Hey, beautiful souls. And welcome to our Wednesday live chat. I am sorry, I'm a bit late today we are normally here every Wednesday at 12 Pacific, which is 3pm. Eastern, I want to give you a quick reminder about our very exciting next free live workshop coming up starting Monday, August 8, it's at 4pm, Pacific 7pm. Eastern. I know for our lovely friends in the UK, that is sometime in the middle of the night for you. But don't worry, all of the replays will be available for a limited time right in the Joy’s Soul Spa Facebook group. So I just want to let you guys know quickly at the beginning of this, as long as you're a member of the Soul Spa Facebook group, hopefully you are also on the email list, you'll get reminders and special offers. Everything happens right in the group for this free live workshop, “Power Up the Healer Within You”,. You're going to learn some really valuable tools and skills just in the short workshop right in the group. So we're gonna be live every day for five days. 4pm, Eastern 7pm or 4pm, Pacific 7pm. Eastern, there'll be lots of reminders in the group, so you will see them.

Today, I just want to quickly check in and chat about this idea, “What are we affirming?” What are you affirming, what am I affirming, in our day to day lives. If you are on any of my social media platforms, including the Joy’s Soul Spa Facebook group, you will see that in the last couple of weeks, a lot of my posts have been around self love and self care. And really just being our full, most authentic selves in the world. I know this can sometimes feel hard and scary. And, as we always talk about in the Soul Spa group, we're conditioned by our culture, by our society, sometimes by our family of origin of who we're supposed to show up as in the world. This leads us to all kinds of bad habits, about the way that we treat ourselves and the things we're affirming to ourselves. 

Now, I just want you to think back to this morning, when you woke up in bed. For a lot of people, the first thing we do when we wake up, typically it's an alarm going off to wake us up, not all of us have the luxury of waking up on our own timeline, but your alarm wakes you up. What's the first thing you think of? Do you immediately go to this place of dread of “oh, I have to get up” and “I have to do my day” and you have this list of things that you're anticipating feeling uncomfortable or not liking throughout the day? Or do you go to a different place? For me, the practice that I have continued to work on but have developed for myself is immediately when I wake up, I start listing things that I'm grateful for. Now, this is not a new concept, you guys, but are you actually putting it into practice? 

So we're gonna start with talking about that moment when you wake up, but then I'm going to talk to you about where it's coming in again throughout the rest of your day. For me this morning, immediately my alarm went off, I wasn't ready to get up. And that's okay. But I started listing the things and letting myself feel the emotion of the things I'm grateful for. I was so grateful for my soft squishy pillow and how supportive it was and how comfortable it was. I'm so grateful that where I am, it's summertime, and it was 6am. But it was already light outside. And I love the light. And I love feeling the cool air coming in through the window. And I love that I can stand up and stretch my body. So just for about 60 seconds or so I listed several things that in that very moment that I could identify as things I was grateful for. Now, of course, we're all in different places and situations in our lives. And that can change day to day, as we all know, you know, tough things spring up from time to time in many, many ways. So even when we're in those tough emotions in a tougher part of our experience, we can go to that place of gratitude. 

Now how are you continuing that on throughout your day? As you're getting ready for work or your day or whatever it is that you do during the day? Are you in that space of dread of, “oh, I'm in a hurry, I have to get , these things put together quickly. I've got to get the kids ready and off to school”, whatever it is for you. Or can you stay in that space of gratitude and acknowledging, identifying things that you're grateful for. You guys, if you're part of this group for any length of time, you hear me talk about this often, but I'm so thankful for hot running water where I live, it’s a luxury. I'm so grateful that I can make coffee in my kitchen. It's wonderful. So while we might be on a timeline, right, if you've got somewhere to be in the day, you know, you've got to leave your house by certain time and make it there or even if you're doing zoom appointments, you've got some kind of schedule. But instead of being hurried in a way that we're putting pressure and that we're focusing on the lack of time or the time that we don't have, can you focus it to something that you're grateful for, or to continue to list things that you're grateful for? And as you continue through your day, when little volcanoes erupt, whether it's something big in your life that's glaring and needing your attention, or whether they are small experiences, small annoyances, identify them however you want. This is not to get you to not be in reality and feel the actual feelings that you're feeling. But can you also hold this “attitude of gratitude”, as they say? 

Can you also be in a space where you're identifying the things that are positive? The things that are a space of gratitude in your life? Or as your day progresses, is that negative self talk chirping in the back of your mind somewhere? Is it you know, I think we all could do a thread of negative self talk of the things that pop into your mind. But suppose that you get to work, for example, and you have some angry emails from a supervisor, or maybe a project isn't moving along in the way is expected? Do you go to a negative place of “oh, I should we be working harder on this”? Or “if only I was better at this”, you know, negative self talk on yourself, or perhaps recognizing that you're feeling discord with someone else? “Oh, if only this person had done their job”, “if only that thing had got done on time”, “if only this person wasn't doing XYZ or was doing XYZ”? Or can you notice all of that, maybe at an arm's distance that “okay, everything's not perfectly in order here. But what am I grateful for, I'm grateful that I do have a skill set, I'm grateful that I can address these points in this email and work on them little by little, I know that I can be patience with my patient with myself, I'm grateful that I do have tools that I can use to ground myself, (we're gonna learn that Monday, the 8th, if you don't already know, a really powerful tool for grounding) I'm grateful that I can take a walk around the block or around this office to get myself centered and focus”. 

Could you refocus throughout your day on little bits of gratitude? Because really, anything that we are thinking, saying, or even feeling, we've talked about this before, is putting out the vibration of that thing. So if it's a feeling of lack or a feeling of judgment against someone else, or being annoyed about a situation, for example, we are putting ripples of that out into the universe into the energy that surrounds us. And we can expect more things to show up like that. So, more little volcanoes going off that you can be annoyed about, you have that freewill choice. Or you can shift you know, knowing that that's going on. But choosing not to make those little volcanoes your primary focus, choosing to refocus on little bits of space where you can feel gratitude. Like I said, this is not a new concept. 

Having gratitude, appreciation is not a new concept. However, the encouragement here is, can you weave that and thread that throughout your day, so that it's almost serving as an affirmation. I know that sometimes, you know, we've all seen these really beautiful affirmations in books and cards and everywhere. I often share them on this page. But sometimes throughout our day, as busyness occurs, we lose those statements of affirmation. But we're affirming something all the time to the universe, to the spirit world,  through the energy of our soul. Because remember, we're a soul having this human experience. We're not just our little human self. 

What are you affirming? And can you quickly shift it, even though you're recognizing things that are maybe out of order or not to a place where you want them to be? Can you also be affirming bits of gratitude, even if it's just for yourself? “I’m so grateful that I'm able bodied and could walk up the stairs today”, “I’m so grateful that I can be sound of mind and focus on reading this email”, even if it's just about yourself, if it's too much outside of yourself, today or on a different day, and you can't find anything to be grateful about in your world, start with you. Is there anything you can be grateful about about yourself, even if it's, “I’m so grateful that my lungs are breathing today and I get another chance to try this again”? 

Start where you are. Because things happen big in life, we have grief, we have loss, we have illness, we have 1000s of things that can just happen as little in big volcanoes in our world. However, what are you affirming? Are you affirming the problem by putting all of your attention on it? Or are you making space for a solution by refocusing on what you can be grateful about? In any moment in easy moments in challenging moments, refocusing to that attitude of gratitude, as they say, to make space for solutions to come in being more in alignment with your own soul with noticing what is wonderful, what is delicious, what you are grateful for what is positive in your space, and it's not in the emotion or in the intention of what we call the spiritual bypass, right? Just completely ignoring what is and pretending like it doesn't exist and doing this light and fluffy, airy fairy business of avoidance. It's not that it's okay. Even though this is going on, that feels uncomfortable, or that I do not like, I'm going to move my attention and find those areas where I can find bits of gratitude, and I'm going to affirm them. And I'm going to affirm them, in my words, I'm going to affirm them in my actions. And I'm going to even try to move my emotion to feeling this gratitude, not just lip service, not just saying it. 

Now, one thing that is often the opposite of that is calling people that you know, to complain about whatever little explosions are going off, because then you're just affirming and re focusing more and more and more on that problem or that situation that's arising that's in discomfort. So instead of that, can you pause yourself and say, “Okay, in this moment, what do I have to be grateful about? What am I affirming? I want to affirm things I'm grateful about”. So the universe, God, higher power, soul self can attract more things for me to be grateful about. It's a slight shift. And like I said, this idea of gratitude is not new, you could write them in a journal if you want. But unless you're carrying a journal with you all day, every day and are going to stop hourly and make a list of gratitude, if you can do that, do it, it will be amazing for you. But if you feel like you can't, or you're just not ready for that, can you pause whenever, it could be hourly, it could be as you're going through your day, it could be as you're moving from one thing to the next, which is typically the way I like to do it. 

So like I was talking about earlier, when I got out of bed, or when I was still laying in bed, I did those gratitudes. And then my next thing I was going to do was go brush my teeth and go on a walk. So then as I move to that next segment, that next thing I'm going to do, I'm going to go for a walk, I'm going to spend a minute, being grateful and listing affirming gratitudes, for that little bit of time. After my walk, my next thing that I was going to do this morning was meditate. So as I'm, you know, putting my things away, taking my shoes off to shift out of my walk and into my meditation, I'm affirming things “I’m so grateful that I have this time to meditate”, “I’m so grateful that I'm a medium and I can connect with the spirit world. And I can spend this time meditating”. So listing things that I was grateful for.  Most of you know that even though I'm a working medium, I'm always in some kind of development. I had a class after that. So then, as I'm preparing to sit down for class, I'm affirming things that I'm grateful for. 

So just wanted to float that out there for you guys today as we get so excited for this workshop that's coming up. And maybe today's Wednesday if you're seeing this live, or on Wednesday. But maybe As the days passed, just check in with yourself. What's my focus? What am I affirming? Am I listing things that are unsatisfactory that I can observe? Or am I listing affirming feeling things that I can focus on that I can be grateful for, no matter what is going on around me right not needing a condition to show up to allow us to feel and express even if it's just within our own minds? This gratitude. So that is just something I'm going to challenge you guys to today. And let me know how you're doing with it. You guys know I love to interact, drop a comment, let me know what you're affirming. And maybe you'll recognize, Oh man, I've been really affirming things, you know, that I didn't want and I haven't been affirming gratitudes is what I call them. So maybe this will shift something for you. Maybe it's just a little reminder but let me know how this resonates with you in the comments. 

And remember starting Monday, August 8 4pm Pacific 7pm Eastern middle of the night UK I apologize guys, but there'll be replays so daily, the eighth for five days. We're going to be right here live in the Joy’s Soul Spa Facebook group. So all you have to do is show up and be present. I will be interacting you guys can chat with me in the comments as most of you already know I typically will have my phone to the side so we can chat. And I am going to be teaching you how to Power Up the Healer in YOU. Monday's session alone is going to teach you the only tool that you will ever need again for grounding and clearing your own energy. So I hope you'll be there with me I'm so excited for this free live workshop. You guys know that healing is such an integral part of what I do. And I actually think that all the spiritual gifts point back to healing. So I'm grateful for you today being here with me whether you're live or on the replay, or just out in the world live in your own life. Big hugs, and I'm so excited to see you for the power up the healer with a new workshop this Monday, August 8 at 4pm Pacific 7pm Eastern I will see you there you're not gonna want to miss it. 

Big hugs. Bye for now.