Saturday, April 26, 2008

First post, new life!

It is so exciting to be sharing with you the changes in my life and the direction it's going. Let me tell you a bit about where I have been.

I was living my housewife life with my husband working the 50 hour week and I was a stay-at-home mom of my two boys for 10 years. About 2 1/2 years ago, I had a huge melt down. My life looked completely foreign to me. What had I been doing and how did I get there? Tired and frustrated, I had lost my excitement for life. My kids were in school, my husband at work, and I was alone with nothing to look forward to, except remodeling our home and cooking the next meal. It was my life, and not my house, that seriously needed a remodel. I began homeschooling my kids, to give my life more purpose. Homeschooling was a whole new world, where I met beautiful people who believed children are perfect beings discovering their own journey and don't need to be told when to grow or what to be excited about. Somewhere inside, I thought, maybe I could look at my life in the same way. It was then I made a decision that changed my life. I hired a life coach.

She opened my heart and I remembered what I loved about life! Within 3 months, I was selling our large home and most of what we owned. My husband quit his 10 year career as a software engineer. We bought a Eurovan and began to plan our new future. We had decided to be free, to live and breathe and learn and play. We had big hopes and big plans.

We found quickly that some old habits, especially when unidentified, hold on tight. We no longer had a mortgage or a schedule or the stress of not being together, and yet, we hadn't fully changed on the inside. After 6 months on the road, while eating beignets at the Cafe Du Monde, in New Orleans, we knew we needed to go home. We needed to regroup and figure out our mission statement. We needed to discover where do we go from here and how?

Within a week of being on the west coast, I wrote a children's book. It came from beyond anything that I knew, and it was good. I was excited about the possibilities, and I was itching to make it happen, so we went up north to where we last called home. Our old stomping grounds didn't seem to fit, so we left our friends and what we knew and moved to a smaller town about an hour away, that we had always loved, even farther from the big city. My husband wanted to start a business and be his own boss, and after 2 strong ideas, nothing came of it. I was extremely disappointed , because with each new business, I found tons of energy inside myself, creating business names, ideas of marketing, creating jobs I would be responsible for, and dreaming of working again. I was on fire!

This fire pushed me to find an illustrator for my children's book and I thought this was my new path. Little did I know, it was only one of many.

My husband finally got the idea to create websites and he would have a lot to learn, since he was a software engineer, not a web developer. He decided, as a way to start, he would use me as his first client. He asked me what kind of website would I want? Well, I thought, it had to be for women my age, something to inspire, someplace to have real talks about what we really think about our changing bodies, our changing relationships, our changing spirits. I began to read information about these ideas and write about what I thought. I stopped following my old habits, and began meditating and listening to my inner guidence. After a 3-day spiritual experience, I knew I could never go back to my old life, my old ways, and my old beliefs.

I connected with my life coach again and she was so excited for me, and told me I was ready to share with the world all I have learned. I realized I needed to give back and spread the news of wellness and energy and possibilities. I was ready to encourage others with the tools I had learned and the journey I had taken. Becoming a Life Coach answered that need. My husband continued to create my dream website and what came out of his work, was not a job for himself, but a beautiful opportunity for me to express this new honest spirit in me. I put the website and my life coaching business together and that is when AuthenticTimes.com was born.

So that brings you up to speed with where we are. My husband is practicing the art of stay-at-home dad while he is bringing AuthenticTimes.com to it's final stages. You can visit the very rough construction site, and click on the link celebrate with us, if you want to sign up on the celebration list for our launch date. My book is being finished and we are self publishing before the end of the year. I have started an inspired clothing line, and I am in the throws of becoming incorporated. As I look around, at the amazing connections with others on this journey, and it is all so effortless, so beautiful and so perfect. Stay inspired and walk with me towards Authentic Times!