Healthy Living DIY

We'll start with an example of each one. I want to see if you can guess!

1. Jen can't find the car keys. She's late for work and an important meeting. Second time this week. On the table? No. But there's that birthday card she was supposed to have mailed yesterday. In her pocket? No. On the dresser? No.

   Back to the table. Dig a little deeper. Thank goodness! She finally found them. Now she's 10 minutes late and lost her review time before the meeting. Yikes! Hope all the lights are green!

   Ask Jen where her daily stress comes from and she'll tell you she can't find anything at home. And she knows it.

2. Dave likes to fix stuff. Every time he visits Mom, she's got a little list. He's on the clean-up committee at church and helps out at his kid's karate place when they need it. Sometimes the neighbors bring their lawnmowers over so Dave can give 'em a quick tune-up. He enjoys helping out.

   There is a problem, though. Dave runs his own handyman business. He gets so involved with these good samaritan projects that he sometimes runs short of time for paying jobs. And now he's having a little trouble with some bills. Well, a lot of trouble. Talk about stress!

   Ask Dave where his stress comes from and he'll tell you three things. He keeps telling himself he's going to either turn down the neighbors or ask them to pay. But he doesn't -- and at the same time, doesn't keep his word to himself. He doesn't want to hurt their feelings by asking them to pay, but he can't afford the time it takes to do all this stuff for free when he should be working for money.

   He feels bad about breaking his word (1), his schedule is over-extended (2), and he's conflicted about how to handle the neighbors (3). Dave's not only stressed, he's having trouble sleeping at night. He needs to make some changes. And he knows it.

3. Several years ago, Karly took over the family travel agency from her parents. They worked so hard all their lives helping others have fun! Karly was always so proud of them. Of course she wanted to help out when they began talking about retirement. It seemed like such a noble task, helping people get away from it all and relax on vacation.

   As a kid, she used to really love all the pictures the clients would bring back and show her folks. She dreamed of becoming a travel photographer herself. Even went to art school. But that's just not practical and the folks needed her help. Of course she'd said "yes."

   But now the business isn't doing as well as it used to. People don't call a travel agent anymore. They make reservations themselves on the Internet. Some days Karly just looks at those pictures on the wall and imagines she could break free from this loser of a business. But her folks count on her. How can she let them down?

   Ask Karly what the source of stress in her life is and she'll gladly tell you. It's another 3-fer. The nature of the travel business has changed since her folks built it up, but she hates to give up on their dream. She struggles to keep the business open ... even though she's a talented photographer and would much rather be out in the field.

   She's hanging tight to a sinking ship (1), giving up her own creative dream to please her folks (2), and conflicted about the whole thing (3). And she knows it.

Ok, do you see it? The context. Each of our three people is in the same spot. A spot you've probably found yourself in on more than a few occasions. They are stuck in a stressful position. They know what the problem is. But they don't trust what they know enough to step up to the plate and find a solution.

"If I just knew how to get out of this," they'll tell you, "then I could get my life back on track."

But they do know. They just don't trust it. They've become so disconnected from their inner voice of wisdom that they pretend they can't hear it shouting in their ears.

• "Set aside time to clean up the house," says Jen's inner voice. "Even if it means taking a couple vacation days from work."
• "Charge the neighbors," says Dave's. "They probably don't feel right about taking advantage of your good nature anyway. You'd be doing them a favor to bring it up."
• "Take a break to go on a photo shoot," says Karly's inner wisdom. "When you get back, work evenings pitching stories. You're good enough to make it. Your parents really don't want to see you throw your talent away. You've learned everything about travel. Use it."

Jen, Dave, and Kali's inner voices of wisdom (their intuition) are screaming at them. All they need to do is slow down enough to listen.

How about yours? What does your inner wisdom want you to know right now?

Intuition enhancing resource: Grab the Intuition Infusion - on sale through Tuesday April 19th.