Not Another Manic Monday

“ I Love Mondays: 1. A fresh start; 2. The chance to set a new tone for the rest of the week., 3. A great day to be alive!”

            It’s Monday on Week 4 of Quarantine Life.  How’s everyone holding up?  Today feels kind of heavy for me.  It’s like we had this auspicious holiday yesterday that usually uplifts and is a time for resurrection.  Today is Monday.  Nothing has changed for the most part. It’s a lot of just taking one day at a time and waiting and seeing. Does this mean we have to be glum?  No, we can turn this around.  Let’s start right here and now.

            Yes, we are in uncertain times.  Yes, we have no clue what the future holds but I, for one, am ready to make some changes in my life.  The frustrating thing is I’m ready now, but the world is closed down and I can’t leave the house. Where does this leave me?  With time to craft these changes so that they are the best decisions yet.  It also gives me time to work on my goals and dreams.  We are all on this carousel of uncertainty, but we can make the best of these times and think about what we want, instead of what we don’t want.

            Honor your feelings and emotions right now. We are all dealing with certain stages of grief, frustration and for me, the other day, anger.  Like hot, red anger.  I breathed my way through it, recognized what it was and pushed it out of my sphere.  It will come back.  I’m certain but I won’t try and stuff it down. I’ll reach in, look it right in the eye and see what in my life needs to be changed in order to move it through.  I have some great meditation tools that I am happy to share with you!

            We can make little shifts here and there that amount to a big result.  Small is the new big!  If we try and make big changes right now, we are most likely setting ourselves up for a failure and that won’t help in this day and age.  Focus on the solutions instead of the problem.  What action steps can you take today to start moving you towards that ultimate goal?  Some folks have been asking me lately what their ultimate goal is. I can’t answer that for you but can give you some tips and tools.  For example, what is something that keeps coming to mind whilst in house arrest?  Do you fixate on HGTV shows (okay I do)?  Maybe that’s where your career lies.  There are all aspects of real estate that you can go into.  There’s house flipping, buying, selling, renovations, mortgages, etc.  If you keep coming back to this channel again and again, guess what?  You most likely have a passion for all things real estate. Start researching what that would take as a career instead of watching so much of it on television.

            Listen, I get it. I’m here with you during this quarantine. I’m feeling the feelings, shifting the thoughts and processing the grief and anger like most of you are.  It’s great to process feelings but just don’t unpack your bags there.  Keep it moving.  Watch them as if they are movie and say thank you, thank you, next.  We can either be victims or victors in this thing called life. Which group do you want to be in?

Until My Next Adventure,

Trish Walker

Park City, UT

Check out my “Act As If” program at my website www.trishwalker.us.  Set yourself up for success on the other end of world events.  Who do you want to be when we step into our new normal?

Act As If....

Act as if it already happened! Because that's what sets the tone for your future and where you want it to go. 

            I don’t know about you, but these last few weeks in my life have felt rather surreal.  We went from daily life to wondering if the folks passing us in the grocery store are someone we know because their faces are covered up in masks.  I had the idea yesterday to write my name and a smile on my mask.  We have a new normal folks and it’s here to stay for a while. How are you going to make the best of it?

            I seem to be going through the different stages of grief. The first week home, my son and I were like okay this isn’t so bad, we can hang in our jammies and eat all day.  My son told me that he’s trained his whole life for this.  He loves being online with his friends all day.  Week 1 went by in a blur, as did Week 2.  By Week 3, I started to have feelings of grief and disbelief.  I was mourning and didn’t even know it.  I was mourning that I couldn’t just run to the grocery store for something quick. It felt kind of like when my son was a newborn and you have those pangs of not being able to go anywhere suddenly or quickly because you have the car seat, baby, diapers.  Things have to be thought out in a much more hygienic way.

            We settled into a new routine at the start of this week.  It was while I was lying in bed last night that I got a very clear message that simply had three words to it. “Act As If…”.  What the heck does that even mean Universe?  Act As If…… I’ve since woken up, had my coffee and sat down with my journal to explore that a bit more in detail.  What my interpretation is, don’t wait for the hard stop.  Don’t wait to do things until this “time in history” is over.  Start doing life differently now.

            If we stay in action, our days will become more productive.  If we stay in action, we can start moving our lives toward what we want to be when we come out of all of this.  It’s not going to be that we just wake up one day and everything goes back to “normal”. I’m here to tell you folks that that is not going to happen. It may be more of a gradual re-awakening.  Businesses we once loved, may be no more.  It may make space for other things to come in that we love more.  All we can do during these days is to create our own future.  One of my favorite sayings is, “If you don’t know what the future holds, then create the future yourself.”.  Say that out loud and think about how empowering that is.

            I love to help folks. I love to help them shift their mindsets, businesses, futures, etc.  With that in mind, I’ve decided to offer a six-week program called “Act As If”.  I want to be here for you during this time of homebound days.  By keeping you accountable to your goals/dreams, you can stay on track to step out of this trying time in history and into your new normal.  Who do you want to be when this is all over?  What would you have done differently if you knew this was going to happen?

            Six weeks of weekly phone calls, energy clearings, and constant email support for you during a time when you may be starting to think that things will have to be different.  Different times mean different operating systems.  Our weekly phone calls will be 30 minutes of accountability, downloads and next right steps.  I’m doing a similar program with my coach and it has been immensely helpful for keeping me on track and for those days when I do veer off track, it resets me rather quickly.

If you want to know more or are interested, reach out to me via Messenger.  You can email me at pwalker2650@gmail.com.

Until My Next Adventure,

Trish Walker

Park City, UT

Really, Braces at my Age?

I am not quite sure if this qualifies as an adventure, but my quest this week is going to be to finally get braces after years of having my teeth bonded in front. I have a huge David Letterman-style gap in my front teeth. I have fought it for years. I finally realized last month that it was time. Can you imagine I am 50 and will have braces for the very first time ever?   In order to do these braces, my current bonding has to be taken off leaving me with a huge gap. I cannot imagine what this will look like but am just going to go for it. Enough with the cover-up. This is kind of a metaphor. I have been working through my layers of emotion and old baggage. I am no longer afraid to expose certain things, so I guess whipping out a huge hole in my teeth will be symbolic. Hang on for the news! Today was B-Day, Braces day. I was having an anxiety attack going into the appointment. After all, I had no recollection of just how big this gap was going to be. Well, it was bigger than I ever remember. You know it is big when the dentist goes “Oh, yeah, that is a big one.” with his eyes wide open. I said I should have done this years ago and he agreed. Pulling off the bonding was not a big deal, much to my relief.

As I laid in the comfy chair and waited for the orthodontist to come in to start the next phase of fun, I rubbed my teeth along the newly freed gap and thought to myself, "Why wasn’t this taken care of after that horrendous 7^th grade picture when I had on my school uniform courtesy of Immaculate Heart of Mary School where my mom made me go?"  My mom pulled me out of public school in the 7^th grade and put me in Catholic School. Why, did she think she was going to save me? I was the only one of five siblings who had to endure this.

Getting back to present day, I decided not to get caught up in the regrets and anger of the olden days and realized that my path had me wait until this exact moment to go through this experience. The actual putting on of the braces was not bad at all. It took maybe an hour and I relaxed into my yoga breathing and all was fine, except for the dental assistant who kept reminding me that she would rather be home than in work today. Really, are you going to be that disgruntled that you would misalign my smile? At the end of the procedure she worked up enough energy to tell me that she was excited to see how it all would turn out.

After I was given my congratulations and my free Park City Orthodontics T-shirt, I was on my sore-mouthed way to lunch for a friend’s birthday. It became it’s usual giggle fest which was just what I needed after my morning. The ladies reassured me that my gap didn’t look all that big. Okay you all, I know you were lying. It was the perfect way to open up my mouth and show the world that it is okay. I am okay with how I look right now because I know it will all work out in the future. It is a powerful message to love each day and be patient. Be patient because it will take a year for my gap to close. In the meantime, I will be renting myself out as a beer bottle opener at weddings and other events!!

"Dear Past, thank you for all the life lessons you have taught me.  Dear Future: I am ready now!:

With love until my next adventure,

P.A. Walker

As always, you can follow me on Twitter, Instagram and my Facebook Page Kiva Wellness.  www.kivawell.com

The First 50.4.50

It happened.  I turned the Great 5-0!  What an amazing day/week.  I felt the love from folks that truly mattered.  I had visits from cousins, gifts and lunch with some amazing ladies.  For the first time in my life, I arranged my own birthday lunch.  I knew who I wanted there and it all shook out exactly as it should.  The love and light was very evident that day! For my first 50.4.50, I conquered a long time fear.  It has taken me fourteen years to complete the hike that I have always started to do but never finished because of a raw fear of heights.  It is the Stewart Falls hike in the Sundance Resort here in Utah.  You take the chairlift up one way and the beginning of the hike has you clinging to the side of a mountain with shear drops on one side.  I had attempted this several times before and just could never do it.  That day I made a choice, I could go back up the way we came and take the chairlift down or I could continue on straight into my fear.  I had my son with me and the thought that he would see his mom back out on this hike because of a fear was just no longer an option to me.  I wanted to show him and myself that I could feel my fear and do it anyway. As I hiked along, clinging to any root or tree that would hold me, the F#$% word was flying through my mind.  Why the F#$% did I agree to do this?  How the F#$% am I going to make it around the next bend when it looks like it plummets to the bottom of the earth?  These thoughts swirled around and around in my head but all the time I kept going.  I had the goal of getting to the meadow where it was told to me that the trail flattened out and the views were gorgeous.  The problem was the distance to the meadow that was told to me was actually a crock of shit.  It was an incentive by my hiking buddies to get me to forge on.  Either way, I completed the hike and the views were well worth it.  Stewart Falls is absolutely stunning.   After I finished my hike, I was able to kick back on a rock and de-stress with some dark chocolate while watching all the folks that had come up the "easy" way.  Boy, they sure don't know what they missed.  As I completed my first "new" thing for my new decade, it became apparent to me that I could do this.  I can do it and I will.  It gave me a sense of purpose and awakened in me all the possibilities of the new things that I can try in my 50th year.  Stay tuned for the next adventure!

As I close out this post, what is something that you have accomplished where you felt the fear and did it anyway?  How did you feel after you pushed through it?

"By letting it go, it all gets done.  The world is won by those who let it go.  But when you try and try, the world is beyond the winning." - Lao Tzu

Peace Out, P.A. Walker