Personal Growth Planet Blog

Through the peaks, valleys and sheer drop-offs of life, it can be easy to become lost.

I’m not talking about veering from the path that society or your family has set for you. I’m talking about getting disconnected and far far away from your true, authentic self.

This might be the you who you used to be. The person who knew what he or she wanted and went for it. The you who was clear, confident and self-aware.

Maybe you haven’t felt this way since you were a young child. Perhaps you’ve never ever felt in touch with the real you.

It can feel like a never-ending, dulling cycle.

Get up in the morning, eat, go to work, do your job, eat lunch, come home, care for pets/kids/house, eat dinner, go to bed. Of course, there is usually talking with other people, some degree of exercising and most likely an array of entertainment activities thrown in to that mix.

Life can become a drudgery at times– or even most of the time.

You might as if you are stuck in a holding pattern with the same people, doing the same things in the same way, basically forever.

“Freedom ain’t a state like Maine or Virginia
Freedom ain’t across some county line
Freedom is a flame that burns within ya
Freedom’s in the state of mind”– Peter Udell, “Shenandoah”

There are days when I long for freedom.

I might feel chained to my computer on a warm Spring day. Or, maybe I’m craving travel to faraway places with no worries about the finances to pay for it, who will care for the pets, our home and if the rest of my family would enjoy the places I’d like to visit.

Last weekend I went to see Tim Burton’s new movie “Alice in Wonderland,” based on the classic novel. It was a visual delight and was also filled with intriguing and expansive messages.

Alice quotes her beloved father and declares, “Sometimes, I have believed as many as 6 impossible things before breakfast.”

What if we each were to start out the day by NOT listing off all of the things we need to get done? |

Rather than writing down the home chores, errands, work projects and other miscellany that I need to accomplish before this day ends, what if, instead, I dreamed up and actually believed 6 (or more) impossible things?

By Amy Phillips-Gary

Practice makes perfect– no, that’s such a loaded word.

Practice helps bring about change, but it can be difficult to actually initiate and then stick to it.

I remember loathing sitting down at the piano each day to practice as I was growing up. This was most definitely a source of conflict between my mom and I.

Today, I goad my own self to practice various things and I experience similar, though internal, struggle.

For example, I’m all charged up about breathing lately.

By Amy Phillips-Gary

As I hang up my brand-new calendar for 2010 and prepare to welcome in a fresh decade, I can’t help but think about what I want to do differently in the coming year.

Yes, I’m thinking about New Year’s resolutions.

You might be doing the same thing. Many of us greet the new year with hopeful and ambitious lists of undesirable habits we’re finally going to kick and the new, healthier ones we’re going to adopt instead.

By Amy Phillips-Gary

All week long I’ve been writing about upgrading your life and yourself in various ways. Upgrading your home, physical fitness and diet were specific areas covered. As I finish up this weekly theme, I want to include an important side note…

Nothing is wrong with you or your life!

Often, talk about making an improvement is accompanied by an implied (or overtly stated) assumption that the aspect of you or your life that is intended for change is somehow deficient or even bad.

By Amy Phillips-Gary

Change is inevitable.

Change happens all of the time, every single day for each of us. No matter how boring and predictable we think our lives are, we-- along with everyone else-- are in constant flux.

Time passes. We get older. Seasons change and the Earth evolves.

In our day-to-day lives, changes are happening too-- on mundane levels as well as those more radical.

We finish one project at work and move on to another one. We make career changes; we end marriages or relationships and we eventually fall in love again.