Motivation Mondays-Ripples

Why is everyone talking about ripples?

All weekend long, no matter where I went or what I was doing, conversations about ripples continued to surround me.  Whether it was a nerd talk about ripples in time, a kiddo noticing ripples in water, or people mentioning the ripples of flowers blooming in people's yards, it kept coming up.  It wasn't bothersome, but instead just enough to be noticeable.  I started questioning why there was so much talk about ripples.  It was obvious that I was supposed to be paying attention to something.

I'm trying this new thing where I start each morning with motivational 'me' time.  Well, not so much me time, but more carving out space to

Oh, the NOISE!

begin each day present in the moment.  The theory is that if I let go of the to-do lists, the looming things I didn't get done the day before, and the chaos of daily life and sit quietly, my day will go more smoothly.  In the beginning I tried to start each day meditating, but life had me so bogged down that I couldn't even complete a simple meditation exercise like looking at something and closing my eyes to see how long I could hold it in my mind's eye.  Zero long.  The second my eyes closed, the squirrels started chirping about all of the things I wasn't doing, the people who depended on me, and the noise....it was like being trapped in

The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is an actual
church.  No judgement please.

that space between radio stations where something almost comes in, but not really, so you keep turning the dial until hopefully the next one comes in more clearly.  It was obvious that I needed some real help, because there was no quieting this ADHD mind.

My next idea was to go to the library and find some motivational books.  Not books about being motivated, but books that had little bits of motivation that I could spend a few minutes on each day pondering over....which brings us to this morning, and back to the ripple effect.

I don't know if you believe in God, or Buddha, or the flying spaghetti monster, but sometimes something tries so hard to get your attention that it will continue to smack you in the face until you get it.  For me, I clearly believe it's God, and he is trying to tell me something on more than one level.

Motivation Roulette page from 'Ordinary Sparkling Moments'
by Christine Mason Miller

The book I chose to crack open this morning is called "Ordinary Sparkling Moments".  Te cover was beautiful, and it's filled with pages of mixed media art and small sections of beautifully hand written inspiration.  This book was right up my alley.

Being me, I flipped through the first couple of pages doing a thing I like to call 'inspirational roulette'.  The page I landed on had this to say:

"When we focus our energy towards constructing a passionate, meaningful life, we are tossing a pebble into the world, creating a beautiful ripple...."

I feel like a fly trapped between two windowpanes.

You see, the past couple of months have gotten me bogged down, and I can't figure out why.  My Damsel in Defense business is growing quickly, there are big things on the horizon, and I should be ecstatic about what is going on...but still, I'm bogged down.  I feel like a fly trapped between two windowpanes.  I'm tired.  I feel like I'm being pulled in a million directions, and none of them have my full attention.

I started trying to spend the beginning of the day present in the moment and only asking myself 3 questions:  1.What does my husband need today?  2. What do my children need today?  3. What does my business need today?

Start with the beat
of your heart

I realized through the ripples of ripple conversations and by opening this book that I had it all wrong.  I wasn't supposed to spend my 'me' time every morning asking what everyone else needed, I was supposed to spend it beginning with me.  Not in a selfish way, but in a very literal way: With the beat of my heart.  With the breath in my lungs.  The ripple begins there and is carried outward.  The ripple begins with me.  Once my clarity is realized, I can then carry that ripple into my day.  If I don't give myself the gift of resetting my own biological rhythms, how can I expect to inspire, nurture, or grow?

This reset doesn't have to take long.  You don't have to create a special space for it.  You can do it laying in bed, in the shower, or sitting in a crazy yoga pose on a cliff overlooking the ocean.  The beauty is that you get to choose, no matter what is going on in the external parts of your life, what kind of ripple you create.

How much negativity did you send into the world today?

What kind of ripple did you create today?  Did you start the day complaining about the weather or the fact that it's Monday?  Did you start the day beating yourself up for not achieving your goals yesterday?  Did you start the morning a raging ball of stress because you know what you're going to face today?  Did you rush your kids around frantically sending them out into the world as balls of stress today?  How much negativity did you send out into the world in the first 5 minutes of being awake?  The first ten?  The first hour?

Here's your Monday Motivational Challenge:
Tomorrow, spend at least 1 minute listening to your heart beat with your hand on your chest.  Then spend one minute listening to the breath fill your lungs.  Then ask yourself, "What ripple do I want to send into the world today?"  Stay still until you can feel your answer, then pray/meditate/do what you do about it.

After you feel centered, write down the answers to these 4 questions:

What do I need to send out today for my

1. relationship?
2. family?
3. business?
4. friendships?

If you're feeling brave, share about how your day went by emailing Sunshine@YourDamselDiva.com

The Invisible Woman by Nicole Johnson

Nicole Johnson is one of my favorite dramatists in the world.  I hope you enjoy her too.  Learn more about her at freshbrewedlife.com

Beyond the gasp-the death of shame

When I look at the blessings in my life, there is one thing that seems to ring true about all of them:  They came from something hard.

This weekend was one of the biggest blessings I have ever encountered, and it was born from the hardest thing I have ever done.  You see, my life isn't all sunshine and rainbows.  Most of it has been Sunshine and survival.  Shame has been my arch nemesis.

Let me introduce you to Shame.  Shame is the meanest kid on the playground.  He’s the worst boss you've ever had, and trust me, some of you know I've had a pretty terrible boss.  Shame leads you down the wrong paths, laughs at you in your darkest moments, and tells you that if you tell on it, it will take you down.  Shame keeps us from growing, stops our brains from developing, and can leave us trembling in fear.  Shame is Satan’s right hand.

I have met Shame several times in my life.  As a matter of fact, Shame has stared me down in the stillness of the night after enduring something terrible and whispered into my ear enough times that it was all my fault that I believed it for a long time because I hung on every word Shame said to me.  Shame was my comfort blanket, my best friend, and the justification I had for stupid choices.

 

About a year ago, my church women’s group asked me to testify.  I was terrified.  No, terrified would be like finding out I was going on a dream vacation compared to how I felt.  There’s not a word that describes the horror.  For the first time, I had to put on paper all of the things I’d been hiding in this big invisible box on my back.  I cried and agonized over it for a month before I finally got it all out, and even then, there were things I left out because Shame held a gun to my head and told me that my sisters would never want to talk to me again if they knew….fill in the blank. 

I got it all down on paper, and I read it for time, because I had 45 minutes to speak….and I had to stop at three hours and wondered how in the heck I would cram it all in.  I cut out everything I possibly could and somehow got it to 50 minutes, and I went with it. 

That testimony was a train wreck.  I held the paper to my face and just read and cried, and one of my Christian sisters named Jean funneled clean tissue and held a garbage bag for my dirty ones.  I must have dropped 25 pounds of my DNA into that garbage bag.  When it was over, I wanted to run.  I was naked.  I was exposed.   I was sure everyone would just stare at me and leave.

Instead, women stopped me in the halls for weeks and thanked me for freeing them.  They called me things like brave and strong, courageous and inspiring.  I didn't feel those words.  I felt naked and alone, exposed and undone.  Shame still peeked at me from dark corners and called to me in my dreams.  One thing I didn't feel though was the weight from the box that I no longer packed around on my shoulders. 

After some weeks went by, I started to walk a little taller.  I began to realize that God chose me to be the person in this body in this life because he knew I would run with it.  He knew I would set a bonfire in the darkness and lead my people to freedom.  He knew I would wage war on Shame and stalk it like a lion stalks her prey.  He knew I would form an army of survivors who would light up the dark places so Shame had nowhere to hide.

A few months ago, I was asked to share a snippet of my story.  I did, because a snippet was much better than the whole thing, and when people read it, I can’t see them.  Perfect. 

Again, the messages of hope, light, and courage inspired me, but I still couldn't use those words for myself.

Then, a little more than a month ago, one of the Co-founders of Damsel in Defense, Mindy Lin, asked if I would speak at our national convention….but I could say no.

Left to right: Bethany Hughes, Mindy Lin
Co-Founders of Damsel in Defense

Let me tell you a little something about the Co-founders of Damsel in Defense.  Mindy and Bethany are brave, strong, courageous, beautiful, amazing, inspiring leaders.  They have done hard things.  They have gone to the Philippines to one of the worst red light districts in the world and have seen and done hard things.  They are so strong and inspiring that thousands of women have joined their mission, including me.  I could not be the one to tell them no, that I wasn't going to do hard things!  I had to say yes!

Again, I had to reframe my story to fit in a 5-7 minute time frame, and I couldn't get it to go under 9 minutes and 44 seconds.  I sent it off to Mindy and the response I got back shocked me.  She was so torn up, so moved, and her world was so rocked that I could take all the time I needed.  So I let the nearly ten minute testimony cool.  Shame was using every method of communication to try and convince me to change my mind, but I knew Mindy wouldn't have asked me if it wasn't relevant to the mission.  I leaned into God and He whispered in my ear that I am stronger than I think I am.  For the first time, I started to believe Him.

Then the weekend came.  I was in Boise, soaking in everything Damsel in Defense, falling more and more in love with the company, building relationships with amazing strong warriors, and Shame was peeking at me from every doorway, every corner, and every shadow.  I tried and tried to ignore him, but it was getting harder and harder.  Then testimony time came.

I watched three brave women take the stage and pour out their souls all over that crowd.  They were brave.  They were strong.  They were beautiful.  I felt like a toad.  I felt like I would get up there and croak out all of this ugliness, then we would all stand in line and jump off a cliff because we couldn't take hearing that much filth, darkness, and pain. 

My team, the Red Hots from left to right: Amber,
Sunshine(me) , Karin , Judi, and Kyla

My team rallied around me and told me I was brave, and strong, and beautiful, and courageous, and that I was about to change lives.  I didn't believe them.  I thought I was the weird kid in the corner.

Then my name was called, and I made my way up to that stage and said my first word into the microphone, proving that the moment was real. 

The first half of my testimony is hard.  It’s gut wrenchingly terribly hard, but every time I testify, there is this moment in my 12^th year of age that there is a gasp.  It is a gasp so deep that I literally feel the air being sucked from my lungs into everyone else’s.  In that gasp, I try to decide whether or not I can escape.  It may only be a three second moment of silence before I go on, but in those three seconds, I have come up with 25 routes of escape, envisioned myself throwing the microphone and running away, and come to a realization that if I stop now, there will be a mass suicide.  I cannot leave anyone holding that much pain inside of their lungs. I have to go on.  And I do, because I come to a realization that beyond the gasp is where the beauty in the breakdown of my life begins.  The story of Shame then becomes the story of me.  The story of an overcomer.  The story of a survivor.

After I was done, there was a moment while I waited for Mindy to come take that pesky microphone from me, and we hugged and I felt it….I felt the death of Shame. 

Over the next few hours, dozens of women were freed.  Shame was nowhere to be found.  Women broke into groups and shared their stories, some for the first time ever.  Many hugs, tears, and words were shared, bonds were formed, and warriors put down their heavy boxes and picked up their weapons.  We came to this conference afraid, shameful, terrified of ourselves, but knowing there was something larger.  We left strong, bold, brave warriors ready to lead others out of the darkness and into the light. 

We aren't just people who sell stun guns and pepper sprays.  We are bringers of the light, pushers of the darkness, and carriers of faith.

I know I'm going to be asked to share again again.  I know my work is not done.  I'm a little more comfortable in my own skin now, and I clearly understand my mission. 

If you’re ready to share your story of survival, you’re not alone.  We can help.  You can contact me directly at sunshine@yourdamseldiva.com.  Together we can make a difference.

Wonder Woman Wednesday-A sex trafficking victim speaks out

Wonder Woman Wednesday

Welcome to the first Wonder Woman Wednesday!  Wednesday blog posts are now going to be featuring women who have beat the odds, raised awareness, and gone out on a limb to make a difference in the lives of others.

They may not have an invisible jet or lasso of truth, but they are true wonder women because they have something more important-they are overcomers who have set aside their own shame, embarrassment, sorrow, and pain to help others.

Some of us were put here to be doctors, some of us were put here to be astronauts, and some of us were put here to build wondrous works of art.  Others of us were put here to lead the broken out of the darkness and into the light.   

Today's story comes from a girl named Alex who was brave enough to share her story and spread awareness about sex trafficking.  Please help me lift her up as you glean as much as you can from her story.

Do you know of an overcomer?  Are YOU an overcomer?  Submit your story to sunshine@yourdamseldiva.com and you may be one of our featured Wonder Woman Wednesday stories.

As a Damsel in Defense Independent Pro, I am dedicated to helping women stay safe, and I'm also dedicated to shining a light in the darkness and helping you be an overcomer.  If you feel like you are ready to get help, I can direct you to resources and safety information.  If you're ready to join the mission of Damsel in Defense, I can show you how to join my team and become part of the light that shines.
Go to  yourdamseldiva.com for more information.

Motivational Mondays-I hate Mondays

Every Monday, the same thing happens.  Everyone drags their feet, grumbles about the fact that it's Monday, and sets themselves up for a negative unproductive day.

As a society, we've made it appropriate to hate the beginning of the week simply because we have to go back to our jobs from a long lazy weekend....or more likely, we're exhausted from a crazy two days of shuttling kids from event to event, running around like crazy people, and trying to cram in as much playing into 48 hours as we possibly can.

No wonder we hate Mondays.

How can you expect to have a productive week if you and everyone around you starts it out with anger, resentment, disgust, hate, and loathing?   You can't!  

Whatever you put out into the world is what comes back to you.  If you fill your environment with negativity and your feed with negative memes, what happens to you as a business owner?  Your Mondays will never be good because you have created a negative connotation, would you agree or disagree?

At some point, if you want to start your week off successfully, you are going to have to shift your perception.  It won't be easy, because it's been beaten into us that Mondays are bad.  Many of us grew up believing they were the worst day of the week because our parents always said it was.  Changing a pathway in the field of your brain is going to take more than just agreeing with me.

You're going to have to work at it.  You're going to have to remind yourself every Sunday night that tomorrow is Monday, and it is going to be the most amazing day.  You have to do it every single week until it becomes habit.   When you wake up in the morning, you're going to have to remind yourself to get excited, and you're going to have to send a ripple into the universe that says, "Guess what?  I no longer hate Mondays!  I accept them, I love them, and I refuse to squander the gift of an entire day!"


And change your memes.  

Once you take the steps to reclaim Monday, something amazing is going to happen.  You're going to accomplish tasks, you're going to be productive, and if your business runs on a 5-day work week, your are going to see a 20% increase in your business as a whole.

Once you take control of that day and find a reason to make it exciting, you will see a boost in your mood.  People around you will take notice and want to make the change in their own lives.  Your entire environment will become more uplifting and you will feel more fulfilled.  There will be no more spending and entire day dragging yourself around in a series of forced movements, because you refuse to let a bunch of silly cartoons and negative Nancy's get you down.  

When you shift your Monday perception, so will the rest of the people on your team.  Not only will you have 20% more productivity, so will they!  How exciting is that?

What are you waiting for?  Take your Monday back!

Sunshine O'Connor is a successful Senior Mentor of a Damsel in Defense team working as a Damsel in Defense Independent Pro.  If you're looking or a crime-fighting team with a heart, contact her at sunshine@yourdamseldiva.com or on the web at yourdamseldiva.com.

My sister, the angel

From left: Sharon, me.

Today I miss my sister. I would give anything to spend another day with her. I would give anything for her to meet my babies. I'm working on the story of my life before I submit it for publishing, and today I'm working on her chapter. At the same time, 'A Thousand Years' by Christina Perri is playing in the background, and I was completely stopped in my tracks.


 I would like to share an excerpt of the untitled story of my life:

Sharon, who technically was my cousin, was really my long lost soul sister.  When I think of her, I see hot summer dust filled days spent together working on the farm.  I see us sneaking off on our horses for whole days, off exploring the desert.  I see the one person in my life who was strong enough to break me, yet delicate enough to hold me when I cried.  I think of her rocking herself to sleep every night because her childhood was also filled with trauma.  Those tender moments when the darkness set in left her vulnerable, yet if you met her in the daylight, you would think twice to cross her.  She could always lift more, work faster, and was braver than I ever could be.  Sharon was the only one who really heard me both when I was talking and when I wasn’t. 

My mind wanders to the rawest day of my life.  Sharon saddled up our horses without a word.  Silently I rode behind her far out to the middle of nowhere.  No words were spoken.  Tears streamed down my face and I just wanted to crawl under a rock and die.  Even my horse could sense my despair, because she gingerly followed along without any of her usual attitude about not being the horse in front.  Finally, we came to the top of a hill, and Sharon stopped and climbed down.  It was beautiful.  You could see forever.  I climbed down, and she said, “Just scream.”  I instantly understood.  I screamed.  She leaned against a rock and watched for a while, then picked up a rock and threw it.  I followed suit and screamed and threw rocks for what seemed like days, and she silently watched me, until I fell to the ground sobbing.  Then she came over to me and put her hand on my shoulder and said, “I know.”  And we spend the rest of the afternoon crying together. 

Sharon never expected anything out of me other than to not give up.  When I didn’t think I could lift another pipe, she made me.  When I didn’t think I could lift my head off the pillow, she threw me out of bed.  When I didn’t want to participate in therapy, she came with me and held my hand.  When I didn’t want to do my chores, she followed me around and made sure they got done.  What I learned from her is how to be next to someone without taking their despair on as my own.  I learned never to give up.  I learned to carry on.  I learned to be patient, kind, strong, compassionate, and that sharing a moment didn’t need to contain words.

Just when I thought life would be better, I got a phone call.  It was my aunt sobbing hysterically.  I didn’t understand.  I didn’t know what she was saying, and then clear as day, she cried, “Sharon’s dead.”

************

  There's a long story leading up to my strength to share the story of my life with others, and Damsel in Defense is part of that.  So much growth in myself as a survivor has happened since I became part of this organization.  The mission is clear, and beautiful, and terrible, and terrifying, but if though my work I help one person, than Sharon's life, which was all too short, was for something larger than just me.  I believe she was placed in my life at the right time for a reason, and now I can pay that forward.

If any of the Damsel mission sits on your heart, please contact me for more information on how to order, join the mission, or how to get more involved, please email sunshine@yourdamseldiva.com or learn more at yourdamseldiva.com.

Motivational Monday-Are you afraid of the phone?

Let’s get real with your business today and ask the hard questions that most people in a Multi-Level Marketing company struggle with:

• Why am I so afraid of the phone?
• Why do I feel like the people on the other end of the line might kill me?
• Why does my heart pound as I wait for someone to answer but pray that I just get sent to voicemail?

Fear of the phone is a very real thing.  We feel like we’re invading people’s private space, we feel like a nuisance, and we feel like a telemarketer.

Stop right there.

You are not a telemarketer in the sense that you are not calling a random list given to you in the hopes that someone who did not reach out to you at all will set an appointment with your company.  There are no managers wandering the sales floor like sharks just waiting to see that phone in the air, hungry to hear someone yell, “CLOSER!”  That is called ‘cold calling’, or calling people who have had no previous contact with you or your company.

You aren't a robot being paid to bug people during the dinner hour trying to get them to do something you don’t want them to do.

You are calling from leads that you generated yourself, and this is called ‘warm calling’.  They would not have taken the time to fill out that slip at your event, or opt-in on your blog, or contact form on your website if they weren't willing to take a phone call from you.  As a matter of fact, it would be rude to not contact someone who obviously wanted to be contacted by your organization, and if you don’t do it, they will find someone else.

I think back to when I found Damsel in Defense.  I went to a gun show with my husband and off in the distance, I saw a big pink banner and lots of sparkles.  Like a fish to a big fancy lure, I was drawn directly to it, abandoning my husband in a sea of army green and black.  What I found was amazing!  Self-defense products for women?!?!  Stun guns in pink?!  I needed to have these things so badly.  I filled out a contact form and waited.  I called the number they gave me, and got nothing.  Three weeks went by and I began to get frustrated, and almost gave up on the company as a whole, but just before I did, I contacted the corporate number and said, “Don’t you want my money?!”  They reassured me that someone else would be contacting me shortly.

Lucky for me, the person who contacted me was amazing.  She did two parties for me before I decided it was the company for me, and she turned out to be an amazing mentor and is now my Director, and I have worked my way up to Senior Mentor.

Was the original gal afraid of the phone?  I’ll never know, but she didn't get my business or me as a teammate because I didn't receive the call I was expecting to get.

So, the next time you sit down with your stack of leads and get ready to give them a call, think of each one of them as me, jumping up and down waiting for you, wishing desperately that you would call me so I can learn more about the products, about you, and ultimately about the company. 

What are you waiting for?

If you're ready to learn more about Damsel in Defense, email me at susnhine@yourdamseldiva.com or find me on the web at yourdamseldiva.com.  Let's chat about your future!

Shine bright like a diamond

Reach your full potential

There is something terrible lurking about.  It’s everywhere, watching all of us, waiting for that moment when it can pounce and take us down.  It seeps into our work life, our family life, our faith, and our self-worth.  It’s dark, it’s ugly, and it won’t hesitate to tear you apart without missing a beat.  

The beast I speak of is doubt.

I battle with doubt, and I feel ashamed.  I doubt myself, I doubt my faith, and I doubt my ability as a wife, a mother, and a human in general.  Doubt is like a terrible companion that overstays its welcome.  Like a family member who I can’t tell to leave, doubt sits next to me while I eat my breakfast.  It walks with me when I do my job.  It stares at me through judgmental eyes as I go about my daily activities.

While this evil little twerp called doubt sits on my shoulders, I look at people around me and feel less than them.  I look at women in my field, and I feel like they should be the ones doing this, because I am totally clueless.  I look at women of faith, and I wonder why they can stand up and be so strong when I feel like I don’t deserve God’s grace.  I watch other moms, and I feel like they are doing a much better job than me.  Worse yet, I see other wives and feel like a fraud. 

Then I grab that sucker off my back and I drown him in the sink. 

Everyone comes face –to-face with doubt.  It can eat you alive from the inside if you don’t first recognize it, then kill it, and realize that like a good parasite, it will find you again when you least expect it.  There are some great practices you can put into place to help you pull yourself back to safety when doubt wears you down.

•    Keep a pamper basket on hand- Think of your very favorite things.  Your favorite scented lotion, your favorite color of fingernail polish, your favorite place to eat, your favorite place to shop, and any of your other favorite things.  Keep pampering products, gift certificates to your favorite places, and a sweet treat in your pamper basket.  When you feel doubt start to take you down, pull it out and spoil yourself.
• Take a break-Step back for a while.  Sink into a book like The Confidence Gap: AGuide to Overcoming Fear and Self-Doubt by Russ Harris. 
• Keep a goal journal-Write down your goals and journal about your achievements, and when you doubt yourself, pull that journal out and remind yourself of what you've done.
• Talk to your support system-We have a great slogan in our Damselin Defense sisterhood, “When you’re feeling up, call down, when you’re feeling down, call up”.  What that means is that when you are feeling up, call your down line and help them with their success.  When you’re feeling down, call your recruiter, and keep calling right up the line until you get the wind back in your sails.  If you’re feeling doubt as a mom, call another mom.  If you’re feeling doubt as a wife, call another wife.  If you’re feeling doubt in your faith, call another believer.  Reach out to the people in your circle and let them know you’re struggling.  I promise they’ll help.
• Meditate-Take some time to close your eyes and refocus.  Come back in line with who you are.  Picture yourself achieving your goals.  Imagine yourself in the role you want to be in.

Doubt may be watching and ready for you at any time, but if you’re ready for it, you won’t even loose entire days any more.  It starts with you.  First you have to take the initiative to make changes in your patterns.  After that, the sky is the limit.

If you’re ready to reach your full potential, email sunshine@yourdamseldiva.com  to learn more about joining a company that puts the mission first.

How to get rid of negative labels in your life

"Sometimes I feel like a kid walking around in my mom’s clothes."

It’s a form of insecurity that sneaks up on a lot of us.  Questions are born in these moments when we’re unsure we’re even in our own skin. 

Will they discover I’m a fraud?

How long will it take for everyone to see through me?

What am I doing?

Do I even know what I'm doing here?

Am I a fraud?

Then come the labels.  Fake.  Fraud.  Doppelganger.  Then those labels plant seeds that grow into bigger labels:

•   Idiot
•   Failure
•   Liar
•   Looser  
• Worthless
• Incapable
• Ugly

 These moments happen far too often to far too many people to be ignored.  Let’s not only talk about the elephant in the room, but let’s train it to do our laundry.  Our dirty laundry.

First, everyone fails at something.  Some of us are better than others at recovering from landing in the bottom of pitfalls.  Maybe our parents let us fail enough as children then led us through the path to resilience.  Maybe we have always been strong.  Maybe we have overcome something in our lives so massive that we realized our full potential.  Some of us are not as good at recovering, and we have to wallow in the mud for a while.  Some of us never recover and learn to live in a dark damp world void of light.  The most amazing thing about being a human is that we can change our trajectory at any time.  

 I want you to think about the five most successful people you know.  Use your own definition of success, but really picture them.  Close your eyes and spend some time thinking about them.  Now take out your handy dandy notebook and write down the first five words about their successful personality that come to your mind.

Guess what?  They have failed before.  We cannot achieve success without first overcoming failure.  

Second, you are not a fake.  Unless you have a fake name on your ID and are pretending to be a person other than the one you were born being, and you're not trying to flee from a deadly abuser or in the witness protection program, you are not fake.  The key to being real is becoming comfortable in your own skin.  The first step to becoming comfortable in your own skin is to accept that you are an imperfect beautiful creation.  Even your flaws are beautiful.  People who know you think you're beautiful.  I think you’re beautiful.  

I want you to think of the most successful person you know.  The one that commands a room the moment they enter it and is unafraid to speak with anyone they come in contact with.  They aren’t afraid to ask the hard closing questions, and everything they do turns into something that benefits them, almost as if they have the superpower of bending the will of others.

Guess what?  You are as real as they are.  Cell by cell, breath by breath, follicle by follicle.  Now, I want you to close your eyes again and imagine yourself walking into that same room and filling it with confidence.  Visualize your confidence as a drop of pink food coloring in a clear glass of water.  Slowly, it stretches through every molecule until the glass is entirely filled with pink water.  Really feel everyone in that room respecting you.  Imagine yourself laughing and mingling, rubbing elbows with all of the beautiful people.  Imagine them all wanting to be near you and hear what you have to say, because they want to be like you and to be liked by you. Then, I want you to close your eyes and remember that feeling every time you get ready to walk into a situation where you might feel like you don’t know what you’re doing.  Fill that room with the pinkness of your confidence and use that as the lens you view life through.  There's truth to the old saying about rose colored glasses.

The only people who don’t succeed are the people who were sure they would fail before they even got started.  It might not have even been a conscious though, but on some level of their being those labels are still sticking.  You will never succeed if you let labels like fake and failure rise up above you like real life conversation bubbles.  

I don’t care if you think you’re too awkward, too tall, too fat, if you hate your nose, or if you are too afraid to pick up the phone and talk to your customers, first you identify your pitfalls, then find a way to work around them without falling in.  Any shape and size of person can walk into any room of people with the right attitude and confidence and win.  The image you project of yourself in your own mind is the image others will see.  

The next time you feel like a kid in grown up’s clothes, picture an elephant in a pink apron hanging your clean laundry on the line, and remember that you are real.  You are beautiful.  Put on your rose colored glasses.  Change your labels.  You are:

• Amazing
• Beautiful
• Successful
• Worthy
• Capable
• Respected
• Trusted
• Loved

If you're looking for a group of amazing women who can help you realize your full potential, please email sunshine@yourdamseldiva.com and find out how you can join my Damsel in Defense team.  Head over to my Facebook page and join the safety community.