Costa Women Blogs

Starting with a return to the classroom teaching at the European Sixth Form College, and on Friday the lovely ladies at the Costa Women West of Marbella Group, talking Social Media Marketing. Thank you for your great feedback, and I’ll get those presentation notes over to those who attended asap. I rounded off the evening with a mad dash to Marbella to take photos at the opening party for Becketts Marbella (login to Facebook and you’ll see them here http://on.fb.me/1U44FLJ) I also announced a new workshop date for Facebook Marketing, you’ll find it on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/events/209010099439401/ and on the Costa Women website here http://costawomen.ning.com/events/facebook-marketing-for-beginners-part-1 This is a new and updated format for 2016 using all the knowledge and top tips gained last year and over the last few months particularly. Facebook is such a changeable feast you have to move with it or get left behind! I also recorded a great Hangout on Air with Jessica McGregor Johnson, which was really interesting and gave me food for thought https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzBqnhTZtjA

I had a nice and relaxing Christmas holiday. Nevertheless there were moments of confusion and stress and in such a moment I broke some plates. They were old and rare pieces that I kept for special occasions. So I felt particularly strong regret of breaking them. When I make a mistake, when an accident happens, when I lose something I immediately look for explanation, justification or guilty parts. Or rather my intelligent mind engages, it takes over and creates stories trying to explain and process the situation. It thinks. It also tries to think positively according to the fashionable trends. So I was telling myself that these plates were only material things, probably destined to be destroyed anyway and that I should not attach myself to the material world particularly that I am a mindfulness practitioner. But this is a misunderstanding of mindfulness and meditation. It is not about thinking, it is about being with what is present. So what is really present in such a moment? The truth is that thoughts come later and what is and stays is a pang of pain, anger, disappointment, sadness and irritation. I use my mind to name these feelings but they appear first not on my mind but in my body; my energy system is reacting with bodily sensations to the “tragedy” of losing something precious. It feels. And to “process” it, to console it I have to turn to my body not to my thoughts. So I sit with these feelings. I meditate. I allow myself to sense the pain, the anger, the sadness and the grief without judging and explaining it intellectually. And I can also go even further: I can allow for what has happened to happen. I can face, recognize and feel a discomfort of losing something. I am very grateful to my teacher GP Walsh for this training. It is not easy and it takes some practice and preparation to get there. But due to that I can let the energy do its stuff, I can let go of sorrows and sufferings that would keep me in the past for days, months or years. I don’t need to dwell on feelings intellectually because I allow myself to experience them, to acknowledge them and be with them as long as they and not my ego need. And this acknowledgement is a way to approach a situation of losing something. It doesn’t mean that I will forget, it means that my life and body will not be paralyzed by that memory whenever it appears. There is no judgement in meditation, there is only unconditional acceptance.

As we start to get back to some normality after the Festive Season setting goals and achieving them is a part of getting back into the swing of life. New Year’s “Resolutions” – Did you make some and will you keep them? Most of us have made a number of New Year’s Resolutions throughout our lives, yet practically every resolution is broken a short time after being made. Why is this failure in achieving resolutions so common and what effect does it have on our life, health and wellbeing. Why do we tell ourselves “This year it will be different”? What is discovered is that human “steam,” or “willpower” is not always enough to drive our mind and body to comply with the desire to change or achieve new goals. Therefore, we are soon back in the same destructive behaviour that we are so accustomed to. So why is it so hard for people to change their habits and attain success in their resolutions? Because change is difficult! One cannot help but ask, “What is the harm in wanting to change negative aspects of my life?” There is nothing wrong with aspiring to improve oneself. This desire to overcome weaknesses and problems is a proper attribute. However, it is a mindset that one should have all year long—actively trying to overcome every day and not just starting on January 1st and lasting just a few days at best. So what are the benefits of achieving these resolutions? If you manage to keep these promises, it will help make you feel better about yourself. Feeling better about yourself helps create Happiness and also helps promote better Health and Wellbeing. One of the greatest achievements of all is living a Happy, Healthy fulfilling life with a purpose. We are better as a whole person with balance of Mind, Body, Spirit and Emotions. • A better attitude • A positive mindset • Balanced emotions • A healthier lifestyle (eating/exercise) • Better family relationships • Successful job/careers May we all therefore, find new joys in living our lives with a purpose. “The purpose of life is to live it, to taste experience to the utmost, to reach out eagerly and without fear for newer and richer experience.” ― Eleanor Roosevelt HOLISTIC COUNSELLING – HELPING YOU ACHIEVE YOUR GOALS FOR 2016(Individual and Group Coaching) – Workshops starting soon ……… Various Locations or to suit individual needs.

Life is becoming ever increasingly fearful as old patterns and ways of being no longer work for us, natural forces destroy our homesteads and people try their best to take away our feelings of safety, freedom and integrity. We feel the joy, love and excitement of our life slowly leaving our being and we surrender to a feeling of failure.  BUT… something within recognises the game that we believe we are trapped in and reminds us there is indeed more to life than the Human Game that keeps us moving backwards and forwards between feeling bad and feeling good… feeling failure and feeling success… feeling small and feeling grand, which makes us dependent on others and a slave to our physical, mental, emotional circumstance. AND… we finally get it and allow our self to expand our consciousness that allows us to see the bigger picture and able to choose to be inspired, to imagine and be our Magnificent Self. Magnificence means… to be brilliant, excellent, grand, impressive, lavish, outstanding, splendid, glittering, elegant, noble, stately, striking, sublime, sumptuous, superb, commanding, elevated, exalted, high-minded, imperial, luxurious, magnanimous, magnetic, majestic, plush, posh, proud, radiant, regal, splendent, royal, rich, smashing, standout, superior, superlative, swanky, transcendent. When we allow ourself to perceive the bigger picture we can know that our existence is both physical and non-physical, the latter being a part of All That Is, the Magnificent Consciousness… Creation itself… Pure Love and Unity… Consciousness and Energy that has a neutral value and exists in abundance so that we can experience most sensually love, passion and joy and be able to celebrate in each moment our Magnificent Self that attracts more of what we are and desire to experience, for the good of all. My first book Your Magnificent Self… A Journey to Freedom was written to remind myself of my extra-ordinary and imaginative journey that I created and made it possible for me to finally get it. My Journey turns into a magnificent love story as my Human Self and my Divine Self integrate as one and are inspired to imagine and create our heart and soul desires, experiencing true happiness of being that can only bring about our grand vision of DivineHumanBeings, one heart at a time, living a life of harmony and joy in freedom on the New Earth… here on the physical plane. We are all unique and we will all get it when we allow ourselves to be open, curious and question our self and our life. I know my journey will inspire others to perceive and imagine their grandest vision being their most Magnificent Master Creator Self. 9 Magnificent ways to expand your consciousness and perceive the bigger picture… Choose to always feel joyous, loving, wise and free… Your Magnificent Self Breathe deeply the Conscious Breath and be mindful of who you are, observe your thoughts and emotions and be aware of the awareness behind your identity… your IAM presence and Divine Self. Be aware of when you feel good and feel bad, feeling good means you are aligned with your Divine Self, feeling bad means your Divine Self loves you and is gently guiding you back home. Ask yourself what is keeping you away from home and if it serves you now. Be selective of what you watch, listen to and involve yourself with, does it inspire you? Take care of and be compassionate with yourself first. Receive and Give, be aware of the flow in your life. Be ever grateful for all of yourself and all of your life, everything has a place and allows you to experience. Connect to your Environment in a way you enjoy and know that you are a part of it all. Imagine and visualise what brings you great joy and passion, feel it deeply within and allow yourself to be that joy and passion. Hear Ye… Hear Ye…Oyez… Fellow Human Beings… Exciting times are now upon us… It is time to put our physical dual reality into perspective… It has served us well… we have great experiences with the light and the dark… Discovering how to play, have fun, be inspired and create… Exploring what we like and want more of… With the conscious breath we can allow ourself to absorb this now crystalline time and expand beyond the mind and physical reality and discover our heart and soul’s desire and be the DivineHumanBeing IAM. Barbara Franken… Creative Visionary and Master Creator Inspiring New Energy Consciousness ‘Consciousness expands and Humankind takes a quantum leap into the unknown as they discover how to go beyond seduction, limitation, the ailing and ageing body and the death trigger. They enjoy living and creating as Loving DivineHumanBeings in a time-less space of freedom and an expanding field of potential where they experience rejuvenation, abundance and an infinite flow of pure love and joy.’ ‘Allow my DivineHuman story to resonate with your heart and soul, and transcend you beyond religion, science and spirituality into the depths of your own Magnificent Consciousness; the timeless and sacred space of infinite potential’. Barbara Franken, DivineHuman Master Creator   Purchase the Book from Amazon

I will be attending The Aspire 2016 M.A.D. Global Leadership Programme in London 25-27/1 !!  see details at http://www.aspirewomen.co.uk/index.php/events/event_details/the_aspire_2016_mad_global_leadership_programme. I’m attending this as a M.A.D. (Make A Difference) woman starting a new project (my current contract ends in 2017)  and looking forward to Connect, Inspire, Support, Enable women  … … sounds familiar? … ..  Thanks Ali for inspiring us!!  

My husband and I made the decision to leave the US about 2 months ago now. We each went straight into research mode after that. He is a software developer (read: professional nerd), so his tack was to start gathering and reconciling numbers, trying to figure out where in the world we can afford to live the way we want. My method leaned more toward learning about different cultures and ways of life that I thought I could tolerate, finding a place I’d want to live, being rather introverted and laid back myself, but live affordably, because I’m the tightwad between us. There was definitely more than one country of interest to us, but eventually we settled on Spain. There are so many reasons why Spain, not the least of which is that I am actually of Spanish heritage. We have finally settled on three locations within Spain to explore on our first visit; Valencia, Alicante, and the Axarquia area east of Malaga. Thanks to Costa Women, I have already made a friend in Spain that I’m really enjoying exchanging emails with, and I have started making some professional contacts, such as a realtor in Valencia. Since we are attempting to make our first visit during the first three weeks of March, I’m hoping to gather more professional contacts for these areas, rather quickly. The Valencia realtor, Graham Hunt (let me just pimp his youtube channel here for a moment, because I found his videos very informative – https://www.youtube.com/user/Valprop) has given me some specific areas based on our criteria to help narrow down our search within Valencia, but I still need someone to help point out similar areas in Axarquia and Alicante. Many discussions have been had (and oh so many more to come!), comparing and contrasting our notes, constantly making sure we are on the same page and reaffirming that this is really happening! Calling it daunting would be an understatement! My husband and I both are feeling it. First daunting task, what do we do with all our stuff?! We have more than just our own household’s worth of ‘stuff’ to sort through and deal with. Both our moms passed away fairly recently, leaving us with all of their belongings. We’re tackling it slowly but surely, and making good progress. I even have my (grown) kids’ rooms just about gutted. The fire is definitely lit here! I’ve gotten some of our friends in on this, to help move and sell stuff, with friends getting first dibs on everything we’re selling. I’ve received the gamut of responses about the move, from  real anger that we’re leaving them behind, to being happy and excited for us, and everything in between. So while they are pissed that I’m leaving them, they are looking forward to gathering cheap or free stuff for themselves before we go, as well as future European vacations with accommodations already made. As an introvert, it is not my natural inclination to make anything about me public, but I am doing it for two reasons. First, I’m hoping that others will find my experience helpful as they move forward in their own journeys. Second, I have a feeling I’d kick myself if I didn’t document this just so I can look back on it and see my progress. This is a pretty huge life event, after all. It’s a little scary, but really exciting! Just remember, Breathe.