Hi friends—ok, Quick announcement—my Feel Better Masterclass is open right now. It will be the only time I teach this class this year, so I highly recommend you jump on it. If you’re serious about breaking old patterns and creating new results in your life, this class is your blueprint. There is not a better time to not just feel better, but learn HOW to feel better—become more masterful at this game of life. I teach all of the top concepts that have created the fastest transformation in my clients lives. 

This is a six week class, we kick off on Sept 14th which is a Sunday and we will then meet for the following six Thursdays at 7pm CST over Zoom. And no, you don’t have to be present on Thursdays to get enormous value form the class—you can watch the videos and recordings and do the homework on your own time, that totally works. You can get all of the details on my website WWW.sheilatully.com. I have had students take this class several times because even if the content is the same, their brains have changed and so they take in the information at a totally different level which is so cool. But I have added a special bonus this year—all FB students will have exclusive access to a training module called “Calming Your Nervous System”  where you learn your unique stress response and how to shift it…..I also am offering a great early bird specila that lasts until August 31st. The class is usually $595, but I am offering it for $395 to my podcats listeners thru august 31st. So  Don’t wait—every day you delay is another day stuck in the same loop. It’s time to elevate your understanding of how change really works. So I hope to see you in there, we always have a lot of fun. 

I’m sure many of you have been hearing the guidance to take care of yourself by being in nature. So many of us have been looking for ways to take down the temperature in our lives, destress, and just feel more grounded and calm, and being in nature is one of the antidotes to  a stressful life….but have you ever thought about why? Why is it that nature has a calming effect on you?

Well because you ARE nature. You’re not taking a walk IN nature, you are filtering out the noise of the modern world to remind you who you really are. All living things are made of the same stuff, and the life force energy that animates all trees and the birds and the microbes is the same life force energy that animates YOU.

You’re not separate from it.

You are it.  It’s not just that nature is beautiful—it’s that being there is like returning home.

It’s recognition.

It’s reunion.

I think that is a huge part of what our modern lives have done is that they systematically separated us from our authentic nature. And we know now that we are healthier when we are attuned to nature, and we are less healthy when we are divorced and apart from it. So it’s not that we have to go live in the woods with no electricity to come back to ourselves, we just have to be open to what nature has to teach us.    

So the first thing is just to notice that everything in nature is striving to be itself. 

Pine trees aren’t wishing they were redwoods, they don’t apologize for being “less than,” no a pine tree is leaning into its own nature, it takes what it needs to grow, it is striving to thrive, and by nature of it being itself, it gifts something back to the world. It doesn’t have to try to give back—being itself IS the gift. Pine trees are known as being super scrubbers of the air—they not only help to create oxygen through photosynthesis but they clean the air. There are plants that are just nutritious or healing to humans or animals, every living thing, gives back in some way just by being true to its nature. On a beautiful, multitudes more complex way this exact same thing is true for humans. The more you lean into your authentic nature, the more you contribute to the collective, just by being you. There are no martyrs in nature—no one is apologizing for their needs. Nature advocates for itself  AND cooperates for the health of the greater organism.  Both. That’s you. That’s your instruction too—but it feels hard doesn’t it?  We feel disconnected from it--, or maybe we do know what living authentically looks like but we think I can’t because I can’t make enough money just being me, or I’m too old I missed the curve, or I’m worried what other people would say, or I’m worried I would feel inferior in this competitive culture—maybe what I really want is not considered all that prestigious in our culture. There are so many things that keep us from living authentically, and the further away you are form your own authenticity, the more you suffer. It starves your spirit. Your nature—your true essence—already knows how it wants to grow, how it wants to move, what it needs to thrive.

But when you’ve been taught to override it, you lose the map back to yourself.

So, here’s more of what nature has to teach us:

* Everything has its own pace.

* Everything has its own shape.

* Everything has its own season….and there is birth, and blooming and decay and death and a return to earth.

The sunflower doesn’t feel guilty for growing taller than the others.

The rose doesn’t despair when it loses its bloom,

The hawk doesn’t wish it could swim like the salmon.

Nature simply is.

And that’s the invitation—to remember that your life will work better when you stop fighting your own design.

And being fully yourself can feel like rebellion.

It can feel scary—so scary in fact, that many people, especially women, have stopped even asking themselves what they REALLY want. It’s like they already think well I can’t have that, they take it off the menu and try to pick something else. And then guess where they are—stuck.

When you start behaving in accordance with your own nature, with your own desires, you return to alignment.

And in alignment, there’s freedom.

There’s vitality.

There’s peace…….and, you aren’t meant to know this all in one fell swoop, you are meant to walk the path of the human where you walk down the wrong path again and again, teaching you what is the right path. What do I really want, who is this person? I tell my studenst If you really hate your job, GOOD.  You now know for sure what you don’t want , and your sacred duty is to find a way to move in the direction of better. This is why I call my class FEEL BETTER—IT IS DESIGNED TO TEACH HOW TO MOVE IN THE DIRECTION OF BETTER, IT IS YOUR GUIDANCE. Your emotions, your inner knowing, that is your guidance, and we look at everything that is standing in the way of that.  And the complex life of a human doesn’t mean you BOOM arrive in the place where you know everything and now you can relax, it is to walk the path of learning how to feel more and more free. It is learning how to trust yourself to move in the direction of better, not perfect, better. That’s the path.

Okay, so I am sharing here four simple but powerful practices—to help you remember and live from your true essence. To come back to yourself, to come back home.

**1. Spend time in nature with the only agenda being to be present.

No phone.

No podcast.

No multitasking.

Just be there.

And notice, that you can be peaceful on a walk in nature, or you can be distracted and miserable. And what creates the difference? It’s very simply your choice as to where you put your attention. You are constantly making choices please start noticing this, you have free will. You are so free that you are free to be miserable and no one will stop you. So if you want to be more masterful at life, you will use your free will to bring your attention to the present and drop the worries and complaints and chatter that your mind offers up nonstop. It is always available, but you learn to use your will to drop it. 

2. Notice where you feel most alive.

Think about the last time you lost track of time in the best possible way.

What were you doing?

Who were you with?

Your essence always shows up in those moments—pay attention to them.

3. Ask: What is my natural pace?

Are you a sprinter, are you a steady walker, or are you someone who moves in bursts and rests deeply in between?

Stop forcing yourself into a pace that isn’t yours.

Nature has seasons—you do too. This is one of the joys of being self employed—I left my corporate gig twice in my life, really following my own inner guidance, and each time it felt terrifying. Mostly because I was afraid that I  would be broke, but ultimately my soul won out, each time I took huge paycuts and to say I have no regrets is an understatement. Living closer to my own wishes on a daily basis, there is no price tag you can put on it. And one of the things you determine is –without my corporate structure and without the overlords determining my schedule, what schedule appeals to me? And you think oh I would just sleep in all the time, but no that doesn’t appeal to me. I love my early mornings but I use them to walk, and think and read and journal….I have a pace and a schedule that suits me that might have looked slow in a competitive corporate setting. But when you find your own deep confidence, you give yourself permission to be yourself and do things your way. And you stop worrying completely what anyone else thinks of it. It’s immaterial.

4. Let something in your life be easy.

Nature doesn’t strain.

Rivers flow downhill.

Ask yourself: Where am I making things harder than they need to be?

And then—just for once—choose the easier path. My goodness, we live in a culture that has us believing that HARD is virtuous—I am all for resilience, nature is resilient. Sometimes, we face adversity and we are asked to endure….no doubt, but in your life, how often do you allow yourself to let things be easy. Do you set your life UP to be easy? For some of you, it feels hard to do less, am I right? You think you are racing the clock and always have to be on top of everything. We have tied our own worth to our productivity. It’s true, we do need to get things done, but that’s not the treasure we are after. The treasure is loving our lives. We have to find our way back to that simplicity. I promise your family needs your joy way more than your productivity. And the little secret that gets by us is that whatever comes easily to you is likely your gift to the world. If it doesn’t even feel like work, it feels like fun, you lose yourself in it……lean into that. Move in that direction.  

The truth is, THERE’S a part of you that already knows the way. But it’s possible you haven’t given it enough time and space for it to bubble up—we need quiet, we need to ask ourselves good questions, we need to be in rooms with other women who are doing this kind of growth work—to be inspired and find new ideas and think about new possibilities.

When you start living more in accordance with your nature, you’ll notice something profound—life begins to feel less like a fight and more like a flow. You’re not paddling upstream, you’re letting the river carry you downstream. Listen to me…Everything you want is downstream. Upstream is pain and exhaustion. Start moving with the natural current of life, let life carry you instead of fighting it and trying to conquer it.  It won’t work anyway. But more important, you will miss the ease of being you, and WE will miss out on you being you.

You are not here to be a copy of someone else.

You are here to be the one-of-a-kind expression of nature that only you can be.

So go outside this week.

Feel the air.

Watch the trees.

And remember—this isn’t just a beautiful place you’re visiting.

It’s you.

Okay, that’s what I’ve got for you this time, I hope to see you in the Feel Better class, sign up on my website at sheilatully.com, and I will see you next time.