Day 8 Video Challenge

Here is the all NEW ME!

I watched the first two hours of the Oscars last night, for the first time.  I enjoyed it.  It was fun to critique these speakers.  I talk about my review of Ellen, the host, in this video.  I also share a conversation I had with one of the LiveBIG Coaches, Tony Litster on Perfection vs Improvement.

I share some thoughts here.  Are you striving to be perfect or are you trying to improve?

LiveBIG today!

Quotes

Commit today to cherish and honor the people in our lives, those whom God put into our lives.  Simply make it your goal and your purpose to add value to them, consistently, intentionally, and aggressively.
 - Dr. Walid Saade

Day 7 Video Challenge

My hair has always been long, very long, and is naturally curly...its something I have always LOVED.  I decided to face my fears, cut it and donate my hair to Locks of Love.  You can watch the video here as I talk about this experience.  

It is an amazing feeling!!!  Very light.  Can't keep my hands off of it.  Here is the all NEW ME!

Be Courageous.  Be Generous.  Be Loving.  LiveBIG!

Quotes

I Am Poem

I Am
by Misty W Gilbert

I am courageous
I am generous
I am loving
I am a unique woman
I am single
I am a firstborn
I am passionate
I am determined
I am fiercely competitive
I am practical
I am authentic
I am a giver
I am an overcomer
I am in love with music
I am a very fast typist
I am a writer
I am knitter
I am a reader
I am a pianist
I am a clock collector
I am fond of shabby chic touches
I am amazed by vintage items
I am inspired by red
I am refreshed by white
I am classy in black
I am moved by water
I am striving to be a minimalist
I am aspiring to lead a quiet life
I am in love with God
I am faith driven
I am dedicated to everything I touch
I am entrepreneur
I am a penny pincher
I am a planner
I am into the details
I am not who I used to be
but I am ME

Bartlett Pear Tree Blossoms March 2014

buds fixing to blossom

blossoms taking over the tree

Day 6 Video Challenge

Today I talk about how Spring, Summer, Fall and Winter are seasons in nature that we get to experience various aspects of change.  I love to think about the analogy of the seasons in nature and encourage you to look at your life the same way.  Just as it says in Ecclesiastes, our lives will have a time for everything.  

Enjoy the season of life you are in and make the most of it as you live on your courageous journey!  

You can watch my message to you here.

thoughts on being vulnerable

Being vulnerable and sharing your heart doesn't mean you are weak...it means you are being honest. You are willing to quit living in a mask and be open, authentic and truly live in reality. It means you know you have dark deep work to do. It means you aren't willing to be like everyone else and just accept status quo. It means you are willing to face your FEARS and do the difficult process of digging deep. Just because you have fears and false perceptions doesn't mean you have self pity for your situation or that you are a negative person because you have fears. Having fears allows you to develop your courage and press through them. 

LiveBIG friends!

Day 5 Video Challenge

Today I answer how you work through focusing on and working through your triggers so that you know how to change your reactions.  

Ask yourself why do you feel like that?  
Why am I reacting this way?
What can I do to change how I am feeling?
What is the truth?

Look at your reactions, then figure out your triggers, to understand your meaning and definition from the experiences you have experienced in your life.

You can listen to that here.

Quotes

Day 4 Video Challenge

Today I talk about my determination to face my fears.  I share with you that I have had fears my entire life.  However, my working through these fears many times were just in a way to launch in and ignore the feelings, just shoving them in the corner.  I am learning and working through tools I learned recently at a conference to change my negative belief system.

Each of us have patterns of experiences that lead to a definition and a meaning that we put on it.  That meaning becomes how I am reacting, and I don't like that.  I want to be different!  Every day we can be different, just like the Olympics, if we focus on doing something every day to be a little bit better and to improve ourselves.

I encourage you to look at your life, find one fear that you feel is out there and what is one thing you can do to change that fear?

You can listen to today's video here.

a {love me} nugget from LiveBIG

I recounted my full LiveBIG experience to you.  All my notes.  All my thoughts.  How I took the things I was experiencing during the conference as lessons and challenges and learning tools.  As I continue to work through this information and develop my tools, I want to share with you some of the biggest nuggets I got out of the experience.

In working with Tony, Gerald and Marci, I learned much about what it means to Love You. You being yourself.  For who you are.  Your bright shiny side and your dark shadow side.  To accept that who you are right now as perfect.  You are you and nobody can be you.  The experiences you have faced in your life have made you to be who you are and if you take those things away, you are no longer you.  You are unique.  Love you.

Some of that made sense to me.  I know you aren't me.  I know you haven't had my life and I know you can't live my life.  But love me???  Believe I am perfect the way I am?  Believe my dark side, the not so cool things about me are lovable?  Unbelievable.  Who would love someone with ugly stuff?  I mean Jesus does, but to expect that you do?  Or that I do of myself? Not a chance.

I have been ingrained to live a life of JOY = Jesus and Others and You.  You are last.  You are not important.  You don't matter.  But through this process the last month, but I know have learned that in order to truly live and love life, you have to love you.  In order to have something to give you have to nourish yourself.  In order to appreciate what others see in you, you have to appreciate you.  You have to start with you.

But how do you love you when everything you have been taught is to hate you?  That you, your heart, your desires are above all deceitful and desperately wicked?  When you have been made to feel you is awful?  That you should be crucified?  That you is no longer worthy?  That you no longer have a position in the family?  That you are used goods?  That you are unloveable?

You have to change and believe that God doesn't hate you and therefore you shouldn't hate you.

You have to change and believe you are worthy of love because God in his love made you worthy.  

You have to change and believe that you are complete because God's love makes you complete. 

You have to change and believe that you are renewed because God's love renews your spirit. 

You have to change and believe you are healed because God's love is the healing power.  

You have to change and believe the truth because God's love is the truth.  

You have to change and believe you are perfect because God's love makes you perfect.

You have to change and believe you are loved because God's love makes you loved.

How do you understand God's love?  I say its hard.  The depth of God's love is beyond what we can understand when we try to with our minds.  But does that mean we can't understand it to any level?  Does it mean that we shouldn't accept the love we do understand because we can't make sense of ALL of God's love?

Does God expect you to be perfect before He can love you?  So why do we expect ourselves to be perfect before we can love us?  You are perfect because God made you that way.  He took all the pain so you could be healed.  He took all the scars so you could be free of the responsibility for them.  How could you not love this love?

Love.  Love that begins by loving yourself.  Look in the mirror and say "I Love You", I really fully, deeply, unconditionally love you, who you are, radical love and self acceptance.  This loves comes when we see ourselves the way God sees us.  When we make it a deep abiding love in your soul, for who you are.  This allows you to give love, to love unconditionally.  Give love unconditionally for who you are.  This is a love journey.  Tell yourself that you see you for your greatness.  Believe in yourself.  Create moments.  To share.  You are brilliant.  A deep brilliance.  Divine.  Perfect.  Child of God.   Gift to the world.  Shine.  Shine brightly.  Shine fiercely.  Love openly.  Love courageously. 

Please Note:  The credit from this last paragraph goes to my coach...these are things he has told me and I have made notes.  I share with you because I want you to love you!  I want to love me!

Day 3 Video Challenge

Here we go...Day 3 of my Video Challenge.  

I share today that we all have fears and many times we ask ourselves questions like "What If?".  Many times we spend so much time thinking about the "What If's" that if we think we will encounter if we try to face our fears vs what would happen if we just launched into it without thinking.  We just might get to experience something different!  [Like Frito Pie.]  I share how I am working on inviting myself to join you, dropping over to your place, enjoying my friendship with you because you are my friend.  I love to be with my friends, but actually initiating this is hard for me.  I am facing my fears and doing what is uncomfortable and today I share with you current ways I am living down my fears on this courageous journey.  

You can watch today's video here.

Quotes

Day 2 Video Challenge

So yesterday I faced my fears. I did a video for 0.18 seconds.  Short.  Sweet.  

The result?  An incredible response!!!

Over 100 likes on Facebook.  Over 40 comments.  Many private conversations through Facebook Messaging, texting, emails, and calls.  

This I did not expect.  

Why?  Because my fears have held me back from engaging with you. My fears have made me not able to encourage you the way I want to in my heart.  My fears have told me I am not good enough.  My fears have told me I am not wanted.  My fears have told me I am not worthy.  My fears have told me things for years.  My fears are wrong.  My fears have made me believe lies that aren't true.  

What would I have gotten out of my day yesterday if I had not faced my fears and not shared with you in a verbal format that I love you?  

Nothing.

What would you have gotten from me not sharing?

Nothing.

Once again, I have faced my fears head on.  I am going to live down the feeling I get by being on video.  I am determined to do a great job at this, and perfect the job I do.  By actually facing my fears, this only made more of an impact on my life, not less. 

I want to show you my courageous heart.  

These videos are raw, unedited, unplanned, unrehearsed.  Today I share with you what I consider facing your fears to be.  You can listen to it here.

Day 1 Video Challenge

I am working on a video for my website.  People don't want to read stuff much anymore, they want to hear it.  See it.  Know you.  So I invested into a project for my business to make this happen.  Well, I had my first video shoot last October.  We have done 3 sessions.  I lock up when I get in front of the camera.  I get nervous.  I freeze.  I feel like its all staged.  I don't feel natural.  So I have been working on practicing phrases in front of the mirror.  Reciting my script.  Trying to be natural and be me.  It has been hard.  I am going to be resuming this project here in a few weeks with my videographer and in preparation for this, I felt it was best that I face my fears head on.  I felt that the only way I am going to get better at this is to launch in and force it to happen. I felt the only way to make me better on camera was to do self videos and put them on Facebook.  You know I HATE selfies.  So to do this in a video format only magnifies my hate.  In fact it does more than that, it freakin scares me.  I wanna puke.  It makes me face the comments of people, which also terrifies me.  It makes me face the fact that I am pretty and you know it.  Darn.  Won't you ignore that please?

In January I did a 30 Day 500 Words Challenge with Jeff Goins to move me further into my book writing.  I decided I needed to make that same challenge to myself for a video.  Not just do one or two or three, but do 30 of them.  One every day.  Ugh.  I hope you won't hate me for this, but I am determined to move past my fears.

So here is the link to my 0.18 second video in which I tell you that you have many things on your plate and that as you begin your Monday, I want you to know that I love you and I want you to have an awesome one.  You can listen to it here.

Quotes

Before opportunity crowns you with great success, it usually tests your mettle through adversity. Adversity provides the resistance necessary to develop the strength to overcome great obstacles. This strength consists of self-confidence, perseverance, and, very importantly, self-knowledge. For if you do encounter a setback, it is a clue to a personal weakness. You may have been hasty in judging a competitor, or you may have been too timid in your vision of what needed to be done. Let adversity be your guide to understanding where you mis-stepped and which qualities you need to cultivate. No one rejoices in disappointment, but if you are success-conscious, you can turn the situation into a chance for improving your character, an opportunity you otherwise would have missed. 

- Napoleon Hill

I Am Poem

I Am
by Misty W Gilbert

I am courageous, generous, and loving

I am refusing to give up
I am refusing to give in
I am refusing to let fear win
I am refusing to be afraid
I am refusing to feel ashamed
I am refusing to be abused
I am refusing to be belittled
I am refusing to be imperfect
I am refusing to feel unworthy
I am refusing to be considered not good enough
I am refusing to meet your approval box

I will change
I will achieve
I will succeed
I will be passionate
I will live a Level 10
I will continue put my heart and soul into everything
I will be courageous, generous, and loving.

Quotes

Stop listening to the enemy. Setting your heart and mind on lies is like setting the radio dial to a trashy station. What feeds you, affects you. 
- Lysa TerKeurst

a {beautiful} nugget from LiveBIG

I recounted my full LiveBIG experience to you.  All my notes.  All my thoughts.  How I took the things I was experiencing during the conference as lessons and challenges and learning tools.  As I continue to work through this information and develop my tools, I want to share with you some of the biggest nuggets I got out of the experience.

One of the nuggets that became a key takeaway for me occurred on the 2nd day with Tony after my question to him on "You told us to examine without shame.  How do you examine without shame?"  

{You can read the full post and my interaction with Tony here.}

As I worked with Tony and committed to playing a Level 10 and engaging in this process, 
He asked me to list what characteristics would be part of my new belief system.  This is what I listed:

• I am Courageous!
• I am Good Enough!
• I am Loved!
• I Matter!
• I am Worthy!
• I am Successful!

In this exercise, he said, did you say, "I am Beautiful?"  I said, "No, I didn't."  He went on talking and said again, "I am beautiful was one of your statements, right?"  I said "No, but if you want to use it for your example, that's fine."  He talked more and then said, "You are Beautiful."  Say it.  I struggled to say it.  It was at that moment I realized just how keen he was into the soul and belief system I had.  He then said, "If I am Beautiful wasn't one of your statements, it should be.  You are."

I felt like he had looked deep into my heart and found one of my secrets.  I felt he had shaken me.  You don't have to tell me something 3 times.  Or maybe you do.  Tony did.  But I got it!!!  I might have been oblivious, hiding, stubborn, blind, fighting but I wasn't so entrenched in my ways not to clue into his work with me, his message, his intentions.  I woke up and listened.  I took it to heart.  He saw something and was trying to get it across to me.  He was helping me to see what I was blind to seeing myself.  I am beautiful.  But for reasons I didn't realize, I didn't believe it and I was fighting it.  I never dreamed this was my reality, but it was.  It is.

As I have worked through the extreme nuggets of this time and thought about my life, my experiences, my triggers, my negative belief system I have found some amazing results.

You see, being pretty never was an advantage for me.  It was always used as a comparison between me and my sister.  It was used as leverage to get results.  It was used as competition.  It was used to create strife.  

Misty is the pretty one, but Mindy is the one everyone likes. Misty is the smart one, but Mindy is the one that can make the best breads and pastries. Misty is the pretty one, but Mindy has the best smile. Misty is the pretty one, but Mindy is the one with the awesome personality.  Misty is the sick one, but Mindy is not.  Misty is the one with the pretty porcelain doll skin, just like Granma, but Mindy is not.  Misty vs Mindy and the games of comparison that created inferiority complex was a continuous process.

I wished desperately I wasn't pretty.  I felt that I would have achieved more if I hadn't have been pretty.  It made me regret that I was considered pretty.  Being pretty didn't get me anywhere.  If I could change it, I would.

But it didn't stop there.  I dug deeper.

The fact that my dad never said I was pretty, never said I was his beautiful daughter, never wanted me all made me feel I really wasn't beautiful.  If your own Father doesn't think you are pretty how can anyone else? 

But it didn't stop there. I dug deeper.

When I faced the trauma at 17 with a 45 year old man invading my world, my life got turned upside down. I was told by my Mom that I was no longer her beautiful, sweet, innocent firstborn daughter.  My baby pictures were ripped in half in front of my face.  I was told I was no longer pretty and I was no longer allowed to have my pretty clothes (among other things).  I was no longer considered the firstborn of the family, any and all family decisions from here on out would be made by my sister and brother.  I had forfeited my birthright.  I was given a new name, the beautiful name of Misty was no longer my name, I had an ugly name because I was now considered ugly.  The rest of these awful things will be saved for my book, but I have listed a few for you to see why I don't feel beautiful.  

Any beauty I might have felt I had was stripped from me.  It no longer existed.  Let alone what that experience did to me in and of itself.

But it didn't stop there.  I dug deeper.

I have had 6 guys through The Assembly show me interest.  Every one of them approached me with the "You are beautiful and I am going to marry you."  or..."You don't know it, but you are going to marry me."  and...I received a dozen red roses with a message "I can't stop thinking about you" but didn't sign the card and never told me before the arrival of the roses that they wanted to get to know me better.  None of these relationship ever got very far, and the longest one was 3 months.  They were relationships that I felt compelled to accept with guys who didn't know how to love or approach a girl who they found attractive in a way that reciprocated those feelings.  These relationships were not built on getting to know me, they only looked at the outside and this made me resent further being pretty.  I wanted them to see me.  The true real me.  And when they learned that there was a very high chance I would never be able to be a mother they retracted their interest.  They were no longer convinced I was the "one for them".  This hurt.  The fear of being wanted for who I was not vs who I was was now confirmed.  I wasn't loved.

But it didn't stop there. I dug deeper.

I was a manager of a three location healthcare facility and had another manager I worked directly with at the location where I worked made continual advances towards me.  He made inappropriate comments.  He made inappropriate body gestures.  Made me feel like I was standing in front of him with no clothes on.  The sexual harassment continued on such a level that I had to report him to the owner.  This made the working relationship difficult even though I was told that my name would not be mentioned.  It became obvious it had been.  I felt like scum.  I felt shame for being in this position.  I felt violated.  Again.

I have hated being pretty.  Really hated it.  Being pretty wasn't good enough.  It didn't bring me anything that mattered.  It only brought pain.  It only hurt.  I hated being beautiful.  Beauty was only a manipulative tool.  It wasn't something I could control and I didn't want it.

Hence I have ignored that I am.  I have not cared if you thought I was.  I have tried to create other qualities that you would notice so that beauty wasn't the focus. I have believed I really wasn't or someone would truly love me and want me.

However, after this deep work inside, sorting out my belief systems around being pretty and beautiful, I have realized Tony was right.  I have been believing lies.  Hard core lies for 37 years.

• I am not going to let a Dad who told me I wasn't wanted, never wanted, who never told me I was pretty, and never appreciate his little girl be the definition of the truth that I am beautiful. 
• I am not going to let a Mom who used her first daughter against her second daughter over characteristics neither of them could control ruin the fact that I am beautiful.
• I am not going to let one man who made me feel like I wasn't beautiful and all the other guys who have attempted to use this card to get access into my world be the reason, or any other man who hits on me determine the way I view myself and what beauty means.
• I am not going to believe that because I am single that this means I am not wanted and I am not beautiful.
• I am going to believe the truth and make it the foundation of my belief system...I am Beautiful.  

I am Beautiful!  Inside and Out.  Absolutely beautiful.  A princess of the King.  A Daughter of the One True God.  I will believe it!

My list has changed.  I will keep reading it and tweaking it until I have it as it should be.  It now reads:

• I am Courageous!
• I am Good Enough!
• I am Loved!
• I Matter!
• I am Worthy!
• I am Successful!
• I am Wanted!
• I am Beautiful!

And you are beautiful too my Friend!  Believe it.  #LiveBIG

word of the day...{nugget}

Today's Word of the Day is a little bit different as I am going to share with you also the definition to me as I use the word nugget.

My Buddy told me in our weekly Accountability Call that she laughs when I say the word nuggets as it makes her think of Chicken Nuggets.  I laughed and said no, I don't like Chicken Nuggets that much. LOL

Any conference I attend, I am always looking for the nuggets or takeaways.  Just as diamonds or gold are nuggets and karits, little bits of things that are true gems in a dark place, I find these jewels powerful statements that can make a lasting impact on your life.  

I call them nuggets.  There are nuggets in everything.  Things that you can memorize and become ingrained in you.  Things that have the power to change your perspective and bring meaning to your life.  Things that are tools and create an ability to improve your skills.


Here is the definition at www.dictionary.com:

nug·get

  [nuhg-it] noun

1.

a lump of something, as of precious metal.

2.

a lump of native gold.

3.

anything of great value, significance, or the like: nuggets of wisdom.

4.

a bite-size piece of chicken, fish, etc., usually batter-fried.

5.

Welding. (in a spot-weld) the metal fused.