This Blog Has Moved!

Hello all! This blog has permanently moved to marthahansen.com. Thanks for reading and I hope you to see you there!

Thanks.

I see You,

Martha

That Inner Knowing…

The last 10 days or so I’ve been walking around with a vague sense of “something just isn’t right.” I kept pushing it to the back, explaining it away, blaming it on something else. I’d do some internal searching, say, “ah-ha! I found the core of the issue!” and then feel better. Then a few hours or a day later, that vague feeling would come creeping back in. I have a lot going on in my life right now, so finding an excuse for this low-grade feeling of malaise was easy to do.

This afternoon though, I’d had about enough of it! I was starting to get annoyed and angry that this bleepty, bleep, bleep THING wouldn’t go away!! Something about it was stifling my motivation, minimizing my productivity and basically making me feel blah. After another round of soul searching, clarity finally came. Guess what that THING was that wouldn’t go away? My intuition! Trying to tell me that something in my life was out of alignment.

At first, I started to be annoyed that it had taken me so long to see this. Then, I realized this system of inner knowingness and intuition is absolutely brilliant! Why? Because I have a built in alarm system for when I am acting out of integrity with myself! The only trick is learning to love, listen and trust it…

Intuition is often vague, illogical, doesn’t answer all the questions and can fly directly in the face of what others are telling you or advising you to do. For this reason, living a life guided by this inner knowing takes a lot of self trust. Here is the catch. I will be the first to admit that I run short on self-trust at times. Especially when there are so many wonderful experts out there in the world just dying to help me make the right decision, sell the right packages, take the right class, read the right book, go the right event, build the right webpage…it’s easier to trust others sometimes than myself. That way, if the outcome is not what I want it to be, I can blame them, rather then myself. It is a backhanded way of abdicating responsibility for my life, which, ironically, is not something I believe in doing.

For the next several days, I will be checking in with my inner guidance system more frequently, consciously choosing to trust myself (more) if I need to! I challenge you to join me. See if you can pay closer attention to your unique flavor of intuition, whatever it may be. Share with me below what you discover!

I see YOU,

Martha

 

Adventures of a Cardboard Box

Last week I went to watch a movie with a friend. Before the previews, this video short came on the screen. There was no sound but it quickly captivated my attention. At the end, I found myself holding back tears and thought, “well, that was worth it even if the main movie is no good!” I can feel my heart sort of fill up again just remembering the experience. For some reason this little video captured a part of me and made an impression. It has been floating around in the back of my head and I want to share it with you all today.

There is something about the honest simplicity of the storyline that calls to my soul. It really is the little things in life that keep us going. It is our ability to play, to imagine, to create, and love that makes life worthwhile. It has me thinking, what would my life look like if I allowed myself to play and create with as much wild abandon as this little boy does with his box? The thought makes me smile. Let me know below what impressions the video makes on you!

I see YOU,

Martha

Arriving HERE NOW

I have really been pushing myself the last several months. I’m pushing to up-level my life–my money, my business, my relationships, myself. I’m reaching and striving towards great and exciting goals. I’m working hard, every minute is full.

I’m burnt out.

I started hitting a wall two weeks ago and finally found myself flat on my face over the weekend. This nose dive made me start thinking about something. I’m doing all this reaching, all this striving, all this energy towards getting to the next, new, exciting, expansive point, which is an incredible thing to be doing. However, I’m so busy reaching, I’m forgetting to fully arrive where I am first. The point that I am at RIGHT NOW, was one of those new, exciting, expansive points I was striving and working so hard for only months ago; I’ve forgotten to allow myself to arrive HERE, NOW and enjoy my results for a hot minute before moving on.

My practice over the last few days has been to intentionally remove all those future goals out of my life filter for at least part of my day. Without those goals in my filter, I then look around at my life and let myself enjoy what I see. I allowed myself to use my free time in different ways–instead of working on my future business plan, or my website or personal processing, I took a nap, watched TV…lived my life as if THIS was it–as if I was already at where I was going. And I’ve been enjoying it.

Here is the best part. After the last few days of giving myself permission to arrive HERE NOW and sit with the possibility that this, my life as it is now, is good enough…that little spark of motivation to be more, share more, live larger is starting to return. In allowing myself to say a temporary “no” to all the reaching, striving, and dream chasing, I’ve actually allowed myself to start reconnecting with the part of me that wants to choose that path of expansion every day. Whew! It hasn’t disappeared!

So, for the next week, I challenge you to let yourself arrive exactly where you are now. Enjoy all the wonderful bits of life as it is NOW…then see where that little spark starts to pull you next…

I see YOU,

Martha

A Flavor of Overwhelm

If you had told me six months ago that I was someone who suffered from overwhelm on a consistent basis, I would have argued back, “I don’t get overwhelmed! I stay on top of things! I rarely–if ever–totally break down and sink into a useless pile on the couch.” That was what overwhelm meant to me. Someone who was overwhelmed became incapable of participating in life, they would check out. I never did that.

I’ve been looking closer at this emotional state over the last several months…I am, honestly, overwhelmed by how OFTEN I am dealing with overwhelm. Who knew! Now that I’m allowing the overwhelm, I do break down on the couch now and again. However, one of my most common flavors of overwhelm is retreating up into my head. I start thinking and spinning in the never-ending to-do list, the imaginary conversations I need to have, the e-mails I need to write…this is overwhelm.

I wanted to share a version of a short tapping script I’ve been using over the last few weeks when I feel this happening. Sometimes I use it in the middle of the day, and often actually right before I go to bed. The head spinning is most clear to me then, when I’m trying to be quite and get a good rest to wake up and go at it again. For anyone not familiar with EFT or tapping, you can click here for a short video introduction to the tapping points.

Let me know if you find this helpful!

Karate Chop Point:
Even though I feel all up in my head and ungrounded, I deeply and completely accept myself.

Even though I feel completely up in my head; I’m scattered and frantic and unfocused in spite of all that I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

Even though I am all up in my head and a part of me kind of likes being up here despite feeling scattered and frantic and unfocused and jittery and airy and up in my head, I deeply and completely love and accept myself

Tapping through the points:

I’m all up in my head
my energy is floating with the clouds
I wish it was down here with me in my body
sitting on this chair
working on moving my life forward
oh man, I wish my energy was here closer to the earth with me
but it’s not
I’m all up in my head
and when my energy is all up in my head
I feel light headed,
kind of dizzy
and little bit giddy
and boy do I want to talk,
even if it’s just to myself!
there is lots and lots of air spinning around up in my head right now
feeling sort of scattered
feeling frantic
deep breath
man, it would be nice if I could pull all of this energy
back down into my body
down through the middle of my spine
deep into my core
out my pelvis
and into the earth beneath me
because, even though I’m all up in my head,
more of me is here down on earth.
More of me is here right now,
living my life in solid, grounded human form.
letting all this air go
letting all this frantic, scattered energy up in my head dissipate
letting it get sucked back down into the core of the earth
grounding me back down to myself, my true purpose,
my core quality of being
so that I may go on with my day in a much more grounded,
focused, creative and safe way.

Take a deep breath.

I see YOU,
Martha

My Little 5 Year Old

Whenever I eat a sandwich, tortilla, piece of pizza-you name it-I eat the outside edges off first. If there are two halves, I eat the outside edge of both halves, then the middles. I do this without thinking, it’s habit. When asked why, I always say something like, “the middle is the best part! I’m saving the best for last.” Which is true, but maybe there is more to it than that.

I was out for dinner with my sister and a good mutual friend last week. As we chatted away, catching up, I nonchalantly and unconsciously ate around the edges of my first sandwich half, set it down, then did the same on my second. After I had finished doing so on my second half, I set it back down on my plate. At that moment, my sister looked at my plate and laughed outloud. She jokingly said, “What are you Martha, a 5 year old?” All three of us had a little laugh, me responding with, “you’re my sister, seriously you didn’t know I did this?!”

After a minute or so of this back and forth my sister said, laughing, “Actually, it’s not like you’re a 5 year old, it’s like you’re getting your food ready FOR a 5 year old!” All three of us paused for a second, saying almost in unison, “You are! You are taking care of little 5 year old Martha!!” With more laughter.

And, while we were playfully joking about all this, it really struck a chord. Maybe I, capable adult Martha who has no issue with crusts, eat the edges off my sandwiches first for the primary reason of taking care of my little 5 year old inside. I have no clear memory of having an issue with crusts as a child, but I also grew up in a house where having the crusts cut off was simply not an option. My little 5 year old wouldn’t have even considered asking for it. Maybe it was always one of her wildest secret desires!

Good news is, times are different for her now! Today, little Martha has big Martha taking care of her and big Martha doesn’t mind taking the edges of off EVERYTHING first, so the little girl gets the gooey, tasty, best middle part. It makes my heart warm to think about it. I can promise you this, I’ll never eat another crust without thinking about my little 5 year old and sending her love!

What are some ways that you consciously or unconsciously take care of your little 5 year old? I’d love to hear below!

I see YOU,

Martha

The Importance of Tension

“Tension: the state of being stretched or strained.”

That’s where I am at these days! In a constant state of feeling stretched tight–for time, money, growth, ideas, sleep, you name it! To be honest, I’m not finding it incredibly comfortable. Whether it’s a sensation of being stretched too thin, or trapped into a too small space or being pushed in a direction I’m resisting going, the feeling is not “comfortable.” However, as I was feeling myself squirm under this tension the other day, I started thinking how important this tension was. Without it, I realized I would likely be sitting on the couch watching TV, letting life flow on by me. Instead (thanks to this tension), I find myself taking bold, decisive, yet often messy steps towards my aliveness. And it feels good.

Tension is that internal pressure I feel between where I am and where I want to be. It is the space between my present reality and the reality I envision. Between the present moment and my dreams and goals. I am beginning to see very clearly that if there is no tension, I don’t get anything done or am highly unmotivated to change. However, it can start to get tricky because, if there is too much tension, I get absolutely overwhelmed and scattered and also move nowhere. There has to be a sweet spot. This idea made me think of what I have learned dancing Argentinian Tango-a different way of thinking about tension.

“Tension: A balanced relation between strongly opposing elements.”

The phrase, “it takes two to tango,” isn’t just a cute saying. The best Argentinian Tango dancers have mastered the art of tension-a perfect give and take between partners. Increased pressure from one partner is matched by the other, creating the grace and fluidity of the tango dance. Without tension, the dance falls apart. With too much tension, the dance falls apart. In the sweet spot, the dance takes on a life of its own.

I want to dance Tango with life.

When I am feeling tension in my life, it means I am engaged and alive. I am reaching and growing and–let’s be honest, also tripping and falling, but that is part of the journey. So here’s to tension!

Today I proclaim: “I open my arms to dance with the universe! I welcome the tension and choose to dance in the sweet spot of alive living: being in the moment while still reaching for the sun!”

Will you join me in this dance? Share your thoughts with me below!

I see YOU,

Martha