How to Live a Perfectly Perfect Life That Matters Most to YOU!

HOW TO LIVE A PERFECTLY PERFECT LIFE
THAT MATTERS MOST TO YOU!

Article by Cinthia Singleton
Photo Credit: Mariana Garcia
Magazine: Issue #24

Perfectly Perfect Life That Matters Most to YOU!

Shine. Stand out. Leave something behind. But what if what we got to offer ‘pales’ in comparison to what the brilliant rogues all around us offer? And what if ours isn’t ever really ready for prime time? What if we aren’t so special, really?

Stop
Cease
Enough
Hush

It’s about a life and we shine truest when immersed in it. That is all. The immersion. The rest is the cherry on the sundae. Get it? We all have something unique to offer just by being alive. Attendance is everything in this case. From grub worm to Nobel Laureate, we’re molecular energy. Can’t ‘matter’ more than that. lol

But seriously we all want to matter.  

Let’s take it down to the bare essentials… How to live a perfectly perfect life that matters most to YOU:

1| Know who you are. Be confident in it. You are who you are and that in itself is unique. This is your special brand of Light. That you can dance a mean lambada is a vehicle for that light inside you.

2| Get in touch with your inner compass each and every day. Take a quiet moment. Clear your mind. Meditate. Breathe. Feel only your life force surging through you; this is your core YOU. Nothing selfish in listening to it above all else.

3| Get grounded. See #2. That way, when you’re out in the world with the other humans you’re as steady and prepared as possible. It’s like tennis. If you hold your weight evenly, got your eye on the ball, you’re ready for that 70 mph ball coming at you.

4| Quietly. Loudly. Actively. Passively. Doesn’t matter whether you’re tough as Steve McQueen or meek as Bo Peep, energetically we ALL add something to the mix. Appreciate it, in yourself and others.

5| That inner compass is a good guide but it shows different directions at different times. So once a Girl Scout, not always a Girl Scout, but there might be an energetic element that carries from troop to sorority to family. The continuum is YOU, the compass there to point you to things that make your core YOU most fulfilled.

6| Embrace Earth and its citizens, warts and all. Remember, your interaction with them is why you’re here. You do the best with what you’ve been given, so do others. Sometimes we’re not our best; these are some of the warts, sadly. Compassion comes in handy.

We ARE by association not isolation. Why we’re here doesn’t matter so much as how we interact while we are. Embrace it. Then you shine, matter and leave something wonderful behind… your light.

“Deep in their roots, all flowers keep the light.” Theodore Roethke

Drop the Belief of Who You Think You “Should” Be!

DROP THE BELIEF OF WHO YOU THINK YOU "SHOULD" BE!

Article by Jentana Lee Dabbs
Photo Credit: Fabiola Zamora
Magazine: Issue #24

Who You Think You “Should” Be!

Recently, I met a woman who I connected with right away, because we’re both creative and passionate. It broke my heart when she recently told me that her belief is at zero and she’s lost faith in herself, her business and that anyone will want what she has to offer. Like, me she has given up many times on her dreams in frustration.

A few months ago, I was watching an interview on Adam Ant, (He was a big pop star in the 80’s.)  During his interview, he was talking about his battle with depression over the years and as he was speaking about his depression, I watched in eyes, his body language and I listened to his tone of voice, Adam Ant was speaking about his battle with depression with great shame, calling it a monster. By the shameful tone of his voice and body language, you would have thought he had committed some horrible crime in the past that he had great regret towards!

The Normal Myth
Though very different, what those two have in common, is that they are both creative, passionate, right brain dominant people. These types of people are naturally drawn to and are very good at entrepreneurship, music, acting, dance, writing, healing and other forms of creativity. Sadly, the belief that many creatives grow up with is that they must identify with what is considered “normal” in a left-brain dominated world.

What is normal?
Traditionally, normal is a well behaved child, who graduates from school with good grades, excels in college, gets married, has a good “stable” job, good credit, organized, buys a house and raises a family and then the same process starts over again with each generation.

The Problem
The problem is that for most creative, right brain dominate people, that’s not who they are nor necessarily want to be and because their “told” that’s the way it’s supposed to be, the talented, creative end up beating themselves up for attempting to be who their not.

The truth 
Since creative people are dominated by their right brain and are feeling types, it’s “normal” for them to go through depression, be full of ideas and not follow through on them, be disorganized and a list of other things that they were led to believe is not “normal.”

Be who you are
If you truly want to live a successful happy life, the key is to drop the belief of who you think you “should” be, act and feel based on what you were taught and learn how to understand YOU, everything that makes you tick and then use that new found personal power to do something great in this world!

Metamorphosis: Emerge From the Cocoon of Conformism

METAMORPHOSIS:
EMERGE FROM THE COCOON OF CONFORMISM

Article by Darlene Dunn
Photo Credit: Mariana Garcia
Magazine: Issue #24

Emerge From the Cocoon of Conformism

As a child you are full of life, you see endless possibilities and you are not afraid to be different. As you grow, society begins to expect you to act a certain way, believe a certain way and little by little, what makes you ‘you’ begins to disappear. Soon you find yourself like everybody else- trudging along, staying in line, living an unfulfilled life. The time is now to break out of that cocoon and embrace your uniqueness.  

Here are four ways to help you to break out of that cocoon:

1| Think for yourself – you have a brain- engage it.  Get in touch with your creative side.  
2| Don’t follow the herd - look at what others are doing and then consider a different route.  That is where the opportunities abound!
3| Believe in the endless possibilities again – Dream and believe!  
4| Embrace your uniqueness - the world needs what only YOU can offer!

NOW is the time to break out of the cocoon and become the YOU that you were meant to be- full of life and color and endless possibilities. Don’t worry - you won’t be alone there are those that have already emerged and those in process that can encourage and help you on your journey. Break free now!

Health Drink No-Nos for Women Entrepreneurs

HEALTH DRINK NO-NOS FOR WOMEN ENTREPRENEURS

Article by Angela Anderson
Photo Credit: Mariana Garcia
Magazine: Issue #24

Holistic Fashionista

Is your smoothie raising your body fat?

Holistic business women are so busy creating the coolest stuff on the planet, who has time to stop and eat?! I bet you’ve been drinking health drinks for years because they are da bomba, quick, and healthy at the same time. Why let hours of food preparation get in the way of your creativity? I have a little secret for you though – your health drink could be raising your body fat and slowing down your metabolism.

Many holistic women believe that juicing, green smoothies, and protein shakes are where it’s at in terms of gaining great energy and optimal health. I certainly have had a long love affair with juicing and green smoothies!

You might add crazy yummy organic fruit and milk substitutes like rice dream to your smoothies. With your juicing you could be making something scrumptious with apples, carrots, ginger, beets and lemons.

While all of those options are much better than reaching for the donuts, I still beg to differ. The reason is simple: too many carbohydrates = too much sugar (even if it’s natural) in your body = slowing down your metabolism = full fat cells = thunder thighs & muffin tops.

How do you get out of this predicament?

• Purchase a complete amino acid profile protein powder that is either plant based or whey isolate
• Add superfoods
• Use low or no carb milk substitutes
• Avoid the fruit and higher glycemic veggies

How to Feel Less Burned Out & More Blissful as You Build Your Business

HOW TO FEEL LESS BURNED OUT
& MORE BLISSFUL AS YOU BUILD YOUR BUSINESS

Article by Elisabeth Scheffer
Photo Credit: Jana Cruder
Magazine: Issue #23

How to Feel Less Burned Out

I often talk to women who wish that they had more time for themselves. They are exhausted from the pressures of building a business, being in relationship and raising a family.  

They want less burnout and more beauty and bliss.  

I know the feeling because I spent many years feeling too exhausted to take good care of myself.  Self-care felt like one more thing on an endless to-do list.  In fact, every time I thought about self-care I felt guilty because I knew I wasn’t doing “enough.”  

Many of us have been trained out of our femininity from childhood and have been taught to be more like men to succeed in the world of work.  It is important for women to be strong and independent but by staying connected to our feminine nature, we can step into our power without losing our hearts and succeed in the world without burning out.

3 Ideas for More Bliss and Less Burnout

Honoring Your Space: 

Healthy boundaries are the foundation of a happy life.  Are you setting boundaries that protect your time and space, money and energy, or are you letting yourself be drained by toxic people or situations?  

Setting boundaries is one of those things that only we can do for ourselves.  Be unapologetic about honoring your space.

Making pleasure a priority: 

Is pleasure a priority in your life, or is it an optional extra that gets tacked on at the end of the day, if there is time? As women, we require pleasure and beauty to feel good and to be at our best. Be intentional about receiving pleasure. Don’t wait for someone else to provide pleasure for you or hope that you will receive enough pleasure by accident.  Turn your deepest pleasure into your daily practice and make it a priority to enjoy receiving pleasure every day.

Listening to your intuition:  

Are you doing self-care the way you see other women doing it, or are you listening within to your own unique needs?  

Don’t just do the same things other women are doing for self-care or just keep doing the same things you have always done and assume that it will still work.  Every woman is unique and we have unique needs at different times in our lives as well.
Your intuition is your inner teacher.  Listen to her and she will guide you towards more beauty and bliss and your most fulfilling.

3 Steps to Managing Fear so it Doesn’t Manage You

Managing Fear so it Doesn’t Manage You

3 STEPS TO MANAGING FEAR SO IT DOESN'T MANAGE YOU

Article by Jentana Lee Dabbs
Photo Credit: Jana Cruder
Magazine: Issue #23

One evening, my boyfriend and I were on our way to the Ahmanson Theater in LA to see a show, during rush hour traffic. ‘Type in Ahmanson for directions on WAZE,” he asked (WAZE is this super cool app that gives you directions to avoid traffic). I typed in the Ahmanson Theater and the female voice on WAZE, directed us to go on the 118 fwy. Immediately, my boyfriend panicked,” I don’t do the 118, I’ve never done the 118 before, find another route!” “This is the route she’s giving us to avoid the traffic.” I said. Still panicking, he shouted “are you sure, that you typed in the Ahmanson in LOS ANGELES?” “It’s taking us the wrong way!”  

I assured him, we were going the right way. “I don’t do the 118,” he said again as he grabbed the phone while jolting the car to find other routes, we ended up having to go on the 118, which turned out to be a great route avoiding the rush hour traffic.

Sound familiar?
Perhaps this isn’t you on the fwy, but what about in your own life or business? Too often we may panic and attempt to “jolt” our life in a direction that seems more comfortable while ignoring our own inner guidance system, which is attempting to move us along faster by taking us into the unknown.
 
Our Internal Guidance
When we ask the powers that be for guidance in our life or our business, we have programed in the destination that we want to go and our inner guidance begins to show us the way.

Self Sabotage
Though we asked to be shown the way, it’s not always the way we expected to go and to be honest MOST of the time it’s not the way that we expect our destination to go. It’s the same thing working with coaches and mentors too, we hire them to be our navigation system, but if what they instruct us to do is not within our comfort level, many times we resist and go back the route we’re comfortable with and then wonder why we’re still stuck in what seems like a mess.

Manage Your Fear
When you become the master of managing your fears, then you will begin to notice more intuitive guidance, help along the way and you will get to your destination much faster.

3 Steps To Managing Your Fear:

1| Acknowledge that you’re going into the unknown and you’re just not comfortable with it.

2| Get yourself excited about experiencing something new and what you may discover.

3| Say to yourself “I move from fear to faith” and then just go for it!

31 Rose Water Benefits for the Busy Entrepreneur

31 ROSE WATER BENEFITS FOR THE BUSY ENTREPRENEUR

Article by Heather Jadus
Photo Credit: Jana Cruder
Magazine: Issue #23

31 Rose Water Benefits

Roses have been used in beauty routines for centuries—historians believe that they were an essential part of people’s skincare regimens in ancient civilizations like Babylonia. Even Cleopatra credited her soft skin to the roses she sprinkled in her milk baths.

And today, we use the flower’s oil as the main ingredient in rosewater, a unique tonic that’s great for reducing redness, calming blotchiness and hydrating your skin in the way an other water sprays or makeup primers cannot.
 
Rose Water is a byproduct of distilling roses for their oil that’s used in perfume. Roses are collected before the sunrise and essentially steamed until they’re condensed down into a beautiful, flowery mush. The water is then filtered and separated from the oil  It’s a time-consuming process that leaves you with pure, natural, incredibly gentle rosewater that’s great for dry or irritated skin and has toning and pH-balancing properties to help regulate oily or problematic skin as well.

Sounds like a miracle product doesn't it?  I think it is and I NEVER go one day without it.

31 Benefits of Rose Water:

1. Reduces Eye Puffiness
2. Hydrates Skin
3. Protects from Bacterial Infections
4. Skin Toner
5. Removes Dirt
6. Removes Makeup
7. Heals Sunburn
8. Heals Small Wounds
9. Lightens Small Scars
10. Reduces Thread Veins
11. Helps Broken Capillaries
12. Maintains PH Balance
13. Revives Makeup
14. Doesn't Smudge Makeup
15. Makes Skin Feel Firmer
16. Lessens Breakouts
17. Stimulates Circulation
18. Calms Acne
19. Calms Eczema
20. Improves Blood Circulation to the Hair Follicles
21. Promotes Hair Growth
22. Conditions Hair
23. Controls Dandruff
24. Boosts Scalp Health
25. Decreases Hair Breakage
26. Soothes Tired Eyes
27. Soothes Inflamed Gums
28. Strengthens Teeth
29. Promotes God Breath
30. Stress Reliever
31. Helps Relieve Depression

Only T R U E  R O S E  W A T E R will give you these benefits.  There are many imposters out there claiming to be selling you true Rose water. So how do you SHOP for it confidently? Here's a few tips:

• ALWAYS read the ingredient lists of your Rose water Products.  You would think the lists would be quite simple but you would be surprised what preservatives and perfumes companies are adding to what should be a very natural product. Thus actually taking the real benefits of the product away.
• NEVER buy Rose Water that has an ingredient named "fragrance" or "parfum".  The scent of Rose Water should come from the actual Rose Water.  Synthetic ingredients to create the smell should not be necessary.
• Taste the Rose Water.  Seriously.  I'm not kidding.  Spray it in your mouth.  It's not really going to taste great but it will help you out with some bad breath too.  However, if the Rose Water tastes bitter or yucky or synthetic.... then there is some stuff in there that you do NOT want on your skin  Don't buy it!

Do you use Rose Water?  If so, what brand?  Let me know and I will rate it’s for safety for you. Click HERE to see my go to brand!

Be Informed. Be Safe. Be Healthy.

Holistic Fashionista Recommended

How do you know if your beauty products are safe?  

There are absolutely no safety regulations on cosmetic ingredients.  Even companies who use words like "organic", "natural" and "pure" have no one but themselves checking to see if those claims are true.

If you are a clean eater and you are slathering toxic chemicals all over your body and hair, then you are doing it wrong. 

Find out how to get safer choices into your makeup bag! Shoot me a PM on Facebook and mention Holistic Fashionista to recieve 30% OFF!

What Would You Do if You Knew You Couldn’t Fail?

WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF YOU KNEW YOU COULDN'T FAIL?

Article by Lorena Morales
Photo Credit: Jana Cruder
Magazine: Issue #23

What Would You Do if You Knew You Couldn’t Fail?

My birthday is this month and as I look back at my life—especially my life as an entrepreneur—I realize I became a master of many things. 

Over the years, I became a master of self-doubting and over-criticizing everything I did. When I made any kind of mistake—big or small—I told myself I should have known better, that I was stupid for making that choice. Even when I made the right decision and got great results, it wasn’t enough for me. It could have been better. I could have done it sooner or more efficiently. 

It’s no surprise that my business was failing and I was oh-so-broke, desperate and hopeless.

It’s crazy how many of us believe deep inside that this kind of negative self-talk is acceptable and will make us successful. We think that the more we ask of ourselves, the more we’ll deliver—and the better our results will be.  

Imagine yourself as a seven-year-old playing softball. You are doing your best at it and having so much fun. You miss a hit and your coach pulls you to the side and starts screaming at you, “You suck, you should know better and you just blew it, you’ll never learn and will always suck…” 

What would your adult self do?  Would you join the coach and scream too? Would you kick the coach’s ass? I have a strong feeling that you would stop the coach from screaming at a girl who is simply doing her best and having fun while doing it. 

So why do we constantly speak these things to ourselves? That voice constantly screaming (or whispering) makes it impossible to be creative and open to possibilities. Not only that—it’s plain mean.

Having this realization made me reevaluate my ways. I decided that in order to live a happy and wealthy life, I needed to become a master of self-love, appreciation and celebration.  The moment I made this shift, my business started shifting too. I started taking daring risks in my business. Some failed big time, while others were big successes. Despite the result, I always found a way to celebrate and appreciate the fact that I went for it. This fueled me to take new risks and allowed me to learn from the “failures.”

My birthday this year will be a celebration of all the times I fell and got back up stronger than before. I will commit to another year of strengthening my new mastery of self-love, appreciation and celebration. Will you celebrate with me?

How would your business improve if you mastered self-love, appreciation and celebration? In other words—what would you do if you knew you couldn’t fail?