Change The World!

My coach and I were discussing the desire to change the world.  She used to feel that one person could work to change the world.  I’m not sure that I ever gave it that much thought before… but I can tell you that now I see that the world can only be changed via groups.  That group may be as small as just two people… but my point is an individual can not effectively change anything.

Why you ask?  And I’m sure you are hopping up and down with many examples of one person who did indeed change the world!  I say to you… that one person… John Kennedy?  Martin Luther King?   Oh let’s use King… it’s Black History Month after all!  Okay the great, revered MLK had other people that he worked with… he was not alone… he had a group, even in the beginning there was someone who supported King and his ideas… someone who believed in him.

That is why we need a group… we all have a seed of greatness within.  But tell me have you listened to how you talk to yourself recently?  Would you talk to a friend that way?  Even if you are highly advanced very aware individual I’m sure that at the very least that voice is sometimes full of doubt if not harsh self criticism.

Having another individual, say a coach for example, who can hold a non judging space for you makes a difference.  A coach can hold a space of possibilities and belief open for you, where you might shut the door on yourself.  Doing so gives you room to blossom into your greatness.

When I talk to my clients I am amazed at their courageousness!  I have worked with clients who faced impossible situations!  They have non nonchalantly told me they were fighting cancer, or other diseases.  They have been committed to making something happen even though building their dream meant temporary hardship and discomfort.  My clients are committed to a dream or goal that is bigger than any obstacle they encounter!  They are brave people!  It is my job to give them support in their weak moments… to assist them in finding the strength to go on… to understand and accept them and have faith in them… to be a mirror for them so they can see their greatness.

What do you want to accomplish?  How are you doing alone?  What would achieving your dreams mean for you, for your family, for the world?  We can make it happen together!  Dare something worthy and call me!  Together we can unlock your greatness and let your light shine to the world!

More on Avatar

After seeing Avatar last night I woke up feeling like I had been through alot!  I mean I was well rested, not tired, but feeling like I had experienced sensory overload… and I think that’s the Avatar experience.  It was fun to feel part of the movie, it was a powerful experience and I’m happy to rest now.  It’s been a very quiet very low key day today.  I felt I needed that.  I didn’t really feel like doing much today.  It was raining out and felt like a good day to stay inside, do some laundry, catch up on some reading, meditate and blog.   It is only now in the evening that I realize just how impacted I was by the larger than life movie and special effects!   I’m glad I saw the movie on Saturday so I had Sunday to recover.  The movie certainly delivers an experience!

Avatar and The Pod Myth

When I watched Avatar win awards on the Golden Globes and James Cameron said “If you are the one person who has not yet seen Avatar…”   I self identified!  Yes! I was that one person!  Not any more!  I saw the 3D IMAX version of Avatar last night and it was great!

During the movie I found it interesting that the people utilized “pods” to gain access to the  playground of  Pandora, when they wanted to relate to the  peace-loving race of 10-foot tall, blue-skinned natives called the Na’vi.   This immediately brought to mind the movie  The Matrix, where in similar fashion a pod was utilized to enter the  alternate reality of the Matrix.  In this case the Matrix was fashioned to keep humans docile while there energy was being harvested as a power source for intelligent machines and the alternate reality kept them from ever really engaging with real life.

At one point Jake Sully in Avatar becomes so disoriented he can no longer tell whether the world or his experience on Pandora were the true reality.  In the Matrix Morpheus offers Neo a Red Pill to see the Truth, a blue pill will return him to ignorance.

While the pod in Avatar is utilized by scientists to study the culture of the Na’vi, benign in comparison to that of the pod in the Matrix, at least until co-opted by the military, the common theme of pods to transport us to a playground where we can play out different scenarios, or maybe play out our karma reigns.

Earth may truly be that alternate reality.  The pod,  something we engaged in before this  incarnation.  A place where we set an agenda of sorts for this lifetime, where we develop sacred contracts to be fulfilled on earth.

There is a disturbing article on CNN about the Avatar blues. I am curious if Avatar might awaken something in an unaware individual.  Perhaps it is the realization of the emptiness of their life or the wrongness of their path that brings on this effect.  Avatar could precede a spiritual awakening or crisis in such individuals.  Such a crisis could be an initiation that will lead to a spiritual practice  bringing fulfillment, peace of mind, and the realization of a need for life changes to those hit by the Avatar blues.   Could this movie experience provoke a mass spiritual awakening for the sleeping masses?  We can only hope!

If you or someone you know is experiencing a mild case of the  Avatar Blues send me an email.  I would be happy to offer a complimentary half hour life coaching session to such individuals.

A New Year!

Twenty-Ten has begun!   A new year and a new beginning for all of us!  Can you feel it in the air?  I feel a kind of optimism from others a feeling of  ”last year is behind us now it’s time to move on!”

As I settle into this year and into my life I look forward to assisting others in living their dreams!  After years of being afraid to even acknowledge my own  dream, let alone live it… I have learned that anything is possible!  I have learned how to be be firmly grounded and how to cultivate my personal chi! By doing so I live from my unique, authentic  essence.  You can learn this too!  I can assist you!

Are you tired of “settling” in life?  Do you feel locked into a way of being that no longer fits you?  We all have something to contribute and once we discover what that is and learn how to unleash our passion behind that purpose, nothing can stop us!

This year is the new beginning you’ve been waiting for!  It’s a new year and a new decade!  Make your dreams come true now!  Awaken to the voice within!  Find your passion and live your authentic life!  Do what you love and love what you do! If you want to know more about living in possibility email me to set up a complementary coaching session now!  It could be the difference between “settling” and “soaring!”   Contact me today me today for this limited time offer.

How Starbucks Saved My Life…

This is the title of a delightful little book by Michael Gates Gill, that literally jumped into my arms like a frisky puppy as I was holiday shopping at Borders Bookstore the week after Thanksgiving.  It is no secret that I love Starbucks, even now that I no longer drink coffee, having discovered that I have a food sensitivity to it.  Somehow I am stilled pulled to their stores.  I can always find something to drink or eat there; I love the stores’ ambiance and I’m drawn to the company’s integrity.

How, I thought, could Starbucks save someone’s life… but not once did I doubt that it was possible!  Starbucks is a great employer and a force for fair trade in the marketplace.  My son worked for them in Metro Detroit when he was in high school and again when he first moved to NYC.   I vaguely remember him saying working in the NYC Starbucks was nothing like working in the Detroit stores.  Having read Gill’s book I now understand what my son was unable to convey to me at the time.

Furthermore, coming from a 20 year career in the advertising industry myself, I identified with Gill.  I could feel his pain.   I too remember feeling old in an industry that worships youth.  He spins a delightful and charming story… an inspiring story of difficult changes and personal growth.  He may be one  of Starbucks best marketing tools for their PR department!

Even more so he shares an important message with us…  happiness is found by living life without pretense.  The key then to Gill’s “saved life” is merely set within the backdrop of Starbucks.  When we live honestly and authentically, owning our failures without blaming others and living within our means,  peace of mind and happiness are a natural byproduct.

Working at Starbucks is optional, although obviously not a bad place to be.  Working with a Life Coach would certainly be of value to someone on such a journey or someone interested in living authentically!  Working with a Life Coach can help one discover and develop their essence, their life force, their personal chi.  Gill reminds us that it is not the destination but life’s journey itself that is the reward!

Practicing Qigong Gives New Appreciation for the Seasons

I don’t like the winter.   Or at least I didn’t.  I’ve never liked the cold weather and it seems like it’s dark all the time here in Michigan between the shorter days and the overcast and cloudy skies.  Gloomy winter days used to be all I associated with winter.

Qigong has changed that for me.  I’ve been practicing Qigong since May of 2008.  It has changed my outlook, my life, and dare I say – my karma.   I still don’t like winter weather… but I must say that I have more appreciation for nature and enjoy being outside even on cold days now.

I actually love the winter months now… I associate them with very deep and intense meditations.  I’ve learned that in the winter there is an energetic pull inwards.  This results in deep inner work and meditative states that are easier than usual to achieve.

I discovered this last winter and remember that in the spring when I noticed a difference in the “feel” of my meditations I really missed the depth.  Now that I realize that it is seasonal I will thoroughly enjoy the winter energy while it lasts!  The next couple of weeks are especially good!

This week is great with solstice around the corner and the yin new moon in a couple of days the inward pull of the energy will be the strongest of the year.  I plan to meditate and revel in it both in my regular Qigong practice and my sitting and standing meditations as well.  It is a very special time of year energetically!

I think it is no coincidence that this time is observed with holidays in so many religious (and pagan) traditions!  Whatever your tradition… have a happy holiday season!

Defy Gravity with Caroline Myss

The great thing about being a healer is having great clients that the Universe speaks through!  Really!  It was last summer that one of my dear Reiki clients told me that she didn’t know why but she felt compelled to tell me to read some Caroline Myss.   Great, I thought!  Another book to add to the pile by my night stand!  Don’t get me wrong, I love reading and I’m a voracious reader… but with all my coaching classes and my involvement in the coaching community sometimes I feel like I have too much of a good thing!  If I have to read one more book, no matter how good it is,  I think to myself, I’ll scream!

Well enough of my complaining… so I did nothing when my dear client shared this message with me… and then several weeks later the newest book by Caroline Myss landed in my mailbox, with a request from the folks at Hay House to review it!   And then in November I had the pleasure to hear Caroline talk about this wonderful book in a live online event!

The book is Defy Gravity:   Healing Beyond the Bounds of Reason and it is a book that belongs on every healer’s, coach’s and therapist’s bookshelf.

Myss shines a light on the fact that healing is a mystical experience but as a society we are not comfortable with mystical experiences… we utilize reason… after all we are  “reasonable people”  and we become “driven” in our spiritual pursuits as we are in our material lives.  We’ve merged the east/west philosophies and utilize pop psychology, yoga, vegetarianism, ecology, nutrition, self awareness as the path of becoming a conscious person, but we back away from the sacred… from devotion… from intimacy with God.

We attempt to reason our way to enlightenment… when in reality grace is the only path to enlightenment and to healing.  Rather than being driven to “get stuff” we are called to give.  It is the ego and fear that get in the way of our realization that life itself is reverence, “stuff” is not.  Grace allows us to connect on the most human and the most divine level…  but only when reason and ego can be pushed aside to allow that connection.  It is in  a space of grace that healing can take place.

This is where we go in both coaching and healing.  In a powerful coaching session egos are left at the door a safe space, a sacred space is created .  It is okay to be vulnerable  and the energy, the spirit, can be felt when one is operating in a state of grace.   Myss delves into the shadow side of the graces as well and aligns both the graces and their shadows with the chakra system.  True healing takes place in grace,  otherwise our base shadow side becomes entangled, and the outcome tainted.

Ultimately it’s the unreasonable path, or the path beyond reason,  that we as healers, coaches and therapists must go to serve our clients.  That is where the grace resides that provides a space for true healing to take place.  It is through mysticism, devotion and intimacy with God and dare I say worship of God and the keeping of the sacred, that healing takes place.

Black Friday

Tom Pennington / Getty Images

I have a problem with Black Friday!  Please don’t misunderstand me… I don’t have a problem with YOU if you shop on Black Friday… but I do have a problem with the whole concept.  I understand that there are great sales… and one year I actually even got up at o dark thirty to be at a store by 5am with my son. (As it turned out… to be in line in time to actually buy anything we needed to be there at least two hours before we were… which was already an hour before the 5am store opening.)  But the more I contemplate the lure of the ads for Friday’s deals the more put off I am.

Why are we as shopper’s pitted against each other this way?  Why is there this artificial scarcity scenario set up by the retailers?  And more importantly why on earth do we as consumers fall for it?  We live in a country that is abundant.  Even in Detroit, where many people are out of work or fearing the future because of the automotive industry’s woes… when you look at the global picture we are much better off than most of the world!  So how is it that we are presented with this notion that we need to hurry and get the items we need or they’ll be gone?   And why are these sales held at ridiculous hours, demanding extreme measures from consumers to obtain the best deal?

The whole system just seems backwards to me…  are these retailers doing me a favor?   After all I am the customer, with out me there is no business, right?  What ever happened to “the customer is always right” or “the customer is king”?   Then there is the matter of the materialistic nature of this tradition… don’t get me started on that!  I mean… is a 32″ flat screen television going to solve my problems?  Is it something I really need? Will it bring me some kind of intrinsic fulfillment?  No, no and a resounding no!  I may get such a television in the future, but to get up in the middle of the night and go wait in line to “beat” others out of  getting one of the the “few” tv’s seems silly, selfish and misdirected.   And if I get the television… that’s what it is a television… not some product that will bring me happiness!  Happiness is something that comes from inside.   Does  anyone else see my point… or is it just me?

The whole thing seems kind of wacky to me!  Why is there this manufactured shortage and this false sense of urgency?  That alone is such a negative mindset!  One that is foreign to the way I choose to experience the world!  In my world I already have everything that I need…. and as I have real needs that arise the needs are met, sometimes in the most interesting and synchronistic ways… which is half the fun of the adventure of life!

This is also not to say that abundance is bad or that “things” are bad.  But I do want to point out that in our society it is not uncommon at all for people to look outside of themselves for answers that can only be found internally.  There is a whole industry  built on convincing  us that product X will deliver what we “need”.  That if we want to have the perfect life and be happy, beautiful and smart  we can just have some plastic surgery… or shop on Rodeo Drive… or use a special credit card…    To be popular and have fun, we can drink Pepsi or Budweiser, etc.   It’s a powerful industry because many people actually believe these things on some level.  It’s such silliness!

In reality to feel good about oneself  one can do internal “work” to learn to be grounded and genuine.  One can figure out what matters to them and build their lives on that solid reality, designing a life that works, instead of trying to buy one!   I will be posting more in the future about living a simple and authentic life.  If you also  are tired of this “rat race” and no longer “falling for” the false messages that the media sends us regarding an easy path to fulfillment stay tuned!

Why do you do what you do?

That was the the meeting stimulus at the Network Partners BNI group I subbed at this morning.  It was fun and thought provoking.  During the 45 second “commercials”  that’s what we addressed and one thing was obvious… we are a group of passionate people… even in the cases where the passion was “for the money.”

For me the topic could launch me into a much bigger conversation.  I know that’s true for many of us.   When I sub in the Tuesday morning group I represent the Reiki Master part of my business, since my very dear friend, Kathy Igoe, is a member of the group as a Life Coach already.   It is always a fun morning for me because it is a great group of friends and business professionals and I maintain a relaxed attitude.

I mean really… how many groups have a Reiki Master?  … not one of the top categories that’s for sure!  My tag line is even fun:  “I give a free aura fluff with every session”  as such I have low expectations for referrals… I consider every morning I’m accepted as a professional a success!    The amazing thing is:  I do get business!

Well this morning’s question, threw me a bit in the moment and sparked an internal processing that lead to this post.  I do what I do because I just wanted to help my daughter with fibromyalgia pain.  She suffered with pain in her early 20’s and was very frustrated with the medical community’s response to her complaints.  The “It’s all in your head!” responses she garnered didn’t sit well with her, and certainly didn’t do anything for her pain.

I was told that Reiki would help her and I was told that I could do Reiki and coaching professionally.  Now at the time I was an account executive selling advertising.  I had been doing that for many years and had made some serious money doing so.  I didn’t even know what coaching and Reiki were.  My world existed in the “what have you done for me today” realm of sales… cut throat advertising sales!

This Reiki thing sounded pretty “airy fairy” to me, but the fact that it might help my daughter lead me to be open to trying it.  I went and spent several hundred dollars on attunements.  And I argued with myself… alot!  The conversations would go something like this:

This is stupid, what a waste…

but I have to try.

He said it would work… it’s the only thing that will work.  It seems to make her feel better.

But sometimes she is so frustrated… I send at a distance then and how do I know it’s working?…

Well, she’s not taking vicodin all the time any more…

I never wanted to be different… a healer.  People will think I’m weird… I’ll think I’m weird… it will change my life…  I’m afraid!

But she’s getting better, so can I complain?

And I couldn’t complain… she was getting better.  She got pregnant… I pointed out to her that fibro goes into remission with pregnancy… she pointed out to me that it was already in remission… otherwise she’d have never been able to get pregnant… she was pain free and she said it was because of the work I was doing on her! Wow!  Really?!

I had been hesitant to tell others about my attunements… but I finally told a couple of people.  They didn’t think I was weird.  I told a couple more people.  They had heard of Reiki before.  They thought it was great!  They wanted to experience Reiki… and that was the beginning of my Reiki practice.  One of those people was a coach… of all things… that original Reiki Master guy told me I could be /was going to be a Reiki Master and Coach.  Interesting!  What was that exactly?

Here I am today… a Reiki Master who studies and practices Qigong… the cultivation of energy.  I have Reiki clients (both “hands on” and “distance clients) who love the energy I channel and benefit from my practice.  I even have students who I have attuned to go out into the world and heal!  And I am a Coach U grad, in the advanced training and working towards accreditation through the ICF and a member of The Professional Coaches Association of Michigan.

Yes Reiki has changed my life!  I have a richer and more meaningful life!  I have brought pain relief and healing to countless individuals and worked with hospice patients to relieve suffering, calm anxiety and smooth their final transition.  I now know my purpose in life is that of a healer.  As a Reiki Master and a Spiritual Counselor/Life Coach I work with clients to enrich their lives and assist them in connecting with meaning and Source in their everyday lives.  I mentor them in the joys of living simply and in Spirit.  This is why I exist!

But then that’s a lot to pack into 45 seconds! 

All that and... I still give a free aura fluff with every session!  (Yes even via distance sessions!)  Have your aura fluffed and feel the difference today!

“Warning: This is not a recognized Park Trail

Well I guess that says it all…  another day at the park and another metaphor for life.  Sometimes we take an alternate route in life… it’s not always a recognized trail!  However I’m here to say that it’s okay to take an alternate route, the road less traveled.   Some of us march to the beat of a different drummer and that’s okay too.  Sometimes these people are called eccentric,  but at least they’re  interesting…  They are often the ones doing something to make a difference in the world.  You may not see the world the way they do or I do.  But I’ve learned that we really do need to take time to stop and be present.  We need space in our lives.  Sometimes less is more. By being present in life one can experience more life.  Life is enriched!  Things are seen that would normally be missed.  Often the “busyness” and “stuff” in life are used to avoid really living, really feeling.   By opting to live life at a slower more humane pace the essence of life is enriched and treasured.  People are valued for who they are, not what they do. 

“Simplify” is the mantra that calls me.  I have jumped off the earn and spend treadmill.  One more thing is not the answer!  One more thing is not going to fulfill me.  I choose to live consciously and deliberately and with integrity.   In my world people matter more than things.

This is a healing and gentle way of living.  There are many distractions to sidetrack us:  material things, social activities, food or substances to name a few.  It takes some effort and practice to live simply,and the reward is great.  Ultimately learning to “be” who you are and accept who you are if the key to true happiness and fulfillment.