By Lynn Scheurell

 

“Children should be seen and not heard.”

 

“Who do you think you are?”

 

“You’re bigger than your britches.”

 

We are often unknowingly conditioned to think we are meant to live small. For many of us, the growing up process is predicated on all the influences around us – our families, friends, peers.

 

Our influencers want us to learn how to live in a society, the rules that keep us in line and blend in, which often means limiting who we are, making our dreams attainable (a dichotomy, don’t you think?) or even being invisible.

 

This theme can show up in numerous ways in your environments, relationships, choices, behaviors and, obviously, business. Are you showing up the way you want in your life? Are you living in and from your own power? Are you getting the results you want in your life and business?

One of my clients struggles with being visible – she has had difficulty losing weight (an obvious buffer that so many of us use unconsciously!) and was late to her own celebration party, not realizing that her lateness was resistance to being center-stage. Her time of arrival actually made her even more visible (but in a different way!).

Another client has been stabilizing her life but not making real progress – it’s no wonder that her car died and her email suddenly stopped working. She was going nowhere and ignoring the messages she was getting. (I’m happy to report that both of these clients are now moving forward again…)

To support you in living your life bigger, here are seven tips to use in your world to get fresh results and live bigger.

1. Clear space, clear mind.

The de-cluttering process can be emotional, but it is guaranteed to make you feel stronger when it’s done. Your home or office is a reflection of your mind – it should be current and clear. Give yourself the space to expand into on many levels (physical, emotional, mental, etc.). Doing an ‘e-tox’ can give you new freedom.

2. Check your “center”.

The center of everything is health – your physical, emotional, mental, social, spiritual and of everything else in your life. Your center holds the essence of clarity and distilled decisions. One quick way to check your center is to look at your literal center in your environment – check the center of your office, your home, your rooms – if the center of your physical space feels “off”, is messy, over-full and/or unbalanced or unstable, these are red flags of your life center. Another way is to feel your inner belly, the center of your being, when you make any decision to see how it feeeeeels. Once you recognize any red flags, you are responsible for changing them.

3. Be in the command position.

This means to see what’s coming into your life. The wider your view, the more certainty you will feel and the more options that will be visible to you. Notice how you tend to sit in your office – make sure that you can see what is coming in the door, with a wall behind you for support and confidence, and not directly in the doorway (or the mouth of chi). Once a month, stop and contemplate your relationships – if there are any in which you feel small, dis-empowered, inauthentic, minimized or in a power battle of any kind, it’s time to listen to your emotions and shift the nature of that relationship to be more balanced.

4. Create the conditions for nurturing relationships.

In both business and in life, a primal need is to connect with others to give and receiving nurturing. Take time to relax in order to be open to others. Consider where you are holding back your truths in exchange for validation or approval from others. Look at furniture placement in your space to ensure that it supports conversations and be sure that you have a supremely comfortable place to sit. (One of my clients actually told me that she doesn’t have one piece of comfortable furniture for herself anywhere in her house – for years! And then she wondered why she could never relax at home…) When you – and your guests – are comfortable, communications and relationships flourish.

5. Use symbols consciously.

Symbols reach a primal part of the brain and are very powerful in by-passing current conditioning. Program your world for success by using meaningful symbols (to you – not to anybody else, unless it’s a team goal!). Also, be aware that anything in your space holds the energy of the person who created it or gave it to you and sends messages to your subconscious regularly. If you don’t love it, or get a positive feeling from it, it is not serving you. Be very aware of the symbols and messages you allow your environment to reflect and reinforce to you – place only objects with positive association and meaning.

6. See your bigger life picture.

We all come in with a body, a unique place in time and space, and 24 hours in the day – the choices of how to express who we are while we’re in physical form are exponential. And, in the end, it’s all going to be ok. That being said, what is the bigger picture of your life? How is that expressing through your business? In your physical space, your front door is the main entryway for the universe to bring you abundance, opportunities, prosperity and more. It is the transition from the outer world to your personal sanctuary. And it is a telling sign of how (if) you view your bigger life picture. If you don’t like what you see, change it. Take the time at least every six months to stop and consider whether you feel your life is on course with achieving your goals. And know that when things don’t work out in the moment, there’s probably a bigger picture at work – your job is to keep showing up for it.

7. Use color to maximize your energy.

Infusing your world with color is psychologically nourishing and has a tremendous impact on how you feel throughout your day. For example, earth tones are nurturing while bright colors give you “zing”. Red is transformational energy and passion, green is growth and healthy life force energy, yellow is health and trust, blue is wisdom and self-knowledge, and purple is abundance and royalty. Whether it’s art, flowers, your screensaver or clothes, color encourages creativity, vitality and a fresh perspective.

Remember, the world is not served by you playing small – your real contribution in changing the world comes from being all of who you are in life – and through your business!

© Lynn Scheurell