Welcome to episode 22 of the Unlock Your Life podcast. I’m your host Lori Harris, and today we’re talking about what comes next. After you build this attitude of gratitude, what comes next? Well, this is your time to be her now. If there’s something more in your life that you want then be the woman who is. Be her now. Let’s find out what that means. Let’s get going.

Welcome to the Unlock Your Life podcast, a podcast for highly successful visionary women who want more out of life. If you feel that ache of unfulfillment in your soul, you’re in the right place sis. Join life mastery consultant Lori A. Harris as she teaches you how to stop living for others and finally put yourself first. Let’s dive into today’s show.

Welcome back. So in the last week or so, we’ve had a lot of big news. Here in the United States, our emotions have been going all over the place, up and down. People are talking about new variants of the coronavirus. Verdicts in one part of the country and verdicts in another part of the country.

We’re reminded that what’s happening in our lives on a day to day basis, how we respond to it, how we react, that’s all within us. We get to decide who we’re going to be and how we’re going to respond, and if we’re going to allow major news events to take our attention away and off of our goals. Are we going to be the woman that is or are we going to be the woman that’s carried away? We get to decide every day.

So last week I invited you to embark on a seven day experiment. How did it go? We were talking about three different forms of gratitude. There’s gratitude if and when. I’m gratitude when the things that I want to happen happen, I’m grateful. If the things I want to happen happen, I’m grateful. That’s the first phase of gratitude.

Then there’s gratitude for. Gratitude for is I’m grateful for this and I’m grateful for that. I’m grateful for my children. I’m grateful for my spouse. I’m grateful for the sunshine. Then the final more expansive form of gratitude is generative gratitude. Gratitude regardless of outside circumstances.

So with these verdicts, we got a chance to remind ourselves that I am living in this particular moment, in this particular body, and I get to decide what emotions I’m going to have or create or carry with me. Things are happening, and I get to decide how I want to be with that. So be her now is the thing that we’re going to talk about today. Let’s get going.

Be the change you want to see in the world. Mahatma Gandhi is credited with having this pithy phrase, and it’s funny because we’ll see everywhere. We see it as a meme. We see it as a beautiful Instagram post. We see it all over the place. So I’ve invited you to be her now. Be the change you wish to see in the world.

The truth is, Mr. Gandhi actually said a lot more than that just tiny little pithy phrase. What he said was, “If we can change ourselves, the tendencies in the world would also change. As a man changes his own nature, so does the attitude of the world change towards him. We need not wait to see what others do.”

So what I know about my community of listeners, our community of listeners, is most of the people listening to this podcast right now are helpers. Whether we are doctors or lawyers or nurses or running non-profit for purpose organizations, we are all people who deeply care about others and have decided to devote our lives to making the world a better place in the area of our work.

So oftentimes our creative endeavors, our time is traded for money in places where we aspire to make a difference in the world. In order to do that, we have to have real clarity about what the goal is. What the change is that we seek in the world.

So often the clients that I work with will talk about who they want to be. Sometimes they’ll say, “I am raising free Black children.” So what does it mean to raise free Black children? If you are a woman who aspires to raise free Black or brown children, then that’s going to require something of you. In order to have something more or give something more, you first have to embody that quality within yourself. So what would it take for you to walk this earth and stand on this earth as a free Black/brown woman? What would that look like? Who would you be and how would you show up?

So I’m asking you. Are there things you need to step up or step away from in order to be your version of a free woman? What would that look like? So we practice gratitude because we can’t very well get more or have more if we can’t appreciate the place where we find ourselves in and at any given moment. So we look at the circumstances of our lives, and we remind ourselves that we have the ability to respond. We have responsibility.

When I look at the various circumstances or situations that are happening in my life effecting my mood or countenance, I get to remind myself that everything is a result of the thoughts that I’m thinking about them. So at any given moment, our point of power is in the present moment.

So we check in with ourselves, and we ask ourselves who are we being? We remind ourselves that change is inevitable. Change is a good thing. It’s an indication of whatever we make it. So we can decide to be expansive in our thoughts or constrictive in our thoughts. We can go towards the things that light us up or we can allow ourselves to be defeated and shrink back and think of ourselves as smaller than we actually are.

So right now I want to stop and ask you a question. At this moment, at this very moment when you stop and reflect and consider your life, what would it take for you to be free? What would freedom be for you? What is it to be a free woman in your own skin? What would you have to start doing in order to feel and experience more freedom? What are the things that you need to start doing in order to have that right here, right now? Who do you need to be as a free woman?

Then the next question is what do you need to stop doing in order to be a free woman? So how are you going to step up and be it and what are you going to step away from to be it. Being free means making the decisions that are in congruence with freedom for you, which is a very individual and specific experience for yourself.

I believe, and in my observation of seeing people in life, many of the people that we admire most in the world are people who’ve spent some time or period of their own lives in physical incarceration. We’ve witnessed and observed a certain type of independence and transformation occur within them with either actual incarceration or the threat of incarceration. When people have to decide who they’re going to be regardless of their outside circumstances, they are reminded that they are always with themselves. And how they show up and respond to a situation is the freedom in itself.

According to Nelson Mandela, “There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere. Many of us will have to pass through the valley of shadow of death again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our desires.” In order to reach the mountaintop of our desires, we must first allow ourselves to feel them, to become aware of them, to allow our heart’s desire to bubble up. We look toward ourselves and look within ourselves and ask ourselves, “Who am I and what do I really want?”

So in this period of reflection, we’ve gone through our phase of gratitude all of November. In this month of December, I’m going to ask you to reflect and check in with yourself. What went really well in 2021? What did you love about 2021? Then go forward and allow yourself to dream a little. Explore a little. Ask for a little bit more. Be the woman you want to be. Be her now. Ask yourself. What do I need to do in order to make welcome a life that I actually am excited and love living?

As I put my head on the pillow at night, yeah, I’m grateful. When I wake up in the morning, I generate gratitude. I’m grateful and I’m excited to live this life because I know that every day, I’m going to make some decisions that are in keeping and in congruence with being the woman that is free right here and right now. It’s not some faraway place that I’m trying to get to.

I’m making free decisions in this body right here and right now. I am being that woman. I am not a victim of my circumstances. I remind myself this job that I have right now, there was a time that I prayed for this job. So I can find something within this job to be grateful for, and I’m going to be grateful for it.

And I can look towards those areas of my life that create some form of discontent. I can look at it frankly and honestly, and I can look it in the eye and say, “This has got to go. This has got to change.” I allow it to bubble up, and I write it down. I say hm when I think of my longings, I would love to have more of this. When I think of places in my life that are causing me discontent, I would love to have less of this. Then I step out and I be that woman right now.

So if you are a woman who is looking to be a visionary, to make major changes in the world, to get to your next initiative, I want to suggest to you that just as strategic as you are in your workplace. Just as intentional as you are with the organizations that you run and the people that you serve.

I’m asking you to look at your own life and be intentional with that. Ask yourself, “What do I really want?” At least be willing to look at it and write it down. What is causing me pain at this given moment? Look at that and write it down. Then we will take additional steps to move forward to make a change. So we’re going to be auditing our attitudes, auditing our behaviors, and auditing our community this month in December for a month of reflection, growth, and gratitude.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast. I’m your host Lori, and we were talking about this week be her now. Be the woman who is. Do the things that light you up. Your goals, your dream life, your visionary experience, and exploration is happening right here in this moment.

If you can take the steps that align with that, you will have a greater day to day experience of a life that you love living. So first step, look at your life, look at your choices, write them down. I’d like more of this and less of that. Allow those things to bubble up, and then we can move forward.

Thank you for listening to the Unlock Your Life podcast. This was episode 22, and we were talking about be her now. Make a decision for the life that you would absolutely love living and take a step in that direction. If you’ve enjoyed listening to the podcast, I’d ask that you look us up on Apple podcasts. There you can follow, rate, and review the show. I’d love it if you would share it with one of your friends. If you have got great value from this podcast, share it with a friend so that we can grow our community. It’s your life. Make it a great one.

Thanks for listening to this episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast. If you want more information on how you can transform your life and do it quickly, visit loriaharris.com. See it on the next episode of the Unlock Your Life podcast.