Why Struggle? Podcast W Barbara J. Faison

All the links: LINKTR.EE/BARBARAFAISON 2024 - Week 39 - Slow Down and Breathe You can listen to this on my podcast - 8:32 mins or or click the link here for the YouTube Channel version (audio only)      I love this quote - “Autumn is about to show us how beautiful it is to let things go.” - Anonymous In the northern hemisphere, Autumn or fall is the time to start slowing down. In some places the temperatures are dropping, we aren’t quite there yet in metro Atlanta. It’s coming though. Do you feel the change in yourself, moving from the energy and excitement of summer to wanting to slow down? Autumn is the time to start slowing down, releasing and letting go of whatever you need to release.  Nature shows us now to do it. The trees are letting go of the leaves to prepare for the winter. What about you? What are you preparing for by releasing and letting go? I’ve learned that around this time I want to DO LESS… so guess what? I’m doing less. I am giving myself permission and in case you need someone to give you

ALL LINKS: LINKTR.EE/BARBARAFAISON 2024 - Week 38 - Gratitude Practice I feel so grateful to be alive at this particular time. In my lifetime I have been able to experience not having cell phones or faxes, as well as not having GPS systems. I'm extremely grateful that these are now a part of our daily lives. However, I do feel that living in a time before all of those modern conveniences were available allows me to step away easier than people who may not have had the experience of living without these tools. I'm also grateful that science continues to confirm things like the importance of gratitude in our daily lives. Here are a few benefits of having a regular gratitude practice: Gratitude unshackles us from toxic emotions and we tend to use less negative language. Gratitude helps even if you don’t share it, try writing a letter to someone and you don’t even need to share it, you will benefit just from writing your thoughts down. Gratitude takes time so write down what are grateful for regul

All the links - LINKTR.EE/BARBARAFAISON 2024 - Week 37 - Settling Down Meditation You can listen to this on my podcast - 7:21 mins          I'm feeling the autumn weather, sort of. lol. In Hotlanta, we get a lot of start to feel like fall... then in a day or so the temperatures are in the high 90's.  I love to take walks and watch the geese flying overhead. Hearing them honk makes me smile!  There is something about this time of the year that makes me want to settle down and slow down. I hope you enjoy my Settling Down meditation where  you will use a self-massage, breathing and affirming phrases to bring your body to a calmer state.  --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/barbara-faison/support

All the links: LINKTR.EE/BARBARAFAISON I believe that Love is the most powerful, healing and transformative power there is. Being loving or being kind has been the answer to most situations in my experience. I’ll be sharing some of my original audios over the next few weeks and I hope you enjoy listening to them.  Oftentimes after I meditate I will grab my phone and speak out loud in my One Note app the wording that comes up for a meditation or an idea, and that’s how many of my most recent audio tracks are produced. Before I record, I review what I wrote and edit it before recording. This has been a great way to relax into trusting my Personal Guidance System (PGS).  I hope you enjoy this track called Five Minutes of Love Meditation. How are you feeling in your body right now after the five minutes focusing on love? Leave a comment, observation or reflection where you're listening to this podcast. If you’d like to share your thoughts with me - barbarafaisonllc@gmail.com is the best way to reach me. And

All LInks: LINKTR.EE/BARBARAFAISON 2024 - Week 35 - Meditation: Let’s Breathe Together Week 35 - Meditation: Let’s Breathe Together Over the last month I have shared my Meditations, Affirmations and Practices - My M.A.P. Meditation and breathwork are so essential to my daily life and I am so grateful. In this excerpt from my book/audio/eBook, Why Struggle? Life is too short to wear tight shoes I share my thoughts about meditation as a practice and we also will have a brief breathing practice at the end. Meditation/Visualization Exercises So what is meditation? One of my favorite descriptions of the meditation process is that meditation is mental hygiene. Every day we brush our teeth and shower or bathe before leaving the house. We make sure we are properly groomed before presenting ourselves to the world. Meditation, a form of mental hygiene, is a way to prepare my mind for the day by allowing me to connect with my inner guidance. Meditating regularly is like muscle training; the more I meditate, the more in

All the LINKS: LINKTR.EE/BARBARAFAISON 2024 - Week 34- My Practices - Part 4 - My M.A.P. You can listen to this on my podcast - 8:47 mins or click the link here for the YouTube Channel version (audio only)2024 - Week 32 - My Practices - Part 2 - My MAP This is an episode about the P in my M.A.P. My M.A.P. How are you doing? How’s it crackalackalacking? Mom use say that and it always makes me smile. With so much going on personally and around the world, it’s great to have moments of laughter and also prayer. In the last two episodes, week 32 & week 33, I shared my meditations and affirmations as part of My M.A.P. practices. Today I’m sharing P, the prayers. Enjoy this excerpt from my book/audio/ebook, Why Struggle? Life is too short to wear tight shoes is My M.A.P. - Prayers. My M.A.P. – PRAYERS When I wake up and before I open my eyes, I pray. I take a deep breath and say out loud, “Thank you, God.” TD and I each say a prayer out loud before we begin the day. I pray all day, every day. My standard prayer

All the links: LINKTR.EE/BARBARAFAISON 2024 - Week 33 - My Practices - Part 3 - My M.A.P. This is an episode about the A in my M.A.P. In last week's episode, week 32, I talked about the M - meditations from my M.A.P. I shared a grounding practice that is a short meditation to stay grounded when my life may feel busy. Pressing my feet down on the ground and saying “I am on solid ground” is an example of a powerful practice and affirmation to stay connected and rooted to where I am in the world and it reminds me that I am safe and all is well. In today’s podcast I am sharing affirmations! On my life’s journey I have been saying, writing and creating affirmations for almost 30 years. I hope you gain insight from the A in my M.A.P. - Affirmations. Here is the excerpt from my book/audio/eBook, Why Struggle? Life is too short to wear tight shoes, My M.A.P. - Affirmations. My M.A.P. – AFFIRMATIONS An affirmation is a statement you believe or assert to be true. I believe every thought is an affirmation and ever

All the links: LINKTR.EE/BARBARAFAISON My M.A.P. In last week's episode, week 31, I mentioned that we make around 35,000 decisions a day. Listen, that’s a lot of picking and choosing. lol. We may decide what to eat, what to wear, how to spend our day, and more. Any way you look at it, a lot of decisions are being made…ALL DAY LONG. If I don’t have certain things I do to manage my mind, I can easily begin to feel overwhelmed. Managing my mind is essential to staying grounded in my life. And I am so grateful that I started these practices a long time ago. Another one of my practices I call my M.A.P.: Includes meditations, affirmations and prayers. This excerpt from my book/audio/ebook, Why Struggle? Life is too short to wear tight shoes is My M.A.P. - Meditations. My Spiritual Practices Slowing down and paying attention to what is right in front of me has truly opened me up to more opportunities and grace. Silence, meditation, listening to music, walking, and forgiveness are some of my spiritual practices

All links: http://LINKTR.EE/barbarafaison 2024 - Week 30 - My Practices - LEGging (LEGging) This is an episode about my Learning Evolving & Growing My Practices Part 1 - LEGging Life is sooo much about what we focus our energy on. Dr. Wayne Dyer’s quote is one I remind myself of, “When given the choice between being right or being kind, choose kind.”  Yep, it’s also one of my guiding principles. In episode 2024 - Week 24 I talked about my beliefs and life philosophies. One of them I call -  Learning... Evolving... Growing (LEGging baby!) = PRACTICE. I hope you enjoy this excerpt from my book/audio/ebook, Why Struggle? Life is too short to wear tight shoes called Learning... Evolving... Growing (LEGging baby!) = PRACTICE.   When I initially wrote Why Struggle? I was convinced that life was about discovering yourself. I even named my publishing company In Search Of Publications based on that belief. The longer I live, the more I believe that we are here to discover, create and accept ourselves at each st

All the links: LINKTR.EE/BARBARAFAISON 2024 - Week 30 - How are You Sleeping? You can listen to this on my podcast - 5:42 mins or click the link here for the YouTube Channel version (audio only) This is an episode about sleep! Have you ever had a night where you didn’t sleep well? I didn’t rest well for a few days because I had some pains in my body. It was rough. My left shoulder was bothering me so I couldn’t get be on my left side, and my right lower back above my hip was hurting and when I turned to lie on my back, I just couldn’t get comfortable. I could feel the after effects of the restlessness several days later. I’m grateful that my sleep is back to normal now . Having a sleep hygiene routine has been very helpful. I usually get off my phone or tablet about 30 minutes before I go to bed and lately I have been either reading a book with essays or doing a jigsaw puzzle to calm my mind down and get ready for bed. The mind likes to have something to do, so I do my best to make my before bed that stuff,

All the Links: LINKTR.EE/BARBARAFAISON 2024 - Week 29 - Life’s Simple Pleasures! This is another episode about life’s simple pleasures! Life’s Simple Pleasures! Life is a journey. A trip. A deck of cards. Life defies a single definition because moment by moment, life changes. Life is different for each person every moment. Just as life changes, we change and grow based on our experiences. Treat yourself to something because you met a goal – celebrate! Life simply is. Being alive is cause for celebration! Take a moment to think of a reason to celebrate. Treat yourself to something because you met a goal – celebrate! Perhaps you didn’t use your cell phone when you were having a meal. CELEBRATE! Every day find reasons to be grateful for life and celebrate! Sometimes it’s just as simple as not beating yourself up about something you did. Now that is cause for a major celebration. Practice: Think about the music you’ve listened to, the movies you’ve seen, the friends in your life and how they may have changed ove

This is another episode about how CHANGE…the only constant in life. lol The only constant is change. Everything must change. Man plans and God laughs. These quotes remind me of how important it is to learn to go with the flow of life.  Have you ever made a plan, and just watched it completely fall apart? Yep, that's what happened to me over the long weekend last week. My hubby, TD and I were planning to visit his family in Tennessee over the 4th of July weekend. I packed everything and we were on the way. We stopped at Bucc-ee’s, yep, again. Lol. TD hadn't been able to reach his father, so I reached out to his aunt, Del in the parking lot of Love’s, which is across the street from Buccee’s. We went there because, well Buccee’s didn't have hot chocolate, TD likes to mix hot chocolate with coffee. Interesting. We sat the parking lot talking to both his aunt and his father and we made the decision to turn around and go back home. Covid-19 was increasing in the area so we headed back south. Luckily,

All the Links: LINKTR.EE/BARBARAFAISON 2024 - Week 27 - Silence and Letting Go This episode is about silence and letting go. This year I have taken a few road trips. I have traveled for anywhere between 3 to 9 hours at a time and allowed myself to be in silence for at least an hour. I worked my way up to this over the years. I would immerse myself in silence. I would allow my thoughts to do what they do, go all over the place.  It's a lovely reminder that I can't control everything. Lol.  I started off with 10 to 15 minutes of silence and now I can go longer especially if I'm in the car alone. Within the last 30 days I've attended the funerals of my aunt, Rosa, and my cousin, Marlis. I am grateful I was able to ride down to Tampa with my brother, Tony and his wife, Patricia, both times. Sitting in the backseat very comfortably, I might add; I crocheted, read, listened to podcasts and audiobooks on the 6+ hour rides. Of course we stopped along the drive and one of our stops is Buc-ee’s, if y

All the links: LINKTR.EE/BARBARAFAISON 2024 - Week 26 - 2024 Mid-year Review You can listen to this on my podcast - 8:40 mins or click the link here for the YouTube Channel version (audio only This episode is about checking in with 2024. We are halfway through 2024 so this week I decided to look back at some of the accomplishments and experiences I've had so far. I started doing this around 2018 after TD, my husband and I were having a conversation about the last time we had gone to visit his family in Tennessee…we couldn't remember when it was. After that I started writing down a year in review so that wouldn’t happen again. Lol I had already been keeping a daily quick log of things I wanted to remember in mini journals, I would buy in 3 packs that would often have quotes on them like fascinating thoughts. Most days of the week I do a quick note with the date and what I wanted to remember. My journal from 2017 had a note on 9/23/17 that while we were on vacation in Panama City, Fl, a woman on the be

All the links- LINKTR.EE/BARBARAFAISON 2024 - Week 25 - What I Believe (Replay) NOTE: IF YOU NOTICED THE BLOOPER, EMAIL ME WITH WHAT I DID AND I'll send you a CARD DECK FOR YOU OR AS A GIFT. (FOR THE 1st three people) This episode is a replay of Week 51 from 2023, What I BelieveAround this time I start to review my year and check in with what is important to me. I’m thinking about how I have been spending my time and how I want to spend my time in the future. Asking questions helps me stay focused. Am I sharing my T.A.G.S. - Talents, Abilities, Gifts, Skills, to the best of my abilities? An important question is - have my beliefs and philosophies changed? The excerpt that I’m sharing this week from my book/ebook/audiobook, Why Struggle? Life is too short to wear tight shoes, is part of the about this book section. In this part of the book I share my life philosophies. I hope you enjoy it! About this Book It’s been about 23 years since Why Struggle? The book was published. The initial book was a very impo

all the links: LINKTR.EE/BARBARAFAISON 2024 - Week 24 - Feeling Joy! CHECK OUT THE NATIONAL MEDITATION PLAYLIST ON YOUTUBE 2024 - Week 24 - Be Joyful This is a podcast about FEELING JOY!  Joy - a few definitions include: a source or cause of delight and a feeling of great pleasure and happiness. When was the last time you experienced joy? I recently thought about what brings me joy now at this age and stage in my life. Sometimes it is as simple as sitting in a park near a lake. Or going to my monthly crochet group learning a new stitch. Enjoying a belly laugh with a dear friend while having a regular conversation on the phone. Sometimes joy is going out dancing with my salsa dancing crew, I always have a great time with them!  On Saturday evening I went to a surprise birthday party for Anana Harris Parris. I met Anana over 25 years ago while out salsa dancing. An author and the founder of the Self Care Agency and Sister Care Alliance organizations, her focus is self-care as a form of social justice and soci

All the links: LINKTR.EE/BARBARAFAISON This is a podcast about knowing yourself and having sustainable practices. Developing and sustaining a daily meditation practice for over 25 years helped me gain a deeper level of self-awareness. I have learned that the more I practice the more I gain a level of self-mastery with what I am practicing. Being self-aware and having personal insight allows me to recognize when I need to focus on a specific tool or technique, MORE. I remember when I was at dinner with a few former colleagues in 2017 and an active shooter entered the restaurant. We were ending dinner when we heard the words, “Everybody down.” I was with three much younger ladies reminding them to breathe and affirming that we would be okay. Was I concerned as we were underneath the table waiting for more news? Of course. I also had a strong sense that we would all be fine. As the scene dispersed and the police arrived we found out that the person who instructed us to get down was a retired police officer. Tim

All the links: LINKTR.EE/BARBARAFAISON 2024 - Week 22 - Pat Yourself on the Back You can listen to this on my podcast - 8:36 mins or click the link above for the YouTube Channel version (audio only) This is a podcast about trusting yourself and patting yourself on the back. How are you doing? I’m feeling really proud of myself right now. Over the long weekend my husband and I did a lot of work around the house.  We both worked diligently on our projects around the house. Mine included cleaning out the refrigerator, cleaning out and organizing the pots and pans, organizing our sunroom, which had become very cluttered. And also our guest room. Well, let’s just say no one could sleep in there. Lol. It was a very active weekend filled with lots of bags being thrown out and things being donated. Monday evening around 7:30 pm I went to sit out in the retreat space in the back of my yard, and before I could sit for five minutes, mosquitoes reminded me that it was too late to be out there. I went back to the house an

All the Links: LINKTR.EE/BARBARAFAISON 2024 - Week 21 - Stay Grounded You can listen to this on my podcast - 9:39 mins or click the link above for the YouTube Channel version (audio only) CHECK OUT THE NATIONAL MEDITATION PLAYLIST ON YOUTUBE This podcast is about staying grounded. This past weekend my husband, TD, and I went out to San Antonio, Texas to visit with his sister and her husband. Whenever I travel, I like extra time to recuperate from the travel. What that means for me is giving myself permission to rest a little bit more in the morning instead of jumping up out of bed and starting my day. After sitting on the flight for over an hour due to mechanical difficulties, Delta has us change planes.  The flight to San Antonio had so much turbulence due to the storms in Houston that the flight crew was unable to leave their seats.  Nothing like a flight with constant turbulence to remind you of what's important in life. I took a lot of deep breaths while watching The Beekeeper on the plane.  A great

All the links: LINKTR.EE/Barbarafaison 2024 - Week 20 - Start with A Breath CHECK OUT THE NATIONAL MEDITATION PLAYLIST ON YOUTUBE This is a podcast about starting with one breath as the foundation for being present. Here’s a quick story about this week’s podcast. I received a download in bed yesterday morning and created a note in my OneNote file on my phone. Last night as I was about to email it to myself to review, I accidentally deleted it. Soooo… I went back to see what I was talking about for National Meditation Month last year and I think this is what needed to be shared. No, I know this is what needed to be shared. Enjoy this encore podcast of week 20 from 2023. And you also get an opportunity for a brief breathwork practice. I hope you enjoy it! I did pull a card so be sure to listen for the card in the moment. I would say we are back into the business of the” busyness” of life after the pandemic. Time is a premium for most of us and we all have the ability to make choices about where and how we spen