When you are sick and tired of being sick and tired you feel like shit. And when you feel like shit, you are not loving your life. You’re not laughing.

So how do you turn it around? How do you love your life?

I found that loving your life begins with fulfilling your primary needs in an authentic and empowering way. In other words, stop denying your need for love or growth or contribution or one of the other needs. Think about it. If you’re someone who really craves certainty but has a job where you are called to travel at a moments notice, you will be majorly unhappy.

Get In Sync With Your Needs

What are the six needs? According to success coach Tony Robbins we all need certainty, variety, significance, being loved, growth and contribution. We need a bit of each of these, but we all have two primary needs that drive us.

The key to loving your life is to meet your two primary needs in an authentic and empowering way. When we meet our needs in a negative way or we deny a primary need, we feel like shit.

Let me give you an example. Growth has always been a primary need of mine. Maybe because my parents instilled the importance of education (hence three degrees). All I know is that after law school I’ve been a voracious reader of books on nutrition, self-improvement, law of attraction, psychology, etc. However, I wasn’t always great at implementing. In fact I resisted growth.

Since I was denying my need for growth, I grew in my girth. The farther I got away from fulfilling my core need, the larger I grew. That’s until multiple sclerosis arrived and presented me with a huge AFGO (Another F***ing Growth Opportunity). Or as Tony Robbins might say, it was a pattern interrupt; MS stopped me from denying my need for personal growth and prompted me to live in sync with my beliefs and needs.

The good news is you don’t have to wait until the 2×4 wake up call to start loving your life. Instead, tune into the lower frequency wake up whispers, as I call them.

What do those whispers sounds like? Here are a few examples from people I’ve spoken to recently:

• After receiving the results from your annual physical, you think: “I can’t continue to live this way.”
• After working your 20th, 10+ hour day this month, you find yourself asking “how much longer can I continue to do this?”
• You tell your friend “I could never give up sugar,” even as a voice inside you asks “but what if I don’t give it up, will I be able to play with my grandchildren?”

These are wake up whispers.  Wake up whispers come from within. Wake up whispers warn that life is off track, heeding you to start living authentically and in sync with your needs.

If you’re hearing the whispers then let’s doing something about it.

Interrupt The Shitty Pattern, Answer The Wake Up Whisper or Call and Create A Life You Love

How do you answer that voice and begin to create a life you love? How do you create a life full of belly laughs and smiles?

Answering a wake up call or whisper is a process of creating a new normal. It’s a journey for sure. However, we must all start somewhere and in this case, you start by interrupting the shitty pattern. Here are three of my favorite tools to get you started.

1. Bring in the sunshine. I was on a beach vacation recently and had created a wonderful ritual of sitting down to write each morning. A ritual I love but hadn’t been able to do in my day-to-day life. I then realized I needed to figure out a way to bring a bit of my beach-like state to being home. We all have a state of being we want to experience more of. What are you doing? What are you feeling? Notice the thoughts you are thinking and how you are holding your body. Practice those thoughts and feelings. Use them when you want to feel better. For me, this morning, I am imagining the salt air and cool breeze on my skin and the smile it brings to my face as I sit down to write.
2. Laugh, Even If It’s Not Funny. We tend to take life too seriously. I am definitely guilty of that. If I allow myself, I see danger everywhere – in food, air, water, etc.  When I find myself getting too serious and being scared I make myself laugh. Even if I have to force it. I interrupt my pattern and enter a better state. You don’t have to have something to laugh at, just laugh as if you do. Or remember a really funny moment and bring yourself back to that moment. Laugh until you have tears running down your cheeks.
3. Watch Your Words. I see it all the time with clients who come to me. The language they use is extreme and dis-empowering. Through their words they amplify the shittiness of their situation. I’ve even watched a friend of mine turn a lovely evening into something tense and icky simply by using extreme language to describe an inconvenient situation. Language matters. Begin to watch the words you use when you are feeling shitty. Try toning it down or using empowering words.

Try one of these tips today and share with us how it works to change your mood.

With love, light and purpose,