Tag Archive for: entrepreneur

How to Manifest with the Moon

The moon holds tremendous power.

Harnessing that energy at the right time and for the right spells and manifestations brings incredible results.

When we do this, we are working with natural forces to call in what we want most – whether it’s love, business, money or anything else.

When you commit to learning how to manifest with the moon, you ultimately live more in sync with your natural environment and with your truth as a woman.

But let’s be real.

While the moon has its magic, manifestation is a process.

What you want doesn’t arrive overnight. It takes time – and it’s your job to trust the timing.

Tuning into the phases of the moon gives us a framework that empowers us.

One of the best ways to connect with the moon and start leveraging its energy is with a moon ritual.

The Modern Moon Ritual

Moon rituals are an ancient practice that originated in Egypt, where moon worship was a part of the culture.

The phases of the moon influence the growth or decline of plants, animals and human life. So basking in the moonlight was seen as a necessary part of every cycle.

Today, moon rituals carry just as much sacredness, something we desperately need to ground and center (and get off the electronics).

The beautiful thing about rituals, especially those related to the moon, is they invite you to get quiet. They ask you to plant seeds of intention, and be one with the energy of our environment.

The moon has 8 phases. But the most potent are the new moon and the full moon.

The New Moon

During this phase, the moon and the sun align. This is the time to go within:

  • Setting new intentions
  • Starting new manifestations
  • Create and plan to draw things to you and build up to something

The Waxing Crescent Moon

The days that follow a new moon are a waxing crescent. This is a time to anchor into your intentions. Focus on one thing you want to bring into existence.

  • Practice visualization.
  • Write out a new moon intention and read it every day.

The Waxing Quarter Moon (Also known as the First Quarter)

This is a time to look at the challenges you face and make decisions about how you want to move forward. This is the time of the moon cycle when the sun and the moon square each other, meaning they form a 90-degree angle. Looking at your challenges allows you to see the issues full on. Then you can adjust your plans accordingly.

  • Find workarounds
  • Commit to moving forward

The Waxing Gibbous Moon

Here we have a high energy time, just before the full moon. This offers perspective. Things should start to feel like they are aligning. This is the time to ramp up your energy.

  • Take massive action
  • Go after it with your whole heart

The Full Moon

Full moons are great for release and introspection. When the moon is full, we are at a peak of creative energy and often have powerful intuitive breakthroughs. The full moon accentuates everything you’ve been working on during the waxing phase. Take time to reflect.

  • Power
  • Blessings
  • Harvesting
  • Charge up your energy

The Waning Gibbous Moon

After the full moon, it’s time to consider what you need to release. Reflect on what may be blocking you from receiving the outcome you want. Pay attention to any energetic leaks or roadblocks.

  • Release what doesn’t serve you (emotions, beliefs, ideas, and sometimes relationships)
  • Become introspective

The Waning Quarter Moon

Waning means less powerful. This is when the moon continues to shrink in the sky. It’s a call to go further within and seek answers. Become more committed to yourself during this phase. Emotions can often be encrypted with messages during this time: Where do you need to speak up or perhaps make changes?

  • transition
  • readjustment
  • evaluate

The Waning Crescent Moon

This is the final phase of the entire moon cycle. It occurs just before the next new moon. Here’s your opportunity to reflect back on the whole lunar cycle.

  • What did you learn?
  • What happened?
  • What didn’t?
  • Reread your new moon intention and evaluate how you’ve changed since you wrote it.
  • Consider how you want to reorganize for the next new moon.

A New Moon Ritual

The new moon is a blank page. A fresh start, a moment to turn inward and consider what we want to call into our lives and what we need to let go of. It’s a time for rest and reflection, so the perfect ritual would be in the comfort of your own home.

How to Begin:

1. Set the environment

Before starting any ritual, clean and organize your space. Ditch clutter. I like to burn sage, light candles and clear energy.

2. Craft a connection to the divine

Call upon a connection to the source energy you feel supports you the most: guides, angels, or any divine entity.

3. Sit comfortably and write

Grab paper and write down the things in your life you either wish to call in or are ready to release. This could be certain feelings, fears, or barriers—anything you know is not serving you. Then consider what you want to call into your life. This could be a relationship, more more, more clients, an international trip.

4. Declare

The next step is to read what you want out loud. Speaking them out loud plays a BIG role in bringing them to life. You may notice they evoke even more emotion when spoken, and that feeling is critical to manifestation.

5. Meditate and complete

Now that you’ve let go and made space for what you truly desire, sit quietly, follow your breath and visualize your desires coming to fruition.

Set the intention to stay open to these experiences coming into your life, and any other growth opportunities you may need along the way.

A Full Moon Ritual

When the full moon arrives, it’s time to create space to take stock of what has and hasn’t come to fruition just yet.

A full moon ritual is a time to get quiet, reflect, give thanks and celebrate. Unlike the new moon, the full moon represents completeness and brings with it a lot of energy.

Here’s how to approach your ritual:

1. Be calm.

By starting from a place of calm, you can harness the full moon energy to your benefit. Take a few cleansing breaths, sage your space and chill.

2. Write it out

Reflect on the past few weeks. What went on? Were there successes? What did you bump up against? Where do you see opportunities for growth and expansion?

3. Release and Declare

Once you’ve clarified what’s come to fruition and what hasn’t, write down and release what is getting in the way of the experiences that haven’t arrived yet. I like to burn the list – in a safe way!

4. Self-care

Dance, bathe, nap, sweep it off, get it out.

Move any stagnant energy out of your body and bring more lightness and joy inside.

Carving out space during both moon phases to go inward and take stock of what’s showing up for you, creates the opportunity to create intentions and find rhythmicity in your own life.

Moon Magic

Commit to at least three months of moon rituals for best results.

Want to learn more about how to manifest with the moon and live your best life? Check out Witchy Women I. This is a six-week program where you step into your magic, take control of your power and truly perform witchcraft that works.

 

How to stand out in a world that asks you to fit in

Nothing is more liberating than being yourself as fully as you know how.

You can stare down the potential for rejection with less fear than what is stirred when you stare down living as an imposter.

Real people do not allow that fear to prevent them from being their own, unique person. And they are constantly focused on being true to themselves. Every moment of every single day.

To be bold takes daily practice and it is a choice. It means choosing not to hide when things get weird, and – in turn – becomes a gift in that you will feel confident in being yourself in front of anyone.

How badass is that?

It’s easy to feel intense amounts of discomfort when we are expressing how we feel. No, I have never met anyone who enjoys being uncomfortable. But the people who face this and move forward anyway are the ones we like to call bold.

They are the people who live big, bold beautiful lives.

There are several ways I’ve noticed these people differentiate themselves from the pack, and I’m going to list them here. If you’re reading through this list and you begin to talk shit to yourself, just know that feeling like you aren’t bold right now doesn’t mean you can’t get there.

Again, it’s all about the work you’re willing to invest in yourself.

You want it? Go get it, sister.

I’ll explain how afterward.

1. Stop apologizing for, or hiding how, you feel.

Don’t EVER pretend you feel any way when you, in fact, feel a totally different way. Pretending to be someone else (or feeling like you need to apologize for being you) means you aren’t sitting with that fear we’ve already talked about.

You will shine when you let yourself be vulnerable.

In a dizzying world, there are wonderous moments of beautiful life you couldn’t make up, but there is also a shit ton of imperfection. Often, we apologize for thoughts and feelings without even knowing if they are detrimental – mostly because we don’t want to displease anyone. When we do this, we are sacrificing our own voices and saying someone else’s feelings are more important than our own.

We are diluting ourselves for the comfort of others.

But through it all you know you’ll change, you’ll learn and shift paths again, and you’ll meet people who will completely transform your life for the best and worst.

Make sure you’re not changing for the sake of another person’s comfort. You don’t have enough time on this planet to worry about what others think. In the end, if you truly feel like you’ve done someone else a disservice, apologize for your mistake, ask for forgiveness (or forgive others), and choose to still feel completely and totally proud for never apologizing for something that doesn’t deserve apology.

2. Challenge Convention

According to the 2014 Forbes article, “Why the Future of Work is All About Challenging Convention,” Jacob Morgan explains that challenging convention actually means going against the commonly held assumptions our generation’s businesses are built on. Because, for the greater part of the last century, our business strategies and standards have sat stagnant.

With five new trends shaping the future of our work force – whether in entrepreneurship or not – these are things you need to be aware of as you build your own business.

The ease of finding information online, building communities and connecting with others makes your business much more public, more of the time. Plus, we have smart phones that make this information even more readily available.

With a generation of people cropping up and showing us their own expectations and standards, we’re going to need to learn to work with the Millennials. Technological improvements and the globalization of business are the last two of the trends he discusses. The first few seem obvious and it might seem easy to question whether or not they are trends, still businesses have seemingly adapted well.

The last few, however, are still questioned and overanalyzed.

Regardless of your thoughts on those trends, know new trends will continue to pop up. New user-friendly platforms will show up to help you with scheduling appointments, keeping track of all of your calendars, and hiring those weirdos who seem to be named Flower and Mable because it’s chic, but I’m getting away from the point…

Even big corporations are considering the monotony and practicality of their former daily practices, and they’re making big changes to the way they work.

So how does this relate to small business owners who are just starting out or wanting to make a big shift in their services?

If what you want to do means you’re going to have to move against the grain, then do it.

Common assumptions happen in day-to-day life and business. We see how someone else built their business and believe that’s the exact route we should take to build ours. Except the problem is you’re starting out at a disadvantage. You are not someone else. And you have no idea how or why that system worked for that person.

Could you possibly make it the same way? You betcha. But you’re going to have to put in the time and you’re probably making it 100 times harder than if you just trusted your own gut.

Let’s be real: Successful people put in decades of time before reaching star status and they certainly don’t follow someone else’s strategy.

The good news in this is also what scares us most. In today’s society, there isn’t one way to do anything. The world is dynamic and rapidly changing.

Collaboration is important. Research is easier than ever. Building a community and connecting via social media has changed the game. And everyone is sharing content constantly.

What does this mean?

Use those things to your advantage and stop believing you MUST do anything in a step by step process.

3. Use your damn voice

Speak and be unafraid when people hear you (yes, even when you’re giving an unpopular opinion). By taking a stand, you’re letting other people know of you and showing them what you’re about.

Make your points loud and clear, avoiding any kind of tone that might lead people to believe you are meek. Use language that conveys exactly what you are trying to say, instead of weakening your message by using words that dilute the power of your voice. No more “just” doing this or “only” certified in a certain way.

Talking shows the world you believe you count and you matter, and it makes you more visible (so finding others who are likeminded won’t be so hard).

4. Mess up

You simply can’t learn if you don’t make mistakes. You’ll never know what doesn’t work and what should be avoided. Stop feeling embarrassed by failure and start learning from it.

And the more you do this, the easier it becomes and the more resilient you feel, making your next move a little more graceful. Eventually, something will stick so beautifully, you’ll be glad you didn’t give up when a tinge of rejection made you feel like an asshat.

5. Take Action

All of the knowledge you have in your brain doesn’t do the world any good if you don’t put it to use. I see so many entrepreneurs buy course after course and hire countless coaches, only to stay in the same place.

They are looking for some magic pill that will eventually lead them to Emerald City. But the truth is constantly researching doesn’t leave much room for actually DOING anything.

And if you don’t DO, you certainly don’t build.

Stop reading books and try the theories you’ve read about. Hell, try something you’ve never read about but feel in your gut might work. This is what I tell my people – and those women act and see results.

6. Trust Yourself

You won’t follow through if you don’t trust yourself, and you can’t succeed if you don’t follow through.

It’s a bitch, right?

So mean and do what you say, and start trusting you’re doing it because you’re going to figure out the entrepreneurial world.

The bonus of doing this is very simple: When you start trusting in yourself more and knowing you can get the job done, you’ll likely start building trust in other people and giving them the opportunities you’ve always wanted to give.

7. Do what you would if you couldn’t fail.

Expect that you will succeed. Believe and envision it happening. See the money in your bank account, hear your voice on the TEDx stage, feel what it’s like to write the last line of your first book.

If you can convince yourself that the best is yet to come, then you can build the endurance and audacity to get up, try again, and brainstorm whatever the hell you want.

Never (ever) give up.

Opposing being yourself and using your God-given, useful and powerful voice is being dishonest (read: fake).