Women around the country are coming together to celebrate and experience the power of self-renewal.

You can now celebrate and experience the power of a self-care community with my Personal Renewal Group for Moms Virtual Tele-Circle. Based on the award-winning book “The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal: How to Reclaim, Rejuvenate and Re-Balance Your Life,” by Renée Trudeau, this Personal Renewal Group is a group life coaching program for moms . Topics will include:

• Reconnecting with Who You Are
• Strategies and Insights for Balanced Living
• Managing Our Energy, Saying “No” and Asking for Help
• The Transformative Power of Self-Care
• Reclaiming Adventure and Unleashing Your Creativity

TIME/DATE: Starts Thursday, June 3, 2010 at 8:30 PM CST

MEETINGS: 1st Thursday of each month for six months.

LOCATION: Virtual Teleclasses. Dial-in number is provided after registration.

COST: $54.00 for the six-month program, $12.00 to attend a single session.

REGISTER: Register at http://personalrenewalgroup.eventbrite.com.

QUESTIONS: Call 217-714-3023 if you have any questions. Additional details on the national program or book at SelfRenewalCircles.com.

FACILITATOR: ME! I’m a life coach and Renée Trudeau & Associates-Trained PRG Facilitator. My passion is to help women create space in their lives to celebrate their natural inner wisdom.

WHAT’S INCLUDED:

• Six phone-based workshops for you to feel empowered and supported to live your best life!
• Email coaching support between meetings.

Space is Limited.

Register Today!

Today I have a guest post over at Baby Elan {daily}.

Baby Elan {daily} helps new parents and parents-to-be discover the private label baby essentials above and beyond what they would find at mainstream baby retailers across the country. 

MamaElan,  KidElan and GreenElan sections provide you with mama tips, reviews of fun and educational toys/music for children, and green information/products for your family.

Jump on over and if you want permission to put yourself back onto your priority list.

Comments Closed.

This is a Sponsored Post written by me on behalf of 20th Century Fox. All opinions are 100% mine.

“Having children can make two people feel closer than they could have ever imagined. It can also put strains on a marriage – and other key relationships – that can cause that sense of closeness to radically change or even disintegrate.”
~ The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal by Renee Peterson Trudeau ~

Is Your Relationship with Your Partner a Priority?

As a working mother of two little boys, I have to admit that my relationship with my husband is not always my priority. I want it to be, but if I’m really honest with myself, I know that is not always the case. At the end of the day, after we worked, picked up the kids, cooked dinner, played with the kids, got the kids in bed, cleaned up the house, and paid bills, we are often exhausted and choose to chill on the coach together watching Survivor or Lost instead of physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually nurturing the connection between us. Do we have our moments? Yes. Can we do better at nurturing our relationship? Absolutely.

<See pictures of me and my husband, wedding photos included.>

How To Nurture Your Relationship with Your Partner

In the Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal, Renee Trudeau shares things you can do to help foster and nurture the connection between you and your partner. Later, during The Mom Renewal Project, I will try each of her ideas and blog about my experiences.

• Schedule (and keep) regular dates.
• Nurture yourself first, so you feel like giving to your partner.
• Touch each other every day.
• Create a bedroom that celebrates your marriage.
• Develop some ground rules or learn some tools for communicating with your partner.
• Connect every day for at least ten minutes.
• Go away alone together for the weekend or at least for twenty-four hours.

Start This Weekend

If you are a mom, I challenge you to intentionally nurture your relationship with your partner this weekend.

One idea is to get a sitter and go out for an engaging and fun date night. If you can’t find a sitter, can you swamp sitting services with some friends? For my next date night, I am planning on connecting with my husband over dinner at Moto Restaurant (recommended by Chicago social media expert Kim Moldofsky) and checking out Steve Carell and Tina Fey’s new Date Night Movie, which opens on April 9, 2010.

Based on the Cinema Blend review, it’s about a married suburban couple attempting to take date night off auto-pilot, and hopefully adding a little spice into their lives. But their date night goes awry, as they embark on a wild series of crazy adventures to save their lives…and their marriage.

Check out the trailer below and let me know if you see the movie this opening weekend.

This is Your Moment

Let us know in the comments section what you are going to do to nurture your relationship with your partner this weekend!

If you are interested in sponsoring a post or exploring other advertising opportunities with The Mom Renewal Project, please contact me stacey@createabalance.com.

Today is a new day for my health, my body, my weight, and my heart. Ever since I met Leah Segedie (@bookieboo) at TypeaMom last fall, I’ve be watching moms involved with #Mamavation get healthy and lose weight.

I’ve been watching from my sofa, from my kitchen table, and from a distance.

I’ve been extremely inspired by Stacie from The Divine Miss Mommy (@StacieinAtlanta on Twitter) and Renee from Cutie Booty Cakes (@ReneeJRoss on Twitter) and many other moms as they shared and share their get fit challenges and successes each week online.

So today I am finally able to listen to my natural inner wisdom and pledge my commitment to the #mamavation Sistahood.

Today I’m expanding my circle of support to get fit and lose weight. I’m also going to start shedding light on what I have not been doing and what I want to be doing to move forward towards my ultimate fitness goals.

I want to lose weight.

I will be writing about my weight loss challenges and successes, but I don’t just want to focus on weight loss.

I want to focus on getting healthy and fit!

How I Got Here…

After my 3 year old was born, I joined Weight Watchers. I gained almost 60 pounds during the pregnancy and lost over 75 pounds with Weight Watchers. In September, 2008, I hit the top of my weight range and declared that to be my goal weight. I then became a Lifetime Member and maintained my weight for the past 16 months. Although I celebrate the fact that I have not gained weight, it also frustrates me that I have not lost weight either.

In all honestly, the Weight Watchers goal weight I set is not my authentic goal weight. I still have 10-15 pounds I want to lose.

Where I’m Going…

• I’m going to create a Mamavation Monday post every week to explore my weekly successes and challenges as I begin to live the healthy lifestyle I was born to live.
• I’m going to be twittering about my healthy lifestyle successes and challenges using the hashtag #mamavation.
• I’m going to get involved with  Mamavation Mondays on MomTV at 7pm PST/9pm CST/10pm EST. I welcome you to watch the Mamavation Mom live on MomTV with the Mamavation Coaching Team.
• I’m going to connect with and support other moms involved with mamavation. I think this connection will probably be the most rewarding part of the process.

This Past Week

Goal – My goal was to become aware of my eating habits, how much I moved, and how healthy I truly felt throughout the day.

Challenges – I craved sugar and carbs all day, every day.

Accomplishment – I worked out for 45 minutes last night!

Check out Mamavation if you want to join me! Cheers to getting fit and to living a healthy lifestyle.

photo credit: Olivander

Writing down goals changed my life and it continues to improve my life every day. Last year, I wrote down the following goal…

I want to collaborate with successful and inspiring women.

The power of these written words drew amazing, successful, and extremely inspiring women into my life. Through TwitterMoms, I recently met and interviewed mompreneur Chandra Clarke, one of the founders of Scribendi, which is a professional editing and proofreading business that helps writers reach their highest potential.

Chandra inspired me to write down my BIG goals for finding even more authentic space in my life to pursue my BIG dreams. She told me to “go big or go home”. So before getting off the phone with her, I wrote down the following goal…

My goal is to find even more time to pursue my life coaching and social media coaching business.

I sat with my new goal for many days and then took action. In December, I asked my manager if I could start working 4 days a week instead of 5 in 2010…and he said YES!

I asked.

He said yes.

I now have more time in my life to pursue my life coaching and social media coaching business.

I now have life coaching clients! I now have social media coaching clients!

I’m now living my dream!

I’m living my dream because I intentionally wrote down my goals, which led me to listen to my natural inner wisdom.

Thank you Chandra.

Chandra also gave me the following advice as a working mom to help me push my mompreneur dreams up a notch…

• Create a detailed vision of success, otherwise it’s harder to get there.
• Book speaking engagements to meet clients.
• Hire an intern to free up your time to do the things you love.
  
• Remember short term sacrifice is worth long term goals.
• Take risks with your business.
• Routines help you stay focused.
  
• When starting a business, start with the end in mind.
  

Chandra loves working with mompreneurs to help them meet their communication and marketing needs. You can find Chandra at…

• Scribendi.com
• @Scribendi_Inc
• Chandra’s Humor Blog

“Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it.
Action has magic, grace, and power in it.”
~ Goethe ~

This is the time of year to dream. I invite you to dream about the year you want to have, the life you want to live, the energy you want around you, and the goals you want to accomplish.

Then I invite you to start putting your dreams into action because only action will create results.

Ten Ways to Achieve Your Dreams in 2010

1. Write down your dreams.

2. Think about the details of your dreams so you have a clear vision.

3. Face your fears and don’t let fear get in your way of action.

4. Don’t expect perfection. Expect and celebrate mistakes and imperfections along the journey.

5. Keep moving forward regardless of mistakes and imperfections.

6. Be aware of how alive you feel when you take action on your dreams.

7. Acknowledge beliefs and judgments that may be holding you back.

8. Take baby steps (micromovements) – baby steps are manageable and achievable.

9. Hold yourself accountable.

10. Consider consequences – what happens if you don’t pursue your dreams?

Free Life Coaching Session

To help you dream big and take action, I invite you sign up for one FREE LIFE COACHING SESSION. During this free session, I will support your natural inner wisdom as you explore what 2010 means to you and what actions you want to move forward with to live your best life this year.

Action brings results and it makes us feel alive so sign up for your free coaching session today!

This is Your Moment

1. What dreams do you have for 2010?
2. How are your taking action on your dreams?
3. Want’s stopping you from taking action?

I walked into a yoga retail shop today and I saw a large sign that said…

Do One Thing That Scares You Every Day This Year!

Just reading that bold request – to jump out of my comfort zone each and every day – scared me. The entire concept sounded absolutely exhausting.

But here I sit, writing my first blog post for 2010, and I’m eager and excited to take on the challenge of doing one thing every day that scares me. I think my biggest challenge will simply be remembering to add this to my daily routine.

I’m not going to judge the things that scare me. I’m going to be aware of them and observe them and honor them.

Today, the one thing I did that scared me was talk about nursing homes and long term insurance needs for myself and family members. Nursing homes scared me when I was a young child when I went to visit my grandparents. Earlier this week, however, I had an amazing experience at a nursing home when I visited my 90 year cousin at her’s when I was in Michigan visiting family.

To be honest though, nursing homes still scare me. I hugged my parents (who are 84 years old and 72 years old) tonight and told them they had one job to do – to stay healthy.

Cheers to a healthy and happy new year and to doing one thing that scares you every day this year!

Love, Stacey

1. @ChristineArylo & @Marielhemingway are about to start a great BALANCE discussion. Join the call http://tinyurl.com/yfe8ekg Girlfriend Love!
2. Now I want to buy the book “Finding My Balance: A Memoir with Yoga” by @Marielhemingway #selflovestudio
3. @Marielhemingway is reiterating my tagline…it is possible to move away from a state of survival and live a balanced life. #selflovestudio
4. @Marielhemingway is encouraging us to bring light & awareness to the negative talk we hear in our heads. Say YES to positive thinking.
5. It’s a good idea to spend more time in nature. Walk away from your computer and go catch a sunrise or sunset. #selflovestudio
6. Go grab and eat the sun! Yes, go grab and eat the sun. See what happens. @ChristineArylo @Marielhemingway #selflovestudio
7. If you have time to Twitter, you have 5 minutes to boost your energy & take care of yourself. It’s so profoundly healing. #selflovestudio
8. If nothing else, be aware of your BREATH. #selflovestudio
9. Let’s give each other permission to listen to our true authentic selves. @ChristineArylo @Marielhemingway #selflovestudio
10. Don’t deny your feelings. We’ll feel all emotions & we should find outlets to acknowledge them & express them. Feel Emotions #selflovestudio
11. @Marielhemingway has a new website “healthy living from the inside out”. Check out her online community. http://www.marielhemingway.com
12. “The Wisdom is in the Pause” What can you do to slow down to hear what your authentic voice is saying? @ChristineArylo #selflovestudio
13. Truth or Dare – @Marielhemingway dares you to laugh this week as much as a child laughs. Be Silly!
14. @ChristineArylo Re: Mariel’s dare, want to join me on 11/7 at the Levity Project in Chicago http://bit.ly/1PiOqx and http://bit.ly/2JF7Qy
15. @Marielhemingway Thank you for honoring the truth about balance & for bringing sunlight to my day. Cheers to slow moving mindful mornings.

Join Christine Arylo ( @christinearylo ) and her other amazing guests during this FREE 7-week Self Love Studio tele-series.

photo credit: Stuck in Customs

Life is busy.

Life is crazy.

But still, if you look closely, there is time to find a moment to simply be in the moment.

Sometimes it’s only 5 minutes. Sometimes it’s only 1 minute. Sometimes you have to hide in the bathroom. Sometimes you are fortunate enough to find it in the garden or somewhere in nature. Sometimes it’s in meditation. Sometimes it’s laughing with your children.

Can you find time today to simple BE in the moment?