As I look at this year of 2013 I am in awe over the fact that this is the year I turn 50 years young!!! This is a time for me to rejoice and celebrate and to share this adventure of celebration with everyone!!!!  I was not raised to mourn growing older.  I was raised by wonderful, powerful women who taught me age is a number and that is all it is.  I was taught to embrace age, what a great and wonderful gift I was given and yes I know it! Just thinking back over the years and all of the great experiences and opportunities I have had to learn and grow is overwhelming.  I have decided that as it gets closer to my birthday I am going to honor this event by offering all of my readers the opportunity to share and experience the celebration of life not just my life but their life as well.  I am going to do several different challenges throughout this year and plan on asking my readers to join me in some of them if it resonates with them.  The first third of the year January to March was revolving around my exploration of being “freed up” from my previous job (thank you GQ for this term it rings with truth:-) which in turn allowed me to explore and expand my Executive/Life Coaching business as well as challenged me to look at what I want to experience and do in the next phase of my life.  Any one out there able to identify with this? 

I learned at an even deeper level that I am passionate about working with others (companies and individuals) challenging them to grow, explore what areas in their life they would like to see changes in, asking the powerful questions and in doing so watching them reflect and stretch.  I am open to signing on more clients and love meeting new people.
 
In May I am going to be speaking at several conferences and will begin my Principles of Success group coaching workshop
where eight wonderful, powerful women will meet once a month to support and challenge each other to move to the next phase of their live. It is no coincidence this group will end one day before my 50th!
  
Keep coming back to this blog to see what else is coming there is so much is happening and I will be sharing it with you over this wonderful, exciting, thrilling year.  Holding all of you in my heart and thanking you for allowing me to share this with you.  Judy

I have been recording my 29 Day Giving Challenge on www.facebook/jmicalecoach (Today is Day 14) I decided that I would share on my blog what I have discovered nearly half way thru the experience.  The biggest revelation this time around (I have done this challenge a few times now) is that in order to truly give you must also be open to receiving.  I have always been someone who was a caregiver.  I come from a long line of caregivers, grandma was a nurse, mom was a nurse, I started off in nursing and switched careers. Giving I thought would be easy and of course you probably have realized at this point that is the furthest thing from the truth!  The interesting thing for me is that whenever you truly give of your self there is this receiving piece that goes along with it.  That was the hard part for me "you mean I actually have to open myself up?"  Me the one who tries to have a shield?(notice I said tries),  Me the one who thought crying was a weakness (now I know that it is actually a sign of STRENGTH), Me the one who despised asking for help?(yet have had to do this on more than one occasion in my life).  Funny how things turn around and how life shows us what we need to learn.  I am now at a place where I am open to receive, less resistant to ask for what I need and enjoying each day because I know I will learn and grow a little bit more.  The best part is that I am truly open to being 100% authentic throughout this process and look forward to each day. Yep, I am grateful for this opportunity.   I plan on posting at the end of the challenge on this blog to let you know about any other revelations I have on this journey and I plan on doing this challenge again at least once in 2013.