until our big day. After that its sunny Thailand for 10 nights and then back to the real world and more than likely back to normal.
May brings new challenges for me as i embark on my Beautiful You Life Coaching course. I cannot wait to get started on what i hope will be an incredibly fulfilling and rewarding new career path. The plan will also be to get much more active and involved in this blog and bring you lots more content and information.
So I’m keeping this short and sweet. Apologies for my absence and I hope to be much more productive here in future.
Chat next time when I’m a Mrs
Em xxx

With the wedding countdown well and truly underway I’m seriously starting to struggle with the never ending appointments being scheduled inn my diary, and the many times I forget to write something down and find myself doubled up or palming things off to the fiancé. And I’m so so sick of hearing myself over and over again telling people how busy I am. Ugh. Someone asks, “How have you been?” “So busy”, or “what’s been going on?” “So much, I’m flat out busy” or “how are the wedding plans coming along”, “yeah good I’ve been so busy”.
Then the other day I find myself reading something about being busy, and saying out loud that we are busy all the time. I just wish I could remember where I read it so I could go back and read it again, but honestly when would I have the time I’m just so busy! Ha. So the gist of what I read was to stop saying that you’re busy all the time. Look at it as being productive. I’m just not sure that I am being productive all the time that I say I’m busy or that I actually really am busy, or am I just using that as an excuse to avoid doing the productive things that I should be doing?? (Confused face)
One of my biggest goals for this year was to get up and meditate and do yoga every morning, and I can tell you now, honestly, this has happened maybe 5 times so far. Yep that’s 59 days of this year gone and I have a less than 3% success rate (At least I think that’s correct maths is definitely not my forte). So again this morning, the fiancé and I have a conversation about me being a grump in the morning and my struggling to get out of bed and he tells me again that I need to just get into the routine of getting up early. Yes I know this I’ve heard it a thousand times before. The annoying thing is, I know that he’s right (insert rolling of eyes here).
So I keep telling myself to get up earlier, get up when he goes to the gym, hell I even set my alarm with the super happy Pharrell to try and wake me up but I can still manage to hit snooze and roll over back to sleep. I just need to start making the most of my days and of the hours in each day. All these people I look up to and admire start their days at 5am or some even earlier and they are utilising the hours to meditate and do yoga and prepare healthy foods and create their amazing businesses. This is what I want to be doing too, I Know it is. So why aren’t I just bloody well doing it???
But for this week and ongoing, the biggest thing I am planning to do is to stop using the word “Busy”. I’ve already started, pausing my sentence when I feel myself about to say “busy”, and I try and word it in a more positive way to say that I’m accomplishing something or being productive. And I really feel better about it. Its that whole way of putting a positive spin on what was becoming a very negative word for me in a time where I am trying to be super positive and to be calm and collected and not get stressed. And hopefully as part of this new productivity I’ll start making the more of the hours I have available. So the alarm is getting set for the whole week at 5.30am. I WILL get up and do yoga or go for a walk. I WILL get on top of my emails and keep up with my studies. And I WILL make the most of each and every hour I the day. I will be exhausted by the time I crawl into bed each night but hopefully this will provide me with better quality sleep.

Only I can choose to make the most of each hour in my day. I WILL make the most of each hour in my day. Em xx

Lately I’m reading a lot about Fear Vs Love. Fear otherwise known as Ego. I’ve read Eckhart Tolle’s views in the Power of Now and I’m reading Gabrielle Bernstein’s Spirit Junkie as well as a number of other blogger’s that I follow and read religiously e.g. Tara Bliss, Rachel McDonald and Connie Chapman. It’s amazing to now sit back and realise what was going on in my life, and to be honest be a little frustrated that I didn’t know any of this years ago. My Ego/Fear, has thankfully been reduced to a more manageable size now, I think I’m seeing it as more of an annoying toddler than the giant ogre that it used to be. And I think for the most part I kicked it in the pants without even really being aware of all this Love over Ego business.

In the end, it is definitely love that overpowers ego overall though. I first really embraced my own self-love in late November of 2011. There was an absolute precise moment, where I remember feeling so completely happy and in love with my life. I had just finished decorating my little townhouse for Christmas, just hanging out with my pooch Maurie on a Saturday night. I’d finally bought a tree to put up; previously I had just put a wreath on the door. It wasn’t even a wreath; it was just a funny Santa that said HO HO HO. My housemate from years earlier and I used to laugh and say we needed one more friend to move in (wink wink). Anyhoo, so decorations were done and I think I’d been watching some lame movie on telly and then I heard the fireworks. No, not in my head or in a cheesy movie symbolic way, although now looking back it was quite symbolic. The local carnival was wrapping up for the year and I was standing on my bed, looking out the little window watching the fireworks. Maurie perched beside me; a confused look on his little face, wondering what all the banging noise was about. And I just had this moment, my Christmas miracle moment, of being so completely content with life. It was a feeling throughout my whole body and an enormous smile spread across my face. I was happy!

I remember that next New Year’s I made three wishes. One, to sell my townhouse by then end of the year and buy something with more of a yard and my own space, (I ended up taking it off the market half way through the year when I decided to stick to the original plan. When I bought the townhouse, I planned to live in it until I met someone and then it would be an investment if we moved into another house together). Number two wish, was to meet that someone and actually have a relationship after being single for five years. That wish came true in October 2012, and we are to be married in 66 days!! And wish number three was that I apply for a team leading position at my current job, and I became part of the future leaders group in the September of 2012 with my first team leading stint starting the Monday after I met my beloved.

I have absolute certainty that none of this would have happened, if I had not had that moment of really realising that I was completely happy in life, and loved myself just as I was. Now I can’t say that any of that came easily. There was quite a period of time where I was in a deep, dark and miserable place, but I guess what I want everyone to realise from this, is that IT is out there. Love. Happiness. Peace. Sometimes it just takes us a little while to find it or to be in the right place for it to find us. But never forget that IT is there, within you somewhere, it just needs a little nurturing and love to make its way to the surface xx

You know that feeling that you get in your chest. When it feels kind of tight and tingly at the same time. I don’t mean the heart attack kind of feeling I mean the one that spreads an enormous smile across your face. Like there’s a little mini person in your chest giving your heart a great big hug. I’ve been getting it quite a lot lately and I think it just that my heart is happy. Everything has fallen into place and I cannot be more grateful.
I was lying in bed Australia day night, snuggled in with my fiancé, and I just had that feeling wash over me and the smile crept onto my face and I was just happy all over. We had been out visiting for the day. Went to amazing antique stores where I found some jewellery for my wedding, which is now less than three months away, and really just relaxed and enjoyed each-others company and had a really nice chilled out day. It was probably the last “date” we are going to get before the wedding. Life is just super busy with work and wedding stuff that we are already looking forward to the honeymoon and just being able to relax together, so it was amazing to just have that beautiful warm feeling creep over me as I crawled in to bed that night. My heart was happy.
Now to go back and give you a little background about me. I’m 34, turning 35 this year and have been with my partner for about 2 and a half years, and this is the longest relationship I’ve ever had. I can honestly only say I’ve had 2 other official boyfriends and one of those was only for about 6 months. Now for the most part of my adult life I was miserable and wanting and waiting to find an amazing man to share my life with. I thought for sure by thirty I would be married with a couple of kids running around. This led to my year of thirty being absolutely horrendously depressing. I was not at all where I thought I would be. I was single, celibate (by choice at this stage) and really just a little bit lost. Actually a lot lost.
But now, looking back at all of this, I can sit back and assess the situation with an open mind and say that it really all just led me to where I am today. Fair to say that I really wish it hadn’t taken me so long, but I believe now that it was just my journey to take.
I love that I can now see the significant moments that led me to be right here in this moment. Everyone’s lives are not supposed to be the same. Not everyone will fall in lave at 22 marry at 24 and have kids at 26. Thank the universe! What I would have missed out on if that plan I’d had all fell into place.
I do wish I’d known about life coaching back when I was in my early twenties, I think it would have given me a much better perspective of where I was in my life. That being said where I am now after only six sessions with a coach, even where I was after three sessions, I know that this is how I want other people to feel. I want to be able to help others find their true self and their direction and anything else that they feel they need help with. I feel this is my calling. That’s why I decided, after much research, to enrol in Beautiful You Life Coaching Course. I cannot tell you what a huge decision this was, not just for me but for my partner as well. It was extra money to spend in the lead up to our wedding and honeymoon that we really had to think about. It was my partners concerns about me always starting things and not finishing them. But most of all it was that I finally figured out what I wanted to do when I grew up, and after 16 years as an adult, not having a clue what I wanted to do or who I wanted to be, it was a risk and a big jump that I needed to take. From the minute I typed in my details and transferred the payment I was exhilarated. I got my confirmation emails and smiled for about three days straight.
So this is going to be a huge year for me. I get married, have an amazing honeymoon, and by the end of the year I will be a Life Coach. Already I am learning more and reading and soul searching more than I ever have. My life is where I feel it should be right now, and this; this is why my heart is so full of happiness.