Impactful week of significant events and how you can cultivate the same!

This post is more like a personal journal entry than anything else but I’m hoping that by sharing the things that have been really impactful in my life over the past couple months, it will help you cultivate similar experiences/relationships/opportunities in your life too!

I share the story in this video about a REALLY significant week I had back in November. The big things that happened were a workshop I decided to teach, a small group mastermind session I decided to attend, and a Toastmasters organization I decided to join. There were really interesting synchronicities that led to each one that I explain in the video but my biggest take-away messages I’ll post here with each event.

Week that made an impact: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c2-e-plPGt4

What I also want you to know is that I didn’t know *exactly* what was so significant about this week but I KNEW with every cell of my being that it was going to be an important turning point in my life. The opportunities, people, and experiences that were lining up in front of me FELT more right than anything I have felt in a long time (bonus video at the bottom about these kind of “lightning bolt moments”). And boy did they sure turn out to be significant! Since that week in November, my world has been opened up more than I could have imagined with the connections I made at these groups. Because I am only now sitting down to write about these events 4 months later, I can give a little insight to where each opportunity led and how you can create similar experiences in your life!

Having fun leading the workshop

Workshop I taught:

You don’t need to go out and teach a workshop (unless you feel called to get a message out or teach some things that you know you’re really good at, in which case, GO for it)! But this one applies to ANYTHING you’ve felt called to try but put off because you just weren’t sure how it would turn out, how to go about it, who would care, or maybe just never settled on it being “the right time”. Trust me, I get it- I explain in the video about how I finally took the plunge and set a workshop date because I wanted an excuse to have a paper-lantern releasing ceremony haha.

The workshop experience ended up teaching me so much more than I ever could have imagined! I learned a ton by compiling the messages I normally teach in my health/fitness/personal growth groups on Facebook. It forced me to sit down and refine my message as well as to clarify what I am really good at teaching or what I can bring to the table that is special. We ALL have a message and story that is our specialty with our own personal style but how often do we actually sit down to ask ourselves what that is? This was a perfect opportunity to do that. And I’m glad I did!! It really helped me find my voice and my unique message.

Having the clarity I gained from preparing for this workshop is now really helping me shape meaningful projects for the future! We all have something to teach… SO TEACH! Serena Dyer wrote a book with her dad, Dr. Wayne Dyer: “Don’t Die with Your Music Still in You”- I absolutely agree. And I believe the best way to gain self-awareness and awareness of what we want out of life, where we want to go, what our purpose is, and more is just to dive in and try things that feel meaningful! When anything is on your heart in that way, DO IT! The world needs you! If you’re not sure, just start trying things that feel good to your soul! You’ll find your path and purpose that way for sure ;)

Awesome group of workshop attendees

Soul sisters after the lantern release at the workshop

Bonus: I had a few last-minute cancellations for this workshop (do not let that kind of thing discourage you- as my friend Paul Matthews says, “Some will, some won’t, so what!”). Instead of getting discouraged, I said a prayer that the people who needed to be there would be there. Turns out, I ended up having a few last-minute add-ons and sure enough, they were people who REPEATEDLY said how much it meant to them to come together with other women and hear the messages of that night. We even created a monthly “super soul sunday” meeting of our group!! I’ve met even MORE amazing women and fellow soul sisters because of it!

Lessons that I took away from this experience:

• Find your voice, find your message- YOU have a unique story that the world needs to hear
• Don’t wait for perfect timing, dive in and do it!
• We learn from TRYING (that means actually taking action rather than thinking about the things that would be cool to do)! That’s how we gain awareness of ourselves and what we want out of life!
• You never know who you’re going to meet or what is going to come out of it!

If you want to read about or watch the recording of my workshop, you can find it here:  

http://katelynlesk.blogspot.com/2015/11/fear-releasing-workshop-and-lantern.html

Small-group mastermind session I attended (and subsequently joined):

L3 Leadership breakfast I attended in November- this is
what made me decide to try out the mastermind group
Photo credit: L3 Leadership

WOW. This one has made a HUGE impact!! The people in this group are INCREDIBLE!! I didn’t think I had the time to commit to these twice-monthly meetings but from the second I walked into the room and felt the energy of all the warm and welcoming people in this group, I KNEW it was something I needed to make time for. I realized that with the nature of my coaching career, I do a lot of guiding, but it’s been a long time since I’ve felt truly GUIDED. With this group, I have an incredible group of supportive and encouraging people (now also incredible FRIENDS) who love me and support me in all of my endeavors. We bring our specialties and expertise (and of course our support and encouragement!) to help each person in the group reach the goals they set for themselves, their businesses, and their lives. We talk leadership, relationships, personal development, you name it. It’s been such a huge blessing in my life and I’ve seen incredible rapid growth in my life since joining 4 months ago! I feel so uplifted and accelerated by this group!!

Lessons that I took away from this experience:

L3 Leadership mastermind group at our December meeting
Photo credit: L3 Leadership

• Find a mentor and/or group of people who will take you to the next level in any (preferably all!) areas of your life. I already know the value of this from my health and fitness coaching (our facebook accountability groups help me as much as they do my clients!) but I hadn’t realized how much I was missing that in other areas of my life. Take inventory of each area of your life and see where you need to find extra support. My new goal is to make sure I have a solid mentor and group of supportive people to help me with EVERY area of my life!!
• More opportunities than you can imagine can come out of connecting with driven, intelligent, kind, compassionate, supportive, high-performance people. Seek them out. It will be the most valuable thing you ever do for yourself.

L3 Leadership breakfast meeting at the end of January.
We are growing fast!
Photo credit: L3 Leadership

Toastmasters group I joined:

The night I decided to join Toastmasters.
I'm holding instructions for my first speech!

If you don’t know what Toastmasters is, it’s an international public speaking organization that helps each member improve their public speaking and communication skills. We meet twice a month and you can choose to give speeches as often or as infrequently as you would like (more often helps you hit achievements faster and of course improve your skills more quickly). Even on weeks when I’m not speaking, I learn SO MUCH from the other speakers. I can tell that my communication skills are already improving a LOT! Perhaps even more importantly, this was another group full of super supportive, intelligent, and interesting people. Not only do we have a safe environment for us all to practice, learn, and grow, but we also have a really diverse group of people that has been SO INTERESTING to learn from each time I hear each of them give a speech and learn a little bit more about their lives. Will I end up doing public speaking as a career? Who knows! But even in these few short months, I am grateful for the skills I’ve learned already, the new connections I’ve made, and I LOVE the expansiveness that comes with being challenged to grow in a difficult skill!!

Riding an adrenaline high after my 2nd
Toastmasters speech in February

Lessons that I took away from this experience:

• Learn a new skill. I had forgotten how GOOD it feels to be challenged and expanded in a safe and supportive environment
• Same as the mastermind group and the workshop: you never know who you’re going to meet, what kind of relationships/connections you will form, or what other opportunities will come out of it!

Here’s the bonus I promised you which is more about me, my background, some special dots that have connected along the way to lead me to where I am, and how you can start noticing “lightning bolt moments” in your life. This also happened to be my 2nd Toastmasters speech :)

Lighting Bolt Moments: https://youtu.be/dlQ1FAToqyE

As you can probably tell, these have ALL been big “lightning bolt moments” in my life! I hope that hearing about mine has helped you start to notice the opportunities, people, and experiences in YOUR life that feel extremely meaningful- follow them! :)

Love to you all,

Katelyn

Visit https://www.facebook.com/CoachKatelynLesk and http://beachbodycoach.com/katelynlesk for more info!

I would be honored to help you with your fitness journey :)  Here is a link to sign up for a free account with me as your coach: https://www.teambeachbody.com/signup/-/signup/free?referringRepId=183908. Or you can go to www.teambeachbody.com, sign up for a free account, and enter any of my info in when it asks if a coach referred you: screen name: KatelynLesk, coach ID: 183908

Disclaimer Copy: Katelyn Lesk is an Independent Beachbody Coach.

Embracing anxiety out of a desire to FEEL

I woke up this morning with a surprisingly high level of anxiety with no apparent cause. I've had my fair share of stressors lately, as we all do, but nothing abnormally out of the blue. There's a lot of things I could try to blame this on or try to work through in an effort to "rid" myself of it. I tried to just sit with it and let it pass, which I like doing, but I was having trouble shutting my brain off so as not to attach meaning to it (which of course keeps it stuck there). But then I came to the realization that I always eventually do... the one that is always able to bring me some peace no matter what I'm feeling. I CHOOSE to feel. I WANT to feel. I want to feel life in all it's "good" and "bad" glory. I'll take pain and sadness if I know it means it also brings me love, bliss, and joy. I KNOW how much I learn and expand in those emotions that we deem "bad" or "negative". I APPRECIATE sadness knowing that I allowed myself to really care about something or someone. I APPRECIATE anxiety for it teaches me to course-correct to paths that are more aligned with my truth and needs and it teaches me to build my faith so as to be able to feel peace. I APPRECIATE any negative emotions that allow the good ones to feel even better. I will ALWAYS be someone who wants to feel. I know I would have picked this coming into this life. I have never wanted to go through life numb... I want to feel ALIVE! I want to experience life and emotions in all of their forms! I want to know fear, sadness, and pain so I can know love, bliss, and excitement! I believe THAT's what we're here for- to FEEL! To experience! That doesn't mean there's a right or wrong way to this life, but it does mean that I ACCEPT MYSELF as I am. I believe that joy, bliss, excitement, and love can only be felt FULLY when our walls are completely obliterated! I am WILLING to lovingly feel fear, anxiety, anger, jealousy, sadness, pain, or anything else that wants to come up because I REFUSE to have walls up to ANYTHING! And I am learning to believe that ALL of these feelings have their own raw beauty to them. There is love and joy that can be found in all of them. A humanness. I believe suffering happens when we are in resistance to those feelings, or at least that is what my experience has taught me. I now find excitement when these emotions come up- the ones I used to resist- because I know it means I am learning, growing, releasing, or expanding in some way that leads to more good in my life and experience. As for the walls, I will have none. I am just me. And I am completely, totally, inspiringly ok with that. MORE than ok with that. I am in love with that. Bring it on!! I am ready for you, life, in all your glory and experience! I love life and I am willing to love it all!!!

This picture is from a calendar that my incredible friend, Alisa, made for me. The quote seemed especially appropriate and empowering today :)

World peace day: make peace with OURSELVES

Yesterday was World Peace Day and it got me thinking about how we could apply this also to our health and well-being. The question from the official video (link at bottom of blog), “who will you make peace with?” triggered the immediate intuitive response inside of me saying, “ourselves.” How much of our day to day conflict is self-imposed? What can we do right in the here-and-now to create more peace in the world by making our OWN energy more peaceful? Here were some thoughts that came to mind:

The scale. That number has the power to elicit an emotional response in us. Why not try this week to make peace with whatever number shows up, reminding yourself that that number also contains the weight of your heart pumping your blood; the lungs breathing the oxygen you are currently inhaling; the weight of your eyes that allow you to see your child or a flower or a beautiful sunset; the weight of your arms that can embrace someone you love; the weight of your hands able to grasp another in a sign of respect, high-five a friend, or create beautiful works of art.

Food. So often we associate food with guilt or deprivation but it is something to be cherished for the nutrients it provides our body! This week, practice mindfulness with your food. There is a type of zen that comes with eating leafy greens or a juicy piece of fresh fruit :)

Workouts. This is not punishment. This is training your body to be more efficient and getting you to a healthier state! This is a chance to appreciate moving your body and all that it can do! Your body is in it’s highest glory when it is moving joyfully!!

Our bodies. How much are you appreciating your body and truly loving yourself? I wrote a blog on this recently to explain how much of a critical role this plays in our journey and progress:

http://katelynlesk.blogspot.com/2015/09/love-yourself-to-where-you-want-to-be.html

Work. Make peace with looking at how we get to SERVE. If you’re someone who desires to help people, you can do this no matter what your job is. Here are some ways I have trained myself to APPRECIATE what I GET to do rather than viewing it as a “should do” or a “have to do” dreaded obligation (this applies to workouts too):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJb-OAJSjE8&list=PLXiky4MOw2FjF0FZLuTXQeT__IwOADo3n&index=15

Other people. Sometimes this may be an apology or a conversation to work things out. Sometimes this may be setting boundaries or expectations. Sometimes it may be letting go of relationships that no longer serve us or being more intentional with who we spend our time around. It can also be making peace with other people in our own soul. If the other person is not ready or willing, a conversation or resolution may not be possible. But hanging on to resentment, uneasiness, unforgiveness, guilt, hard feelings, or general bad vibes does not serve us. It causes stress and reinforcement of the negative patterns and contributes to the overall negativity in the world. Working on forgiving the other person and ourselves for any wrongdoing, having compassion for how the other person might be feeling, recognizing that we don’t know their full story or what pain and fear might have been driving them to act the way they did, recognizing that any wrongdoing to us has nothing to do with us and everything to do with their pain, accepting and forgiving ourselves for any hurt we may have caused and learning from it moving forward, mentally releasing toxic energy, and sending love and blessings to that person can literally CHANGE YOUR LIFE!! We cannot control other people, but we do have power over our own thoughts, emotions, actions and reactions as well as the energy that surrounds the situation. Instead of feeding the situation onward with negative energy, let it resolve with your own peace and love about it. Say a prayer of gratitude for any tough situations like this, recognizing that even seemingly unwanted situations like this are all for our greater good, growth, and expansion.

Gratitude for the tough stuff: http://katelynlesk.blogspot.com/2015/09/gratitude-for-tough-stuff.html

Our time. Let’s make peace with time knowing we only have so much time in a day and be gentle with ourselves, doing what we can, surrendering to the universe what we can’t. Let’s ease our minds with the mantra: time expands, life is long.

Our life. This has a LOT to do with what I described in the video above: accepting what is and recognizing that the “wanted” stuff and the “unwanted” is all working for our greater good.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsur7nrcsxc

Not to mention, we have a TON of things in our lives to be grateful for! No matter how bad things might be right now, I know you have at least SOME things to be grateful for! For example, right now, I know you have fresh air to breath, you woke up this morning, you have electricity and internet access, and you have at least one person who cares about you and your happiness and is rooting for you (me!). Start with those little things if that’s all you can muster! And build up to the AMAZING things that completely surround us with beauty and wonder in this world!!

How to create a gratitude practice:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xa0oqC1aCzw

Ourselves. What are you not forgiving yourself for? What resistance could you let go of? In what ways could you be a little more gentle with yourself? In what ways could you be a little more accepting of yourself, flaws and all? In what ways could you take a little more of a chance on yourself? We can at times be our own worst enemy and critic. Make the world a little more peaceful by starting with yourself!! In doing this, you also give others permission to the same!! How can you be a little more authentically YOU today??

World peace day official video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3_dl-yl74s