How My Vacation Shows How to Love Yourself & Your Life

Imagine feeling filled with excitement about yourself and your life… doing things your way… and embarking on adventures that thrill you so much that people approach and ask:

“What’s your secret?”

“How do you have so much confidence?”

Or they say, “I’ve been watching you all day. You’re having so much fun and you seem so happy. I want to be like you.”

That’s exactly what happened at the Bimini Beach Club when three women approached me during our port day on a Virgin Voyages cruise in the Caribbean.

I had not noticed the women watching me while I was making videos and splashing in the turquoise water, laughing and feeling childlike joy in the 80-degree sunshine. I was wearing a shiny gold thong bikini, feeling euphoric that I had escaped the frigid cold and snow of Michigan and now was feeling the hot sun on my skin and looking out at the sea.  

I was in my bliss zone, all by myself, overwhelmed with gratitude for this trip, and this day especially.

Then, when these ladies approached, I realized, I am living and demonstrating GoddessLife. And it’s inspiring other women to activate their inner powers and love themselves and their lives.

And that is exactly the mission of my six-book GoddessPower series that starts with The Biss Tribe: Where You Active Your GoddessPower by Elizabeth Ann Atkins.

It’s also the mission of my podcast, The Goddess Power Show with Elizabeth Ann Atkins®.

In the books, I teach women how to identify, heal and release whatever is stopping them from loving themselves and creating their dream lives. I practice what I teach, and have been for decades, and this trip exemplified that.

So, in this blog post, I’m sharing some elements of what that looks like, how I got here, and how these are examples on how you can take action right now to live bigger, better and bolder, and manifest your heart’s wildest desires.

1.    Manifesting the experience with scripting and autosuggestion. A year ago, I made one of my many audio recordings that I listen to morning and night, to help me manifest what I want. I’ve done this for decades, and it really works. It takes Napoleon Hill’s concept of Autosuggestion in his blockbuster success book, Think and Grow Rich, to the next level.

For me, this process starts with scripting. First, I write down what I want. Then I read it into the audio app on my phone. Then I listen to it every morning and throughout the day.

This process has helped me lose 100 pounds and celebrate my weight loss success story as a guest on The Oprah Winfrey Show. It’s also helped me power through a horrible divorce with peace and power.

And it’s helped me achieve so many things, especially mindset shifts that have silenced my very mean inner critic and now feel love toward myself exactly as I am. So, listening to the recording about wanting to travel to sunny beaches on a boat, activated something within me and the universe to attract this experience.

Sure enough, five months later, my dear friend invited me on a cruise with a group of 25 people celebrating one friend’s birthday. Everything was all set up, and all I had to do was say yes and happily pay my portion.

Turns out, this was an exemplary cruise experience because Virgin Voyages are adult-only, and being on the Valiant Lady enabled me to exercise, sauna, sunbathe, eat great food, feel safe, watch glorious sunsets, meet amazing people from around the world, and dance the nights away.

I was keenly aware and grateful that I had manifested the experience by listening to my own voice talking about it every morning, and the universe orchestrated an amazing opportunity to take my first cruise with phenomenal people on a really excellent cruise line.

2.    Knowing what I want and doing things my way. The cruise was five days, and I wanted to stay in my bliss zone as much as possible. That meant laying on a lounge chair and savoring the sensory extravaganza of the hot sun on my skin… smelling the salty sea breeze… staring out at the water… allowing my mind to slow and focus only on the thrill of blissing out in the sun.

This is what I love to do.

However, I was with a group, and when the ship stopped at the Mexican island of Cozumel, the group was going on a bus tour that included a stop at a tequila factory.

When faced with the choice of going into town, walking around, and riding on a bus, versus being in my sunshine bliss zone as someone who had escaped the frigid Michigan winter back home, it was a no-brainer.

I stayed on the ship by myself so I could go to the gym and work out, then enjoy the sauna, then find a lounge chair and slip into my happy place.

What’s the point here?

I could have been swayed by the group’s encouragement to explore a new place. But I knew what I wanted and had the confidence to graciously decline the invitation, and I stayed on the ship for another glorious day in the sun.

I did things my way, without guilt or awkward feelings, and loved every moment of it.

3.    Loving my own company. Yes, I was with a group and with my friend who had invited me on the cruise. However, I was perfectly comfortable going off on my own to get coffee and avocado in the morning… then going to the gym… then heading to the Redemption Spa to sauna… then going up by the pool to sunbathe.

For the first time ever in my life, I went into a lounge/bar alone and ordered a drink. Specifically, I went into the On the Rocks lounge/bar by myself and ordered a glass of wine. After that, I even went to The Manor nightclub and danced by myself. It was wonderful!

I also embarked on the Bimini Beach excursion alone, renting two lounge chairs under an umbrella at the water’s edge and enjoying my time making videos, FaceTiming with friends back home to share the sun and sea, and splashing in the water. I did not feel self-conscious or embarrassed or lonely because I was alone. I was fully in the moment and loving it to the max.

Enjoying your own company is true GoddessPower.

You are in charge of every moment, and not reliant on other people to organize, direct or influence what you want to do or how you want to do it. And you are not reliant on others to entertain you, validate you or make you feel happy.

Being happy with yourself and savoring solitude are extremely important practices.

How can you expect anyone else to love being with you, if you don’t love being with yourself?  Of course, it’s so fun when we are around our friends, and ultimately on the beach I was.

So, ask yourself, do I enjoy my own company? Do I have the confidence to do things on my own? If not, what is the feeling that is holding you back? My GoddessPower books help you identify these blocks, so that you can heal and release them, and unleash your inner Goddess so she can come out to play and truly love life.

4.    Loving myself just as I am—finally! On the ship and on the beach, I wore thong bikinis—hot pink, animal print and shiny gold—because I want to maximize the feeling of sun on my skin. My body is not perfect, but I love myself just as I am, and I felt perfectly comfortable walking around wearing only three little triangles and strings.

This is a remarkable change!

Because I used to feel so bad about my body.

I was ashamed and excruciatingly self-conscious, because my weight was a symptom of my horrible relationship with food. For decades, starting when I was 11, my body image was terrible. I was overweight and out of control with bingeing, caught in a wicked cycle of starving and stuffing myself, and my mind was consumed by food noise and fat noise.

I’d look in the mirror and say, “You fat, disgusting cow!” I wore baggy clothes and did not want anyone to look at my body. Then when I was pregnant, I gained 70 pounds. I was afraid that my lifetime of binge eating, yo-yo dieting and sugar addiction would cause health problems.

As a new mom, I was determined to get as healthy as possible. So, I exercised and cut calories—with no medication or surgery—losing 100 pounds in one year. I was too thin, and since then, my body has found its natural set point that I maintain with healthy eating and exercising.

At the same time, I worked on my mindset, identifying where and how I lacked self-worth, and launched a campaign to convince myself that I deserve the best of everything, starting with loving myself, just as I am.

During my younger years, I desperately wanted to have skinny legs and a little butt. I also wanted straight hair. Now, my inner work has enabled me to love my curvaceous body and naturally curly hair. This is how God made me, and I rejoice in celebrating my body as a sacred temple.

Therefore, I no longer wish my body were a different shape or size. And I am happy, confident and free to wear a skimpy bikini and enjoy the sunshine, celebrating how I look and feel.

5.    Eating healthy. At home, I start the day with coffee and avocado. Between 12 and 2 p.m., I eat my first meal of salmon and vegetables. A pre-workout snack comes around 4:30. Then salad, protein and berries after my workout. On the cruise, I maintained my plant-based eating style by enjoying a big salad for lunch every day with protein, a healthy pre-sunset snack (usually vegetables and chicken or shrimp), then steak and/or seafood with salad and vegetables for dinner. My food plan is on autopilot; it’s what makes me feel great, so varying from it is non-negotiable. As a result, I was not tempted to indulge in the many desserts and excessive eating that make the average person gain five to seven pounds on a cruise.

6.    Exercising. Thankfully, the Valiant Lady cruise ship with Virgin Voyages has outstanding gyms. Each morning, I started off in the spin cycling room (there were no classes in session at the time), doing 20 to 60 minutes, loving that the floor-to-ceiling windows face the water. Then I headed into the strength training area—with more big windows overlooking the water—to lift weights and do my usual exercise routines. I hit the gym every day except Bimini Beach day, where I was active with walking and swimming. GoddessLife means maintaining the practices that make you look and feel your best; vacation is not a time to slack. Knowing I had had a great workout that morning, enabled me to chill on a lounge chair in the sun all afternoon, guilt-free.

7.    Sauna. I treated myself to a $229 five-day pass at Redemption Spa, so I could sauna as much as I wanted. At home, I sauna at the gym after workouts. So, after my gym time on the ship, I slipped into a bathing suit and sat in the salt room, the steam room and the hot sauna.

The hot sauna has two round windows through which you can watch the water. During the day of course it’s blue, and at night you can see the white caps on the black water as the ship parts the sea.

I actually did this twice each day, morning and evening, and loved every moment.

In the sauna, I also made friends from around the world in the sauna, because it’s a very social place, and I am extremely comfortable chatting with complete strangers.

After the sauna, I laid on the large round heated marble beds. When I first saw them during my spa tour, I did not understand the allure. But once I laid on them, and felt the heat radiating up into my sweat-drenched, super relaxed body, it was pure bliss!

8.   Staying the moment. A long time ago, I was on vacation at a beautiful resort in Jamaica, walking on the beach, and my mind was super stressed, dwelling on a conflict back home. I was so annoyed that I just couldn’t shake it, and that it was pre-occupying my mind while I was in this tropical paradise, where I should have been mellowing out and staying in the moment to enjoy my vacation.

At the time, I lacked the mind control to release the angst and stay in the moment.

Thankfully, due to the inner work that I’ve done with my GoddessPower Activation Tools that I teach in my books, I am able to completely unplug and zen out on vacation.

This happened in June when I was in Nassau, the Bahamas, enjoying a week on the beach. I stayed in the moment, focusing only on the hot sunshine on my skin, watching the waves crashing on the beach, and listening to the breeze in the palm trees above.

The same happened on the cruise. I was sprawled on a lounge chair on the upper deck in the sun, staring out at the sunshine dancing on the Caribbean Sea as if God had tossed down handfuls of diamonds sparkling on the water. And I wondered:

How can I hold onto these moments?

How can I stretch this time to savor every drop from this delicious experience?

I pondered these questions as the time continued to tick and the sun lowered in the sky and approached the horizon where it would become a huge orange disc slipping into the watery horizon for the night, leaving glorious bands of crimson in its wake.

Staying in the moment is a masterful achievement that takes practice and is rooted in the belief that you deserve to enjoy your life!

Working with my GoddessPower Activation Tools boosted my self-worth so that I, with every ounce of my being, know that I deserve to get away from my intense work regimen of writing and publishing books at home, to rest and rejuvenate in tropical places.

I work hard and play hard, unapologetically.

Self-worth is an inside job, and you can learn more about how to find yours by doing the life-changing GoddessGateway exercises in my books.

9.    Allowing myself to completely relax. During the cruise, I laid in the sun and thought about nothing.

I danced the night away with a mind free of everything except the song lyrics that I and dozens of people were shouting into the very loud pulsing music and flashing purple lights in the night club.

I sat in the sauna and zenned out, watching the sweat bubble on my skin and savoring the euphoric sensations of heat permeating my body.

I did not think about all the work that awaited me back home.

As co-founder of Two Sisters Writing & Publishing®, I have a ton of work that includes editing and publishing books for our clients across America, as well as finishing the next book in my GoddessPower series, which is about Prosperity. I’m ghostwriting two books for phenomenally accomplished people. And I’m also a book coach, helping aspiring authors write their books.

Thankfully, I had taken care of urgent work matters before the trip, so I was free to relax.

10. Feeling extreme gratitude. I was constantly thinking and even saying out loud, Thank you God for this amazing experience. I also felt grateful that I have the resources to take a cruise, wonderful friends to travel with, and the divine synchronicities that connected me with new friends and awesome experiences.

Here’s an example.

It’s hard to get reservations in the ship’s 20 popular restaurants, but one night, my friend and I went to the upscale Mexican restaurant, Pink Agave, feeling confident that we could get seated as walk-ins. Amazingly, we started chatting with the very fun people ahead of us in line, and they had a reservation with extra seats at their table. They invited us to join them!

So, we all gathered at a circular booth beside a window where we could watch the waves on the dark water as we ate delicious guacamole and steak. Then we hung out with this group for the rest of the evening in the On the Rocks lounge where we danced and sang with a live band from England.

When divine synchronicities like this happen, I give thanks in the moment and later upon reflection, as well as in my nightly journal entries when I chronicle my day. We connected with these new friends throughout the cruise and are keeping in touch now that we’re home.

Giving thanks in the moment activates energy inside you and in the universe that draws more good energy, people and experiences to you.

So, these are 10 ways that my vacation demonstrates how to love yourself and your life.

This is GoddessLife, and you can step into this mindset and lifestyle that you rule from a throne of power wearing a crown of confidence.

The most important take-away is that I didn’t always feel this good about myself and my life.

I really struggled with self-esteem and an eating disorder, then endured a terrible divorce and other struggles.

But I was able to change, thanks to my GoddessPower Awakening in 2002, when Spirit came to me during a very difficult time and said, “You are Goddess” while filling my stressed-out mind and body with indescribable peace.

GoddessPower is within you.

I’m proof that you can dramatically transform your mind and body to create the YOU and the life that you love.

If you’re ready to do that, please read The Biss Tribe: Where You Activate Your Goddess Power.

The book, the first in the series of six, takes you on a retreat with 21 other dynamic women, where you learn tools to identify and remove anything that’s blocking you from inner joy, self-love and your best life.

You can do it, Goddess, because you have the power!