Funny You Would Say That

Inspiration

2012-02-06T23:02:00.000-08:00

inspiration

...the act or process of inhaling; breathing in

I was researching the topic of mindfulness for my Meet-Up tomorrow night (come on by) and I was looking for a quote to put on the worksheet. Needless to say, I found an amazing array. As I read each one, it became its own meditative experience. I felt a sense a shift from thinking to feeling as I read through the quotes. Some I met with curiosity, others - a knowing, and still others with a deep wellness as I read page after page. It then occurred to me that this act in itself is a simple and practical tool for centering the mind and nourishing the heart.

So, I have posted five inspirational quotes below. Let's use reading the quotes as a mind-full? mind-less! exercise.

Mind - full? Ah, such a common experience. Here is a quick, simple and fun way to focus, relax and be inspired. Mind your mind.

1. Breathe. Feel your breathe. Hear your breathe. See your breathe. Relax and let the breathe settle you in your body. Notice how your body feels as it is breathing.

2. Read through the quotes. You are free to read through all five quotes and return to read again or read one at a time. Notice where your attention is as you read each one. Did you notice a shift in your observations when you read through the quote the second time? Did you find your mind wandering? If so, gently re-focus on experiencing each of the quotes.

3. Be the observer. Did you feel something as you read the quote? If so, where in your body did you notice this feeling? Did you find that you were inspired by the quote and if so, where did this inspiration take you? What thoughts, ideas, images, places did you go and what did each place feel like, what mood did it evoke?

4. Breathe the quote - Be the quote. Imagine the words as a fragrance that you are inhaling, and notice what fragrance accompanies the quote. This is a powerful experience to bypass the cognitive mind and our sense of smell evokes powerful memories and feelings that can be deeply relaxing and restful.

5. Reflect and release. Let the words fall away and move into your day. Notice where you have become the quote in actions, thoughts or experiences in the following hours and days. How did it feel to breathe in words; to smell the images and paint pictures in your heart?

The following quotes are from Good Reads at www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/mindfulness. Here are the five for today.

“In the end, just three things matter:

How well we have lived
How well we have loved
How well we have learned to let go”

― Jack Kornfield

“We too should make ourselves empty, that the great soul of the universe may fill us with its breath.”

― Lawrence Binyon

“Walk as if you are kissing the Earth with your feet.”

― Thich Nhat Hanh

“Mindfulness is simply being aware of what is happening right now without wishing it were different; enjoying the pleasant without holding on when it changes (which it will); being with the unpleasant without fearing it will always be this way (which it won’t).”

― James Baraz

“The most fundamental aggression to ourselves, the most fundamental harm we can do to ourselves, is to remain ignorant by not having the courage and the respect to look at ourselves honestly and gently.”
― Pema Chödrön

Share your inspirational quotes or your experience with this quick and simple way to shift from the thinking mind to the experiential self.

Brava!

The Journey

2012-01-31T09:28:00.000-08:00

The Journey

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice--

though the whole house began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundation,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do--

determined to save

the only life you could save.

--Mary Oliver

I'm tired.

I'm really very tired.

An epic kind of tired.

And it feels wonderful.

Because I can feel it.

I can feel the fatigue, honor it and leave plenty of room for it when it shows up and not try to cross over the solid yellow line and pass it by. I lived speeding past fatigue for years. I would get stuck behind it in that one lane and I would put on my blinker and pass it by...much to the chagrin of my world weary bones. (I have rueful - sardonic bones.)

I am in a new phase of my life. Turning 50 notwithstanding, though I do think it inspires in its own quiet way, this new phase is heralded by an awareness that it is time to be guided by a new partner in my life. Oh no, not that...my husband Drew and I are great. We have weathered the storms - hurricanes - tsunamis (you get the idea) of the last four years and are thriving (our story is a post for another day). No, this new partner in my life is feeling.

Not some feelings, not a partial serving - full contact feeling.

Here's the deal. The paradox. Because, if I've learned nothing else, I've learned that everything, and I think I mean pretty much damn near everything, is paradoxical. Now stay with me here, I can feel that this is important. What I am about to say isn't new, you've heard it before. This time, I don't want you to just hear it - just see it. I want you to feel it.

We already have in abundance the very thing we think we lack. We're the only ones who don't know it.

I know - you already went to the I think I lack a million dollars and I don't have it. Well, who's to say you don't - yet. Let's move out of the material realm for a moment and begin with perhaps a more challenging feat - a feeling.

So, the thing I 'think' I lack is the ability to really feel my way through my life or as Mary Oliver so beautifully wrote - the journey. I rely so much on my seeing sense/my clear rational mind sense/ the symbolic imagery-psychological sense stuff that I have miss vital cues from my feelings. And I want more.

What is paradoxical are all the clues I've learned about myself over the years. Just like a character in a play, we learn a great deal about our character from others. I am a feeling not a thinking type on the Meyers-Briggs. I am a Quick-Start type on the Kolbe Index. I am the Innovator Lifestyle on the CPI (California Personality Inventory). I haven't done the Strength Finders yet but I've a strong hunch that FEELING is high on the list. When I am with friends, clients and new acquaintances, I hear a lot of messages about my warmth and how people feel around me. Well, I want to feel this way around me too.

So, my theme this year: 2012 is the year to feel my destiny.

One year.

One sensuous year.

If I find that I don't like all this feeling, I can pick something else for next year.

I have a hunch I'm going to like it very much. (Once I get through the fatigue stage. I have a hunch that feeling/fatigue are friends and just like that two-lane highway, there is a precarious balance between the two.)

So, here's what I'm doing. Several years ago, I was overrun with bags of every shape and size at home. The cupboard was popping, I didn't like the waste and I thought I'm going to make a change. I decided that I would commit to no bags for one year. And I mean NO bags. No bag takeout food was a bitch. Well, after the year was up, it was no sweat to keep going. And when the new bag laws went into effect in January here in San Jose, I felt a part of that change. The 'one person can really make a difference'

kind of experience. Because, generally there are thousands of ones all at the same time. That is pretty power-full-stuff.

Can you feel it?

So, feeling is my bag intention this year. And I have so many cool experiences already to share from January. Stay tuned for my post on The Wonder Wheel which will set up the 'feeling my destiny' year. I am excited to share with all of you.

Do you have an intention for this new year? One clear focus? If you don't, go out into the wild night and listen for directions and then tell me - what's in the bag?

Wilfully Imaginative

2012-01-09T21:37:00.000-08:00

A friend posted JK Rowlings 2008 Harvard Commencement Address on Facebook yesterday. I hadn't seen it and paused in my Facebook newsfeed viewing to watch. I'm glad I did. And I wanted to share it with all of you. I was struck by much of what JK Rowling shared in her address, but in particular it was the juxtaposition of the central theme of her piece that captured my heart and imagination. The title of the address was The Fringe Benefits of Failure and the Importance of Imagination.

There are indeed countless benefits to things falling apart, to being broken open, to getting a few life lemons. I happen to think that the failure sets the stage for dreaming again...for re-connecting to a quiet voice inside that sparks our imagination and unleashes it...for better. Because indeed, the 'fringe' benefit of failure is it can't get any worse...not really.

The passage that most captivated me was this:

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

In the work I do as an intuitive energy coach, it is such a joy to work with clients who are embracing the 'razors edge' experience of tapping into their intuition and venturing into new wilderness. It does indeed feel like a wild new world. I love the phrase 'mental agoraphobia' and I concur with Rowlings sense that the wilfully un-imaginative likely are more often afraid in their narrow confined world.

So cheers to the freedom of failure and the wilfully imaginative spirit that is alive and well in so many individuals. The quixotic sense of failure shows up in the most surprising and unexpected ways. Now, when I have that experience, when the sense of failing wildly at something shows up in me, I see it clearly for what it is: the call of the wild. When I fail, it is a signal to me that I have ventured out far and wide, beyond the edges of my mental agoraphobia and I weep at the freedom to live so openly, so transparently, so undone.

Continue to be brave of heart and courageous of spirit as you bring your own unique brand of brilliance into the world.

May you fail to live within the confines of your mental agoraphobia.

Text as delivered follows.

President Faust, members of the Harvard Corporation and the Board of Overseers, members of the faculty, proud parents, and, above all, graduates.

The first thing I would like to say is ‘thank you.’ Not only has Harvard given me an extraordinary honour, but the weeks of fear and nausea I have endured at the thought of giving this commencement address have made me lose weight. A win-win situation! Now all I have to do is take deep breaths, squint at the red banners and convince myself that I am at the world’s largest Gryffindor reunion.

Delivering a commencement address is a great responsibility; or so I thought until I cast my mind back to my own graduation. The commencement speaker that day was the distinguished British philosopher Baroness Mary Warnock. Reflecting on her speech has helped me enormously in writing this one, because it turns out that I can’t remember a single word she said. This liberating discovery enables me to proceed without any fear that I might inadvertently influence you to abandon promising careers in business, the law or politics for the giddy delights of becoming a gay wizard.

You see? If all you remember in years to come is the ‘gay wizard’ joke, I’ve come out ahead of Baroness Mary Warnock. Achievable goals: the first step to self improvement.
Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known at my own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that have expired between that day and this.

I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, I have decided to talk to you about the benefits of failure. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘real life’, I want to extol the crucial importance of imagination.

These may seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.

Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest to me expected of me.

I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came from impoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was an amusing personal quirk that would never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension. I know that the irony strikes with the force of a cartoon anvil, now.

So they hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that in retrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the end of the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.

I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduation day. Of all the subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when it came to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.

I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibility lies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear, and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.

What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.

At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories, and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success in my life and that of my peers.

I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a moment suppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.

However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might be driven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from the average person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown.

Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed on an epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possible to be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears that my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had both come to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.

Now, I am not going to stand here and tell you that failure is fun. That period of my life was a dark one, and I had no idea that there was going to be what the press has since represented as a kind of fairy tale resolution. I had no idea then how far the tunnel extended, and for a long time, any light at the end of it was a hope rather than a reality.

So why do I talk about the benefits of failure? Simply because failure meant a stripping away of the inessential. I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. Had I really succeeded at anything else, I might never have found the determination to succeed in the one arena I believed I truly belonged. I was set free, because my greatest fear had been realised, and I was still alive, and I still had a daughter whom I adored, and I had an old typewriter and a big idea. And so rock bottom became the solid foundation on which I rebuilt my life.

You might never fail on the scale I did, but some failure in life is inevitable. It is impossible to live without failing at something, unless you live so cautiously that you might as well not have lived at all – in which case, you fail by default.

Failure gave me an inner security that I had never attained by passing examinations. Failure taught me things about myself that I could have learned no other way. I discovered that I had a strong will, and more discipline than I had suspected; I also found out that I had friends whose value was truly above the price of rubies.

The knowledge that you have emerged wiser and stronger from setbacks means that you are, ever after, secure in your ability to survive. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity. Such knowledge is a true gift, for all that it is painfully won, and it has been worth more than any qualification I ever earned.

So given a Time Turner, I would tell my 21-year-old self that personal happiness lies in knowing that life is not a check-list of acquisition or achievement. Your qualifications, your CV, are not your life, though you will meet many people of my age and older who confuse the two. Life is difficult, and complicated, and beyond anyone’s total control, and the humility to know that will enable you to survive its vicissitudes.

Now you might think that I chose my second theme, the importance of imagination, because of the part it played in rebuilding my life, but that is not wholly so. Though I personally will defend the value of bedtime stories to my last gasp, I have learned to value imagination in a much broader sense. Imagination is not only the uniquely human capacity to envision that which is not, and therefore the fount of all invention and innovation. In its arguably most transformative and revelatory capacity, it is the power that enables us to empathise with humans whose experiences we have never shared.

One of the greatest formative experiences of my life preceded Harry Potter, though it informed much of what I subsequently wrote in those books. This revelation came in the form of one of my earliest day jobs. Though I was sloping off to write stories during my lunch hours, I paid the rent in my early 20s by working at the African research department at Amnesty International’s headquarters in London.

There in my little office I read hastily scribbled letters smuggled out of totalitarian regimes by men and women who were risking imprisonment to inform the outside world of what was happening to them. I saw photographs of those who had disappeared without trace, sent to Amnesty by their desperate families and friends. I read the testimony of torture victims and saw pictures of their injuries. I opened handwritten, eye-witness accounts of summary trials and executions, of kidnappings and rapes.

Many of my co-workers were ex-political prisoners, people who had been displaced from their homes, or fled into exile, because they had the temerity to speak against their governments. Visitors to our offices included those who had come to give information, or to try and find out what had happened to those they had left behind.

I shall never forget the African torture victim, a young man no older than I was at the time, who had become mentally ill after all he had endured in his homeland. He trembled uncontrollably as he spoke into a video camera about the brutality inflicted upon him. He was a foot taller than I was, and seemed as fragile as a child. I was given the job of escorting him back to the Underground Station afterwards, and this man whose life had been shattered by cruelty took my hand with exquisite courtesy, and wished me future happiness.

And as long as I live I shall remember walking along an empty corridor and suddenly hearing, from behind a closed door, a scream of pain and horror such as I have never heard since. The door opened, and the researcher poked out her head and told me to run and make a hot drink for the young man sitting with her. She had just had to give him the news that in retaliation for his own outspokenness against his country’s regime, his mother had been seized and executed.

Every day of my working week in my early 20s I was reminded how incredibly fortunate I was, to live in a country with a democratically elected government, where legal representation and a public trial were the rights of everyone.

Every day, I saw more evidence about the evils humankind will inflict on their fellow humans, to gain or maintain power. I began to have nightmares, literal nightmares, about some of the things I saw, heard, and read.

And yet I also learned more about human goodness at Amnesty International than I had ever known before.

Amnesty mobilises thousands of people who have never been tortured or imprisoned for their beliefs to act on behalf of those who have. The power of human empathy, leading to collective action, saves lives, and frees prisoners. Ordinary people, whose personal well-being and security are assured, join together in huge numbers to save people they do not know, and will never meet. My small participation in that process was one of the most humbling and inspiring experiences of my life.

Unlike any other creature on this planet, humans can learn and understand, without having experienced. They can think themselves into other people’s places.

Of course, this is a power, like my brand of fictional magic, that is morally neutral. One might use such an ability to manipulate, or control, just as much as to understand or sympathise.

And many prefer not to exercise their imaginations at all. They choose to remain comfortably within the bounds of their own experience, never troubling to wonder how it would feel to have been born other than they are. They can refuse to hear screams or to peer inside cages; they can close their minds and hearts to any suffering that does not touch them personally; they can refuse to know.

I might be tempted to envy people who can live that way, except that I do not think they have any fewer nightmares than I do. Choosing to live in narrow spaces leads to a form of mental agoraphobia, and that brings its own terrors. I think the wilfully unimaginative see more monsters. They are often more afraid.

What is more, those who choose not to empathise enable real monsters. For without ever committing an act of outright evil ourselves, we collude with it, through our own apathy.

One of the many things I learned at the end of that Classics corridor down which I ventured at the age of 18, in search of something I could not then define, was this, written by the Greek author Plutarch: What we achieve inwardly will change outer reality.

That is an astonishing statement and yet proven a thousand times every day of our lives. It expresses, in part, our inescapable connection with the outside world, the fact that we touch other people’s lives simply by existing.

But how much more are you, Harvard graduates of 2008, likely to touch other people’s lives? Your intelligence, your capacity for hard work, the education you have earned and received, give you unique status, and unique responsibilities. Even your nationality sets you apart. The great majority of you belong to the world’s only remaining superpower. The way you vote, the way you live, the way you protest, the pressure you bring to bear on your government, has an impact way beyond your borders. That is your privilege, and your burden.

If you choose to use your status and influence to raise your voice on behalf of those who have no voice; if you choose to identify not only with the powerful, but with the powerless; if you retain the ability to imagine yourself into the lives of those who do not have your advantages, then it will not only be your proud families who celebrate your existence, but thousands and millions of people whose reality you have helped change. We do not need magic to change the world, we carry all the power we need inside ourselves already: we have the power to imagine better.

I am nearly finished. I have one last hope for you, which is something that I already had at 21. The friends with whom I sat on graduation day have been my friends for life. They are my children’s godparents, the people to whom I’ve been able to turn in times of trouble, people who have been kind enough not to sue me when I took their names for Death Eaters. At our graduation we were bound by enormous affection, by our shared experience of a time that could never come again, and, of course, by the knowledge that we held certain photographic evidence that would be exceptionally valuable if any of us ran for Prime Minister.

So today, I wish you nothing better than similar friendships. And tomorrow, I hope that even if you remember not a single word of mine, you remember those of Seneca, another of those old Romans I met when I fled down the Classics corridor, in retreat from career ladders, in search of ancient wisdom:

As is a tale, so is life: not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.

I wish you all very good lives. Thank you very much.

The speech in its entirety was available on the Harvard Magazine Inc.
http://harvardmagazine.com/2008/06/the-fringe-benefits-failure-the-importance-imagination

More Life Lemons

2012-01-07T00:38:00.000-08:00

More Life Lemons

New blog

New Year

New Life Lemons

Ok, a funny you would say that experience. A friend sent me this article the other day about the healing properities of lemons. I emailed Catherine and said, 'oh, you must have read my blog!' She said, "no, I didn't send it because of your blog, I sent it because I know you choose healthy options and you may come across someone who needs to know this info." Her email was titled: Maybe I Should Be Selling My Lemons? A wild and wonderful coincidence. Read on to enjoy these new life lemons. Take what you like and leave the rest. My original Life Lemons post is below.

Have some Lemons ...they Really Do make a difference!

This is the latest in medicine, effective for cancer!

Read carefully and you be the judge.

Lemon (Citrus) is a miraculous product to kill cancer cells.

It is 10,000 times stronger than chemotherapy.

Why do we not know about that?

Because there are laboratories interested in making a synthetic version that will bring them huge profits.

You can now help a friend in need by letting him/her know that lemon juice is beneficial in preventing the disease.

Its taste is pleasant and it does not produce the horrific effects of chemotherapy.

How many people will die while this closely guarded secret is kept, so as not to jeopardize the beneficial multimillionaires large corporations? As you know, the lemon tree is known for its varieties of lemons and limes.

You can eat the fruit in different ways: you can eat the pulp, juice press, prepare drinks, sorbets, pastries, etc. It is credited with many virtues, but the most interesting is the effect it produces on cysts and tumors.

This plant is a proven remedy against cancers of all types. Some say it is very useful in all variants of cancer.

It is considered also as an anti microbial spectrum against bacterial infections and fungi, effective against internal parasites and worms, it regulates blood pressure which is too high and an antidepressant, combats stress and nervous disorders.The source of this information is fascinating: it comes from one of the largest drug manufacturers in the world, says that ,after more than 20 laboratory tests since 1970, the extracts revealed that:

It destroys the malignant cells in 12 cancers, including colon breast, prostate, lung and pancreas .

The compounds of this tree showed 10,000 times better than the product Adriamycin, a drug normally used chemotherapeutic in the world, slowing the growth of cancer cells.

And what is even more astonishing: this type of therapy with lemon extract only destroys malignant cancer cells and it does not affect healthy cells.

Institute of Health Sciences, 819 N. L.L.C. Cause Street, Baltimore, MD 1201

(Snopes indicates that this is a mix of fact/fiction)

The original post is below.

When Life Gives You Lemons...

2011-11-30T10:50:00.001-08:00

Life lemons

...pay attention.

Experiences come along and they teach us profound lessons. What is being learned in the challenging, sour patches of life? Here's the truth. There is no sour or sweet. Our minds, our clever, make sense of it mind, wants to reduce the experience down to something. Let's not. Let's not distill the experience. For just like any distilling process, it can make for a very potent, intoxicating beverage that can blind us to the deeper meaning of life's lemons.

Raise your hand if you have received some of life's lemons. I venture to say that many of those lemons wove some of the sweetest, most poignant, human experiences into the fabric of your life story.

I am waxing rhapsodic today about life's lemons because I am just a few days shy of coming out of the cast that has graced my left leg for the month of November. Yes, graced.

I slipped on Halloween Eve and fractured the tibia bone in my left leg at the bottom near the foot. I knew I needed a break, just didn't know this is how it would arrive.

And the truth is, I have no idea the unending lemonade that will come from this experience. Too new, too fresh, too physical. There is no expiration date on life lessons.

This is not at all how I would have envisioned November of 2011. If I wanted, I could tell you a very detailed story of how this 'break' derailed what would have been a very alive and joyous month filled with adventures, activities and plans. You see, November is my favorite month of the year and this particular November was chocked full including my 50th birthday which I celebrated on Thanksgiving Day this year.

Here is where the 'when life gives you lemons...pay attention' comes back in. This is not AT ALL how I thought I would spend this month, but the reality is, it is how I spent the month. A quieter month, a slower month, a physical month, an opportunity to view life from a completely different perspective month.

I haven't begun to harvest all the graciousness from this experience. I am aware of a desire to cling to the what might have been month and the 'loss' of that still feels more sour than sweet. But I know, with every fiber of being, the unforeseen wisdom, love and liberation that will come from this break.
Here is what paying attention noticed this month:

the art of breathing

the mind expanding/heart-opening power of receiving - unending, ever-present receiving

solitude

companionship and conversation

food as love

fictional characters make great company

rest is restorative

the power of synchronicity

self-care = self-love

the deliciousness of bathing

the simplicity of walking with two feet on the ground

a 'smarter meter' for exerting energy

the desire to be of service
the love of learning

the wisdom of dreams

the gift of intuition

the fragility of foundation

meditation as medicine

time heals all wounds

Wow, that last one really resonated and the tears welled up and flowed.

Time: unending, generous, loving, gracious time heals...all...wounds.

I am grateful for these last few days of hobbling before the cast comes off on Friday. Like a racehorse running each and every race through sheer instinct and will, I too have been running such races. Through this break, I was hobbled and humbled. I have been granted the gift of time, to restore, repair, renew.

Curiosity is watching.

I sit in the quiet of my bedroom, with the afternoon sunlight streaming across the keys as I type and I am content. I am peaceful. I am home.

Weird Is The New Black

2011-10-31T15:00:00.000-07:00

WEIRD

Though I am not much of a trend-setter when it comes to fashion, weird is a color I wear well. You see, I've embraced my inner weird. And my Halloween wish for all of you is to embrace yours.

Yes, wear your weird, just like a Halloween costume, everyday of the year.

Let me tell you how weird came on the radar today of all days.

I first started this post a couple of weeks ago. It was a great title but I just didn't know what I wanted to say, so I set in aside. I returned to the topic last week but still felt that I needed more time. Ironically enough, I woke up this morning with 'weird' on the brain. I started to chuckle at the timing of posting Weird Is The New Black on Halloween.

Perfect.

Weird: [wyrd] concerned with or controlling fate or destiny, unearthly or uncanny, fantastic.

My observation is that we are all weird and we expend so much energy appearing to be normal. (I have long since discovered that normal doesn't exist because it is constantly changing.) Well, rest assured, that if weird is the new normal, all that energy can do something much more creative and fun.

So, let me tell you the story of how I came to celebrate weird as the new black today with a technique called Telling The Story Backwards. This exercise, a terrific Martha Beck coaching tool, is rather like The House That Jack Built or There Was An Old Lady Who Swallow A Fly. (Fly swallowing is a great tale to tell on Halloween!)

1. I noticed a post by coach Sherold Barr on Facebook about her interview with Seth Godin and his new book We Are All Weird. (That got my attention.)

2. I clicked on the link and read the article which led me to Seth Godin's site where I read about the new book. We Are All Weird "is a celebration of choice, of treating different people differently and of embracing the notion that everyone deserves the dignity and respect that comes from being heard. The book calls for end of mass and for the beginning of offering people more choices, more interests and giving them more authority to operate in ways that reflect their own unique values."

We Are All Weird by Seth Godin

3. I was struck by the title because what I now do as my work in the world is weird (uncanny/fantastic) and I am a very mainstream kinda gal. I am at the intersection of intuitive healing and life coaching. You can call it intuitive coaching or life healing (that one has a nice ring to it).

4. In my work with a new business coach, Laurie Foley, she assigned Book Yourself Solid by Michael Port. In making my way through the book, the author asks a series of questions to generate ideas, responses and information about serving your ideal clients. It was a simple exercise that started with a simple question called the who and do what statement. His example was: I help professional service providers book themselves solid. My immediate response for myself was: I'm the gal you come to when weird shows up in your life.

5. I became 'the gal you come to when weird shows up in your life' because weird is what happened to me in 2001. I spent five years with a collection of strange neurological disorders that turned my life upside down and inside out. After the first year or so, I began to call the symptoms, The Weirdness. I spent almost five years in the western medical community seeking answers to this change in my health and my life. It took embracing my 'weirdness' to open the door to a much bigger, broader world. At the time, I had fairly conventional views about what was possible. I was invited by my experiences to open to a whole new world of possibilities and to connect with an untapped creative potential within myself. This required that I accept the weirdness that was coming through me. In telling the story backwards, it is poignant how life has made the most of this really scary, challenging time in my life. It was a time that in turn led to the discovery a powerful light that I can use to guide others through the dark and scary places in their lives. How is that for a weird twist of fate...or is it destiny?

I will leave you to decide for yourself.

There is something strangely, dare I say, weirdly poetic, about how all of this has unfolded. Destiny or not, I feel uniquely prepared to be of service in the weird department, the uncanny, and unearthly department, all the while having my very practical, feet planted on the ground.

What is popping out in your life today? What word, idea or image keeps showing up? Mine was weird and this has given me some excellent clues in the house that's been built through Mary. What is life building with you? Pay attention. Destiny may be knocking at the door to your house. Don't be spooked if it is dressed in black. I hear it's in fashion this season.

The Kerchunk of Truth

2011-10-24T23:22:00.000-07:00

The Rings of Belief

Close your eyes.

Now, say the word truth and feel, see, hear where it lands in your body.

Now, say the word belief and feel, see, hear where it lands in your body.

Were they different?

Did you find that truth had a weight to it, a sound to it, that was different than belief?

I did.

The first time this happened, I experienced the sound of truth. The feeling of truth. It went kerchunk. It landed just like a slug in a jukebox or the stone thrown in the pond.

Belief on the other hand hovered: no landing, no feeling, no kerchunk.

The energy of these two words was very different. This surprised me. At one time, I would have told you that the meaning, the quality and the feeling of these two words was the same.

Not now. Not so. Not after the kerchunk.

The stone (truth) is that which cuts through and lands solidly at the bottom of the pond and the rings (belief) are the ripples upon the water that dissolve until a new truth drops in and creates more waves of belief.

I like the way this feels. I like the way this sounds. That which feels unshakable and that which feels shaky. This visceral kerchunk. It is very freeing to have a belief, especially one that feels painful and limiting, be just that; a limiting belief. Now, some beliefs may stand the test of time and one day become a truth. The little acorn of belief that grew up to be a truth. This thought never occurred to me before...a belief evolving into a truth. Interesting. An interesting idea.

So, if you are wresting with a belief that has you in its grip, and it feels painful and limiting, throw it in the pond and watch - feel - listen.

Does it go kerchunk? Or does it merely make rings in the shallows; waves on the surface of your life?

Monkey Mind Meet eGoat

2011-10-17T09:06:00.000-07:00

A happy eGoat!

Yes, I'm going where you think I'm going.

What gave it away?

The title?

My aforementioned quirky sense of humor?

Or the picture of a large, smiling goat?

Credit for this clever post goes to that 'funny you would 'see' that... this is your intuition speaking' connection. Literally.

Here's the story.

I was coaching a woman through some old beliefs about herself and what was possible. She was dealing with feelings of guilt and shame about her past and we were gently moving through these much like playing with a wiggling tooth that is almost, but not quite ready, to come out.

I asked her to close her eyes and connect with where in her body she noticed the feelings of shame and guilt. As she got quiet and relaxed, this image popped into my mind. Visual images are my speciality. The scene was at a children's petting zoo and the goats were being fed. Ah, I think, a goat will eat anything, anytime, anywhere. They are not choosy animals about what they are willing to digest. I had a hunch that it represented the energy of guilt and shame and just like the goat, the ego can be fed in much the same way.

I shared the image with her and after we had a good laugh, she experienced the deeper meaning in the message of the outstretched hand. The goat was already being fed. A small handful of food. She saw that she was free not to feed it anything else. The guilt and the shame were coming from an old, small place and the idea of the goat and its endless appetite shifted her thoughts about what purpose the guilt and shame were serving. This shift gave her a sense of freedom and liberation and this new self felt free and ready to move on. She realized the 'eGoat' would be fed in small ways everyday and she was free to direct the bigger, richer part of her energy and passions elsewhere. She AND her eGoat were very happy.

The idea of the goat and its endless and indiscriminate appetite reminded me of the metaphor of the Monkey Mind. Wikipedia defines Monkey Mind as, "a Buddhist term meaning "unsettled, restless, capricious, fanciful, inconstant, indecisive, uncontrollable." The reference to Monkey Mind has appeared in thousands of books and articles on subjects ranging from meditation and mindfulness to psychology and self-help. It is a phrase that speaks for itself.

I too felt like the eGoat speaks for itself.

So, the eGoat - Wikipedia listing might read something like this: eGoat, from the Latin “ego” meaning sense of ‘conceit’ and the Middle English word “goat” [goht] associated with scapegoat or victim; it is an American term meaning ‘insatiable, rabid, starving, ravenous, voracious, avid, greedy, devouring, unquenchable.”

Monkey Mind meet your new friend eGoat.

Ready to Fall

2011-10-10T15:28:00.000-07:00

It's time.

Really, it's time.

Change is in the air. In the leaves. In your hands.

I love the fall. Favorite season. I was born in November - a thanksgiving baby. There is something inspiring and beautiful in this brilliant death. Yes, death. On this sunny, autumn October Monday, I want to talk about death. Brilliant, beautiful death. Transient death. That is how I want you to see it, death as change. Because it's true. We die into life each and every day. Death and rebirth, death and rebirth, death and rebirth.

To every season, turn, turn, turn. It is ready to fall's turn.

Now, the cycle part is often lost on us in our daily 24/7. Our lives are full, often stable and well ordered, even in the crazy not enough time, never enough time sort of way. And then, that catalytic event. And like that brilliant leaf above, we feel the days shorten, the light dim, the temperature drop.

"In early autumn, in response to the shortening days and declining intensity of sunlight, leaves begin the processes leading up to their fall. The veins that carry fluids into and out of the leaf gradually close off as a layer of cells forms at the base of each leaf. These clogged veins trap sugars in the leaf and promote production of anthocyanins. Once this separation layer is complete and the connecting tissues are sealed off, the leaf is ready to fall."*

Huh, even though the author is writing about why leaves change color, isn't that a perfect description of a human experience, clogged, sugary veins and all? Or as I like to say, an animal, vegetable, miracle experience. Betcha didn't know you were producing so much anthocyanins? Or maybe your not. Maybe you've lost your color, your pigment palette of color. Have you lost the ability to change from feeling blue to radiant red? Or, the reference to the leaf separating from the tree. "Once this separation layer is complete and the connecting tissues are sealed off before the leaf is ready to fall." Brilliant. Apply that to a couple going through a rough patch in their relationship and you've got gold...gold leaf that is.

It's time.

Really, it's time.

I have a mantra that has served me well as I have gone through a major ten year change cycle in my own life. I offer it now to you.

Use everything and hold on to nothing.

And to that end, let's use the brilliant beauty of the ready to fall leaves to create change in your life.

I am the Queen of Metaphors. I have a crown and everything. I see them everywhere. The connections, the threads, the patterns. And just like a quilter, I piece them together to create something unique, beautiful, inspiring and peace-full. I won't go into all the reasons why metaphors are incredibly powerful and useful. There is a lot of great research, science and psychology to explain. Trust me on this one. It works.

So, here is a tool to use when you feel the day closing in, the light dimming and the passing belief that the world is a very cold place.

Ready to Fall Exercise

1. Close your eyes.
2. Breathe (when in doubt - breathe. Or better yet, let life breathe for you...it really already does.)
3. Imagine yourself as a tree. Any tree you like.
4. See this tree clearly. Fill in all the details. The soil, the bark, the size of the trunk, the number of branches, where you are planted. Truly, the more detailed and specific, the juicier the insights and information.
5. Now, shift your attention to the leaves. Notice the colors. Are they mixed? Do you have greens with some reds and oranges and yellows? Alert: Random thought to follow. (This is very like the stray grey hair that shows up as the 'leaves' on our heads are turning. Just like that colored leaf - that is the grey hair.)
6. Does one particular leaf catch your attention? Notice it, really see what it looks like. Where is it located on the tree?
7. Now, ask this leaf "what do you want me to know?" And you know what...and this is the amazing part - the remember my mantra "use everything" EVEN when talking to an imaginary leaf, on an imaginary tree that represents some aspect of YOU part, the amazing thing is... the leaf will answer you back! Every time. Now, for some, it will be a shout. Clear, loud, nothing to miss. For some, it will be a whisper, a fleeting glimpse, a misty possibility. No matter, pay attention. This is your intuition speaking. In the only language it knows.
8. The alchemy of this exercise. The leaf has just become something else. It now carries the energy of what do you want me to know and setting that energy in motion.
9. Depending on the response from #7, this leaf may now just fall, one of the early to turn, low-hanging leaves to fall away or it may be the last of the leaves on the tree, clinging to that branch for one last lingering look. In your mind's eye, see what the leaf wants to do. Watch it, honor it, respect it. There is a deeper wisdom that knows, just like the leaf, when it is ready to die, to fall away. The leaf will know.
10. With your eyes still closed, express your gratitude, (or surprise, excitement, fascination) with the exercise, open your eyes and jot some quick notes. Note what the leaf represented, no matter how weird or strange (in my opinion, the weirder the better), what fell away from the tree, what let go and what wasn't ready. Affirm in your journal that something died so that something new can be born.

Repeat this exercise both on cold blue days and red hot brilliant ones.

One brilliantly colored leaf at a time.

Share your Ready to Fall - setting energy in motion stories.

It's time.

*Cited from an article "Why Leaves Change Color" by the USDA Forest Service http://www.na.fs.fed.us/fhp/pubs/leaves/leaves.shtm

Guarding Life

2011-10-03T16:10:00.000-07:00

I love what I call tiny tales, the simple, ordinary moments in our lives that reveal such depth, poignancy and connection. So, this is a tiny tale about how intuition works in the 24/7. If you aren't as connected to your right brain as you would like, read on. Intuitive insight is a lifesaver and comes in many tasty flavors. The intuitive way, the right thinking way, has saved my very guarded life time and again, as well as the guarded lives of countless others. Perception is everything. And when the world is going so fast, and change is inevitable, here is a way to find that fixed spot within all that motion.

Let me set the stage. This tiny tale begins with a familiar and epic rite of passage - our son Maxwell going off to college. A rite of passage for so many. Our launching was, I have no doubt, typical for the millions of college students who head off every fresh fall for campuses around the globe. I was surprisingly joyous and excited those first few days. A touch of sadness, but truly, the excitement I felt on Max's behalf eclipsed many of the I wish he were still at home feelings.

Now, let me be clear. This joy and excitement lasted approximately four days. Then, CONFLICT. A capital letter word for a capital letter feeling. It all started innocently enough.

It began on a Monday, the first day of classes. Max saw a notice that the Student Center was in need of lifeguards. Oh, Max thinks. I'm a lifeguard. I'll check this out. On campus the first day of classes and already a potential new job. It all happened so fast. He called home to get some information from his certification card, applied and had an interview by Tuesday night.

What a wonderful beginning! (Can you feel where this is heading?) He loved his classes and his professors. He was settling in and starting college. He had made some great new connections and now a new job his first day! It was all going so smoothly, so brilliantly, so sun-shiny golden and bright. Does this smack of a little perfection through my rose-colored glasses? Sound familiar? It is amazing how fast we want familiar and safe in something new and different. Ah, if I were watching this unfold on the Lifetime channel, only five minutes into the movie, I could have told you where this plot was going. Laugh out loud. Life imitates art.

Well, here comes the life part.

On Wednesday, he called home on another matter and I asked if he knew anything about the job. He said he had a phone message earlier in the day saying they had filled the position and they would keep his application on file. And here is where the CONFLICT arrived. Thud, stop action, plot unravels. Oh, I say. Then came the barrage of questions like rapid fire bullets. Did she say why? What did you say to her? Oh, it was a message? You didn't talk to her? You didn't ask why you didn't get the job? Don't you want to know why you didn't get the job? Why didn't you call her back. Why? How come? Huh...ah...oh.

I can now feel the tension (hell, all those questions just now read like a pack of snarling, hungry wild dogs.) My very wise son says, "Can't it just have been an experience?" Me, the queen of experiences in the work I do, stumbles and spins and says, "Uh, yes, of course, huh...ah...oh." We hang up with the pack of wild dogs still circling. I immediately text him and say,

"I love you. I heard you about it's all just experience and I get that and I will back up next time. You at college is a brave new world for me! lol...peace."

And he texts back: "I love you too and I have to remember that as well. I am the one having the experience and you all are here to witness that, I just have to remember that witnessing can be just as new and scary as experiencing."

Sigh. Pause. Tears. What a beautiful message, so wise and loving. And I was there for awhile, in that beautiful and calm place. Three or four seconds. But those MOTHER of all rational brain cells are STRONG people. Though a big part of me felt the freedom for Max to have experiences, the Mother, the why didn't you hire my kid - he is an amazing lifeguard - the best AND he could use the job, just didn't get it. Did not compute. Why the opportunity? Why his brilliant execution and follow-thru only to be told 'thanks, but no thanks?'

The circling pack of wild dogs had quieted some, but they were still looking for fresh meat.

Well, fast forward a week and I am sharing the story with a dear friend. She is very moved by the witnessing vs experiencing of Max's message and she says, 'it's so clear that he is not to be lifeguarding at this time.' DING, a bell rung in my head. The pack of wild dogs disappeared. Message received. A turn of a phrase - a change in perception. Life - Guarding, not a Lifeguard. The experience, not the role. No longer was the thought why wasn't he right for the job, it was replaced with is the job right for him? At this time? In this place?

Fall quarter of your freshman year is a time for new experiences, trying new things, being open to life - not watching it, observing it, guarding it. And the why not him conflict (lower case) dissolved, not his role - not his part to play - not his identity.

And that last mother of a brain cell was gone.

Share. I am curious. What are your tiny tales of intuitive insight that calm your mind, open your heart and sooth that pack of wild dogs?

Where are you still trapped in the mother of all rational brain cells, guarding life - not living it?

Let's play. With words. With images. With feelings. There is a code - a tumbler-aligning, safe cracking code. Can you feel the tumblers line up? Fall into place? Open up that safe place and live free. No lifeguard on duty.

It's a new fresh fall quarter.

The Art of Doing Onething

2011-09-28T22:25:00.000-07:00

I was inspired this morning by a little book that sits on my bathroom shelf called The Art of Doing Nothing. My sister Kate gave it to me years ago as a not so subtle message that is was really ok to do nothing. Well, fast forward in dog years of time and wisdom and, the truth is, I still have not perfected the art of doing nothing.

Not one bit. And here's my hunch. Because nothing IS something, well, in my case, one thing.

The little light bulb popped, as they are oft to do in my head, and the phrase 'the art of doing onething' showed up. I sighed a deep sigh. Now that felt true, that felt real.  THE one. And all the funny symbolic images, phrases and words came marching through my mind: Admit One, One Singular Sensation, One Hand, One Heart and in my case even One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, as my nearest and dearest are apt to think about me at times.

See, as meanful coincidence (aka: my favorite word synchronicity) would have it, I have been wrestling with the one thing from the something in my business. So, I hired me a branding coach. And not just any branding coach. A branding from the inside out coach.  A find your Inner Brandifesto coach. (Because, in my case, the most quirky thing about myself is my strongest card in my deck. More about that in a moment.) Just a week ago today, I had my first business branding coaching session with Laurie Foley at http://www.lauriefoley.com/. A little plug. It's my blog and I will shine my light where I want. She's fantastic. It was a mind-mapping, brain-storming, head-exploding experience. Hire her.

Well, this one session was electric because I was ready to focus on the one singular sensation that is as Laurie says, my brand from the inside out. You see, I think of myself as a hybrid, at the cross section of coaching and intuitive consulting and blending them has clarified for me and certainly in the session with Laurie, that it is high time to lead with my strength.  Where leading with the coaching felt safe, leading with intuition feels true.

I'm Intuitive.

A Professional Intuitive.

My own unique never been another like me professional intuitive.

That's the brand. That's the ticket. The Admit One (at a time) ticket.

And after leading with that, I can be anything else I want. But it is time to clearly put my best foot forward.

So, what is your Art of Doing One Thing? What are you best at? What can you do all day and all night that makes you ridiculously happy?

Mine is using intuition like a detective to explore with clients, ( AND myself, family, friends, co-workers, the guy behind me in the line at the movies, the waitress at the diner and the mom in the library parking lot) the mysteries that keep us from LIVING the JOYS of personal growth and the REWARDS of professional development. You might say I am Nancy Drew for the unconscious.

A Nancy Drew who is ridiculously good at finding things.

One thing at a time.

What can I find for you?

Admit one. And if that feels good, admit another one.

Were You Conscious?

2011-09-10T11:48:00.000-07:00

I can see clearly now the rain has gone. ~Johnny Nash

I see a number of clients in my work as a coach and an intuitive. I also talk and share with family and friends - what's the phrase, I hold the space. I like the sound of it. I know it's used by lots of people and it can have an 'ick' factor, but the bottom line is, the act of being present, letting the moment be, not expanding too fast or having the walls close in and suffocate, is something I find that I do. It’s a gift. A gift that I receive and one that I give. I feel peaceful when I do this. I do this for clients, for family, for friends.

So, this is a story about one particular friend - Bob. I have held the space for Bob on more than one occasion. Actually, Bob has shown up more than once in my writing. I have interesting experiences and insights when I connect with him and he is generous about letting me share them in this way.

I have known Bob for the better part of 30 years. We went to college together. He and my husband Drew were roommates in college and his wife Colleen is my dearest friend. In each other weddings, the birth of children, work and family – all of it. Over 15 years ago, they bought the house next door to us, so we are best friends AND neighbors.

The stories I can tell. But that's for another time. You get the idea.

One of the relevant pieces of the story is this: true or not, over the years as a foursome, I was the one who was likely to try out (or be tried) with a new experience in personal growth or development. Of the four of us, you could say that I was the engine on the train of new horizons, for better or for worse.

And if I am that engine, then Bob is the caboose.

I have a theory. There are a whole lot of people waking up, having a shift in perception, becoming more conscious and this interests me. It happened to me in 2006. Now, it's clear to me that consciousness is contagious just like a radio tower - it transmits. So, really, this is the story of the little engine that could because the caboose is now on board.

Read on.

Several weeks ago, I was doing that 'holding the space' thing with Bob because he had been laid up in bed with his back and things had taken a turn for the worse. He was clearly at a crossroads with what to do to relieve the pain and step back into his life. I won't go into all the details; suffice it to say that he had been dealing with this back issue for many, many months and tried all types and manner of treatment.

Well, I happen to be over at the house on a Wednesday night and sat down to visit with Bob in his bedroom. I did what I do as a coach. I asked questions when I was curious, we were quiet and restful when there was nothing to say and we listened as much with our hearts as our minds as we sat together. Bob had shared that the few days prior had been frustrating trying to make connections with doctors and get information. Bob sensed that there was something in all this frustration and resistance and was open to the idea that there was more to this experience than met the eye.

After we talked and he was in a quieter place, I went home. It was late in the evening and Bob went off to sleep. He called the next day to say he had what he thought was a dream and wanted to share it. In the dream, he was walking along what felt like a freeway and it was raining. He saw a really large freeway sign the said 'Exit Wounds.' Now, he told me, being laid up in bed all week, he had been watching tv and there is a Steven Segal movie called Exit Wounds. He wasn't sure if he had just pulled that in from the title of the movie. My hunch was it was more like the chicken and the egg experience. Let me explain.

God, Life, the Universe, the all that is, the source ( You pick) - doesn't speak English. It speaks in symbols and uses everything. Really, it is a very resourceful, intelligent and clever way to communicate. Much like we do when we talk with someone that doesn't speak our language. We use signs, symbols, non-verbal cues. So, in this capacity with Bob, I was acting as the translator, because I have had lots of these conversations at this point and I make a great sounding board.

So, Bob was really struck by the power of this sign – this vision. It felt so real. He said, "I don't know if I was awake or asleep." I sensed that this bothered him. That if he believed he was asleep, then none of this was real and he was still lost and unsure. If he believed he was awake, then his rational mind was there to understand it and he could take some action. But I sensed that he knew this was a dream, though clearly unlike any dream he had ever had before.

As I sat and listened, a question arose in me. I said to him, "Were you conscious?" I could tell the question caused him to pause, to breathe, to quiet, and he said "Yes, I was conscious." And I said, "then it doesn't really matter whether you were awake or asleep.”

"You didn't miss the sign.”

This all happened on a Thursday. On Friday, all the pieces fell into place and he met with a surgeon who had an opening on Monday. It all felt fast and kinda scary, but Bob trusted some deeper knowing to support his taking action… one step at a time. He had the surgery the following Monday.

Now, this isn't one of those and now he ran a marathon three days later stories. This is a much smaller, quieter miracle, yes, the ‘m’ word, miracle. Because, ladies and gentle-men, the caboose has left the station…the whole train is on the track. A new relationship is emerging for Bob - one with his greater self.

Now his steps are still slow, there is still pain, perhaps more wounds to exit. But he is on his way...one conscious moment at a time.

A Cog In The Wheel

2011-08-14T09:27:00.000-07:00

Below is a letter I just wrote to the participants in an offering I call The Intuitive Gym. It was a brainstorm of an idea that showed up last May. I launched as a summer experience to explore intuition and workout that piece (peace) of the amazing mind. I was moved to share what I wrote this morning on the blog because I want to. As simple as that. I am sharing on the blog because I am aware at this point that as I become more visible in the world, I am noticing the critic, the censor. I notice that I write and then hold on to it. A blog post sits in my edit pile, an email in the draft folder, a new idea for an offering in the file in my cognitive mind. Ah, cog - only one of the pieces needed to keep the wheel in motion. Now, let me share a bit about how I write. As I was writing this little intro to the post below, which I wrote in my email a bit ago, I notice for the very first time 'cog' in cognitive. This is how the mind perceives now. Things pop out. Especially words. There are SO many brilliant clues in words. So, I then pop on Dictionary.com and find the definition for 'cog.' There are several but I notice this one and it feels true. A 'person or thing playing a small part in a large organization or process.' A small part. A cog in the wheel - not the whole wheel itself. The larger organization is the mind, body and spirit, not just the cognitive, rational mind. So, life is inviting that even while I am expanding, being seen by more people, I am not going to censor - filter, yes - not censor. So, like the It's Alive post, and The Intuitive Gym and this Cog in the Wheel post, I will learn by doing, by putting out the ideas, the blog, the emails, the offerings and learn from experience.

So, here comes the uncensored stuff. News at 11.

Email to The August Intuitive Gym Members - Sent on Sunday, August 14, 2011

Welcome to The Intuitive Gym,

Our first group session is Tuesday, August 16th from 4 pm to 5 pm PDT. Please RSVP so I know who will be live on the call. Even though the call will be recorded, the experience of attending and 'playing out' - (really, when you are in the sweet spot, feels much more like play than work), is where the opportunity for growth and change occur. Let me share a bit about my experience in my own intuitive gym and why this is my particular passion and how I coach and inspire others.

I like to say I was living a fairly conventional, stable, well-ordered balanced life as a mother, active parent volunteer, a worker bee in part-time positions for a variety of organizations. Then, in the summer of 2001, a few months before 9/11, I began to fall apart. What started as some routine numbness in my left foot and leg began a five year odyssey through the medical community and through the inner workings of my body, mind and ultimately my heart and spirit. In 2006, after exhausting the options through the Western medical community and one final conversation with a compassionate and wise neurologist, I went to see a marriage and family counselor. Now, I was reluctant to do this because I knew this wasn't all in my head...it was literally in my body and I wasn't able to grasp at the time how one could be set in motion by bringing all the parts of myself together instead of holding them separate in my mind. Sure, I had heard the term holistic and mindfulness and others such ideas, but that is what they were - intellectual ideas. I, like a lot of Americans, have a terrific logical mind - sharp, rational, orderly. Well, I was to discover that I had been cut-off from accessing a vital and valuable part of myself - the creative and intuitive mind. I was unconscious to how this mind - this beautiful mind - scared me because I had met it before and it was free, unpredictable, and brought what felt more like chaos than control into my life. So, I closed the door on this mind years before and call it fate, destiny, kismet, timing...whatever word fits, that door reopened. After six months exploring with this lovely, gentle and deeply intuitive counselor, in the spring of 2006, a shift occurred in my life so deep and profound, that I literally woke-up to a new world, new body, mind and spirit - spring awakening. The experience of being guided through this non-linear, non-rational mind was so potent I began to take action and walk through deeply challenging experiences with a new found sense of peace and freedom - not always joy or happiness or bliss ( though they were there as well) - freedom. And now I am singing a new tune, a new anthem - let freedom ring.

So, this sets the stage for the Gym. Life was my first coach and it has been an empowering relationship. And that, my friends, both old ones and new, is how I came to be offering back the wisdom that came through this opportunity to wake-up to a new life. Over the last almost six years now, I have been re-made and have a new life - from the inside out.

First group call - Tuesday, August 16th from 4 pm - 5 pm. Show up - amazing things happen when we just show up. Schedule your one-on-ones. And don't be fooled by the price you paid for this experience. Life gives us opportunities all the time to show how we value an experience. So ask yourself, whether you pay $99 or $999 or $9999, life isn't concerned with the decimal point...imagine if you invest in this experience as if you paid your 'wait' in gold. Well, come along - because you did. You have a 24 karat gold experience ahead. ( a head - get it?) Life is so clever and funny. Come share a laugh or two.

Ask questions, be curious, notice, feel and experience with an open mind.

See you in the Gym,
Mary

It's Alive

2011-08-13T08:43:00.000-07:00

This is the first thought that popped into my head when I reflected on my current creative output. That old, funny monster movie expression - it's alive! The one that has that hint of hysteria around the edges as the chaos of the monster - the beast is unleashed. Well, I'm going to turn that concept right on its head because in this case the beast is a creative explosion of new classes, workshops, connections, clients and a feeling of being empowered like never before. Ok, let me break this down for you.

Keeping in the theme of the horror film genre, though, I'm placing it strictly in the realm of those hilarious and slightly campy 50's B movies. The Creature from the Black Lagoon, The Blob and the classic Night of the Living Dead come to mind. Now, bear with me as my 'catching fire' mentality (remember my earlier post about ideas are contagious - catch some) well, I woke up with these cylinders firing and I am putting fingers to keys to share my particular brand of insight and albeit quirky humor.

Ok, so I am about to juxtapose spiritual awakening and 50's B horror movies - and they said it couldn't be done.

In contrast to my amazing technicolor dreamchair life at present, looking back, no - feeling back - I was one of those creatures from Night of the Living Dead.

A zombie.

Much better looking by the way, but still - dead.

Now, I would absolutely NOT have understood that at the time. I was living a seemingly stable, orderly - a few buttons undone life.

And then the weirdness. This is what being spiritual awakened feels like - weird. It's not what we think - it is never what we think.

And it is only in hindsight or as Martha Beck so beautifully notes - in telling the story backwards, that we can clearly see the truth unfolded. But during the unfolding - forget it. Fear and resistance so strong, that just like those zombies, I was possessed with a set of beliefs and conditions so powerful that they had literally sucked me dry and exhausted the hell out of me. And just like in the horror movies, as the monster approaches and goes in for the kill and depending on whether you are the star (keep that in mind) there is surrender and death. And then...rebirth. I know, it is a quirky analogy and I haven't thought through all the kinks but I think you get the basic hilarious premise.*

The monster, the demon, the creature from the black lagoon is inevitable.

Change is inevitable.

And what that change does is magical.

There is a brilliant tool that Martha Beck details in her book Finding Your Own North Star. Next time, I'll spend some time sharing the change cycle.

But for today, just be aware of that one key phrase - change is inevitable.

A new mantra.

A new perspective.

A new creature emerging from the depths - a new awakening from the dark night. Because, reality is that the 'creature' is on both sides of the experience. Dead then alive, dead then alive, then alive, alive, alive!

*Practicing with the play and post concept for the blog today. Just letting the quirky mind create...because it can. All questions welcome.

Perspective

2011-07-24T09:47:00.000-07:00

"This guy's walkin' down a street when he falls in a hole. The walls are so steep he can't get out. A doctor passes by and the guy shouts up, "Hey you! Can you help me out?" The doctor writes a prescription, throws it down in the hole, and moves on. Then a priest comes along and the guy shouts up, "Father, I'm down in this hole; can you help me out?" The priest writes out a prayer, throws it down in the hole and moves on. Then a friend walks by. "Hey, Joe, it's me. Can ya help me out?" And the friend jumps in the hole. Our guy says, "Are ya stupid? Now we're both down here." The friend says, "Yeah, but I've been down here before and I know the way out."

Leo McGarry (John Spencer)

The West Wing

I was a big fan of The West Wing. Thanks to our digital age and reruns, I still am. I watched the whole series again a few years ago and was reminded once again why I loved this show so much. I won't go into all the superlatives because The West Wing is just the vehicle today. If you are not familiar with The West Wing, Leo McGarry tells this story to Josh Lyman in Episode #32 - Noel. Josh is back to work after being shot by a stray bullet intended for the President and is experiencing post-traumatic stress. I could just write a post about my passion for The West Wing and my love for these fictional characters. However,  I am practicing today with the foreground-background process and I will keep all my adulation's about The West Wing in the background and draw your focus to the foreground - the quote above.

Each time I see this episode or read this quote, I find my eyes filling with tears. My image is that my heart is so full, there must be a place for all that love, joy and hope to express itself. Martha Beck, one of the master-full teachers in my life, has been quoted as saying 'we cry not because we have lost hope but because we have found it again.' Well, this is a story about finding hope - in the friend and in our perspective.

It's the last line that gets me - every time. "Yeah, but I been down here before and I know the way out."

The story contrasts the doctor, the priest and the friend. My hunch is that the doctor AND the priest have also been the friend. There is a power in the word friend, a certain special color and tone. It has an energy and we are free to fill in the blank with the who, what, where, when in our life that has been down there before and knows the way out.

I am many things. One of them is a life coach. I discovered recently as I was writing a proposal to speak at a seminar the true definition of 'life coach.' In my fill in the blank sentence, LIFE was the friend, in all of its forms and literally showed me the way out. I like to say LIFE was my first 'coach' and all the transformation that was set in motion, when I too fell in that hole with walls so steep I thought at times there was no way out. Now, the falling in the hole experience is inevitable. Inevitable. What happens as a result...now that is the magic.

Life as my friend, instead of my enemy, jumped down in that hole and showed me the way out. And in doing so, the shift in perception was profound.

This major transformation occurred in my life back in 2006 and it has been amazing to experience the freedom in this new perspective - LIFE as friend. Now, I wouldn't have said life was an enemy per se, just that there wasn't the ease and freedom, the play-full-ness, the joy. This led to the discovery of another new friend - TIME. Time continues to be both friend and teacher.   Turns out, falling in that hole was the best thing that ever happened to me.

Now, I invite you to shift your focus from reading the words to looking at the picture above. I searched for a picture to represent the guy down the hole. As I searched, I realized it was all in the perspective. The thought of falling down the hole into the endless black abyss triggers every control mechanism in the book.    How far? How deep? It's dark - I can't see. Is there anything to hold on to? When will it stop? What will happen when I land? What will break and shatter? Will I be able to put myself back together? How will I get out?

Does all of this sound familiar?

Wait, does all of this feel familiar?

One can feel the anxiety mounting just reading all the questions. Now, let's shift the perspective from looking down into that void to looking up. Ah, the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. That is what struck me when I found this particular image. Looking up into all that light.

If one continues to shift perspective, the hole - the tunnel, looks like it is horizontal and not vertical - I can walk right out.

Talk about life as friend.

Developing Intuition - A 21st Century Tool

2011-07-17T09:45:00.000-07:00

Over the last several years, I have trained and launched an intuitive coaching practice. I remember when I first began my studies, a word that returned again and again was tool. I pictured this image of a carpenters tool belt with every imaginable tool available for my journey. As I continue to use and develop intuition and intuitive insight, I saw the ability to ACT upon intuitive wisdom lead to some powerful changes in my life and for my clients. I use the word 'lead' deliberately, as in lead-'her.' The addition of the intuitive tool to build my life, to open up new pathways, first in my mind and then in my life, has been profound.

There isn't anyone who doesn't possess this tool in their tool belt, but you may find that you just reach for that hammer each and every time. Reflex. See how many other tools are in the belt?

I was trained by Martha Beck and her amazing staff of coaches and this was a recent post of Martha's in O Magazine. It is a great article with some wonderful exercises and insights.

http://www.oprah.com/spirit/Finding-Your-Inner-Voice-Developing-Intuition-Martha-Beck

Martha's article was timely. I launched an intuitive coaching group through Meetup.com. The link http://www.meetup.com/Be-Set-In-Motion-South-Bay-Intuitive-Coaching-Meetup-Group/. The blend of intuition, energy work and life coaching has been powerful alchemy for me and I am hearing from participants, clients and friends that this blend is opening up their minds in unforeseen ways. One of the very powerful means to opening up the mind is to ask questions. In the Martha Beck training, there is a wonderful tool called the marmoset response. Marmoset's are VERY curious creatures and Martha has a delightful way of sharing with humor and wisdom. The marmoset response is very akin to the traditions of the eastern spiritual practices in asking questions and staying present through awareness. Answers are never an endpoint, only the place from which more questions arise.

At the meetups, I encourage the group to ask questions and a great technique is to have a large supply of three by five cards on hand. They are a great size with limited space that can help focus the minds question. This question was submitted by a participant at the June meetup. He asked great questions and I took the card away and pondered. I later emailed him my response. I told him after I wrote him, that this would make a great post for the blog. I have been meaning to post for the past few weeks, but when Martha's column was published this month, the timing to post was perfect.

Here was Question #1:

What beliefs interfere with intuition?

Time: There are so many beliefs around time that can limit the ability to trust and act upon intuitive insight when we believe that time is linear and fixed.

Freedom: There are so many shared beliefs around our perceptions of the "shoulds" in life and the difference between "pain" and "suffering."

Religion: Depending on ones religious upbringing, there are shared beliefs that block acknowledgment around intuitive/physic experience.

Relationships and Self-Perception/Sense of Self: How we view ourselves and feel about ourselves; our sense of empowerment and trust in our own experiences. Do we tend to be leaders or followers? Have we been conditioned to accept shared agreements around what is real and what is imagined.

Cultural Norms/Societal Agreements: There is overlap in some of these categories, but cultural beliefs may impact acknowledgment of intuitive abilities and insights separate from religion.

And Question #2:

What are some tip-offs that we might unconsciously have some of these beliefs?

Resistance/Struggling: I think this is a great "tip-off" that there is more to be examine than meets the "eye" so to speak. Whether resistance in mind or body, generally this is a clue and the "detective" in us can explore and ask more questions.

Recognizing patterns: Generally, if we are unconsciously connecting with our intuitive insights, but are not recognizing this, a tip-off may be to notice patterns, very much like your plane crashes experiences. Now, I don't know that the adage "everything comes in three's" is always apt, there can be a pattern to "3" that can draw awareness out of the unconscious and into recognition. Many individuals report experiences with digital clocks and seeing repeating patterns. This connects with the idea of sacred geometry and noticing balance and harmony in nature and ourselves where we might only see chaos and disorder.

Fatigue/Illness/Unusual body experiences: These may be a tip-off. Generally, our body has a great deal of information to share with us and we have some shared beliefs around the mind being the wise center that knows all and thus the body is often "disbelieved."

I welcome input and comments on other blocks or beliefs that you have noticed that interfere with your ability to use intuitive wisdom and insight and take action.

What's in your tool belt?

If You Give Mary An Idea...

2011-06-19T08:07:00.000-07:00

Ideas are contagious...catch some.

Well, clearly that March Un-Madness was an inspired idea because it is June 19th before I am back to a blog post. That was an idea that caught fire...in more ways than one. I have noticed in the last several months a byproduct of creativity...MORE creativity. The energy of creativity, the feel, taste, look, touch, sound of it puts me in mind of a beloved children's book series, If You Give A Mouse A Cookie, written by Laura Joffe Numeroff and illustrated by Felicia Bond. For those of you with children or a profession or passion that connects you to children's literature, you will have likely read one of these delightful tales. If not, check it out at the library because children's books are fabulous at reflecting the truth in an often amusing, poignant and utterly charming way.

I think you have a hunch as to where the story goes with my title "If You Give Mary an Idea" - though I must say, I'm as likely to be equally creative and inspired by a chocolate chip cookie. I promised I would share how the March Un-Madness went in February...I never suspected it would be so many months later. Well, it went just great. And for so many unexpected reasons. (Here is a great time to insert the ever important aphorism, "expect the unexpected." The "expected" outcome was to attract new clients to my coaching practice by offering a "name your own session price" and it did attract new clients. What was fabulous and unexpected was the amazing group of clients it attracted. This new group has inspired me to expand because of their deep and earnest desire to wake up to the beauty within and be their own bright lights in the world. A quick interjection! I LOVE all my clients. I feel incredibly blessed to support and inspire each of you as an intuitive coach and to watch your unfolding. The joyous parallel is this same support, inspiration and unfolding is what happens to me when I do my "work" with each of you.

As a result of their passions and their desires, the creative passion and spark was ignited and that led to a whole new series of offerings. So, the 'if you give Mary an idea in March' for "Un-Madness" this led to amazing new clients who wanted more, so this gave her an idea to start an intuitive coaching group in May inspired by her friend and fellow life coach Keisha Gallegos which led to Keisha and Mary creating and launching a four week Tele-Course to Power Up Your Gifts which had lots of intuitive exercises which is Mary's speciality which led clients to say "WOW" we want more of that which inspired The Intuitive Gym. More information available at http://www.setinmotioncoaching.com/ or follow me on Facebook.

Whew...it has been an amazing several months both personally and professionally. Our beautiful daughter Emma turned 13 in February, my husband and life-partner Drew celebrated his 50th Birthday in March AND we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary in May. Our son, Maxwell, turned 18 in April and just graduated from Archbishop Mitty High School. He is off to Santa Clara University in the fall, a full circle experience, as Drew and I graduated from Santa Clara, later married at the Mission and then had Max baptised there. Really, another Colored Circle moment. I have been aware of the pattern of colored circles showing up in my life for years and not noticing them. Not anymore. I know a colored circle moment when it happens. Stay tuned for more 'Colored Circle' moments featured on the blog and for more exciting milestones as we continue with 2011.

So, the observation of the "energy" of creativity brings to mind the law of attraction. When the creative spark is ignited, it will be a continuous "source" of inspiration. Where it goes and what it does is really exciting to be a part of. So, fill in the following blanks:

If You Give ___________ An ______________. What happens?

Here's my hunch. You have an "untold story within. Tell it."

I'll be back. Here come more ideas....................................!

March "Un" Madness Offering from Set In Motion: Tranformational Life Coaching

2011-02-27T11:58:00.000-08:00

March Madness is almost here. No, not basketball. Another kind of "madness." The what am I still doing in this same rut-madness? The where did those new year resolutions go-madness? The why am I so stuck-madness? Well, I am taking a page from other coaches playbooks and I am offering a "Pay What You Can" for my coaching/intuitive consulting services for the month of March. I often find that potential clients are stopped by the three F's: fear, fatigue and finances.

So, let me "ease the way" in the finance department. My hunch is that fear and fatigue will soon follow with the benefit of a session or two. This is a great opportunity to explore energetic coaching and see what "Set In Motion" and my services are all about.

So, for those of you that have been curious - here's a nudge off of that proverbial fence. Email or call me to set up an appointment. Really, you don't need to stay "mad" forever!

In Like A Lion, Out Like a Lamb

"March roars in like a lion,

so fierce

The wind so cold,

It seems to pierce.

The month rolls on

And Spring draws near,

And March goes out

Like a lamb so dear.

~Lorie Hill

Need I say more?

Connect!

Forrest Gump Was On To Something!

2011-02-13T22:30:00.000-08:00

The line is memorable..."life is like a box of chocolates...you never know what you are going to get!" Well, it is fitting on Valentines Day to talk about chocolate, life and love...in that order. (I know my priorities!)

I have noticed over the last several months that one of the metaphors I use with clients when talking about life and balance and change is the concept of making chocolate. There is an alchemical process to making chocolate and the word to describe this delicious process is called "tempering." What a great word and how perfect it is! Tempering chocolate is everything in making chocolate. Bring up the heat too slowly and the chocolate will be lumpy and congeal...too fast and the chocolate will burn or be streaky and dull. But "tempered" just right, the chocolate is shiny and smooth and has a delicious snap to it.

Shiny, smooth, snappy! Sounds like some great adjectives to brighten up a mood, to spark one's personal energy...to begin a new day. Tempering is the balance...just the right blend of heat and time...not too much temper, anger, frustration or enough energy, passion and drive. Temper, tempering, temperature...

I spoke a bit about chocolate and life, so here's to love. To share a bit about a new love on Valentine's Day, I just finished my second weekend acupressure class and I am LOVING it! (I still have my original love, my husband Drew. Celebrating 25 years in May!) Talk about balance and harmony and energy. Big weekend commitments...classes are three days 9 am to 6 pm so I will keep aware of "balance" while adding in this new love! Get ready everyone...I want a group of "clients" for practicing!

On this day of love, sending love and blessings to a friend who had surgery today...he is in my thoughts and another who's father passed away.

Happy Valentine's Day and Happy Birthday to family and friends!

Good Night...Sweet "Tempered Chocolate Dreams!"

Imagination and Intuition

2011-02-08T09:38:00.000-08:00

First blog of the new year...in February! I am thinking about video blogging because I have had 20 blog posts in my mind or in conversations with clients, family and friends that never quite make it onto the page! So, here is one that has been kicking around. Take what you like and leave the rest...

Imagination and Intuition...a powerful combination. I started to title the blog post Imagination VS. Intuition. I almost posted the "versus" because clients report this experience all the time. They have a sense that imagination is just made-up and intuition, if it is to be trusted at all, is often someone else's. I decided to use the "and" because it isn't one or the other...they are intimately related!

I use a lot of guided imagery (hence the word imagination) in my work with clients. I also work with clients to utilize intuition. Being guided through intuitive intelligence has literally changed my life and I believe it can change yours. I had a client say the other day, "How do I know this is my intuition? It feels like I am making this up!" And with this great question...we can begin.

My response was imagination and intuition are intimately related...like "kissing cousins." The big difference in the two is: "What do you believe to be possible?" What do you believe to be true?" And I mean REALLY true. Because trusting in intuition is powerful...it is em-powering in a way that imagination is not. Are you ready to be em-powered? The prefix "em" is to make into, to put into, to get into. Intuition is the "em" in power! Now, where does this "powerful" energy come from?

I observe that clients talked about their intuition in the possessive, "my intuition." (a great word in this case; the "possessive." ) And the minute the "my" shows up, then the confidence, the trust, the empowerment is wobbly. And there lies the creative leap or risk.

Intuition is a universal language. A great correlation is American Sign Language. I used the example of someone who uses American Sign Language to interpret for the hearing impaired. They are working with a universal language that can be interpreted and understood by those who have studied and learned this, again let me say, "universal" language. I invite the same awareness and understanding of intuition as a universal language expressed in a personal way.

Blink by Malcolm Gladwell is a great resource about intuition as a practical tool that can be observed, employed and trusted as a way to make meaningful decisions. The only separation is in trusting the information and not "discounting" because it came from a made-up, fanciful imagination instead of a rational, cognitive process. Like any new language, tool or resource, experience with intuitive intelligence is a process that is learned over time; that we learn to trust over time.

So, kiss your cousin today! Use your creative, "made-up" imagination to see the vision up ahead. Then observe what happens...the outcome. Enough experiences with outcomes that match imagination and my hunch is your on the trail of intuition.

Defensive Driving Tip #30 - How To Recover From A Skid

2010-12-07T09:52:00.000-08:00

I had a client email me the other day for a session. As I read through her email I was struck by the "energy" of the feelings she was describing and this image of fishtailing in a car popped in my mind. She could feel herself going into the skid and she didn't want to. I was inspired to look up what to do when the car hits a skid and I stumbled upon this great website, Roadtrip America. (www.roadtripamerica.com/forum/content.php?38) It was the perfect metaphor for her situation. She had done a lot of work on herself the last year and had grown leaps and bounds....then the patch of black ice in the road and...out of control. (Note: The article is great to read as tips for hitting "all kinds of skids!)

There will always be "road hazards" and learning to use everyday physics, the laws of motion, in this case was very useful. It is often about balance and alignment, two principals that are basic to our everyday life experience. We know when we are and we know when we are not! I have a hunch this tip may work in any number of situations. So, with this image in mind, I guided the client through the skid, by first turning into it, not away from it.

Sound familiar? We SO want to get away from our "yucky" feelings, what we think of at times as our "petty, small-minded, mean-spirited, down on ourselves and others feelings".

Well, here is where the "how to recover from a skid" sign pointed us in just the right direction.

With the image of turning into the skid, it reminded me of Byron Katie's The Work, http://www.byronkatie.com/ and an exercise called "Judge Your Neighbor." It was important to let all the negative, "yucky" feelings express themselves. Well, no sooner did the client start into this "skid" than she was laughing at herself and feeling much freer. That led the way to some deeper insights and questions and to some stronger feelings and clearer relationships with herself and others.

Here are a few insights from the session notes that came out of this "skid." They are great to remember for balance and re-alignment in all kinds of situations.

1. When you feel like you have "hit the black ice," remember to turn into the feelings and use a technique like "judge your neighbor" and say or write all the thoughts you are having. Be as petty, small-minded, honest as you can and just get it all out. As you discovered, some of the thoughts made you laugh and in some instances, you felt you would say the same thing about yourself at times. The outcome is we discover thoughts that feel "true or truer" than the ones that originally threw you into the skid.

2. TAO (Transparent, Authentic and Open) this is a tool I learned in my Martha Beck Life Coach Training. (http://www.marthabeck.com/) and it is a simple and powerful reminder. If we start with ourselves and take responsibility for what we expect and feel and ask for what we want...it is the ASKING that is powerful.

3. I love this simple tool...ASK, ALIGN, ALLOW. I have come across this many times and I have it written on a small 3 x 5 card in my office where I run across it everyday. It is a great re-mind-er. We often want experiences that we are not quite ready for and we discover this when we "hit the skid." We can then clarify with ourselves what we want to feel, which helps us let others go, which leads to a new understanding with ourselves first, and then with our loved ones. Out of this experience, we often find we have new "contracts" with ourselves, our family, friends and our business relationships.

4. This process helped you discover the difference between loneliness and alone-ness. One feels dis-empowering, the other empowering. There is a great deal we can accomplish as a "sole/soul proprietor." You discovered that there were "mind traps" in that black ice that were telling you that you were not strong enough to make it on your own. You thought your age, lack of experience, (fill in the blank with your own "slippery thoughts!") There was a belief that experience is only gained through work and after questioning that belief, you discovered that you gain experience not just by working. You realized that you gain experience when you play, dream, sleep, talk. You gain inspiration, ideas and these then are new experiences. There was now a new belief about the wealth of new re-sources to draw upon.

5. Strong, grounded, images can counter-balance thoughts of being out of control. A large oak tree with a big, extensive root system, or a powerful, deep, flowing river, strong and independent and neutral are great tools to re-connect. Being in the natural world, in body or in spirit re-balances and re-stores. Use these and other images, waterfall, lake, or red clay to be grounded in the earth and have all four tires on the road!

Thanks to RoadTrip America for the great title. I can't wait to discover Defensive Driving Tips 1-29!

My hunch is many of you know them already...

My Success Is In My Hands

2010-11-16T16:56:00.001-08:00

I love the energy this sentence conveys, right down to my bones. And more importantly, I know it's true.

My success is in my hands.

Stop a moment and really feel the power and the resonance of this statement. When I am in my "right" mind, I do this naturally. But there are lots of times when I am not in my right mind and I can't tell what is true and what is illusion.

This is what I have discovered over the years. Intuitive insight, just like a sword, cuts through the mind chatter and liberates and illuminates. I ask clients to stop and really listen to what they just said, "I race against the clock," "I can't hear myself think," "The walls are closing in." Now, these very expressions of frustration and limitation shift when we stop and really feel or sense the energy behind the words. Take the moment to stop and be aware of the power and intention of words. Really feel the vibration, feel the statement. Like a bell that rings and we hear the lingering music linger long after it was struck or the pebble tossed on the pond and the rings spreading out across the water long after the pebble has disappeared, words strung together have this same capacity when we really pay attention. Because words are just a vehicle for the non-verbal energy behind the words.

My success is in my hands.

Ok, so here's the magical story...

Years and years ago, I wanted to be a massage therapist. I LOVED the idea, but every time I thought about studying for a license, I had the thought, "This will kill me. I am WAY to sensitive to put my hands on people." The desire always stayed, the thought "I would love to get my hands on people...literally. I might have had my "Zen" death in my 30's had I been willing to die."

Now, after I went through the kundalini awakening, I noticed that in addition to the increased intuitive perceptions visually, I was aware of a sensitivity through my hands. Now, I still haven't trained in massage, but I do give them to friends and family. I began to notice that when I put my hands on people, I received all kinds of information about their body, health and energy. I sensed where "stress" pockets were or where stuff didn't feel balanced. It was really cool. However, I was in two other training/educational programs, so I didn't commit to massage or bodywork programs. I finished my coursework in 2009 and started my coaching business. I love what I am doing, but I still notice this desire to "get me hands on people."

I was guided to buy a book one day, that I did NOT want to buy called "Hands of Light" by Barbara Brennan, but the desire was strong, so I followed the desire. A great deal of the book still eludes part of me, but there is a lot that makes sense and has been inspirational over the last couple years. But still...

Well, this is where it felt so magical the last several months and with my mother's wise comment...thank you Mumma, it all shifted into place like a beautiful kaleidoscope and I always know when this is true because I began to cry...I was moved - message received. The details were this...

In late summer, I started working with two amazing women for their mobile fingerprinting business. If you live in the San Jose area they are Verify Group, Inc. and they have an awesome business model. I work on-call on big jobs for them. It cracked me up to get my "Fingerprint Roller" certificate. It has been a fun way to make some additional money and meet all kinds of great people.

Next, my aforementioned friend Keisha saw a posting for a free tele-course on hand analysis by a fellow Martha Beck coach named Caryn Reddick. Her business is called Success Statement and her tele-course was really fascinating. Now, my hunch is I was open and interested in Caryn's business niche only because I had recently gone to work for Verify Group. I signed up for a four week class with her to have the fingerprint analysis and have my personalized profile. Additionally, I just thought it would be interesting to have this information for my clients and tidbits for the fingerprinting jobs. SO, I started that last week and it has been fascinating and so accurate.

Well, then, as I posted this week, the beautiful image of using my fingers to read in braille floated up the other day. It was a very powerful image. Well, then my mother made a comment about having the information at my fingertips and just then, all the desire to put my hands on people flooded back in. I had this very, VERY strong sense that I had these amazing, encoded messages in my fingerprints and in my hands and Caryn's tools were a key. Life just keeps dropping images, like bread crumbs, along the trail for me to follow. We can take a LONG time between the intial desire and the physical manifestation.

So, instead of getting off-track with 10 other programs, or thoughts of a Ph.D. or three new creative adventures, my next focus will be to get certified in acupressure and see where that journey takes me. It will then be so exciting to combine my listening hands, with my creative insights and the intuitive intelligence tools...feels like a winning, "successful" combination.

Oh, one last funny piece to the story. The picture in this post...right after I finished the call with my mother, I went looking for a picture to put on the blog. I wanted an image that wasn't copyrighted and none of the free sites had what I wanted. I stumbled across this website, http://www.123rf.com/ and the home page of the site says,

"Creative images at your fingertips!"

Laugh out loud. The universe has an amazing sense of humor! For me, creative images are indeed, at my fingertips.

So, gratitude today to so many - my mother Jeannie for her insight and her unwavering support of my creative awakening, to Lisa and Susan at Verify Group, Inc. http://www.verifygroup.com/ for the fun of working with them and to Caryn Reddick for my "success statement" http://www.caryninc.com/. It is wonderful to have so many new connections.

Here is to the belief that success is in all our hands. And if you don't yet believe it, just ask Caryn, it's in your hands!

I See Better In The Dark

2010-11-16T12:36:00.001-08:00

This post was inspired by my friend and muse Keisha Gallegos. We were having one of our many conversations recently and I said,

"I see better in the
dark."

She laughed and said, "I love it - now that is a topic for the blog."

Well, fast forward to this morning, when again, I found myself in conversation with Keisha. She was helping me walk through a sticky situation that I didn't feel good about. I talked, talked, talked; my hunch is around my feelings, when Keisha asked a really direct and great question. I could feel the wall go up. I knew I was free to have any feeling I wanted in that moment, but I didn't feel like crying...I didn't feel angry, but I wasn't completely settled either. She was really great about just letting me talk and process this way, sort of feel my way around. My friends are really great about that! We finished and I did feel that there had been a shift...and I found out a bit later just how big a shift.

I moved on from my conversation with Keisha to take a quick bath and while washing my hair, I had the image of fingers reading words in braille. The light went on...the ah ha moment. I do see better in the dark, that clear-seeing visionary. But, there are many times when I am not able to see a situation clearly for myself and when I can't see, I feel my way around. What I realized in the conversation with Keisha (and God Bless You for your patience) was I do not work something through by feeling lots of emotions. If we use the "I see better in the dark" image, then when I am not able to see myself in the dark, that is when I shift to the sense of touch and I "read" my feelings in braille. My fingertips running over the bumps and grooves in the paper, the sensitive touch of reading my emotions.

What a powerful image - very beautiful, clean and clear.

For those of us who feel with our minds first, then our hearts, stomachs and tear ducts, often in that order, I felt seen. Now how funny is that - with all of these blind, seer, vision, braille images. I was able to see myself and how I feel so clearly.

I read my feelings through touch.

For those of us with this kind of temperament and self-control, it is lovely to know we too are feeling our way along. It just looks different than the way other people feel...but we are feeling.

I have always had the sight, that clairvoyant ability to "see" beyond the physical senses...to see with my spirit eyes. It may be the Irish in me, or the strong matriaichal family line, or because I was born under the "s"ight star"...I don't know why I have it, I just do. And I didn't know what to do with this incredibly perceptive ability...it was strange and unpredictable and different.

So, I put it away.

I then proceeded to have recurring dreams for the next 20 years where I was always driving BLIND.

A coincidence? I think not.

When my spirit woke up, really woke up and was free to bring in the mystical, powerful, present love-sight back into my life, well...my in-sight came back with it. And, hence my comment to Keisha about seeing better in the dark. I close my eyes and connect with the powerful images that reveal themselves to me...like having the key to clarity. Now, sometimes, the images are not clear for myself or I can't access them, and that is why it was so amazing to receive the image of the fingers running over the pages of a book written in braille. Seeing by feeling...feeling to see...all in the dark.

In case you are wondering, I haven't had a "driving blind" dream in over four years.

You guessed it, I haven't had that dream since I "awoke a new" in 2006.

So, thank you Keisha for your love and generous spirit and for guiding me to "see" how powerfully I am feeling...one word at a time.

Keisha herself is an amazing coach and you can learn more about her at http://www.starlitpathlifecoaching.com/.

You Know You're Not in Kansas Anymore When...

2010-11-14T08:02:00.000-08:00

The Story of Oz is timeless.

It sparks the imagination in so many ways and with the birth of Wicked several years ago, another variation of this story is inspiring new generations. The story is rich in symbolic images and inspiration. Born out of this story is the classic phrase, "You're not in Kansas anymore." We chuckle, that nervous chuckle, when we say this. Something about Kansas was comfortable, safe, known. No surprise that Kansas is the state that is smack in the middle on the map. I find this an interesting image. We leave the "middle place" to go out on a journey and experience a much bigger world and then we return to home, back where we started, only different than before.

Lots of people are going on journeys and for so many people, they are the accidental tourist, the reluctant traveler, "dazed and confused." But something different is happening right now, isn't it. Everyone can feel it, we are all so much more "sensitive." That is such an excellent word...our senses, all of them, all six, are really waking up. So many of us are feeling more and more, and numbing out less and less. And there are so many more resources available to support all this feeling. There are more specialists than ever before, really someone for everyone, be it a doctor, therapist, coach, chiropractor, shaman, psychic, spiritual teacher, friend, parent, spirit guide, massage therapist, acupuncturist, hairdresser. Depending on how far from Kansas you have traveled, you many have encountered many on the list, whether you believe in them or not. I have had powerful conversations with the lady at the post office and the perfect stranger. I love that phrase, perfect stranger. I bet a whole lot of you out there are meeting the perfect strangers...the person who shows up at just the right time, with information, opportunity or experience, the proverbial messenger.

So, here's my hunch. I went through a spontaneous and powerful spiritual awakening in 2006 and I didn't know for the five years before that what the hell was going on. I can tell you I was at times terrified, angry, exhausted, afraid, overwhelmed, defiant, stubborn. My life felt out of control and I couldn't figure it out, think my way through it. Sound familiar to anyone? So, I want to save you some time and energy and clue you in to some of the "symptoms" of a spiritual awakening. Like it or not, this is often what is happening. This way, you have more awareness and resources than fear, anger, resistance or pain. I wish for you the opportunity to feel curious, optimistic and more rested while your spirit is able to join in with your body and mind. Less work and more play!

So, (tongue in cheek) here are the top 10 "You Know Your Not In Kansas Anymore When..."

1. You begin to notice that you are made of electricity and your body tingles, buzzes, vibrates at random times. (I recommend with any physical signs that you always consult with a doctor about your symptoms and rule in or out other medical conditions.) You can have a spiritual awakening AND a physical imbalance at the same time. One doesn't exclude the other.

2. You see shimmering lights and colors around people or objects and you have never had this experience before.

3. You notice repeating numbers, patterns and events and they feel so significant and important but you don't know why.

4. You notice the repeating patterns and you are willing to share this out loud with someone you trust.

5. You feel overwhelmed with emotion, positive uncontrollable laughter or the inability to hold back tears and you feel a little crazy and out of control.

6. You are inspired to act spontaneously, go where you are guided and make decisions based on an emotional knowing or feeling rather than a rational pre-planned thought.

7. You are able to be in one room and view what is taking place in another room with the "eye in your mind." Or have a conversation in your mind with someone at 8 am and then the phone rings at 12 noon and you have the conversation all over again. You are able, just like the movie theatre, to "preview" coming attractions.

8. You experience a sense of calm and peacefulness like you have never experienced before.

9. Your dreams are powerful and prophetic and your "dream-life" starts to become your "waking-life."

10. You write, draw, paint deeply significant and meaningful images or words but you have no idea what until later and then you discover that it is something significant and the electrical, physical sensations start and you are back at number 1 on the list.

This kind of awakening is intense and often physical. Know that there is lots of support and guidance out there...though, I have a hunch that you already know this!

Curious? Let Go and Find Out...

2010-10-25T09:04:00.000-07:00

I am curious.

I think I have always been curious, but for many years it was masked under a lot of blind-control, i.e. fear, anxiety, nice and careful choices.

Well, the blinders came off several years ago and with this new found vision came the experience of curiosity. I wonder about things, I am excited, open, aware. It is such an interesting and alive way to live as oppose to the oftentimes oppressive way I lived before. There is a freedom to experiment more, to fall and fail, to start again...and a wonderful by-product of curiosity is LAUGHTER. I notice that I laugh a lot now.

Out loud.

Sometimes a big, out loud laugh several times a day...sometimes several times an hour. I have even clocked laughing several times in one minute! Pure heaven to laugh so much. I don't recall having some much to laugh about...now, there have been some challenging times the last several years and believe me when I say, all those aphorisms are correct:

"Laughter is the best medicine,"

"Laugh and the whole world laughs with you,"

"If you don't laugh, you'll cry," (well, there has been plenty of crying too, which is also good, but that is a post for another day.)

I like this idea of curiosity and I will continue to explore more...

For the moment, I am happy...and curious!

Symbols: The Universal Language

2010-10-10T09:01:00.001-07:00

Today is 10-10-10...the 10th month on the 10th day in the "10th" year! A day like any other day or is it? That is the amazing opportunity when inspired by symbols...the universal language! This idea of 10 10 10 will mean different things to every person who sees and connects...that is the beauty of this particular language. Though universal, it has the capacity, just like other languages to transmit, if you will, different meanings through different sources! So, what "source" are you? What does 10 10 10 inspire in you today?

I have always noticed patterns, puzzles and symbols throughout my life and after 2006, they took on an even deeper meaning and source of inspiration and guidance. For years now, 10:10 on the clock and 11:11 have been patterns I notice A LOT! Others have shared that for them, they have times where the pattern is 12:34 or 9:11. It is a fun and creative way to "receive" inspiration through day to day objects, clocks, signs on the freeway, ads on television (if anyone is even watching anymore with all those DVR's) a random passage in a book and on and on and on! When we notice these patterns or "random" bits of information that don't seem so random, it feels like we are having a conversation with something bigger than ourselves, be it life, the universe, God, our higher self, our intuitive intelligence. For me, I have found these "conversations" to be incredibly "en-lightening" and the gift of this awareness has brought a tremendous sense of freedom, liberation and peace to my life. I hear from others, family, friends and clients too, that being aware and noticing of sychronistic symbols and information has brought peace and freedom to them as well.

Now, we won't always know what the symbol means, but over time, just like an amazing dream; the key if you will, the decoder ring, the "ah ha" moment shows up and there is a clarity and a shift in perception and "zing"...a falling into place! And then the experience starts all over again!

I began to notice 10 10 10 after I went through a spontaneous kundalini awakening in 2006...along with a whole host of other symbols. What struck me about 10 10 10 was that it resembled the binary code used in programming...a series of 1's and 0's. Now, for me, this is a hilariously obscure piece of information that I remembered from a basic programming class. I was a college recruiter for an electronics company in my 20's. In order to better understand our products and programming, I took a introductory course at a local community college! Who would have thought that this information would prove to be so inspirational so many years later. Programming is achieved by using a series of combinations of 1's and 0's. In addition, there are only two commands, ON and OFF or said another way, OPEN and CLOSED! This was a great reminder of my own programming, my own on and off switch! What was open and what was closed? Hence, for me, why 10 10 10 today feels so special...there is a sense of magic about it!

So, what is speaking to you today? What patterns have you noticed? What is getting your attention? It may not be 10, 10, 10...but my hunch is that you have noticed something, even peripherally. I invite the awareness to come into focus, to literally speak to you today, and you are free to speak back! In my case, learning to speak this language has literally changed my life...and I am reminded of the line from the film Jerry McGuire..."you had me at hello!"

Entrance Next Door

2010-09-23T11:29:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was a funky day...and I know NO one here has ever had one of those! More and more though, the feeling out of sorts, not "self" days, happen less and less, so when this kind of day arrives, I pay attention. Now, don't get me wrong, there is still the part that is agitated, worked-up, unsettled and unhappy, but there is always this other part that is aware-watching, listening and learning.

Side-Bar: I just looked up "funky" because I wondered why I choose this word to describe yesterday and of all the definitions, "old, musty, strange" fit the bill...and here's my hunch why.

There has been a lot of new in my life the last several weeks, new work, new clients, new office and new in family life...new schools, new opportunities and a lot of new possibilities. And in the last several weeks, with all this creating and working with new people, I "forgot" where the "entrance" to me is...entering into new lives, relationships, work contracts has so many doorways opened up that I missed my entrance; that place that feels calm, centered and peaceful even when all the doorways are open. I notice this yesterday because the whole day was "open", not one appointment on the calendar and there was a restlessness in this quiet, an agitation. It ended up being a day of cleaning and I am grateful for the image of all that "cleaning." I scrubbed the grout in the kitchen tile, cleaned up the recycling bins, scooped dog poop, vacuumed and washed the walls in the stairwell. It is interesting that so many insights come while vacuuming! I've had this experience before...and as I vacuumed and washed, I imagined the same experience in my mind and body and spirit! The "vacuum" of the day was an effective "vacuum" and I sense that a lot was cleaned without my THINKING about it!

I feel refreshed today and full of my own energy. Each has there own value. The not "comfortable in my own skin" day yesterday was an experience in feeling and sensing and just being.

Turns out that it was a "funky" day for a lot of other people yesterday! Glad that so much "cleaning and sorting" out is taking place for so many.

And if you are having a funky sort of day today...stop and check where the entrance is...and if it is next door - walk home!

Going Up In Flames

2010-09-08T20:34:00.001-07:00

I wanted to share this hilarious experience I had this evening because I think it is VERY familiar to so many people...it just shows up in different ways for different people.

OK, first client in the new office today at 5:30! SO exciting and happy to share the new space...it really came together BEYOND my wildest expectations and everyone has said such lovely things about the space. So, first client in the new space is one of my very first clients going back almost two years now. We were both tickled that she had the first appointment!

Now, setting the stage for the appointment: I LOVE to create the space for the session, I have had this ritual for several months...beautiful lighting, music and candles. The office looked lovely; the space warm and inviting. After the session, I blew out the candles and turned out the lights and walked out to the car with my client. I mentioned that I wanted to double-check the thermostat and bid her good-night and went back in for a second time to check everything again. I know about this "double-checking" thing with me because it has come up before when I am the one responsible for closing up. So, I re-check the whole office and then walk out, lock up the office, lock up the front gate and walk to me car again. I am STILL thinking about those candles...I know they are out, but what if they spontaneously combust because they had been lit just a little while ago. So, back in I go a third time and I fill a cup with water and sprinkle them, just a tad, so that I KNOW the non-existent flame has been doused. I lock the office, I lock the front gate, I get in the car and I am driving out of the parking lot when I make it three spaces down and pull in! AARRGGH, I feel crazy...I just can't pull out...I am laughing at myself and I close my eyes and get quiet and use my coaching tools and prayers, trust and let go...and I STILL can't leave. I think...I am not spending the night here! So, I go in for a fourth time armed with a box from the back of the car and I take all the candles I lit with me! Ah, the relief to the crazy control part of the brain that thinks, well, the candles you lit and blew out can't now re-lit themselves in the office all by themselves because now they will be with ME! OMG, it was really a hilarious and self-revealing experience.

I realize I have had this "fear" of causing an accidental fire for a long time...I just never really saw the whole picture clearly until tonight. This is a great metaphor for what has happened to me the last several years. Life has "set me on fire" and sometimes I am afraid of this awesome power...and that's OK! Because there are equally the times when I am "going up in flames" and I am curious, happy, blissful...when all the candles are burning!

So, am I lighting candles for the next session when I am the last one in the office? You betcha...because at the end of the day, I know I can take those beautiful "simmering just under the surface-I may burst into flames at any moment candles" home with me!

What is "going up in flames" in your life? What is "simmering" just below the surface of all that lovely control?

What's Blooming?

2010-09-03T15:45:00.000-07:00

"A thing long expected takes the form of the unexpected when last it arrives."

~Mark Twain

I realized today as I was creating a syllabus for a four week course that I was CREATING! Where a half hour earlier, there was nothing concrete on the page, just the blank canvas, within that brief time, it all came together. I truly had the "ah ha" moment that this experience was a stepping stone to the larger experience of writing a book. The book will come in images, ideas and then words, paragraphs, pages, chapters. It will build over time, but today, the experience of writing the course outline showed me that the book is a dream that is rooted in a concrete foundation that is still unfolding. I am SO curious to see how this will happen...even though it will be happening to me, well through me!

I was inspired to create this course because I want to share more of the experience of sensing energy. It is something that I am passionate about. And information mingled with inspiration was available through me onto the page. It took time, energy, thought and creativity, but it happened, it exists on paper and starting next Tuesday, I will use this course outline to teach a four week class. And I am truly inspired to share more about intuition and how it speaks to us and guides and inspires and it will be exciting to put those ideas, stories and experiences to paper!

This radiant sense of blooming has been growing over the last several years, with innumerable challenges along the way. However, I knew deep within that this was unfolding, one petal at a time. There is that sense in awakening and being lived that the dance between resistance and release ebbs and flows. This is truly how "creativity" is born...through the release of resistance. Creativity isn't something we do, it is something that is done to us.

I love this picture of the orange chrysanthemums...it is a beautiful image of unfolding and radiantly blooming in the world. I have a dear friend, Lisa, who is assisting with creating my office space. She found the most wonderful images of chrysanthemums on a website called Dalidecals.com. They are removable decals and I think I will decorate one wall in the office with them! What better symbol for transformation than open, vibrant, blooming flowers!

So, to all today that are blooming, or tucked in a bud, or somewhere in between, may you discover through your own powerful experiences what is possible...what's blooming?

The Space In Between

2010-08-21T12:00:00.000-07:00

The space in between...

The first time I ever experience the space in between, not thought about it, or analyzed it or challenged it, just experienced it was in meditation. It just lite up that the space between things seemed vital somehow, in a way I couldn't quite grasp with my mind. Like a word that sits just on the tip of the tongue but doesn't roll off.

At this same time, the word intercostal popped into my mind. I didn't exactly know what this word meant or why it came to visit in that quiet "absence of thought" moment. But arrive it did. I remember looking up the word: intercostal: the space between the ribs. Huh, not the rib itself, or the ribcage or the lungs, but the "space in between the ribs." I remember feeling at the time that I was being guided to pay attention to this space.
I hear this a lot. "I know where I am and I know where I want to be, but that darn, call it a million different names, the void, the abyss, the space in between must be dealt with first!"

What is it really this...space? Have you investigated?
My sister Amy uses a great analogy of the trapeze...letting go of one before catching, securely, the other trapeze...

The fear rises up then...what will happen next.

One day it hit me that the space in between isn't all those adjectives above. The thinking mind creates that thought, the survival mind that want to be secure creates the void, the abyss, the free fall.

The space in between is the PRESENT. The ever present NOW...and as Eckart Tolle describes...it is powerful.

So, checkout, investigate, reflect on the space in between...between what? The past and the future? Well, now, isn't that the present? Isn't it always the present? Just like that funny expression, "well, it is 12 noon somewhere in the world!" Well, it is high noon right now...so pay attention to what is happening right now and the discovery will be that there is only the space in between...

Punctuation

2010-07-01T15:15:00.001-07:00

It occurred to me the other day that the metaphor of punctuation was apt in looking at the way I viewed life. I observed this "punctuation" if you will, not only in my own life but in the lives of my clients as they explore their intuitive wisdom and abilities...as they tap into the amazing amount of energy all around us.

For many years, I noticed that life was a series of periods. Ah, project finished, task completed, dot the eye and cross the proverbial "T."

And after the awakening in 2006, there was an awareness of the ellipsis... a form of punctuation that I see so often in writing today, no more periods, no false stops, but an awareness that there is a continual stream noted by the simple ...

Now, I have been aware lately of another shift in punctuation. I see life as a series of commas, pauses, sometimes short, sometime INTERMINABLY long, but only pauses, not endings. And you know what, there is a calmness, a peaceful core that feels the truth of this...life is a series of commas.

What is your punctuation? What do you notice in the "accents" to your story, the story of your life? How will it be punctuated today?

Horton Hears A Who

2010-06-30T16:34:00.000-07:00

"I am here, I am here."

That is what the "little who" says to Horton in Dr. Seuss's classic tale.

This is what the writer within continues to say, in a quiet little whisper, sometimes almost imperceptible voice.

But speak it does.

And I am listening.

I have an intention, a dream, a plan, a goal, a journey, (alright, I know you get it, it's me I am talking too) to write a book. I believe in the power of the intuitive voice to change, to heal, to transform and this is what I intend to write about and to share.

Funny You Would Say That:

This Is Your Intuition Speaking.

The "soul" purpose of this blog is to aid in that plan...to write.

So, I begin again this journey with this small writing step.

And just like Horton, I believe and I hear the "who" that is speaking to me and through me.

So, I ask, are you listening to that "little who" inside and what, oh what does it want you to hear?

Past...Present...Future

2010-04-10T20:31:00.000-07:00

I love this picture and the feelings I have when I see it. I feel free, the blue sky and the ever present, well, PRESENT. I am aware of the sense of wonder at opportunities that I am receiving now, but the "creating" of them happened months ago. Here's what happened. Over the last year, I have really been building my coaching practice and I am also open to working creating money in other jobs, which in turn create more opportunities to support the coaching practice. (I LOVE coaching and consulting...love it, love it, love it)

I have several new clients and my current office is two chairs in my family room! One of my clients suggested that I use my living room as an office space, (brilliant idea Lisa) but I knew I would want to put doors in the archways to create the privacy. Well, I have no money to put doors on the living room, but in order to continue seeing clients throughout the summer when the kids are off school, I know I will come up with the funds from somewhere! Really, I can SEE those doors!

So, literally, the next day, my cell phone rings. Now, mostly my cell phone goes to voicemail and I check messages, but today, I am expecting a call from someone and I think this is the call, so I answer. Well, it is the 2010 Census calling to offer me a job. I had long since given up on the Census. I had easily applied over a year ago, filling out forms, taking a test, following up and never hearing back. Then, out of the blue (like the picture!) they offered me a two month position, training just up the street and with the first week of work, I can pay for the doors! I'm ecstatic...I plan to enjoy this experience working for Census and I am excited for the resources. Well, a few days later, I get a call asking if I am available to work part-time with a summer school program just for a few weeks...dovetails nicely with the census job wrapping up...yes, yes, yes I say! Then, a woman emails asking if I want to be a speaker for her organization. I find out that she took one of my cards from an event I attend six months ago...yes, yes, yes I say! I will speak on Unleashing Creativity in October. I told her that 97% of me was excited...the other 3% would like more information since I have not created and given a presentation in the last millennium. But my "future self" feels supremely confident and ready.

I love the surprise of these opportunities showing up and I love even more that my response is "Yes, yes, yes I say," even though I have no idea what is coming next. I do however trust that life has the most delicious and amazing experiences in store for me, past, present and future and I am grateful for each and every one that comes my way. Training for the Census starts at the end of the month and the work is flexible so I can continue to see clients and get my doors! And with those doors in place, there is no end to what I envision in the future for my coaching practice.

So, know that you already have the money in the bank and watch life make deposit after deposit. Trust and then...ask the 3%, or the 50% or the 97% of you to get out of the way and watch what happens when we co-create! Now, go create some future experiences and then trust that they are on there way...because they are, they are, they are!

Expected Surprises

2010-03-17T22:23:00.000-07:00

This is a phrase I coined a few years ago after noticing that I knew what was coming all along...a sense that I was meeting a moment in the future that had been foretold to me, at some point, in some way, at some time. Like the twists and turns on a rollercoaster, the expected drops that thrill and spill one's stomach into the throat, just like the rollercoaster ride...I have come to expect the thrills, the spills, the drops, the long pull up the scary hill and the wild plunge down the other side...oh, and those banks, twists and turns...always a favorite part of the ride...Imagine my delight and pleasure when I came upon this quote last summer when working on a paper in my masters program.

"A thing long expected takes the form of the unexpected when last it arrives..."

~Mark Twain

Well, it was a lovely, lovely quote and oh, so familiar...I had sensed this same experience and noted it with the phrase "expected surprises"...well, as my sister Martha would say, "Yeah, me and Mark, were just like this!" (imagine fingers crossed when saying this phrase) It did feel like lovely company I was keeping, to stumble upon the same experience as Mark Twain and to write about it as well! The book can't be very far behind, I think...yes, I do imagine a book and this is part of laying the groundwork, practicing with writing, sharing thoughts, exploring intuition, experiences, awakenings, energy, and the indescribable sense of magic in the world. (Note: a quick tip on formatting...I liked the idea of putting the quote in italics, but now I can't get the format to turn off, hence everything is in italics...I am going with it because I am!)

Ok, this was the quick thought running through for tonight...expected surprises...my kids were expected surprises, my marriage, this amazing new life as a transformational coach and intuitive consultant, and a million other examples...we know more than we realize we know...Inquire within...the expected surprises are waiting...

As always, I welcome your stories...I have a hunch that is how I will create a book called "Funny You Would Say That!" Please share your expected surprises and how your intuition speaks to you!

Good Night (in italics)

The language of intuition and random musings...

2010-03-03T19:53:00.000-08:00

Okay, that was fun to post last night...the flow of words, ideas and images, the sharing of everyday, small minutia was, well...fun. I felt happy writing last night and as I suspected in closing, I am back. It is 7:59 pm and I have umpteen choices on what I might be doing with my time...there are the towels waiting in the washer to move to the dryer, there are the dishes in the sink waiting to be washed, 0h, sidebar (dinner tonight was another Rachel Ray recipe and it was also yummy. A rigatoni pasta with sauteed dandelion greens, garlic and broth and then poured over the pasta with fresh thyme and a really tasty crumbled ricotta cheese. We had sliced tomatoes with balsamic vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper on a ciabatta bread! Maxwell and I are on a roll!) Ok, back to the list of what I might be doing with this time...recap, laundry, dishes, web surfing, answering emails, watching TV, reading, practicing lines for the audition next Monday night, finishing my website, etc, etc, etc...or writing in my blog. Well, here I am because, gosh, I really love this and I am enjoying myself. It definitely takes the time to post, but all those other experiences will wait, because they are patient and kind and I think they too, the laundry, the dishes, want me to write! Isn't that a lovely thought, everything will wait for me so I can have some fun. I noticed that I do not feel depleted by writing in the blog, I feel filled and happy and joyful when I write. I just write down whatever comes through my fingers; I almost feel that there is no thought taking place; just expression...it is a free and magical feeling.

I wanted to share about sychronicities and the magic of symbols and the language of intuition. This is a subject near and dear to my heart and I bet I write more about this another day, but this is what I wanted to share about today. In the last several years, I have developed this relationship with the world that is much more trusting, much more connected and filled with humor! Life is VERY funny, intelligent and clever and life and I share the same sense of humor...I must say this several times a week..."how clever life is, oh, how funny life is...what an "amazing sense of humor life has" and I appreciate this and thankfully...I notice this more and more. Now, do not be mistaken. If I outlined some of the "realities" of my life the last several years, you would wonder at my ability to describe life in this way. But, paradoxically, the more turmoil, loss and chaos the more this has brought me to an awareness that life has always been "talking" to me in whispers as well as shouts and now, I listen and sometimes, laugh, sometimes cry, but I am always in wonder, always in awe. Today, there were several of these fun sychronicities...I was returning an email from a friend...she was asking for my web address and the blog link and I was asking her if she had a website and blog. I wanted to read her if she did. I was also answering some questions she had about classes and activities for her daughter. I wrote this long detailed email and then proceeded to delete it by mistake! Ah...just as I was about to email her again and ask for her phone number since I decided I would rather TALK with her than WRITE to her, an email arrived from her at that EXACT moment sharing her newly revamped website and a blog she had just started! I laughed at the timing and felt very "tuned" in. We use that expression a lot, but experience has shown that if we "tune in" to the correct station, we can "receive" all kinds of information.

The more powerful one has unfolded over the last several days...I have been very busy and just finished as I mentioned several projects. On Saturday, we were preparing for a birthday party for our daughter, Emma and in the middle of cleaning the house, the vacuum wouldn't turn on. The plug has bent over the years and I suspected that it wasn't conducting electricity through the cord. I went to borrow my neighbor's vacuum and hers wasn't working either, and it had just happened. I thought this was a funny coincidence, two "vacuums" not working...I just paid attention. A trip to the "repair your vacuum" store and some "currency" later and the vacuum had a new cord and plug. I liked this image...a new power cord and a new plug to get ready for new outlets! Then, yesterday, the check engine light went on in my car. For several years now, I have used my car as a metaphor for my physical life, health and body. When the car's service lights go on or it has repairs, I pay attention, why not...it feels fun and creative to be open to information coming in these ways...life speaking. Well, I took the car to the shop this morning, though halfway there the check engine light went off! I figured I would have them investigate anyway. Later this morning, I was having a call with a friend who was coaching me and I was talking about being aware of feeling exhausted and feeling like my "male" had been hard at work, but my "fe-male" was wanting some time, attention...some fuel! So, the shop calls later to say that the issue was in the "Exhaust-Fuel Emission System" and that it wasn't in need of repair at this time, but was just signaling a warning of possible distress! Well, I laughed and laughed and laughed and thanked life for the heads up...for me and my car! I will indeed pay attention to the "exhaust-fuel" balance and to what "emissions" I am putting out into the atmosphere now that the "vacuum has a new power cord!" Now, how fun it that...I invite you to be on the alert to "hear" life speaking the language of intuition! I am happy to report, it is a language that I am becoming fluent in...how about you? I would love to hear yours...Please...share away!

Namaste again....and oh, I'll be back!

Set In Motion

2010-03-02T20:21:00.000-08:00

I really do enjoy writing, but there is no question that it is an acquired taste! The time and space to express myself in the written form takes a "backseat" to talking, acting, directing, mentoring, parenting and all of the other amazing and rich creative acts I have been engaged to the last several weeks! I worked on a wonderful theatre project at Foothill Music Theatre that opened on the 19th of February! The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee is up and running and I had a great time working as the Associate Director on this project...my 19th year with the company! I also am on the Board of Directors and a mentor for an amazing organization called Girls Lead Now and the annual event was on February 20th (it was a BIG weekend). The event was amazing and I am awed by the grace, poise and talents of this exceptional group of women-young and younger! I am enjoying a few weeks of repose, as much as I ever repose, before auditioning for The Crucible at Foothill College and immersing myself in High School Musicals throughout the Bay Area as an adjudicator for a new program called Top Honors sponsored by San Jose Stage Company and their educational outreach. I will attend four high school musicals in the next six weeks and submit evaluations of the productions. There are 16 plus adjudicators and there will be an awards night in June for all the participating high schools! There are more exciting events, but I will save that for another time...suffice it to say, there is no end to the number of experiences and activities moving through my life!

I choose Set In Motion for the topic of this blog for several reasons. Two years ago, when I realized we were in a deep financial crisis and I was searching, (it more felt like floundering at the time), to find work, I started as a personal assistance and the name Set In Motion came to me as the perfect image for what was happening. The personal assisting quickly morphed into a intuitive coaching practice and I completed a two year masters certification in intuitive medicine and was certified as a life coach with Martha Beck's amazing organization! As 2010 has unfolded, I am still being "set in motion" each and every day. When I first started the "personal assistance" business...the tag line for Set In Motion was "Isn't It About Time?" Looking back, this was really an encoded message to myself...isn't it about time to live fully, joyfully, and with trust in the unknown. Today, I have a transformational life coaching practice blending intuitive exercises, energy techniques and coaching tools. The slogan morphed from "Isn't It About Time?" to Set In Motion...where peace, passion and possibility play! And indeed, I find that peace, passion and possibilities abound in life!

I am seeing my coaching practice grow with new clients starting every week and I am awed by the beauty of each and every one of them...I am inspired in this new work and it has led to renewed creativity and joy in other aspects of my life. In this current "hiatus," (for at least this week!) I have been having fun cooking with my son Maxwell. We are using a Rachel Ray cookbook and have been making some new and delicious recipes. Last week it was marinated flank steak, BLT smashed potatoes (that is bacon, leeks and tomatoes) they were YUMMY and a lemon broccolini! Tonight it was AWESOME sauteed chicken breasts in leeks and white wine and the most delicious herb rice with fresh thyme, parsley, white wine and lemon zest! Needless to say, there is not a morsel left! Actually, preparing the meal tonight inspired me to blog...I felt like Julie and Julia and I inspired to write and share all of the riches...

There are challenges too at present, but the rich possibilities of life and the "fresh ingredients" from which I can draw upon for "life's recipes" keep me from falling to far ahead...just this moment, just these fingers moving across the keys, just these words expressing themselves!

So I invite the creative process to express itself tonight, tomorrow, all the tomorrow's in whatever form it takes. What wants to be "set in motion?"

Namaste...oh, and I'll be back!

Nice Is A Four Letter Word

2010-01-17T00:30:00.000-08:00

There is something about this word... nice that is well, not so nice. Lately, I have used this expression a few times with my girlfriends and it never fails that when I say "nice, now that is a four letter word" they laugh. And well, who doesn't like to make people laugh. But my hunch is, the laugh comes because there is a truth to it that these friends recognize. For years, I made so many choices in my life because it was REALLY important to be liked...really important to be NICE. Little did I know, I who didn't use four letter words because it wasn't...you get it...nice, actually was one big four letter word. Nice has an edge to it, nice has a power that looks for how it can be indispensable to others. Nice takes hostages, keeps scores, remembers, yes indeed, nice remembers. There wasn't much freedom in nice, the definition of a nice girl was narrowly defined and I found myself over the years in the ever-increasing "nice-box." Eventually, nice caught up with me...the time and energy it took to live through this filter literally exhausted me. I spent several years experiencing an unexplained illness. It was a scary, overwhelming time that took nice right off the table. There wasn't the time or energy to keep nice in the forefront any longer...it was a time to focus on myself and what was happening inside. I remember as I went through this illness, I was so afraid I would lose the best part of me. I knew deep inside that my empathy and my caring for others was the best I had to offer and I had confused this with being nice and helpful and taking care of everyone. Well, as I went through this illness and out the other side, I discovered that where "nice" was left behind, kindness took it's place.

Kind...I love this word and the feel of it. I think it has a very different feel and quality than nice. I had found the freedom to treat myself with kindness and compassion that came from the inside...that's where I found kindness..."the nice-nest within." Being nice felt like it came from with-out and was about control and the truth was I didn't feel very nice inside. But kind, truly, I experience that feeling inside. So now, when some says to me, "you are so nice..." I acknowledge their experience but know that I feel the kindness that was expressed coming through me and we both have experienced something special. I was curious about how the dictionary defined nice versus kind and I was interested to see that kind was defined with words like love, benevolent, gentle, mild and nice was pleasing, agreeable, precision, skillful. And there lies the difference...using the "art versus science" metaphor, nice is more exacting, like science and kind, an art.

So many gods, so many creeds,
So many paths that wind and wind,
While just the art of being kind
Is all the sad world needs.

~Ella Wheeler Wilcox

When you carry out acts of kindness you get a wonderful feeling inside. It is as though something inside your body responds and says, yes, this is how I ought to feel.

~Harold Kushner

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. The third is to be kind.

~Henry James

Kindness is the language which the deaf can hear and the blind can see.

~Mark Twain

The greatest good you can do for another is not just to share your riches but to reveal to him his own.

~Benjamin Disraeli

Practice Makes Perfect...Really?

2010-01-16T09:33:00.000-08:00

There is a perfection theme going on this morning as I sit to write. I have started a few other posts, but I move on to a new page and begin again. This is the third one. The first is called "Nice Is A Four Letter Word" and the second was "Actions Speak Louder Than Words." Now, the third and what will be the post for today is "Practice Makes Perfect...Really?

I am wrestling with perfection at the moment and I am observing so as not to judge myself, and others, and the world from this place of "not perfect." This issue of perfection is coming up as I create a website for my coaching practice. If you have ever created a website, you know how much energy, creativity, skill, and 3000 other adjectives I could use to describe the experience. Now, replace website with "I am working on a book, a marriage, a career, a new recipe or a piece of art" and watch the issue of perfection rise up because my hunch it is has before and it will again. Or maybe you are wrestling with it right now. I am aware that there has been freedom from the tyranny of perfection for a long time now, but it was a place I spent many, many years and it is an all too familiar experience as I sit with it this morning. Because that is what the experience feels like, I am literally sitting next to something that feels solid, has weight and mass, and is masquerading as something real and separate from me. The illusion of perfection, the idea that it is something out there, to be pursued, chased, "practiced after" is very seductive and alluring. It can also literally stop me in my tracks and keep what wants to be expressed from pouring out. In the belief that there is a perfect way to write the website, the way the website will be written is stopped, true creativity and freedom is blocked. There is now much more wisdom in not getting trapped by the illusion of perfection, okay, not getting trapped for very LONG. Because, now it is what is waiting behind the block that I am curious about and not the block itself. The block is the red herring. More and more when I work with clients and observe myself, I realize that we miss so much because of the illusion. We are looking over our left shoulder when all of the action is happening over on the right. I am being guided to go back inside and see/feel/sense the creative energy that has been stopped in its tracks. For instance, there would be those days of getting ready for work and going through the 3 to 5 outfit mornings and knowing all the while that it didn't really have anything to do with the clothes, but something inside. Now, I go inside...so that is what I am working through in this post...why perfection, why now, why about the website? What am I afraid to have seen? My hunch is that as I continue to create a website that feels right to me, it may be too weird, or unique or different for others to understand, not mainstream enough. Well, I have been aware that I am a bit of a hybrid, we all are, human and spirit and that is what wants to be expressed. But I create that on the website and then I pull it down... So the waiting to finish begins, not the waiting to start, the waiting to finish. And then the "weight" comes in the waiting. Yes, that solid mass masquerading as something real and separate comes...the proverbial ball and chain. I am reminded of Martha Beck writing about the dungeon in Steering by Starlight...it is hard to create a website from the dungeon! When I started creating the website, my essential self was creating and writing and sharing and then the social self showed up and I stopped. I lost my way...I literally gave away the vision for the website to countless strangers to decide and well, that's crazy because I can't possibly know what they want...only what I want to offer today. I can feel the energy shifting. The image of a tumor comes to mind and the radiation focused laser-like to shrink the mass, the block to this creativity. That is exactly what this feels like and the radiation is the freedom to create whatever wants to be created and put it out there. Just like this post...there will not be super editing and scrutiny...I will practice with writing and posting and releasing and see what comes from the freedom to write, the freedom to express, the freedom to radiate this light on the masses.

It Was A Long Silent Retreat

2010-01-06T18:44:00.000-08:00

I couldn't resist...it seemed like the perfect title since there hasn't been a post since December 5th...I wasn't kidding when I said I was a dilettante blogger! But now, I am no longer silent...

I have so many reflections and observations from the past month, but the one that continues to resonant was this funny thought that floated up during retreat. I loved the retreat by the way...though a "silent" retreat, one is acutely aware of the MP3's that play in one's head minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, looping like a runner on a track...the beauty of the experience is seeing this so clearly, the thoughts are always there, the conversations, the plans, the dreams and this thing called "awareness" is free to listen or be some place else. There is no "making the thoughts go away" just awareness. And after a while, there is a softening, a fondness, and an ease with all the thoughts; a separate peace. There were moments during retreat where I engaged in the struggle with the thoughts and then awareness would arise and I would laugh at the absurdity of the moment...if I were home and I was listening to an actual MP3 recording would I argue, fuss, try to change it or alter it in some way; that would seem foolhardy, it already exists, it has been burned...Ah, burned, imprinted...so the awareness is that thoughts can leave grooves like a worn record. Retreat gives the opportunity to tread lightly in the mind...create some new groovy grooves! I am having fun with the word play and a slight stream of consciousness, so bear with me. I really love the idea of posting on the blog, so I am keeping expectations about the "product" in check so I can have the fun of writing and you, reader, can have the fun of...you get the idea.

Ok, back to the funny thought that floated up on retreat. But before I tell you about the funny thought, I want to tell you a bit about Adyashanti because then the funny thought will make even more sense. Adya, whose name means primordial peace, was the teacher on the retreat. I love Adyashanti. He is a really amazing teacher...spiritual or otherwise. His presence is calming and kind, powerful and free and well, he just make a lot of sense. He is wise and practical, at the same time, and well, I really like the guy. I have a hunch I will continue to go on retreats and read his books...His latest book "The End of Your World" is Adya's "response to a growing need for direction on the spiritual path...more and more people are waking up spiritually and for most of them the question becomes...now what?
Well, this book, a treasured gift from my mother for my birthday, has been an invaluable resource...I went through a powerful awakening in 2006 and I appreciate the candor and observations Adya speaks of in the book. Truly, there is a feeling of "dying into living" and the world ends and something else begins. This is a favorite passage from the book..."I often tell my students that it is necessary to have the courage to question. The courage to question takes real energy. It requires courage to look at something really deeply. It requires focus and attention to look at your underlying patterns, the underlying belief structures of a mental, physical or emotional fixation. If we are being sincere and honest with ourselves, there is an intuitive sense of what we are avoiding. If we can find the capacity to be honest, we'll start to feel in ourselves when we are being called to make effort."
Adyashanti, born Steven Gray, is a spiritual teacher that crosses borders and teaches from a non-dualistic perspective. His website is http://www.adyashanti.org/ Check it out to learn more about this unique spiritual teacher. Here is the funny reflection while on retreat...Adya and his retreats are so unique, I find when describing him to friends that he isn't what one would classically think of as a spiritual teacher...he is modern, has a variety of interests and is funny and very wise and at one point during the retreat listening to this wise, funny man it popped in, a spiritual teacher from my youth...Theodor Geisel...I wouldn't have told you when I was five or 25 or even in November that Theodor Geisel, or better know by his spiritual name "Dr. Seuss" was indeed an unlikey and powerful "spiritual" teacher. Like Adya, simple, wise and funny...some of the greatest awareness came from many of his books...favorites like The Sneetchs with stars on thars, The Grinch, The Lorax, Oh, The Places You'll Go. So Adyashanti and Dr. Seuss, authors, wise men, funny guys, spiritual teachers...no different than physical education teachers, just spiritual education teachers and my hunch is there are lots and lots of "spiritual teachers" around...just take a look around and when you are ready to have the courage as Adya says, "to look at something deeply" then look for that spiritual teacher in the mirror.

Life: A-Z

2009-12-05T17:46:00.000-08:00

I wanted to share this piece before I go. As I am building this transformational coaching business and discovering what I love to do and how I want to work with clients, I was drawn to talking about this piece of art. We have dear family friends who gave me this piece of artwork for my birthday last year. They were down in Carmel shopping and saw this piece and I am touched to say they thought of me. It is a metal art piece that will hang on the wall of my new office (this is the long range vision...for now it lives propped up against the wall in my bedroom where I am inspired by the message daily.) It is a long vertical piece made of out of pieces of metal and then the phrase Life A-Z is etched in the top center and the following words run down the middle of the piece...a beautiful, long piece! The words however are horizontal...a great combination!

I mentioned I was touched when they thought of me for this reason...I work in community theatre and I have for 20 plus years. I am an Associate Director as well as an actress. I have worked with hundreds of actors over the years and one of the most basic tasks for the actor is developing the character; learning as much as they can about who this character is, what they want, how are they motivated, why did they make this choice, because of course, in the play or musical, the script is set, the actor is working to create the character in a given set of circumstances. As I have continued to open to spirit in my life, I find I use "the all the worlds a stage" metaphor and look at my life as a character in a play. So I was touched when these friends thought of me when they saw Life A-Z and all the beautiful, amazing, magical words connected with "this" life. Here was an opportunity as the "character in the play" to see how I was perceived by others; to learn what was being seen in the mirror of life. I was humbled and happy to be seen, to be understood, to have this affirmation of Life A-Z living me. It occurred to me, as I plan to audition for shows again as a actor, to add as part of my coaching services, coaching actors for auditions or learning more about themselves and their acting process. I realize that this is at the heart of the coaching work...the more awareness about our "characters" the more we are known, not just to others but to ourselves, the more alive we feel and live. So, let me know, what is your Life A-Z? What would be the words you would etch? I would love to hear some descriptions of your "character!"

Life A-Z

Art

Balance

Choices

Dream

Education

Freedom

Goals

Health

Ideals

Joy

Karma

Love

Music

Nature

Open

Play

Quality

Respect

Sports

Tradition

Unite

Voice

Wonder

XoXo

You

Zeal

It's All In The Perspective

2009-12-05T10:12:00.000-08:00

I'm back, I hoped I would be back and I AM.

The thought floated up yesterday morning as I was brushing my teeth, "Was I still falling or if I wasn't falling anymore, where had I landed, where was I?" Then it happened, the shift. This experience of the shift happens more and more...I was sharing with a friend this morning that I often have these experiences while brushing my teeth! I am aware that the intuitive mind is free and I perceive something quite different than with the analytical mind. My friend said that in an interview Maya Angelou speaks of the small mind/big mind and her observation that when the small mind is occupied with a rote task, (just like throwing a dog a bone), than the big mind is free to explore. As part of her writing process, Maya checks herself into a hotel room and spends all day playing solitaire and writing. While she plays cards, the ideas flow and then she stops and writes. Well, mine is brushing my teeth...though, I haven't started brushing my teeth and THEN writing, nothing so intentional, hmhmhm...I must give this some thought!
Ah, the rambling again, I still have yet to tell what the realization was, the ah ha! As a budding writer, I am aware of increasing the suspense, like a great detective novel, knowing the reader is hanging on every word! At this point, it is far more likely that one hasn't remember where the heck this started, but I trust reading a been a pleasant journey! Ok, here we go...just like those shows about transformation: THE BIG REVEAL. Here was the realization and it was as I have experienced again and again with realizations, an "expected" surprise. I love this phrase and I have experienced this time and again the last several years; knowing what I know, experiencing the truth of something that previously was upsetting, or causing suffering or fear. The realization was that "YES" I was still falling and the voice said, "there is only falling, only change and chaos, there is no landing" and then... "bing" the perspective shifted and the view changed from vertical-falling to horizontal-flowing. Just like that, everything changed in that moment and there was a sense of calm and peace and the small mind/big mind were for a moment, just that moment, having the same experience. I am familiar with falling, but I am also familiar with flowing and the truth is "flowing" doesn't leave; it doesn't go away, it is always there and infinite and eternal. And in that moment of being back in the flowing, the river of life, there was a deep and profound sense of peace. My hunch is I will fall again and again and again, but this awareness, this bell will not be unrung. There is the knowing that this sense of falling, this fear, this suffering is contained in the river, the bedrock, the earth and I will flow with the fall and fall into the flow.

PostScript: May you find your "dog bone" today for the small mind and let the big mind; the intuitive mind, free to discover and explore new perceptions, ah yes, New Perspectives. Second PostScript: I am off to "brush my teeth!" Stay tuned! Third PostScript: Actually, I will be on a five day silent retreat beginning this evening until Friday afternoon... So, stay tuned for the week of the 14th...when I will really return from brushing my teeth!

Pride Goeth Before The Fall

2009-12-02T17:59:00.000-08:00

I'm back...I am a dilettante blogger...I will attempt to write more freely and often and I suspect with more spontaneity and freedom to express what wants to be expressed with less "thought" as to a salient topic or point. Really, there often is no point, stuff just happens, shit happens, surrender happens, at least that is my experience. Today was a "fall" day...there aren't too many left as it will soon be a winter day. It was a fall and a "fall" day. I continue to experience stretching and until recently, I wasn't very flexible. I am more and more becoming and in the becoming I am Elastigirl from The Incredibles; very stretchy! Stretchy is good, stretchy is exciting and stretchy is painful! Life keeps limbering me up; but the muscles tighten again each time and the stretch though familiar is still challenging.

The continuing experience in my life is not having enough money...yes, and month after month after month, "loss" after loss after loss, there is still more to lose, more to strip away. I wrote today to a colleague, of whom I asked for consideration on a payment; that I was weary of the growth and stretching that this experience continues to bring; I do see the brilliance and perfection at moments and at moments I am frankly, tired. Yes, I feel a weariness today and I realize it is because I believe there is something to fight, something that is resistant to the reality of my current circumstances. So, today, I asked for compassion and forgiveness and exposed my vulnerabilities. After I asked for this consideration, I could feel Proud Mary rise up within me and challenge what I had done, what I had asked for. And then, the magical banner floated through my minds eye and the phrase, "pride goeth before the fall." This is from Proverbs 16, "pride goeth before destruction," and I felt the shift, the energy move to this other experience, ah ha, it is time to fall again. Kali the Destroyer is back to do more reconstruction. So here, on this twilight evening with a harvest moon hanging low in the sky, I am falling and I do not know when or where I will land. But rest assured, this journey, this stretching, this pride falling, it is an honor to experience...I'll be back.

I Am...Standing By

2009-11-04T20:01:00.000-08:00

I just returned from my 30th high school reunion! (but this is another blog talk-write story for another time.) I had a blast, but the really interesting part of this experience was that for the first time in my life, I flew stand-by! Let me tell you how this adventure came about...we have been going through a long financial drought, like the Israelites in the desert, l-o-n-g. (again, another blog talk...oh you get the idea.) Suffice it to say, any deal these days is researched and considered. I really wanted to attend my reunion, but that required an airline ticket to Scottsdale, Arizona. I have a new, wonderful friend from the Martha Beck coaching program named Bonnie and she works for Southwest Airlines...SO I thought I would check with Bonnie about an amazing, super-secret coupon code I could pop into the Southwest site and save hundreds of dollars off my ticket, (okay, NOT hundreds, but maybe a $10 or $20 savings, remember the Israelites in the desert?) Well, lovely Bonnie said, "Yes, there is a great deal I know about...I have free airline passes and I would like to send you one as a gift!" Well, little did I know about THAT coupon code; you type "loving-kindness" in the coupon space and fly, fly, fly! So, lovely Bonnie sent me a ticket and then walked me through the in's and outs of flying stand-by (or as the professionals call it, Non-Rev-ing, for No Revenue). First, we looked at the flights with the most seats unsold and picked a flight for Friday morning and one for Sunday morning, as well as a couple of backups. I then printed a security pass, no "boarding pass" yet because I wasn't booked on the flight. I must say, my old personality would never have been able to "stand-by." I would have wanted to know the outcome before I even ventured out the door (though, really, we never know that outcome do we, we only "think" we control the universe!) So, in the past I would have been booked on the flight, paid for it, had my boarding pass and I, quote, unquote, would have known the outcome. I am so happy to say that I loved standing by. I have used this phrase a lot the last several years. So much is able to be received because I am out of the way. Really, I say this multiple times a day, well okay, multiple times a week, "I got out of the way and life lived me, I am stepping aside, I am...standing by. (Standing by the way, not kneeling, or sitting or lying down...standing by.) So, off I went to the airport, security pass in hand, suitcase packed to carry on. Now, let me say a thing or two about carrying on. In my past incarnation, this would have thrown me into apoplectic shock, all the rules, regulations, security checkpoints,"Liquid Over Three Ounces" sniffing dogs patrolling the airport terminals looking for ME. Not now because...say it with me, I am standing by! I followed Bonnie's sage advice and I sailed through security in 2.5 seconds, I arrived at the gate to be handed a boarding pass sight unseen, no suspense, no will I make this flight, no, a boarding pass in hand an hour and a half before departure. I settled in on the aisle seat an hour plus later with the other two seats next to me empty...this standing by was going beautifully! On Sunday morning, I arrived at the airport prepared to take the 9:15 am flight to San Jose. Things were feeling a little dicier on this end. The airport was really crowded, security was backed up, the "Three Ounce Liquid Limit" sniffing dogs were on patrol and I thought, "hmmhmm, will I make this San Jose flight? Bonnie had selected a backup option and there was a 10:45 am flight into San Francisco, not as convenient, but a choice nonetheless. I was right down to the wire with the 9:15 am San Jose flight and...I did not get on! The flight was overbooked by 1 and they all showed up and then some. So, I called my husband, Drew to say that I didn't make the San Jose flight and that I would need to fly into SFO. He said, "that works out great because my mother had emergency gallbladder surgery this morning and I can pick you up and we can go see her at the hospital!" Well, well, well...there is that word I like so much...wasn't that perfectly clever and lovely of life to have me stand-by while it worked out all the details! I had a easy flight to San Francisco, a lovely visit with my mother-in-law and a feeling of leaning back into life and watching it all unfold! It is a great reminder that this experience is available everyday, in every way . So, take a moment, call your friend Bonnie or Sue or Hannah Jeanne and then...stand-by, just stand-by and watch what happens!

This post is dedicated to Bonnie Shapley and Kimba Livesay who have inspired and encouraged me to write this blog! I will be appearing tomorrow, yes, the storyteller, the woman of MANY words, as a guest on their new Radio Blog Show, Take The Wheel. So, to Kimba and Bonnie, thanks for believing in me, supporting me, encouraging me...until tomorrow...good-night!

Funny That You Would Say That!

2009-11-04T19:31:00.000-08:00

Well, well, well...I like words, I tend to like them in series of three and I do like the word well, for so many obvious reasons! I will say right off the bat, "I am a talker, a storyteller, a woman of many words." I have taken more than one friend, sister, mother, daughter, son, husband, mother-in-law, (see, you get the idea) hostage with words, words, words. So, I have decided to give their ears a rest and create a feast for the eyes; thus this blog. So, first, to introduce the title, "Funny You Would Say That!" Well, back in 2006, I experienced a powerful, really cool, really frightening, best of times, worst of times spiritual awakening. Now, I have always been intuitive, kinda knew things without any linear, logical connection, but the ability to sense and know and experience "stuff" was magnified BIG time after the awakening. I was on a whole (emphasis on "whole") new path and over the years of study, self-exploration and eventually education, I have launched a coaching practice combining intuitive energy techniques and coaching tools! I LOVE what I am doing, I have come home in this new vocation. So, back to the blog name, (yes there will be rambling, lots of rambling because I find from experience that life kinda works this way, like an ambling, rambling, shambling river!) Over the last several years, one of the consistent phrases I hear when I am talking with friends, family, clients, the lady in front of me at Target, is "funny you would say that!" And I think to myself, not so funny, because I have an instinct, a hunch, other streams of information that come in, like the NYSE ticker tape running through my stream of consciousness while having a conversation. So, when I decided to give my family's ears a rest and talk-write instead, I knew I had the perfect name for this blog. So, I hope that when you read along with my ambling, rambling, shambling self, that once in a while something will strike a cord; and something within you will vibrate and you will say, "Funny that she would say that, Funny that Mary would say that," just like she knows me, just like she knows what's in my soul.