Hasta La Gadget!

There are so many fun and exciting things you could do during the month of December — parties, events, lunches, creative projects, shopping, card sending, and the list goes on. But as these to-dos start to accumulate, even if they are things you want to do, all of the sudden all the space you desired for peace, harmony, and chilling this December turns into holiday stress that sucks up your time and pushes your peace right out the window.

Fast forward to January, and because you tried to do too much this holiday, you start the new year at a deficit of energy, time and money and you play catch up all year long. Most of us are totally oblivious to the fact that how we live our holidays is a huge set up for a year ahead with more pressure.

And while some of this holiday pressure is unavoidable, much of the stress can be avoided if you become aware of how your FOMO — fear of missing out — and FOHO — fear of hurting others — is driving you to make choices that drain you instead of sustain you.

For example, you may want to say yes to many of the holiday party or lunch invitations, but deep down you know there are one or two that you could let go of and create more space and less stress. But you are afraid of hurting the host’s feelings or missing out on the fun (you don’t want to see the Facebook posts the next day and feel left out).

You may want to send cards to everyone you know, but deep down you know that it will take hours, and you would honestly rather spend that energy on the project you’ve been wanting to do just for yourself. But you are afraid that if you don’t send everyone a card, they will feel bad or will think you don’t care.

You may want to see your relatives (or not) but inside you know the stress of traveling to multiple places is really more than your heart desires. But again FOMO and FOHO get the better of you.

Usually you are just moving too fast to feel this inner truth, so it’s only after the fact, after you have done too much, that you suffer and realize that you didn’t really stay true to yourself, and are now in energy deficit.

There is a different choice. A holiday sanity practice that creates MORE SPACIOUSNESS and MORE SWEETNESS in your life and has the power to alleviate at least some unneeded holiday stress. I started using this years ago, it’s called SAYING NO WITH LOVE and it works like this:

Holiday Sanity Practice — SAY NO WITH LOVE to the extra things you may want to do but that will cost you more than the return.

1. Find at least ONE THING to SAY NO to — even if you want to do it, even if you love these people, you know deep down, doing this will cost more than the return and will create stress on the back end instead of spaciousnesss.

2. Release that ONE THING with LOVE, by promising to STAY TRUE TO YOURSELF even if that means disappointing another — It’s an act of self-love to choose yourself first, and that’s not selfish, it’s smart. As you consider releasing this one thing, say this self-love promise out loud — “I promise to stay true to myself even if that means disappointing another” — as your permission slip to say No, with love.

3. Take ACTION with LOVE — without guilt or criticism, cancel that to do and take whatever action you need to release it and open up space, and do it with love (e.g., call and decline the invitation letting the person know you appreciate the invitation and them even though you won’t be able to make it, only send cards to 10 people and send an email to the rest, call your relatives and give them love via phone or Skype instead of feeling like you have to see them in person).

I’d never ask you to do something I wouldn’t do! Here’s my holiday sanity Say NO with Love this week:

“I say NO to going to the lunch on Monday with three women I love that would take me 2 hours of driving time to and from. I release the desire to go to this event, and will call my friend tell her I can’t come, that it makes me sad we won’t see each other, and not take it personally.

I promise to stay true to myself even if that means disappointing another!”

Okay, now your turn.

Choose sanity instead of stress for yourself and your heart this holiday. And trust, everyone will be happier in the end.

“Saturday Night Live” wasted no time addressing the Eric Garner decision, as the show started off with a sketch that tackled the controversial issue.

In the cold open, Reverend Al Sharpton — played by Kenan Thompson — explained that the outrage over the grand jury’s decision not to indite an NYPD officer for the death of Eric Garner has finally made people side with Sharpton.

“For the first time in my life, everyone agrees with me. Folks are high-fiving with me, inviting me places. This must be what it feels like to be Beyonce.”

Sharpton then invited a criminal justice lawyer onto the show, but talked over him when he tried to explain the legalities of the case.

“This is not a whodunnit. This is a he did it!” Sharpton interrupted.

Watch the full clip above.

It’s been seventy-three years since the Day of Infamy. So many of the people that lived it are now gone. But their echoes and the lessons they impart to our lives continue.

When I think of December 7th, I remember it is the day my elders began the most difficult four years of their lives. I have seen in their eyes the fear, anger and resolve that come from experiencing what it was like to survive in territory occupied by the Empire of the Rising Sun. My mother had never heard of Pearl Harbor. For her World War II began on the same day seeing the Japanese bomb a U.S. naval installation called Cubi Point at the entrance to Manila Bay in the Philippine Islands. My grandfather never spoke of what horrors he had seen on the Bataan Death March or his years in the prison camps. When I look at my father, I always see the aura of my other grandfather’s memories of his son – my father – hanging off the side of a Japanese patrol boat with an Arisaka rifle pointed at him forced to give up the catch needed to feed his family to save him in the middle of the night in a place called Subic Bay.

Time has passed but the poignancy has not faded. Each December 7th I’m thankful they survived because I would not be here to muse about it if they hadn’t. The echoes of their ordeal drive me deeply to make sure that such a thing will never happen again. Whether called the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere or some other name made up by the contemporaries of my day, the evil that lurks underneath those who believe their ideas justify the horrors they impose must always be confronted and defeated.

Passion and purpose are perfectly aligned for me. Without the first element in my life the second one really lacks.

For me, the word purpose has always been associated with making a living. I grew up always wanting to be one of those people who said, “It doesn’t feel like a job because I love it so much.”

It took me a while to get to that place in life. I was committed to finding my way to that place though.

My first step in figuring out my life purpose was to clarify what I could see myself doing for the rest of my life based on what I was passionate about.

I remember sitting down on my living room floor one night with a journal and writing down what I loved to do with my free time. I was in my late 20s at this point.

My passions have always revolved around being creative. I grew up in a dance studio. I love to paint, write, scrapbook, cook and anything that involves glitter and glue. Since those elements helped me enhance my self-esteem, eventually my passion revolved around supporting females on their own path to being true to themselves. Finally, somewhere in my 20s I found my own spirituality journey and I’ve been passionate about that ever since too.

On the next journal page, I wrote down this question: “How can I make a living from my passions?”

And then I waited for answers. I waited for answers for months.

I don’t remember the exact day answers came to me — but I remember how I felt. There was this strong drive ignited within in for the first time.

I went to work creating an organization that inspired girls to be true to themselves. I brought in creative arts as a tool that allowed the girls to express themselves. I incorporated educational and psychology experts to help create exercises that would give the girls tools to know how to form healthy relationships, handle bullying and peer pressure in life.

That process took about two years. It went by fast though because I was so driven to finally live out my life purpose.

My passions in life lead me to finding my life purpose and eventually being one of those people who can say, “It doesn’t feel like a job.”

Once I put my life purpose in motion, the drive within me grew. That drive within me caught on fire when I finally stood up in my full authenticity and launched Severson Sisters.

My life purpose and passion have granted me some amazing moments. I’ve had the honor of being highlighted in Glamour. I’ve been selected as a USA Network Characters Unite award winner. I’m included on my high school Wall of Recognition. I’ve been featured as one of Arizona’s Women Who Move the Valley by Arizona Foothills. I’ve had the joy of supporting and inspiring 1,300 girls along the way.

Most recently, I’ve been asked to Stand Up for Passion on Dec. 17 in New York City to share my personal journey to happiness. I’m really looking forward to this event because I’ll be alongside six other passionate, authentic individuals who have powerful stories to share with the world. Together, we’ll tell tales of how we’ve each learned how to live our lives with passion and purpose.

We each have such unique stories to tell and I’m excited to share the stage with all these fellow storytellers.

My personal journey to happiness is one I’m really excited about telling because it’s been unexpected for me. Along the way, I decided to sum up my life purpose as being a light in the world. Learning how to keep the light within me bright has been an ongoing challenge.

If you’re in New York City on Dec. 17, join me at Stand Up for Passion!

I’d love to share my journey with you.

This has been a wild, wonderful, dynamic and highly challenging year. Life is stretching me wide open and calling me to trust and show up on deeper levels and in bigger ways than I knew were possible.

Life is ever-changing, evolving, speaking to and through me in whispers and shouts, and showing me the way through subtle signs, soul-crushing doubt, and the guidance of others (strangers, family, friends, soul mates, teachers, clients and dreams).

I’ve been given multiple opportunities to embrace life in all of its wild discomfort, with resistance, strong like a bulldozer ready to take me down. Just as the dark days of winter give birth to new life in spring, I’m continually reminded that as dark as things can seem in my inner being, there are always new seeds of life beneath the earth’s surface, sprouting, stretching, expanding beyond their core, their hard shell, taking that risk, that leap, choosing YES!

Last year I said “YES” to an opportunity to attend one of the most unique conferences I’ve ever been to for entrepreneurs, change makers and MISFITS in Fargo, North Dakota. As the date approached I felt major… I’m talkin’ MAJOR resistance here. There was no schedule, no speakers list, I didn’t know anyone attending and I was showing up alone. I almost threw in the towel, gave up my ticket and gave in to resistance.

However, as I’m getting to know what makes me tick as well as what wants to lead me astray, becoming hip to the ways of my inner detractor or saboteur, I’m ever more familiar with the voice and energy of resistance. So I said to myself four days before takeoff, “Laura, if you’re having this much resistance to attending this conference, you’d better get your ass on that plane!!”

And that’s exactly what I did… loads of resistance, missing my girlfriend’s bridal shower, my other dear friends’ intimate wedding celebration, and the 10 other excuses I could have come up with to do the familiar instead of stepping into the uncomfortable, the unknown.

First things first, when I landed in Chicago for my connecting flight and arrived at the gate, there was Jonathan Fields of the Good Life Project waiting to hop on the same flight to Fargo. I knew in that moment that I was exactly where I needed to be and thanked my lucky frickin’ stars for saying YES to this adventure!

Photo by Laura Aiisha in Fargo, North Dakota

In a nut shell, MisfitCon 2014 was one of the most impactful, synchronistic, amazingly awesome weekends of my life with 150 of the most brilliant, creative, courageous, change makers, doers, innovators and co-creators I’ve had the pleasure of meeting and sharing a weekend with yet!

Photo by Laura Aiisha in Fargo, North Dakota

I’m thinking about this experience in parallel to the resistance I had seven years ago to start going to Karaoke in order to get over my fear of singing in front of people (a dream I’d long had). Then, after a month of Karaoke got booorrring, getting out of my own way enough to co-found a reggae band as front woman, taking the stage for the first time in my life as a singer, and then walking away from a project I had poured my heart and soul into just 18 months later…

My journey to developing greater confidence in my creative endeavors and self-empowerment has not been easy. It has taken a concerted effort on my part to keep showing up (in the face of major fear and doubt) to becoming diligent about noticing what thoughts and stories I’m focusing on, while reminding myself to focus on what I WANT as opposed to all of the fearful “fantasies” in my mind about what I don’t want.

Choosing to become the WITNESS to my internal dialogue in new and powerful ways is transforming everything for me.

Here’s the thing… for most of us, our lives, businesses, legacies are developed over time (usually not in our time frame!) by choosing one thing, then the next, then the next.

I used to want it to just HAPPEN ALREADY! I mean… Haven’t I DONE ENOUGH WORK YET? Haven’t I SUFFERED and TOILED enough already?! When will it be MY TIME to SHINE?! MY TURN?! And when will I get that much-needed BREAK to leapfrog to the next level?!

Here I was showing up as a victim again. In that contractive “What About Me?!” energy. Where was my power in this? Who did I need to be in order to show up as the empowered co-creator of my life?

After grieving the experience of leaving my band, and taking a three-year hiatus, I began slowly but surely opening up to writing music again while choosing to share my voice from the stage through speaking and singing.

Photo by: Lindsay Miller TheMarketingPhotographer.com

At the top of 2014, I knew this was the year to do what I said I was going to do, and more importantly, what my heart and soul were calling me to do. So I decided to put my money where my mouth is and invest $5,000 of my own resources into writing, recording and launching my first ever product, in the form of my first ever solo EP.

After all, I did write the song “Get Up,” which encourages myself and others to:

Get Up Get Up Right Now
Get Out of Your Way!
The World is Calling You,
To Leave Your Greatest Legacy!

What’s become crystal clear to me is this:

Ohhhh… the magic, miracles, synchronicities, golden opportunities to positively impact people globally, new friends, co-creators, Divine opportunities for my own personal growth and transformation would I have missed if I gave in to resistance, and chosen fear instead of love!

A few of the things that have become crystal clear to me are:

• Doing what I said I was going to do is one of the BEST feelings
• Showing up in the face of resistance to do what I said I was going to do feels even BETTER!
• Doing things from a place of YES and empowered choice leaves no room for “woe is me”
• The Universe, God/Goddess, Source ALWAYS has my back (no matter what the monkey mind says)
• KEEP GOING! You never know what amazing, magical awesomeness is right around the corner

Now I’m curious… What are YOU missing out on by giving into resistance?

More importantly… What is THE WORLD missing out on by you giving into resistance?!

And if you’re choosing to show up and do what you said you’re going to do (or feel called to do)…

What magic, miracles and breakthroughs have you experienced as a result?!

Standing up courageously in the face of fear, doubt, resistance, nerves and old limiting stories is by far one of the most dynamic and courageous human experiences I can think of. I’m glad to be on this journey with you… and trust that my journey will inspire, uplift and motivate you in some way.