Have you ever stopped to pay attention to how much space thinking about "what's next" takes up in your mind? Do you ever feel like you are there in body, but not in spirit? It's that feeling of being there with the people in your life, but knowing your head is elsewhere.

I've started an experiment...it's called "No Agenda Moments".

"No Agenda Moments" involve me and you just showing up to the moment "empty minded" - leaving behind the need to get somewhere and the concern for what's next. I'm doing it in micro-movements to build my "having no agenda" muscle.

It might involve just plopping down next to my boys for no reason other than to get into their world, sitting and watching a tv show (something I don’t normally do) for the sake of a shared experience, or gazing (yes, I said gazing) into my husbands eyes for no reason other than to connect with him in a brand new way (sounds crazy, maybe nauseating to some, but has been quite interesting, amazing and fantabulous ;-) - you should try it ;-) These are the moments I crave. Moments of nothing and everything. Moments of surprise and encounters with the unknown.

Don't get me wrong, my to-do list and plans have their place, but I don't want them seeping into every nook and cranny of my life. "Busy"...isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's gotten my to-do list made and checked off, it's made me feel important, and it's filled up many of my moments and days. But, I'm finding I make bigger impacts after filling my soul with moments of touching life in spots that truly matter.

When do you have "No Agenda Moments"? Where would it delight you to create more of them?  Share your thoughts and ideas here!
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I am super excited to share with you this Q & A with Jennifer Lee, author of The Right-Brain Business Plan.  She is a fellow journal junkie and has been a huge source of inspiration to me!  Soak up what she has to say about journaling, creative business and what she does for her sanity!  Meet Jennifer Lee!  She is a certified coach, writer, artist, yogini, and the founder of Artizen Coaching. 
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I’ve heard that you are a journal junkie yourself...
Yes, I am a fan of journaling, especially in the morning just to clear my head.

When did you start journaling?
When I was about 7-years-old my grandma bought me a pink journal with colorful hearts all over it from a Hello Kitty store. I would write in it whenever I was excited or upset about something. At some point during my early teens and young adulthood, I stopped journaling because I was afraid someone would read what I wrote. And then it was probably around 1999 that I started to write in a journal again and did it even more consistently when I started working with my first coach in 2000.

How does journaling play a part in your life and business?
Journaling helps me get the junk out of my head when I first wake up. I don’t do it every single day, but for the most part, I’m pretty consistent. It helps me work through challenges or issues I’m facing by just writing out what I’m thinking or feeling. I also use journaling to help remind me of the things that are going well and I’ll tend to write a lot of affirmations. As for how it helps me in my business, sometimes I’ll get sparks of inspiration while I’m journaling or in the middle of the night and I capture it in my journal.

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Did you journal through the process of writing the Right-Brain Business Plan book?  If so, how did it support you?
Yes, I kept my regular journal as I was writing my book. The process of writing and marketing a book has certainly stretched me in ways I never could have anticipated, so journaling helped me work through those challenges.

I also did intuitive painting while I was doing my book proposal and writing. Having these larger-than-life images from my imagination reflected back to me was also helpful in working through different roadblocks during the writing process.
How can journaling help in the process of writing a business plan?
Dig through your journals to find nuggets that might be your next business idea.

Sometimes people get hung up with the formal writing style that they think needs to go into a business plan, but if you’re doing a business plan just for yourself, then hey, why not write in the same way you write in your journal?

One of my past e-Course participants, Tori Deaux of The Circus Serene, wrote a love letter to her perfect customers and that ended up helping her define her target market and gave her actual copy to use on her website.

What are the top 3 things you do for your sanity as you birth new business ideas?
1. Practice Self-Care Fridays – no meetings except with my inner muse, a masseuse or nail salon.

2. Lean on my Nurture Huddle for emotional support, brainstorming, and accountability.

3. Get as much out of my head and on to paper as possible in fun, visual, and tactile ways.
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What advice do you have for Right-Brainers who have a book idea of their own?
Start collecting all of your journal pages, chicken scratch, notes, e-mails, and documents you have about your idea. You’ll be surprised how much existing material you have to work with. Organize it and use that to start from instead of trying to start from a blank page.

I highly recommend working with a book coach to help you flesh out your ideas further and to hold you accountable to the writing process.

Keep writing!!

Where do we get all the juicy details about your book, etc?
You can visit http://www.rightbrainbusinessplan.com to see info about the book and other resources to help you with your business.

Thank you Jennifer!!  Enjoy, share and be inspired everyone!  Here's to the creative dreams that live inside you waiting to be revealed with pen and paper!
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Suzanne, a Journaling Lounge member posted this today and I had to share! Enjoy her inspiring and timely journal entry! Be sure to check out who she is and what she does - AMAZING! http://www.timeforu.net
I'm all about reflection and mappping this week, looking at where I've been and consciously deciding where I want to go next. Tonight I am meeting with a friend for vision boarding. First, we plan to have a review of each other's 2010 vision boards. It's enlightening for me to have a trusted friend inject her perspective into my perception of my experiences. Then, we will set out to create our 2011 vision boards.

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I've been playing around with how I feel about 2010. To put it as PG-13 as I can... it was a bitch of a year. At the close of this time, I can be in a place of extreme gratitude about how things turned out and where my life is in this present moment, but living through the last 365 was, at times, crushingly difficult. I almost wrote "soul crushing" but that's not right at all. "Ego crushing" would be more accurate, I suppose. Nevertheless, I've been doing a little journaling in my recently procured 2011 Goddess Guidebook (Big thanks to Syda, for turning me on to this amazing creation) and in the section Celebrating & Releasing 2010 at the prompt that read: "I know myself now more because...", I found myself writing:

I was stripped bare and all alone and I not only survived but thrived (at times). I played in my fears and everything really was okay.

Then, this morning I called SARK's inspiration hotline (as she posted on facebook that a new message awaited there) and something she said further clarified... no... solidified my thoughts and feelings about 2010.

IN THE LOST AND BROKEN PLACES, I FOUND MYSELF.

Big thanks to SARK (I so love her).

Moving on to 2011... My Numerology has me moving into a three year which I'm fairly excited about and I've decided that I shall endeavor to exude and bask in joy... to feel exuberant and supported... to invoke and create in sacred space over and over and over again. It's a tall order for me and I am committing to supporting myself on this journey.

This week, in preparation, I changed my ringtone to Three Dog Night's "Joy to the World"

JEREMIAH WAS A BULLFROG
WAS A GOOD FRIEND OF MINE
NEVER UNDERSTAND A SINGLE WORD HE SAID BUT I HELPED HIM DRINK HIS WINE...AND HE ALWAYS HAD SOME MIGHTY FINE WINE

JOY TO THE WORLD
ALL THE BOYS AND GIRLS
JOY TO THE FISHES IN THE DEEP PLUE SEA
JOY TO YOU AND ME

So fun!!! I think it's a good start.

SARK also talked about the New Year and traditional thoughts about New You. She thinks it's just as important to focus on the Old You. The terrific parts of you that you bring forward into the New. I love this. There are certainly things about myself I want to work on... improve... grow into AND I am willing to recognize there are many things about who I am inherently that I cherish and now am prepared to fully acknowledge.

All my newness (new ideas, new projects, new plans, new aspects of myself emerging) are all supported and enhanced by the parts of me already here. I honor the old and the new.

Happy New Year Loungers!
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Suzanne Wigginton
Time For You...Wellness Experiences
http://www.timeforu.net

Thank you Suzanne!

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Things to get done…..busyness…..material things….greed…..wanting…..desire……giving from the heart…..pull to buy gifts….desire to give meaning…the long to do lists…..the anticipation of family gatherings….money worries….tugged and pulled and pulled and tugged in many directions….with little time left to feel centered, peaceful and grateful for the amazing time of year that is upon us.  

Could you stop the whirlwind of thoughts in your head for just 15 minutes today?  What if pausing for just a moment could take you 10 steps back and reveal a vivid picture of what's happening and what you truly desire this season?  Christmas lives inside of you.  What if you could give your heart this season without any obligation to give anything else?  What if you could let go of the “have to give" and find the “want to give"?  What if despite everything you have going on in your life you could choose happy right now for no other reason but to choose happy?  What if this year you could look back and know in your heart that you celebrated Christmas in full expression of who you are?  

 These are the thoughts that have been going through my head this Christmas.    I feel the pull of having to buy gifts and the urge to buy stuff for the sake of buying stuff.  And then...something stops me.  I actually can’t just buy to buy this year - it goes against every grain of my being.  So I am rethinking and creating something new by combining simplicity with giving something that feels good.  I like this….it feels better and when I remove the pressure of "having to give" I discover just what it is I want to give. 

This reminds me...My friend Elizabeth Hartigan, Gratitude Girls and I know the power of journaling and gratitude and are creating something yummy to be revealed in the New Year.  It’s not “stuff”…it won’t clutter your home or your life….it WILL fill you up inside with the good stuff you desire! 

More details coming soon!
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Join myself and Megan Monique tonight at 9:30 Eastern Time for a journaling experience. Find out more about the Journaling Lounge, learn how to journal on purpose, with purpose & get answers to the questions you want to know about what journaling can do for you. For more information or to sign up click here. I'll see you there!

A Note About Megan and I:
Megan is here visiting and I am so excited to have her on this call tonight!  Megan and I met on Twitter.  Never did I think or imagine that I would meet someone on Twitter, have them come stay in my home and discover we are kindred souls.  Megan just brings out the little
girl in me.  When she is here I just want to play.  Thank you for coming to visit Megan!  My creativity is alive and my heart is smiling. 

Come out and play with us tonight!  Sign up here!
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Get out of your head and into your life?  This has been a great mantra for me.  When I make a choice to be in the present moment magic and miracles happen.  The times that I intentionally bring all of myself to my husband, to my boys, or to a friend...are moments when things happen that WOW me!. 

With 60,000+ thoughts swirling a day it's imperative to have some sort of ritual for clearing and processing.  That's where journaling comes in for me.  It's my chance to grab and dump the thoughts that leave me feeling bad and deflated and capture the thoughts I want to grow upon, expand and make bigger in my life.

Without a ritual to sort through it's easy to get lost upstairs either thinking of the things that happened yesterday, worrying about what might happen tomorrow or smothered in a list of to-do's.  Imagine we go through life with a pair of glasses on.  They give us our view and experience of life.  The everyday garbage (incomplete conversations, frustrations, upsets) build up overtime making smudges and clutter distorting our view.

As you begin to clear away the clutter your view shifts.  Nothing changes and yet everything looks different.  That's the magic!

So for October....this is the theme!  Get out of your head and into your life!  Begin today by heading to The Journaling Lounge!  "Dump, dump and then dump the dump" as my friend Kim Ades, founder of Frame of Mind Coaching says!  After you clear the dump...you just don't know what gem might surface!
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Is there a challenge in your life that is consuming your thoughts and zapping your energy?
Write out what challenges you - release it from the circle of thought to allow for wisdom and clarity. Step back and ask yourself...how stressful is this really? What additional pressure and stress am I adding to it with my thoughts? Will it matter in 3 months/3 years?

Everything happens for a reason and there is a lesson to be learned and a silver lining available if you are open and willing to receive. Ask...why is this situation in my life? Who am I called to be? What, if any action is necessary? Brainstorm ways to respond.

Take action from your inner place of clarity and confidence!
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PEACE. It does not mean to be in a place where there is no noise, trouble or hard work. It means to be in the midst of those things and still be calm in your heart. - Unknown

Create Pause Button Moments...
Perhaps you are wondering when life will settle so you can find a little sanity time for yourself. The yellow caution light might be flashing in your head about now - when was the last time life slowed for you? We are tested time and again to find peace and fulfillment amidst the chaos. The reality is, life keeps going and any free space is quickly filled with new activities unless you say otherwise! Your commitment to living a balanced life calls for a conscious interruption, also known as PAUSE!

Journaling Thoughts...
When do you hit pause?
Is it often enough?
How will you choose to spend your moments on pause?

Try out your pause button! It can be as simple as taking a breath before you act. Practice using it and feel the sense of empowerment and inner peace as you build the muscle. Resume all the amazing things you do, knowing that the pause button is just within reach!
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