Tap Into Your Inner Resources

June e-news!

I just got back from being in Switzerland for 2 weeks. What an amazing adventure I had. I did something quite different than I usually do when traveling to Europe.

I went solo!

Nope, didn’t get a divorce or anything similar to that. I still have my wonderful husband, it’s just that I had an opportunity to speak to a group of dental hygienists in Zurich on stress for their patients and themselves, and my husband decided he didn’t want to go.

He wanted to go backpacking instead. Ok, but Switzerland…how can one not want to go there?!!

It’s interesting how we get accustomed to doing things in a certain way and when faced with changing up the pattern how that brings up our “stuff.”

Well, at first I wondered if I could do this-after all, it’s my husband who is the “navigator” in the family. And, I’ve rather gotten used to it being that way. It’s not that I can’t navigate my way around, but it’s one his strength and I have other strengths.

I wondered if I’d be able to handle using an online train time table, find my way around hiking in the mountains and not get lost.

But, to tell you the truth, I only wondered for a very short time. I quickly tapped into an array of resources I have-one of which is that I did this all on my own, way before there was anything like an app, like the internet, like a cell phone even!

I looked to my past strengths!

I went to Switzerland as a single woman in my early 30’s back in 1984 to work for a Swiss Dentist in Zurich that I hadn’t even met. I was a dental hygienist until 5 years ago, in case you don’t know that about me.

I had to find my way on trams, to grocery stores, to learning the language, instructing my patients in their oral health care in German, paying bills, doing banking…and on and on. It was a lot to learn and navigate without a lot of help.

And, so I realized how much of that is still there for me. It’s a resource. I just needed to tap into it.

And, tap into it I did. I thoroughly enjoyed having this alone time, getting to experience an adventure unique to me and seeing how I was quite capable of using the train app with ease, getting on and off the trains without my husband’s assistance with my luggage and not even getting lost hiking in the beautiful Swiss Alps all on my own!

Of course, I consider myself a very capable person and if you were to ask anyone who knows me, they would probably be surprised that I even I a few moments doubt of my ability to do this.

But, you see, we can develop patterns that feel comfortable and don’t stretch us, like the husband doing the major navigating…or perhaps not getting exercise because it’s more comfortable doing a known pattern of just not making time for it, or not seeking that dream job or career change, because it feels risky.

It can even feel really comfortable, in an odd sort of way, by staying in the same stressed out overwhelm pattern, instead of making changes and finding tools and resources that will bring more inner peace and even joy into our lives.

Us human beings can forget we have an immense amount of inner resources.

We tend forget we’ve done things great things in the past, like getting through school, getting a degree, earning money when it was challenging to do so, giving birth, being a parent, learning to drive a car…there are so many resources we all have…and yet we often forget when we are challenged to get out of our comfort zone.

If you find yourself wishing you had the “courage” to do xy or z. Stop wishing. Look within and allow yourself to receive and to know your own unique courage, fortitude and capabilities.

You have an amazing wealth of resources within YOU.

I invite you to tap into them. It’s almost summer (for us northern hemisphere peeps), it’s a time to play, do something different, get out of your usual pattern and create some new adventures, fun, inner joy.

Let me know what you plan to do, I’ll lovingly encourage your venturing into your innate resources so you open up to some brand new experiences that will leave you in a new empowered state of mind, body and spirit!

Meanwhile, enjoy some of the photos I took while on my adventure!