As the CEO (Chief Energizing Officer) at Hartful Living including GaiaHart.com and BizBuilderCards.com; I’m a Messenger and Mentor for women entrepreneurs, connecting them to their capacity to energize their work and their lives in the art of living Hartfully. At BizBuilderCards.com, you can make a living through giving with greeting cards and gifts to build your network net worth as an additive to your current business or an easy way to send gratitude and kindness to the world.
~ : Waltzing Ma-Tilda, Don’t Forget to Dance and Enjoy the Music
September 18, 2017 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
Taking some time out for dancing, singing, and playing or listening to music can help you reclaim your zip. Test-drive new kinds of music and movement from foreign cultures, from another genre, another time period, or from another region. Discovering a new twist to an old favorite is invigorating. Expand your horizons and become acquainted to new types of art, music, theater, and dance to rev up your creative juices.
Besides being great exercise, using large and small muscles and displaying large and fine motor movements, dancing moves the blood carrying much needed oxygen to all parts of the body, helping us think clearer and also get more in tune with our body and our dance partner. Put on some music and let it move your body, turn up the volume and feel the beat resonate through your bones.
I recently took my mom to see The Blue Man Group perform in Las Vegas. This very unique performance involves lots of drumming from huge drums and other percussion instruments played at a very high decibel level. It gets so loud, that the theatre provides earplugs for the audience. The beat of the drums is so intense that you can feel the beat in your heart and it is a truly moving experience.
Music is a terrific energizer or “calmer-downer”. Your heart and your body react to the rhythmic tonality of music with either a strengthening or weakening affect regardless of your opinion and taste in the music. Since our bodies are made up mostly of water, the vibrations of music can affect our moods.
The more strengthening physiological reactions come from classical music from the Baroque period with soothing, flowing instrumentals such as Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, and Handel. Studies on this “Mozart Effect” have found that students score better on tests after listening to this music and their spatial reasoning performance greatly exceeded similar students who were not either listening or playing Baroque music.
Our brains respond to music of that era because it was created in such an orderly way and our brains respond to order. This music causes the brain to use both of its sides simultaneously because of the symmetry, key relationships, rhythmic pastern contrasts, highs and lows, light and dark, and the way that it was arranged with such organization. Listening to, playing, or singing helps us integrate the left side and the right side of our brains more effectively and thus create more positive energy upon which we can draw. Mental alertness and creativity have been associated with listening to this type of music.
Weakening music includes heavy metal, jazz fusion, or music that has been digitally recorded, because the rhythms are not in alignment with our body’s natural rhythms. It feels more like a machine gun hitting our body than a stroke of a feather. If music soothes the savage beast, just think what it could do to your frazzled nerves, co-workers, kids, angry customers, or pets.
Whether you are listening to it or making it, music affects your entire essence, so choose your music wisely according to your mood, energy level, or need for energy or calmness. Music can be your jumpstart to your new mood. Music on your stereo or in your car with the top down is great, live music is even better. Don’t forget to cut loose once in a while, put on your boogie shoes and cut the rug.
Can This Get Any Better? … Cue the Rainbow
September 4, 2017 | Posted in Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
In order to feel refreshed and recharged; I need to travel and surround myself with new discoveries, recreation and experiences. I need a vacation to regroup and put things into perspective so I can come back renewed and able to give my all. How about you – what do you do to reconnect, re-create and reconvene better than when you started?
On a recent trip to Moorea, French Polynesia; I felt I was in heaven. Everything was just perfect. The over-water bungalows were just as they were shown in the travel mags. Just as beautiful and the water and view looked like a screen saver. I had sent some photos back home to friends and they demanded I send some photos with me in them to prove that I didn’t swipe them off some internet photo gallery. The staff could not have been any nicer and accommodating. I thought to myself, THIS is why I like travelling five stars. You get treated much better from people in places that sport more stars. You feel better about yourself, even. The room was fabulous with a glass-bottom floor where you could see the fish and eel swimming below. You could have your breakfast brought to your deck by outrigger canoe, and the atmosphere was one of tropical elegance and ease.
I thought it couldn’t get any better and just then a knock at the door and a chilled bottle of champagne and sweets were brought to the hut. As I relaxed on the deck with the water lapping beneath me sipping champagne and eating chocolate crumpets; I thought to myself, “This just can’t get any better, I’m at the point of exploding with joy, contentment and happiness.”
I was about to take another sip and there before my very eyes, a full rainbow appears over the lush, green mountains -big as life. There was no rain around the vicinity, but there must have been some droplets someplace. I captured that moment to share with you and to remind myself that things can always get better than you’d ever imagined. I remember Oprah saying that there is no way she could have dreamed as big a dream as she is living in this moment, but God had a bigger dream for her. She just needed to listen and follow her path, follow her inner guidance.
Look for things to get better, keep an open mind that things can and will get better. Be grateful for what has come to you as it was done for you and not to you, and always be open for more and better to come into your life. When you live with an open heart and open mind, all kinds of rainbows can come into your life. Watch for the signs, be on the lookout for what falls in your path and keep your eyes open for rainbows of all kinds to bless you. Just when you thought it couldn’t get any better….cue the rainbow…or a double rainbow!
Creating a Different Kind of To Do List
August 19, 2017 | Posted in Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
Most of us are guilty of creating loooong lists of things to do and not managing to put much of a dent in the compilation of busy-ness. Then some of us even do something that wasn’t on said list and end up wanting credit for it (not that anybody is keeping track or watching), so we add whatever it is we did that wasn’t on our list to our list just so we can cross it off. I’m talking about another type of To Do list. A fun one. A list of trips and adventures I want to do during my lifetime. I don’t call it a Bucket List because that seems negative to me. I call it a Life List because I want to do it living Hartfully, vitally, and fully alive.
So, on our most recent trip to Tahiti and Bora Bora, my BFF Barb and I decided it would be apropos to use the stationery aboard the M.S. Paul Gauguin while we were sailing around French Polynesia and brainstorm our To Do list of adventure travel trips we want to experience. The ideas were flying fast and furious and I could hardly keep up with the trips that were spewing forth from our lips. Later that day one of our travel buddies had spotted us on the deck during our writing drill and asked us what we were consumed with and intent on writing. We showed them our list and they asked if they could join us on some of our future explorations.
Barb’s philosophy is that you always need something to look forward to and she grew up always planning the next trip while her family was still on their current trip. It was something they always did and something she/I now carry forth. One of the maxims I’ve heard throughout the years is that happiness is having something to do, someone to love and something to look forward to. It keeps you young, vital, excited, and exciting. Sometimes we don’t have it all figured out immediately on our trip, but the mindset is there and we usually come up with something within a few days to a few weeks after our return. We are both good problem solvers and we find that travelling to far-away lands is always chalk-full of opportunities to solve some problems. Issues always come up, missed connections, bags not showing up, wrong bed configuration in the room, mixed-up meals, and communication disconnects. It gives you a chance to test your creative thinking skills and ingenuity. I also find it’s better to have the luxury of two or more brains working on the solution than just me. If it’s just me, then it gets a little weirdly nerve-wracking, and if it’s with my buddies, then it becomes an adventure.
What do you have to look forward to in your life? How are you living Hartfully and doing the things you want to do? How are your dreams playing out? Who are you inviting along for the ride? How do you make your ride enjoyable? I’ll share more Tahiti tales in future posts. There were so many amazing experiences to share that just lit me up. Once again it was one of those lifetime trips I’d been dreaming of for decades and it truly was a dream come true. What are you doing to make your dreams come true? Do you have a strategy in place, a visual, an accountability partner? I’ve uploaded our list – maybe it will spark some ideas in you.
Blah Busting and Contented Cows. . .
August 4, 2017 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
The contented cow syndrome – how to keep a happy herd and keep them from wandering off:
- We know that contented cows give more milk and it’s the same with workers – contented workers produce more.
- Identify realistic expectations about the job, responsibilities, and the organization.
- Ensure there is a fundamental match between the job and the person hired to do it – personality styles, work styles, communication and conflict management styles as well as team vs. individual focus. When there is an alignment between personal and organizational values and goals, there is a better fit and longer retention and less stress for the worker.
- Offer frequent feedback and open communication about the person and their work – let them know how they’re doing and acknowledge their efforts. Generation X and Y, in particular have been used to getting feedback every 60 seconds on how they were doing with computer games. A once per year evaluation isn’t going to cut it.
- Focus on flexibility for family and work and ensure there is a good work-life balance program so workers don’t feel overwhelmed, stressed out, burnt-out and rusted out trying to juggle personal and professional responsibilities.
- Cultivate trust, confidence, and honest, open communication between all levels – show you genuinely care for people and combine the heart and the head level in people to bring out the best in them.
Blah –buster tips for beating depression in the workforce:
- Recent labor studies found that depression costs companies nearly $12 billion in lost work each year and more than $11 billion in other costs accrued from decreased productivity. Here are some tips to improve on those statistics.
- Exercise and a healthy diet combined with vitamins.
- Expressing emotions verbally with a therapist or a friend or through journaling.
- Fresh air and sunshine, or at least full-spectrum lighting that mimics the sun’s rays. Studies have found that people are 25% more productive when using full-spectrum lighting and natural light as compared to fluorescent lighting.
Satisfaction with your work, feeling successful and that you are doing something that matters. Find out what you’re good at, what ignites your passion, and what can combine your preferences with a good income.
Plan for Spontaneity With a Fun Fund
July 19, 2017 | Posted in Living Hartfully, Wealthy Woman | By Gaia Hart
All the Financial Planners tell you to have at least 6-12 months of liquid emergency money stashed aside to take care of life’s little moments that sneak up on you such as car repairs or the furnace giving up its last breath during a polar vortex. In addition to that advice; I’d like to offer up another form of stash called the Fun Fund to use any way you wish as long as it’s fun. In the Millionaire Mindset book and in his workshops; T. Harv Eker suggests 10% of your income should be stashed away to use any way you wish so you feel like you have control over your money and you’re using it to enjoy your life.
Enter the Fun Fund. After my BFF and I returned from one of the millionaire bootcamps over a decade ago; we took that advice and have been stashing away a percentage of earnings into our Fun Funds ever since so that we have a pot of money with no particular plan, but the plan is to use it when the mood or a great adventure strikes. With our financial foundation in check and our Fun Fund fully stocked; we are ready to pounce when something so juicy comes along that we just can’t resist.
I’ve learned from my guides and coaches throughout the years and from my personal experience that I need to fully trust my intuition and just flow with it. As a very old soul who has been around many lifetimes; I’m told that my intuition has a very clear path showing me my path; so I usually go with it when I feel the strong urge. My BFF is the same way and when both of us have the gut feeling; we are helpless to defend against it. We just have to go with it and that’s how our latest adventure came about one low-key, loungey kind of Saturday.
I was in the middle of trying out a new lunch recipe when I got the call with Barb on the other end saying “Now don’t say no right away, just hear me out. I have an idea for a cruise into Canada during peak leaf peeping season. I know you will have just returned from your trip to Cuba, but this is a great deal.” As she was explaining the trip complete with sailing on a vintage four-masted schooner and high tea at the Chateau Fontenac in Quebec City – one of my to-do lists for 20 years; I knew I was a gonner.
Two days later I get a text from Barb in the middle of doing a seminar which said we have to “Do the Dragon”. What the hell did that mean. She texted “google it”. I did and I’m in. So in a matter of a few days, we have a few vacations already planned, booked and paid for. Something I never imagined the week prior. It seems that the Dragon’s Tail is one of the most notorious roads in America with 318 curves in 11 miles of mountain road and there was going to be a car rally with all kinds of festivities focused on the “Doing the Dragon”. With my father being a former race car driver, he also raced boats and motorcycle side cars. It’s in my blood. I love cars, boats and planes. Once again I was sucked into the thrill of the adventure and the unknown. Toss in an amazing log cabin with phenomenal mountain views and I can’t say no.
When it comes to people waiving great travel deals and amazing adventures in front of my face, I’m very weak. I cannot say no to such temptation. Try as I might to be prudent and rational; I just lose my mind thinking that an opportunity of a lifetime may pass me by and I might miss out on some life-altering experience, discovery, and good times. I’m a sucker for a good adventure with good friends. I caved.
Luckily, we both plan for such spontaneous times by continually adding to our Fun Funds. By planning for something we don’t know about in our futures, we can take advantage of an opportunity when it does come our way and be ready to pounce. Of course, we also sock away and invest much more into our Retirement Fund than our Fun Fund; but having a fund for frivolity feels good and brings out the kid in us after our adult has already set aside something for our retirement, our emergencies, our heirs, and other adult stuff.
What can you set aside for yourself, just yourself to do whatever you want that is meaningful and memorable to you. Vacations don’t just last a week or two, or three or whatever. They last a lifetime in our memory and our beings. It fulfills us and refuels us to keep going at a higher vibrational level than before we left. How can you better plan for spontaneity so that you can strike when the opportunity presents itself? What can you stash away and invest each month or week? What can you cut out of your life in order to have something more meaningful? What are you frittering away on a daily or weekly basis that could go into your Fun Fund for something more fabulous? I’ll be sure to report on our fabulous Canadian adventure later this fall and how we fared on the Dragon later in the Spring upon our return from our adventures.
Capybaras, White Alligators, and Jaguars, Oh My
July 4, 2017 | Posted in Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
We were deep in the Amazon jungle. I had wanted to do a jungle tour ever since I first saw the movie The Jungle Book with Mogli and Balu the blue bear when my brother took me to see it when I was five or six years old.
As we usually do, my BFF and I charted a wild itinerary into the wilds and invited some other friends to join us. Vacation planning is our forte and I call her a travel savant. This was one trip that was near and dear to my heart and I knew that living fully and living Hartfully just had to include the Amazon forest.
Our thatched hut was so far into the rain forest that there were no roads. The only way to reach the compound was by motorized canoe. We had to walk the plank just to embark on the boat. Our guide told us we were not to ever walk alone around the camp. It was the buddy system for safety. The sign posted in our bathroom next to the whistle hanging on the door gave instructions on how to summon help if we encountered a wild animal and food in the huts was forbidden.
Being a vegetarian, I always travel with protein bars, trail mix and peanut butter crackers from past experience of going hungry for lack of appropriate food in unknown places and the middle of the jungle was one of those places. We took a nighttime canoe ride and saw a white alligator and a 60-pound rodent, a capybara which is related to the guinea pig. Seriously, think of a 60-pound rat. It gave me the willies just thinking about how huge it was. It was the largest rodent I had ever seen – the size of a German Shepherd and they roam free. A sloth hung from the branches as we made our way back to our hut. It was like a steam bath and still hovering in the 100’s at night, so I decided to take a cold shower only to find a frog in the stall. I wondered what other creatures had made their way into our hut, which was had only a screen on three sides.
At 4:00 am the jungle starts coming alive. It was completely black outside and I heard it. The lowly rumble of the beginning of a roar. Frozen in my bed with anticipation of a jaguar jumping through the screened wall, I turned on the video camera on my phone. There is was again, only this time much louder and closer and more grumbling. I just knew the big cat was after my M&M laden trail mix I had locked in my suitcase. Could they really smell it inside baggies and a rollaboard? I recorded the sounds and kept recording until the sound faded away. Maybe it wasn’t that hungry. I peered out the window and only saw a baby Capybara and heard the birds. It was a symphony of sound as the wilderness cacophony grew louder as the sun rose. I’ve never heard so many different natural sounds in my life. It was deafening. The one sound that I was glad not to hear any more was the growl.
My BFF, Barb and I finally mustered the courage to exit our hut and go to breakfast using the buddy system and keeping our eyes peeled for jaguars. All we encountered were monkeys and birds. We thoroughly enjoyed our breakfast of Brazil nuts, pastries and fried yucca. Next time I’m double-bagging my trail mix to throw the wild animals off the scent.
.: Period-ically Shake Things Up
June 19, 2017 | Posted in Leading Hartfully, Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
I have a print of the Story People hanging on my wall that says: “There are special angels whose only job is to make sure you don’t get too comfortable and fall asleep and miss life”. Comfort is good to a certain degree, but too much comfort makes us lazy and complacent, and starts to feel like a rut which is not at all energizing.
If things don’t get shaken up for you, do it yourself just to make things more interesting. Put yourself on the edge again to regain the excitement of a new venture. Risk-taking pumps adrenaline into our systems to energize us. Change may create some anxiety; but when channeled into a positive light, it gives us vitality to create a new perception of our world. Only two things motivate us: moving towards pleasure, or moving away from pain. Where are you heading? Take a look at shaking some old habits and thought patterns. Re-evaluate what is working and what is not working for you right now. Is it time for old habits to go away and new habits to take their place?
Sometimes how we are in the world and the way we do things comes so natural to us that we begin to take them for granted. When we are faced with a different method of operating or a new way of seeing things or doing things, our beliefs are challenged and our thinking is jarred a bit. At that point we need to become clear as to the motives behind our behaviors and really take notice as to why we have the thought processes or the behaviors we have adapted.
Sometimes what we think is true or right may only be cultural. Traveling to developing countries or other foreign lands is a great way to shake up your thinking about how you live and what you consider ‘normal’ ways of being in the world. Learning the whys and hows of another culture helps put our own methodology in perspective.
Being a newlywed later in life, I had quickly learned how my usual ways of living had been shaken and my thoughts stirred as I gained new perspectives on daily routines through the eyes of my then husband. Gaining insight into another gender is another form of a different culture (some would say another planet) and it gives us cause to periodically shake things up with a different point of view. I saw how marriage would be a constant source of inquiry, risk taking, discovery, questioning, learning, and challenge to help both of us to periodically reconsider our old style of being.
Jumping (on) the Shark
June 4, 2017 | Posted in Living Hartfully | By Gaia Hart
What lights you up? What really gets your heart pumping and enthused about your life? What fills you with a sense of awe and wonder and giddy excitement? My BFF and travel buddy, Barb and I both experienced amazing underwater surprises on separate diving and snorkeling excursions during our recent visit to the South Pacific. We had both wanted to see the Islands after watching the movie as children and it was finally our time to see that part of the world and what was underneath it.
I know when I am living Hartfully when I’m awe-struck by nature’s beauty and bounty, and in the midst of grandeur or maybe even danger. It’s a fine line. Much of our trip was spent underwater or at least on top of the water to view the incredible creatures. Why neither one of us thought to bring a Go Pro underwater sport video/camera, I’ll never know. We were the only ones on the dive boat to not have one and I’m sorry we could not capture those moments.
I’ve been SCUBA diving since the early 80’s and have seen my fair share of marine life, but what we experienced just outside our over-water bungalow and on deeper dives is nothing short of incredible. I’ve never been surrounded by so many sharks in any of my dives anywhere in the world. At one point I counted six black-tipped sharks and eight lemon sharks circling our group until the largest barracuda I’ve ever witnessed came swimming right towards me with something hanging out of its mouth. A half-eaten lunch, maybe? I stretched out the length of my 5’2” body and that barracuda was every bit the length of me. Where was that camera when you needed to document being one of the smallest things not at the top of the food chain at that very moment? Then we saw a herd, pod, gaggle, school, whatever, of eagle rays float effortlessly by on their way to someplace away from the sharks. I was in absolute heaven and I couldn’t wait to regale Barb with my story. Little did I know she would come back with a story of her own.
When we reconvened back on the ship after our separate underwater adventures. Barb’s story won, hands down. It seems that their snorkeling group landed amidst a school of lemon sharks who liked playing about the dive boat. So naturally what do divers do but jump in the water to get a closer look and better pictures. (If you’ve brought your Go Pro – note to self, go buy a Go Pro camera.) Just when Barb thought it was clear to jump in the water; off she goes and immediately after she is already committed, a 10-foot lemon shark swims from underneath the boat and SHE JUMPS ON THE BACK FIN OF THE SHARK! Yup, Fonzi famously jumped the shark in the TV sitcom Happy Days, and my friend jumps ON TOP OF A SHARK! Luckily he was only merely annoyed and swam away. Then a bit later the dive master, who weirdly stayed INSIDE the boat top side, announced to the snorkelers who are IN the water that “The sharks are getting agitated. Get in the boat NOW!” You can bet there was a bee-line for the ladder on that boat. Last one up the ladder is shark bait!
So, we learned a lesson that no matter how good you think your story is, there is bound to be somebody with a better story, and sometimes a good story is better than a good time. Although we did come back from that trip with a ton of stories and a heaping good time. Sometimes you luck out when you are in search of a Hartful life. Look for the good stuff, always seek good stories and ways to keep you lit up. What lights you up? What have you done lately to create a good story?
