Begin again, unabashedly, without drama or critique

begin with a deep sigh, a generous smile and feet solid on the ground.

Hello my friend,

Simple choices are a string of pearls—each a beginning—strung together to create a strand of luminous beauty.

A week ago I stuck my hands in the dirt for the first time in months—too many months—and potted two small basil plants. Finally, after missing the early planting season my hands felt the lush satisfaction of feeling the earth and tending to the promise of homemade pesto sauce.

Yesterday I finished the last of our spinach blending it with protein powder, nuts, berries, and old frozen bananas. Enjoying a nutritious smoothie made possible by my bullet blender, I thanked the makers of this kitchen device for it’s sustaining power. It has been in storage for a couple of years.

Monday, I swam laps in the YMCA pool after a 6 week hiatus. My body oozed ahhhh with each stroke and kick, slow and steady.

Today, before tomorrow’s self desired deadline, I compose this blog for Somatic Finance giving a nod, a wink, and kind embrace to the motivation for its creation.

Begin again.

Whatever it is, the thing that you want to do, used to do, have been meaning to engage, made a promise, shook hands in agreement and then forgot—begin.

It’s okay and normal to restart your engine.

Allow your truest inspiration to guide and buoy your moves. Release optional nagging thoughts circling—trying to solve why, admonishing reprimands, or shaming defeat.

Life follows a curving path and sometimes we cross over a path we already began.

What does your curving road look like?

What inspires you to begin again?

Will you take the baby step?

Money Practices

It wouldn’t be Somatic Finance without including financial choices too.

Money often adds extra doses of shame, complaint, critique, blame, and (you name your favorite) to money aspirations that… fizzle out.

Do any of these feel familiar?

• Saving for a meaningful goal that suddenly ceases due to an expensive car repair.

• Investing regularly in a retirement plan as a long term strategy for the later chapters of life yet the paperwork to get started sits neglected.

• Establishing automatic bill paying to prevent late fees when our mind and monthly routines falter.

• Revising outdated estate documents—powers of attorney, health care designations, living wills, trusts—put on the back burner as time sucks away urgent matters cut in front.

• Taking the long desired vacation using allocated resources sitting in a low interest bearing account.

• Choosing one or more charitable causes and releasing the funds intentionally saved in a Donor Advised Fund or private foundation.

What matters most and how do we align our resources—money, energy, time, gifts, creativity—with it?

Pausing to take stock, reflect, digest, redirect and plan—now—is where we begin again.

In our business we engage an interior discovery process using the three questions highlighted in The Seven Stages of Money Maturity, celebrating 25 years, to support the alignment of money choices with what matters most. We ask these questions more than once as years pass and definitely during times of change and upheaval. Our intention to align our money with our life leads to healthy integration and a natural flow of clarity and implementation.

I’ve discovered over the years that the three questions live in me, as me. My heart let’s me know as nature reflects the truth of our human journey in changing seasons, raging fires, swallowing floods, rising suns, luminous moons. Adjusting, redirecting, flowing with, savoring, cherishing are close. And when I forget, I begin again.

In your life, whatever touches your heart is what matters most.

Hold your palms to your heart, breathe with their kind touch, access what’s alive, and begin again.

Connecting and cherishing you,

Gayle