New year's Resolutions 3: Limiting Beliefs?

So many of us are capable of much, much more than we ever try to accomplish.  It isn’t the barriers in external reality that hold us back.  Oh, we see barriers all right.  And some of them are very real.  Yet many of them are not.  One of the deepest oppressions of all comes when the oppressed are so brain-washed by their oppressors that they don’t even try to rise up out of the mire.  The prisons are created in our minds.

We know what we really want from our lives, if we get mentally quiet and listen to our souls speak.  That’s why every coach, every consultant, every religious community has a meditation or quiet prayer tradition.  We need to still the chatter so we can know what our soul really wants.  [Hypnotherapy is REALLY good at this. A reiki Guided Journey is almost as good.  Victoria.leo.reiki@gmail.com or www.soaringdragon.biz for a FREE Getting Unstuck session.]  Sometimes these desires are holdovers from incomplete childish dreams and need more refinement to serve our adult needs. 

Nearly all of us have some limiting beliefs that are NOT truth, and that are holding us back.  Maybe you’d like to try entrepreneurship but are convinced you’ll fail.  You may believe that you can’t go back to school for a new degree that will guarantee a promotion or don’t deserve a really outstandingly loving spouse.  We walk around with hundreds of beliefs filling our minds every day, some of which tell us that we are bound to fail, that we aren’t good, kind and wise, that we aren’t worth people loving us enough to get mad at us.  We settle for half-lives because our earlier experiences have taught us that no one cares about us.  It’s easier to smother our sadness with food because we don’t believe that we deserve to be healed and strong and well and wonderful.  But we do and we are.  Working with a coach, hypnotherapist or other type of really skilled mental health specialist can, if we are willing to do a lot of really hard and courageous work, transform us in ways we can scarcely imagine, into people that we only dream about.

The danger of seeing limiting beliefs as a problem is that sometimes people get so thrilled at the concept of Limiting Beliefs that they forget that some beliefs are actually Truth.  We humans like a good story, and there’s nothing more enticing than the story that the ONLY reason we can’t do absolutely anything at all we want to do is a belief that we can’t.  You can get so mesmerized by the story that you tune out your analytical brain entirely.  A big mistake.  I don’t just have a belief that I can’t climb Mount Rainier.  It’s an actual fact.  Earlier in my life, yup.  This year?  Nope.  I’ve gotten myself into the physical shape that I can, and more “pushing” just leads to injuries.  I have what I have and I am enjoying myself immensely with what I’ve got.

The major way to tell the difference between Truth and a Limiting Belief is that wisdom always whispers.  Your limbic system is always urgent.  Don't listen to the emotions of urgency....

I hear so much dopey stuff from my coach colleagues.  If someone tells you that you have to quit your job immediately to prove that you have a real belief, passion or commitment to entrepreneurship, for example, take a deep breath and listen to your internal wisdom, not your jazzed up limbic system.  It’s very wise to test the waters with a new idea while you keep your cash flowing.  Business success needs hard work and belief, and it also needs to be serving a burning need felt by people who have money to solve that need.  People who get too deeply into the It’s All Belief camp can forget that market economies work in accordance with immutable rules and one of them is that passion is not a substitute for carefully crafted products, very clever marketing and the right channels.   You may have some real physical limitations that you can work around effectively if you don’t try to pretend they don’t exist. 

So do all the courageous work that needs doing to clear out old damage and beliefs that limit your real potential – which is enormous!  Find those beliefs that represent wisdom and truth and hold on to them, and let go of everything else that shackles you from your enormous power to be brave and compassionate in the world. 

When you clear out limiting beliefs, you can soar with dragons!  Come join me in the sky!

New Year Resolutions 2: What Do I Focus On?

Resolutions 2: What Shall I Focus on?

Study yourselves; and most of all note well
Wherein kind Nature meant you to excel.
Not every blossom ripens into fruit.

Amen.  

When it comes to the character virtues of good listening, good will and good heart, we are all equally capable of excelling.  Not so with all the other characteristics.

There has been a lively debate among researchers and also among us average Joes and Jills about what to focus our self-improvement energy on.  When I was a kid, the focus was all on removing or ameliorating one’s weaknesses.  We studied ourselves to find our weaknesses and then added education or training to our To Do list and we got rid of it.  It’s a good plan.  Celine Dion couldn’t make it as a singing mega-star until she had elocution lessons and plastic surgery.  Reality is what it is and women are judged on their appearance before anything else.  Consider the mean tweets about Carrie Fisher’s appropriately-aged face this week.  So removing barriers is always a good idea.

The 21^st century spawned the Strengths movement, specifically to counteract the all-pervasive search for defects, and that has merit as well.  As Longfellow’s quote shows, this isn’t a new idea. There is a great deal of value in knowing what you are already good at or naturally good at, and focusing on that.  Polishing your gemstone so it gleams even more brightly.  There is some evidence to support this as a strategy, in that hiring managers and potential spouses over-focus on one’s shining points if you dazzle the eyes with them.

The dilemma is succinctly explained in the last line of the poem fragment: not every blossom will ripen into a fruit and you only have 18 usable hours every day, less if you exercise and you will exercise, right?  [If you don’t exercise every day, and you have $20 in your pocket – you know you do – click and start changing your internal landscape now! https://zparkl.com/course/about/transform-your-relationship-with-exercise/  ]

So what shall I spend my precious time on: fix it or get better at what I already do well?  Fixing things, if they are barriers like Dion’s, can give you a big bang for your buck.  Better organizing of paperwork?  Probably not, but it might significantly lower your stress at the office and give you more time to ride a bike or do yoga or paint.  If I focus on what I know I am good at, I will have a thrill of victory as I climb higher and higher on a path that I am already halfway to Denali’s peak on.  There are pros and cons no matter what you choose.

For me, it’s still fix-it.  Healing what needs healing, growing in virtues, and making time for the creative activities that feed my soul, that’s where it’s at for me.    

New Year's Resolutions 1: Your Burdens, My Burdens

 If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough….. Henry W. Longfellow

I am a big fan of resolutions to improve health (lose weight, stop smoking, exercise, change eating) and improve one’s money situation (new job, promotion, more clients, less time wasted with poor organization).  My profession, after all, is healer and change agent.  Using hypnotherapy to effect deep changes and energy healing to reduce anxiety and stress, with life coaching to set up goals, rewards and timetables, it’s a very powerful toolkit and it gets very powerful, fast results.  What’s missing?

Nothing, if your goal is the utterly admirable ones of physical health and the end of limiting beliefs about yourself.

But that’s not all there is to a human life.  We also have a striving to be better people.   All of my tools work really well to help people to extinguish the lingering remnants of harm from childhoods with imperfect families, traumas from adult life like criminal assaults, natural disasters and war, as well as personal imperfections that can’t be traced back to a particular cause or event. 

It’s noble, I think, to truly want to cause less pain to others by wanting to be less quick-tempered, more patient, more kind and understanding or more generous with praise and focus on catching people doing something right.  All of these and more have been resolutions of my clients over the years.  Removing the defect entirely is wonderful, but when we are talking about deeply ingrained barriers like this, even removing a layer or two of habitual patterns is a victory.

There is one challenge that I think underlies all the frustration, the envy, and the anger over the Good Luck in others’ lives, and that is what I’d like to talk about today.  We look at others in the superficial way that we do when we are assessing others’ lives, we see what we think they have, we compare it to what we know we don’t have, and anger arises.  We spin stories about why we don’t have, and why they do.  That story becomes our truth and we live our lives believing the story.

Let’s break this whole conundrum apart, piece by piece, and let’s start with a really common example: you have a particular burden holding you back and I don’t.  One of my many clients who is also a coach or healer tells me that it’s harder for her than for me, because she has two young children and I don’t; in fact, I have an easy life all around.  You’ve done this a million times, and so have we all.  Even I, who am super-aware of the fallacy, occasionally fall into the pit before I realize what I did and jump out.  The truth that we need to learn at a deep level is that we actually DON’T know a damn thing about what burdens our fellow humans are bearing.  All we know is what is public and obvious. 

People assume I don’t know how black people suffer because my hair is blond; they don’t know that I grew up with African American brothers and a sister.  People assume I have no burdens because I tend to be cheerful and don’t ride in a wheelchair.  During flu season, people learn that I have immune system weaknesses that make illnesses very common, but if you meet me in summer?  Nope.  My other health concerns are private; that doesn’t mean they don’t exist or don’t hold me back in myriad ways.  Only their closest intimates (usually) know that a person had a deeply-abused childhood, has been a victim of violence or is battling their way back to wholeness from the effects of PTSD.  And you don’t know any of this.  You know your life.  You don’t know the truth about the hundreds of people you are telling stories about every year. 

The underlying purpose of the story-telling that Person X has fewer burdens than me is to have a ready-made reason for why s/he has something and I don’t, an ignoble goal if ever there was one.  If you find yourself wanting to push back on this wisdom, now you know why your limbic system doesn’t want to let go of the Everyone Has It Easier Than Me story. 

How to overcome this (frequently wrong) story-spinning?  Every time you hear your mind coming to a conclusion about someone, especially after a short acquaintance, STOP.  Take two long, very slow, deep breaths and remind yourself that You Don’t Know A Damn Thing About This Person.  If you are in I Don’t Know territory, your mind is open to collecting additional information.  As soon as you have spun a story, you will interpret all new sensory information (what they say, do, twitch, etc.) through the filter of whether or not it fits in the story. 

The goal of this exercise is NOT to turn off your intuition – absolutely the contrary!  We just to the story that we can trust a person based on our limbic system liking the person’s welcoming smile and generous offer of home-baked cookies.  But sociopaths and garden-variety manipulators are very charming and “nice.”  You need to reserve your story-making/judgment until you have a lot more data.  Only a true sociopath can keep up the smokescreen forever.  The others will start to slip up.  If you are paying close attention, you’ll notice it and step out of range.  If you have your “S/he’s a great guy/gal” story/frame in place, you’re by definition no longer paying close attention. 

Acknowledging your own burdens – you are building a career or a business and want to be a good parent as well; you are battling asthma or ADD to get to your goals – allows you to generate goals that fit your physical and mental limits.  You won’t choose the same goal or timing as some outside entity thinks you should.  You know what you can realistically do and if you don’t, call me and we’ll figure it out in a coaching session.  You can walk from Panama City to Washington DC or from a Auschwitz to Hiroshima if you just keep putting one foot in front of another and don’t give up; my mom the dedicated peace activist did both, in her 60s.

For 2016, let me suggest this additional Resolution for your consideration:  slow down the creation of stories.  And when you hear yourself getting ready to conclude that another person has less burdens than you, remind yourself that you know all the secrets of your own soul and absolutely nothing about theirs.

Call me for a Free Getting Unstuck session, on whatever your goals for the year or your life are.  253-203-6676.  victoria.leo.reiki@gmail.com   www.soaringdragon.biz

Feeling Stressed and Down?

Many people get “down” at this time of year.  An ex-boss of mine said that she hated autumn because all she saw all around her was the living world dying.  But that dying was only in her mind.  Nature never dies.

What it does is sleep.  The upper layers of grass fall away, and the roots remain, waiting for the return of the light in spring.  Trees lose their leaves so they can effectively hunker down and take their own hibernation time.  Roses drop their last blooms in December, just before the Solstice.  The Great Sleep overtakes nature, a time when the summer’s focus on growing, growing, growing can turn into the winter’s focus on restoration.

If you have the blues because you think you see Death all around you, be of good cheer.  The world is only sleeping.  And tonight, at 8PM PST, the nadir will be reached and the Light will begin to return to the Northern Hemisphere again.  We will all receive the promise that life is eternal and the Great Sleep will end in another cycle of furious growth and resplendent colors.

When nature goes inward, it is an invitation for the human animal to rest as well.  If you’ve been on frantic overdrive, realize that you are creating the definitions of Success and Failure that are driving you crazy.  Perhaps this year you can realize it and next year you can stop it?  At least consider that option.  If you don’t rest enough– thinking rest = laziness because that’s what corporate culture tells you, for their own greedy reasons – consider resetting your beliefs.  You do need 7+ hours of actual sleep and at least another half-hour of meditation, yoga or Reiki each and every day, if you want to live a long and healthy life.  The laws of biology apply to everyone, regardless of their income and Great Importance in The World.  The reason I get so much done in my working time is because I regenerate my energy through exercise and through rest.   You can’t keep dipping into your reserve tank forever.  Eventually, the well runs dry.  Consider this for the next 24 hours.

Most of our “downs” are, like the belief that we are observing Death all around us, or the belief that we’re not allowed to rest, thus self-created, which means that they will fall away in the moment when we stop believing lies.  [Not all “downs” are products of our thoughts.  If you get down every winter, you may have a biochemical form of temporary depression called Seasonal Affective Disorder.  Get my book Journey Out of SAD and take your life back.]

The biggest source of self-inflicted pain at this time of year is the self-diagnosed Failure.  If you are down to your last dime, you are absolutely kin-less and friendless, and the food bank is out of food, then, yes, you have a real problem.  For most of us, it seems like Armageddon but if we get a solid 9 hours of sleep, and take a couple of naps, we’ll awake to the realization that what we are really facing is a mismatch between what we wanted and what we got.  This is a situation where the believers in a benevolent spiritual presence or benevolent spiritual laws have a real leg up.  They take a deep breath and sink into the comfort of knowing that whatever is in front of them is an opportunity to gain wisdom, and get on with living a kind and benevolent life themselves.  Maybe there’s a food bank in another town.  Maybe the local church has a warm place to spend the night.  Those of us who don’t have that philosophy need a world-view that encompasses the truth that we’re not supposed to go from pleasure to pleasure with nary a discomfort to be had.  That ain’t – and never has been – the human equation.  Into every life, some rain must fall, especially if you live in the Seattle metro area.

It seems obvious, but millions of people make themselves literally sick from fighting against this reality.  

If my first book hadn’t been botched by Prentice-Hall, I’d have been a millionaire in the 1980s.  I wouldn’t be working so hard for my daily tofu in 2015.  So what?  The road that “failure” sent me on lead me to the love of my life, a new career in comprehensive mental and physical healing and a completely different vision of why I was born.  

Why couldn’t I have a million AND the world’s best husband?  Why did my mother have to die in the grips of awful Alzheimer's?  Only children ask that question, grasshopper.   Adults let all the emotions generated by expectations of everlasting happiness fall by the wayside or slough off their backs like rain off an anorak.  Adults look around them and find the beauty in what IS, without comparing it with any imagined reality. 

It is Solstice Night.  In a matter of hours, the cosmic hourglass is turned over and the light begins to return to my half of the world.  Light is good.  It banishes SAD, and it makes it easier to step over, not into, the furball your cat coughed up overnight.  But the deeper Light – the Light of wisdom –is even better.  May we all awake tomorrow morning to welcome not only more light, but more Light. 



Visit my website www.soaringdragon.biz and explore all my programs for transformation - blasting you through barriers that are keeping you from the life you were born for!  The Facebook group Healing Minds, Healing Bodies also gets my announcements of new Webinars series.  Friday mornings Pacific and on YouTube humanbio4everyone after that.  Another webinar series on Wed mornings in 2016 on Creativity and it's link to health, wealth, and blasting through barriers

1 Simple Step to Improve Your Home Life in 2016

Even the most career-obsessed person knows that an unhappy home life sucks the energy and joy from your life.  And most of us are more balanced than that. So here is one simple step to make a big difference in your personal happiness for 2016 – and you’ll make your spouse or partner much happier as well.

Here’s the scenario that most of us live with:

Ø  There is no demarcation in communication between the tactical (kids’ dental appointments, other calendaring, the bill that needs paying) and the strategic (where are we going on vacation next year, what % of our time are we spending on kids, parents, hobbies, our spiritual growth, an irritation I have with you, an important way in which you are disrespecting me, my time or my importance in your life).  The tactical gets sandwiched into whatever snippets of time are available.  The most important strategic questions – the primary relationship and its emotions, meaning the meaning that the relationship has in our lives, how valued we are, how trusted you are – require undivided attention and a calm interior, so they never get aired until the bucket overflows on a particularly stressful day.

Ø  Important conversations (both tactical and strategic) about finances, vacations, problems or opportunities with the kids, problems and opportunities with in-laws, ourselves, our careers, our <fill in the blanks> gets sandwiched in to a brain that is tunneled on the stress of the moment.  A tunneled brain cannot even absorb all the details and nuances of the issue, much less process it with both analytic and intuitive wisdom. 

Ø  Because we cannot absorb the full reality that is being presented to our tunneled brain, we lose most of the context and half the content.  Our spouse correctly concludes that we aren’t listening and (possibly incorrectly) that we really don’t value them. 

Ø  Whoever is paying the bills, dealing with the teacher or the nasty neighbor, or mediating the in-laws knows what’s going on, but the other partner really doesn’t, so that miscommunications with the external world occur, wasting everyone’s already scanty free time. [The time you should be spending at the gym, right?]

Some people have a weekly What’s Going On? Meeting in which they coordinate the tactical.  It’s a step toward wisdom, certainly.  It’s a rare family that sets aside well-rested, unpressured time to tackle the strategic.  You need to.

To the rescue – the mandatory weekly Family Meeting!  Have a scribe, either the person with the best handwriting, or the person who really loves to take notes or who is the most comprehensive note-taker [that would be my partner], or both/all parties on a rotating basis.  Start with the tactical stuff.  Write everything down!  This ensures that whoever dealt with the problem, challenge or opportunity isn’t the only adult who knows who said what and what was done.  

So far, so tactical.

Then start on the strategic, specifically the non-relationship-oriented events, plans, goals.  Brainstorm.  Talk about retirement, or your career plans, or the possibility of relocation, or what kinds of investments you both really care about.  Focus on listening twice as much as you talk.  Take three long, deep breaths and don’t respond to any idea that upsets, scares or enrages you until you are calm again.  Have a Time Out process.  Stand up and stretch.  Talk about reducing expenses on things you want but don’t need, so that the longer-term strategic needs can be met – or even the strategic wants, like a life-altering trip to India or above the Arctic Circle, can come true without incurring debt.  You can forego the $5 cup of coffee if you know what you are getting instead.  Keep your eyes on the prize!

The last element of the Family Meeting is the relationship.  Keep reminding yourself that no human being is going to support you in your life goals, including your business and career goals, if they are disrespected themselves.  Cheer when your spouse trusts you enough to bring up something that s/he wishes you’d do or not do, or do differently.  You are finding out about it while s/he still loves and trusts you.  If I had a dollar for every male friend, colleague, relative or client who has told me in bewilderment that he has no idea why his wife is divorcing him, I would have a fully-paid condo in Lahaina.  With the exception of the 3% of humanity who are sociopaths, people are only mysterious when we aren’t listening.  Coaxing problems out of hiding when they are still small and fixable keep the garden of love well-weeded.

And that is the most effective, most powerful boost you can give your career and your life for 2016.

Fun Food!

A new recipe!

I decided to try some new things for my new cookbook (following up 101 Healthy Meals in 5 Minutes or Less!) and this one is going to a potluck tomorrow.

I start with a reasonably healthy commercial cornbread mix, add 2 eggs or egg white, some applesauce, lots of cinnamon.

The applesauce adds nice natural sugar and enough water that I can skip the usual milk. It's great, low cal too, well as a dessert, LOL.

What are you thankful for?

If you are like most Americans, you will gather around an over-loaded table of food tomorrow, for the Thanksgiving Day obligatory eat-fest.  If you are fortunate, someone will suggest that you all give short speeches about What You Are Thankful For, before you dig in.

It’s better than just digging in, of course.  But let’s be honest – most of these ThankFests are very superficial.  I’m thankful for my family.  Or my friends.  Whoever is in the room with me and will remember if I DON’T go down that timeworn road.  I’m thankful for my health.  Or my obliviousness, when spoken by people who don’t get tests and checkups from a reputable doctor regularly.  My mother-in-law thanked god for her good health every year, including the Thanksgiving just before she was diagnosed with the colon cancer that she could have completely averted if she hadn’t insisted that having an easy, simple colonoscopy was “claiming” cancer.  So let’s say that you either have or imagine that you have some level of good health.  Most of us grab that old chestnut and quit.  End of introspection until next year.

What most of us really are thankful for is our income, and our place and prestige in the world.  Who has the courage to say that they aren’t really thankful for their economic good fortune, both because it is usually considered unseemly bragging to admit you are doing quite a bit better than just Middle Middle Class, and because we really do believe that our success is 100% attributable to our own cleverness, thank you very much?  We focus so much of our precious life energy in jockeying for position, either in an organization or directly in the marketplace.  If we had what we define as a Good Year, because we got money, power and prestige enough to please us, we aren’t going to be honest and say so.  And if we fell short by society’s estimation, which becomes our estimation at a deep level, then we have yet another reason to put on a fake Happy Face and utter the usual platitude or make a joke of the whole Thankfulness thing.

So, go ahead and get through the social amenities as best you can.  Just don’t forget that gratitude – real gratitude – has been clinically shown to move mountains.  It shields you from flu bugs, cleans out your arteries, lowers your blood sugar and gives you more years of genuine good health, if you practice it regularly.  The only Gotcha is that it has to be real gratitude.  Genuine gratitude differs from the posturing and positioning around the groaning table in that it’s foundation is surrender to the reality that whatever sadness comes to you isn’t 100% caused by your DNA and blatant stupidity.  Some of your sadness is better explained as bad luck, a spiritual process like karma involving thousands of generations, or other processes that you can’t control and don’t need to waste your time trying to be angry about.  Real gratitude also comes from a place where you know that your Good Times are never 100% about you.  They are a gift from the universe, from the luck of the cosmic bouncing dice or from processes that you can’t game and can’t predict.  A stranger or a new acquaintance gives you exactly what you need, a gift that fills you with awe, pleasant shock and, if you’re prepared, with genuine gratitude.  For that moment, you are standing in a spotlight of love, joy and ease, that you didn’t create and can’t control.

When I’m not feeling it, it’s because I am tunnel-visioned on what’s wrong with my world.  Which, at various times in my life, has encompassed every single realm of generally-accepted Life.  Visualize me at a total loss, finally coming up with “I am grateful that I don’t have cancer… that I don’t have diabetes….. that I don’t have a broken leg; I can walk… that I don’t have….”  Imagine me finally realize that I was working as a college prof of human anatomy and had a mental list of about 5,000 health problems I didn’t have (making the few I DID have seem pretty paltry), and laughing at myself.  At which point, real gratitude had a chance.  

If you are stuck with unaware family or friends on The Day, find a way to sneak off with your journal, meditate and let something real happen for you.  [Writing gets you out of your head; it’s magical.]  Perhaps you can Skype or email someone who will understand.  If not, you will have created pockets of time and space in which you can feel and express that which you can’t express publicly.

What a wondrous thing is gratitude.  May it move mountains for you this Thanksgiving weekend, and the rest of the holiday month of December.  

Having Fun with 23andme - the joys and broader vision

Genetic identity products like the 23andme product I purchased recently have been wildly popular.  The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) took the medical portion of the product off the market until concerns about how the info would be used could be addressed.  It’s so easy for someone who doesn’t have a deep background in genetics to misunderstand what a predisposition could refer to. 

As a larger issue, there is a real danger of employers in the US getting access to genetic information, because they WILL refuse to hire, and WILL find excuses to get rid of any person who might (big word there!) have a medical problem in the future – that their health insurance company would have to pay for.  The real villain in that scenario is insurance that is tied to an employer, not a basic right of citizenship, because it gives your employer a powerful motivation to get rid of you based on your potential for expensive health problems.  If your health is an issue for you and the community that pays for all its citizens, your employer is out of the loop.

But back to products that promise to give you insights into your genetic identity.  The 23andme product that I bought for myself and my husband included some basics from the nuclear DNA and from mitchondrial DNA with (for men only) some info from the Y chromosome.  To recap:  Your nuclear DNA comes from your mother and your father, and gets shuffled around in each generation.  Your mitochondrial DNA comes from the egg that started your journey to life, so it is entirely from your mother.  [Your dad’s sperm has nothing but nuclear DNA to make it as light and fast as possible.]  It doesn’t mix and match with every generation, but provides an unbroken, except by mutations, lineage from some very ancient woman.  Men’s Y-chromosomes also provide an unbroken lineage, except for mutations, from a very ancient man. 

Another aside: a group of Jewish South Africans who claimed biological descent as Cohens (a priestly family in ancient Palestine) were never believed because to all outward appearances they were just black South Africans.  But a Y-chromosome study proved them right; that DNA came from ancient Palestine and was similar to other Jewish Cohens who were still living in their ancestral home. 

I will admit that I paid the money ($180 for the two of us) for entertainment purposes, and that’s a good way to approach any consumer product.  We both could see the known outlines of our ancestry popping up in the numbers. 

What everyone except me misinterpreted and what I want to talk about is the small amounts of DNA in which I resemble folks in east and west Africa, Oceania and East Asia.  The immediate assumption is that I have a distant ancestor from those places.  I wouldn’t mind if I did, and it could be.  A more likely explanation is the mundane genetic fact that similarity doesn’t necessarily mean direct ancestry.  It most likely means that I have some very old DNA that hasn’t changed since all of us were encapsulated in 2000 individuals living in East Africa, 60,000 years ago.  A bit of it went west to west Africa, a bit of it took off into the Middle East and from there travelled to East Asia and then to Oceania, and the rest became the Neolithic farmers who moved into Europe, killed off the hunter/gatherers and took their land.  Horticulture and agriculture allowed my ancestors to feed more kids and breed more fighters, it was that simple.   My mitochondrial DNA supports that narrative.  There are a lot of fascinating details, that I am keeping appropriately private.  I’m less Neandertal than the average European. 

And I am re-assessing the “purely entertainment” motive.  Right after I received my genetic info, I researched more about the various identified groups and genes and found myself profoundly moved.  One of my course offerings is a fascinating journey to consult with one’s biological forebears.  It has been inspiring and profoundly healing for many people.  Looking at the geographical distribution of those maternal haplogroups led me to take the journey myself, psychically touching those women who lived so long ago.  [Email me for more information on the course.]

We can get so wound up in our daily to-do lists that we forget to, as my course encourages, visit with our very distant ancestors, to put a larger perspective on our lives.  All 10,000 generations of them changed their culture and their world in all the small ways that a person’s life does.  

We have the opportunity and the privilege to be beacons of love, comfort and inspiration in our own time.  This little glimpse into the past reminded me of my duty to do my very best with the life that all these fascinating ancestors have given me.

The Surest Road to Peace of Mind

I know, it's pretty funny.  But if you really meditate on this simple "joke," how profound it really is.  

How often do we get caught up in someone's else's drama, someone else's emotional snares, because we get "hooked" by one of the Three Horsemen of Disaster:

>  We are trying to change someone.  You know you can't do that, right?  Really know it?  Take a long, slow deep breath.  It isn't even your business.  You weren't put on this earth to tell other adults - regardless of how much you love them or how much DNA you share with them - how to behave or what choices to make in their lives.  If they are harming you, get away from them.  Otherwise, not your circus.

> We are trying to force an outcome.  This doesn't mean the same as changing someone's nature or their take on things.  It usually means a circus involving more than one person, which is more insane than a circus with just one flying monkey.  You can't make things come out the way you want them, no matter how many vision boards you create.  God may or may not exist.  What's for sure, is that it ain't you.  Let go.

> We are trying to defend ourselves. The worst of the three! In addition to not being able to control other people's behavior, you also can't change how other people think, including how they think about you.  Even if you are being judged based on something other than facts (or the facts that you know).  Even if it's terribly, horribly unfair.  Even if no one asked you what "really happened."  Even so.  You 100% cannot, and will not, ever, ever, ever have the power to control your image with others.  They are going to think what they think.  They are going to talk about you.  They are going to spread false rumors and tear down your reputation.  Your integrity is what you know about yourself.  Your reputation is what others know about you.  Guard the one; ignore the other.  What others think about you is not your circus.

Keeping other people's circus from poisoning YOUR peace of mind is probably the #1 challenge of this time of year, the season of family togetherness and - love?  

Martha Beck had a suggestion years ago about how to survive family holidays with less-than-optimal families: she suggested that you and your sane friends each create a Bingo card in which each segment represents a Circus event (Uncle Harry gets drunk; Dad starts a rant about race; Mom asks me when I am going to get married - or divorced).  Keep track as the holidays pass.  The first person to get a winning Bingo row calls the others and we celebrate.  By taking the focus off the Circus and onto the game, it helps the players to avoid being hooked by the obnoxious comments that tempt you to "defend" what never needs defending - your life choices.  [If you break a law, you might need to defend your choices to a jury or risk prison, but otherwise - no.]

If you can chuck all those monkeys, peace of mind is a cinch.  Call me for a training session on who owns the Circus.  www.soaringdragon.biz

3 Reasons Why You DO Want to Create a Yearly Newsletter (aka Christmas Letter)

 I admit it.  I love to write yearly newsletters.  I even enjoy – for a totally different reason – receiving them.

Yet so many of you don’t – and I completely understand.  I agree that many of them are non-stop brag-fests that can leave you feeling less-than.  If you believe them.  And that’s the key to enjoying them!

If you choose to read newsletters with the expectation of being amused at people’s attempts to convince you (and themselves) that their life is so totally, mermerizingly perfect, they will succeed in entertaining you, minus the comparison-induced depression.

Think about it: you know the reality of your own life and it’s never perfect.  If you compare that reality with the glorious, victorious image projected by others, of COURSE you will think that they are doing so much better in life than you are.

Take a deep breath.  Take another.  Take a third, nice and slow and deep.  Ready for a revelation?  Here it is:  you can read, laugh and throw it in the dustbin.  Laughing is good for your cardiovascular system.

You can also, if you are patient, help guide these misguided souls into more authentic communication with you.  You start by getting off the From Success to Glorious Success treadmill yourself.  

When my husband was facing a devastating layoff, I was matter-of-fact about our worries for the future, and a request for prayers.  I share all the things I’m trying in my business, not just the stuff that worked. 

The big key to why good people (not the jerks of the family) really enjoy our yearly newsletter is that I make it funny.  Sometimes I poke fun at us, like the year I was so frustrated with my boss at the university where I was teaching that I took out my frustrations on the back hedge.  You can understand the depths of my anger when I tell you that I saved us $1000 in hedge trimming services.  You can laugh when I asked for power tools for my birthday and hubby said absolutely not, that he likes having a hedge not a low shrub! Or The Astronomy Widow tells a funny story about hubby’s obsession.  The crazy antics that pet parents get into when one of the darlings is sick and needs a pill.  The Abbott and Costello-esque Victoria-does-home-repair. 

Every issue has a deep point or two. One of us details a profoundly moving experience at a funeral.  We share how we honored the 10^th anniversary of earning a new graduate degree, that put no money in our pocket but enriches our life every day.  A brave mama deer is killed by the local cougar, and her two orphaned fawns are adopted by another mama deer, who successfully raises all four to adulthood. 

If you create a document that shares from the heart, instead of showing off, you might encourage a wiser approach to life among others.  The Grand Canyon grew over millions of year through the constant action of insubstantial water on seemingly solid rock.  You never know what influence you might be having, and you are 100 times more likely to be influential if you stop trying to be! 

As Shakespeare has Hotspur tell Glendower, “Tell the truth and shame the devil!”  If you start creating yearly newsletters that are fun, that are real – though edited for privacy and need-to-know – and that are from the heart, you next task is to not give a damn what any recipient thinks of you, your life and your newsletter.  When you are in that blessed place, you can mail your yearly snippet-of-life out with a joyous heart.  A gift that is given with absolutely no strings attached leaves you joyous and free.  A creation that does not rely on being praised floats high in the sky, free of anyone’s ability to trample it in the dust.

Don’t give up yearly newsletters, grasshopper.  Enjoy the creation.  Set them free to float on the breeze, to whatever new world they may land in. 

Should We Modernize Shakespeare?

The Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland OR is commissioning a group of experienced playwrights to rewrite the plays into modern language, for better comprehension and therefore more participation by the "I can't understand what they're saying" crowd. The language of the Bard just sounds so beautiful to the ear, and we can hope they don't muck with "Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow..." or "With love's light wings..." but Juliet's "I should have been more strange" would make more sense if she says what Shakespeare intended, which is "I should have been more discreet (less impulsive)..." They say that they intend to have some plays in modern language and some in Elizabethan. 

What do you think, upon sober consideration? 

3 Steps to Career Success AND Family Joy in Nov/Dec

 So many things culminate in November and December.  At least six major family and religious holidays.  End of year git-er-done deadlines at work.  Everyone’s deepest non-rational needs and craziness being triggered.  Kids enraptured with the magic of lights, desserts and all the decorating at home.  One’s own remembered delights and memories of magic can be ruthlessly tamped down in the service of Reality, but since deep desires can’t really be tamped down, you find them popping up at the most inopportune moment.  Spending more money on gifts and travel than you soberly would choose to allocate from the resources you have. 

Can we really be surprised that so many people, especially parents with full-time jobs, wish they could just fast-forward to January, when they are being honest with themselves?

The good news: there is a way out of the madness!  You need to solve these three problems:

Ø  You’re not paying complete attention to work when you’re at work.

Ø  You’re not paying complete attention to your family and/or your personal needs for joy and magic when you aren’t at work.  Exacerbated by not having enough hours for your non-work life.

Ø  You’re spending too much money.

Let’s take them in turn:

You’re not paying complete attention to work when you’re at work.  Yes, I know that you think you are.  But if you are not giving your children, your spouse and your desire to enjoy this special time of the year its due, those concerns will leak into your work time and you will be constantly fighting distraction.  Or the guilt at your long hours when you know that your family really wants to share this time with you will take up cognitive bandwidth, even when you’re not aware of it.  Or you’re shopping online when you need your cognitive resources 100% focused on the supply-chain problem.  So you can solve this problem by solving problem #2, right?  Let’s do that.

You’re not paying complete attention to your family and/or your personal needs for joy and magic when you aren’t at work.  This is exacerbated by not having enough hours for your non-work life.  Your kids need your undivided attention in order to thrive.  Your spouse needs to know that s/he is undisputed #1 in your life.  Full stop.  If you want to live a long and happy life, have kids who cry buckets at your funeral and a spouse who sustains you for a half century of adult life with his/her unvarnished appreciation and adoration, you need to deserve that.  Full stop.  Kids remember these holidays.  You can’t buy them off with toys and other “stuff,” not in the long run.  They might get all excited about the stuff, but what will keep them away from drugs, early sex and general life stupidity is the strength of their connection to you.  Your spouse needs your help in cutting down the workload, firming placing 90% of the obligations in the No pile.  S/he needs you 100% emotionally present in the evenings, for the joys of decorating the house, making desserts, writing a yearly holiday letter.  S/he needs your 100% emotional presence as you explore a new light show, or visit an ethnic holiday you know nothing about, or do a service project together.  The end of year holidays are about love, about family, about goodness and generosity and caring for others.  They are about joy.  You, my friend, need joy.  You need to sit your kids down and tell them about holidays when you were a child.  You all need a dose of magic, as much as you need to step away from consumerism.

If you are truly present when you’re not working, you can pour it on 100% when you are working., and head home at a reasonable hour.  And by that, I mean no later than 6 PM.  Don’t even think about trying to negotiate this.  If you are 100% focused, you can get a reasonable amount of progress every day toward your organizational goals.  Do it, and then leave, guilt-free.

You’re spending too much money.  There are so many reasons why your spouse deserves your undivided attention during your non-working hours, and one reason is that when your spouse has what s/he needs from the love of their life, they will be more amenable to walking away from the Shoulds that generate too much spending. 

Ø  Gift only children.  Buy them educational toys. No gadgets, unless it’s a group gift from several families.

Ø  Or have a Pick a Name Out of the Hat at Thanksgiving.

Ø  Or create things.  I crochet while I’m relaxing with videos.  You might have talents at baking or crafting or building.  Sometimes I inflict my art on people.  They can throw it out and re-use the frame, I don’t care; having them know that I love them matters.

 

Unless you have more money than the Queen of England, you are probably spending too much.  You need much more money for retirement than you think you do.  Your kids need some seed money for college.  The animal welfare groups need a big donation.  The polar bears are drowning and the planet needs saving.  These things matter.  You can deal with selfish people trying to guilt-trip you into shopping now much more easily than you can deal with an unhappy retired life or kids with crippling education debts. 

Work with your spouse on an announcement to both families about your firm commitment to reserving the holidays for love and service projects.  Write a heartfelt letter about teaching your kids the value of sharing and caring, including creating small and meaningful gifts.  Wrap one or at most two nice educational gifts for your kids under your own tree or other symbolic object.  Whether you are pre-parenting, post-parenting or non-parenting, the same rules apply. 

All the holidays are about Light – the Light of wisdom, the Light of love, and the Light of joy.  They all dispel the darkness.  Focus on wisdom, love and joy, and don’t confuse them with “stuff.” 

So you see the solution!  When you fix the “time-at-home” problem and the spending problem, you automatically resolve the distractions that are keeping you from career success in November and December.  When you fix the “focus on work, then come home” problem, you automatically resolve the deprivation that you are inflicting on yourself, your vulnerable children and your spouse.  Life isn’t linear.  It’s a web, in which the solution to one part of the web relies on progress elsewhere.

You deserve to excel at work this holiday.  And you deserve excellence in your spouse, parent and human being roles as well.  You can do it!  Let the Light shine!

I'll Think of Something

I'm exasperating.  I've been told that, anyway.  A long time ago, when I was running a technical certificate program for the University of California Santa Cruz Extension, I was the most exasperating, frustrating direct-report that my Dean had, according to him.  My crime?  Apparently, my stock response to every impossible dilemma was a deep breath and a determined "I'll think of something."  At the height of his exasperation, he told me that he wanted to live long enough to hear me admit that something was impossible. "Hmm," sez I, my standard non-committal response, whilst thinking "Good luck with that!"  I don't know if he has passed to his eternal rest yet, but I have some bad news for him - I haven't stopped saying it.   

And believing it.

Now, please understand: I am NOT saying that I can change the course of history or the externally-generated circumstances of my own life through sheer force of will.  I have dozens of friends and acquaintances who are beating themselves up because they couldn't manifest wealth in the midst of the biggest depression since 1930, or they can't change the course of hurricanes. [No, I'm not making up that latter.]  

It's not all about you, grasshopper.  Or, as I tell people, "There may be a god - who knows? - but it for sure ain't you."  Being an ordinary caring, loving, striving human being is a fine destiny.  You don't need to be the lord of life and death, heaven and earth, to be happy.  What you need to do is do your darndest to stay on top of the waves, and after you have done your very best, let go of the outcome.  That is easier said than done and not the subject of today's chat.

I just want to focus on the "doing your darndest" part.  My Dean told me that the buildings were underutilized, so I started researching and brainstorming and trying things out.  My new lineup of classes included Sunday, lunchtime, late afternoon and hybrid classes. Revenues soared.  When the main campus wanted X and we needed Y, my let's-negotiate spinal reflex drove him nuts.  No means no, Victoria.  Except that I never actually believe that.  [I have learned to moderate my spinal reflex with family members.  That's a different area of life.  Sometimes, the most loving response to No, is OK. A topic for another day.]  

I found this Viking ship somewhere (Pinterest? Facebook?) and would be happy to attribute it, if I could.  It sits on the wall facing me as I work, to remind me that when one door slams, I just need to find another one. And another one.  And another one.  And if they are all locked, climb to another floor.  Or stay home and wait for the EMT's.  

If the wind dies, take to the oars.  If the wind turns into a hurricane, batten down the hatches, tarp the open deck, set a sea anchor, and breathe.  Pray or invoke reiki.  No hurricane lasts forever.  If you end up on a foreign shore, recon first, before you disembark.  When you know the area is relatively safe, get out, find food, make friends with the natives, stay clear-eyed.  Keep thinking of something until you can't think any more, then ask friends to brainstorm with you.  When all ideas fail, it's batten down and breathe.  Take a nap or a day off, then go back to thinking of something.  Go back to the oars.

For the Love of Reiki Makes a Big Splash on Times Square

My good friend Paula Vail, host of the Voice America show (www.voiceamerica.com) For the Love of Reiki, has been honored in a big way, on the Great White Way.  I've been a guest on her show multiple times, but that isn't really why I am so happy, and want to shout her honors to the wide world.

The reason I am so over the top happy is because she is such a GOOD person and regardless of my lifetime of spiritual teaching and growth, below all the cognitive and intellectual wisdom, I still retain the child's belief that good people should have good luck.  I can look at myself and shake my metaphorical head at my undying belief about how reality should be, and my deep, deep soul's stubborn refusal to give up this belief that is so harmful to my peace of mind.

I call it harmful because it leads me to sadness or even anger when I work hard or I am kind and generous and I have nothing but troubles. I mean, doesn't virtue have a reward, other than the internal psychic one?  No, little one, it doesn't.  

There are so many levels of wisdom above this childish yearning for a different reality, a world with different rules.  Out to at least 3 sigma, I am completely at peace with and in tune with reality as it truly is, that outcomes are not solely the result of hard work or virtue but include societal monkey wrenches like racism, sexism or a culture determined to keep you poor, and also the personal luck variables like whether you get that coveted passage on the Titanic, or you miss your "chance" and stay alive.

Paula has worked hard and been virtuous. She has had a knack for engaging topics and has skill in drawing the best from her guests.  She also hit her stride at the right time, as Voice America was getting started and ramping up.  As Malcolm Gladwell explains in Outlier, timing is a big factor in success. 

And I don't care a bit about any of that.  My inner 5 year old is jumping up and down with delight because one of the Good Guys has hit the big time, a well-deserved success has occurred.  I'm going to let her jump up and down, and keep striving for more wisdom tomorrow.  For today..... listen to her shows.  Enjoy!

Honoring Each Other's Cultures - and Having Fun, Too!

One of the ways I encourage my clients to improve their physical health and also their happiness and peace of mind, is through creative projects.  Because I practice what I preach, I do it myself.  That's how I found myself reflecting so happily on the last group of wonderful Japanese clients who came to my Ashland center for a healing experience..... and I was drawn to expressing that connection through my creative art.  I grabbed some white and some bright red yarns (it looks purple here but that's my camera's fault), and made a trivet that looks like the Rising Sun Japanese flag. [A trivet is something that protects your kitchen counter from too-hot pots and serving dishes.]  Because I had more yarn, I created two additional trivets - one that is mostly white and one that is entirely red.  Every time I see those trivets, I am reminded of the wonderful energy of those clients/guests and I feel my heart filling with the energy of love and gratitude.


 

Another friend is French.  I crocheted his son a stuffed toy snake in striped red, white and blue, the French national colors.  I put photos of the snake on my Pinterest account [look under Soaring Dragon] and have an all-blue version here.  It reminds me of my funny, generous friend and once again my heart fills with gratitude for the path that brought me to this friendship.

It's axiomatic that spiritual people will decry "stuff."  This is just a reminder that too much stuff, or the pursuit of $$ so we can get more stuff will indeed NOT bring us happiness.  But the right stuff, or photos of the right stuff - the stuff that we create ourselves, and that are outpourings of our generous hearts and minds - because they remind us of love, is the genuine Right Stuff.

It's also fun to honor someone else's preferences and culture instead of trying to convert them to one's own. 

________________________________________________________________

I offer 30 minute Exploration Sessions for new potential clients who want to get from where they are to where they want to be.  For the kinds of barriers that I am most effective in demolishing, the transformation I can drive is absolutely amazing.  People like you have been freed from a lifetime of 50-pound emotional packs they never knew they were lugging.  Trauma is healed.  Habits and addictions like smoking and poor nutrition are overcome.  Lives are transformed.  If you have a problem that I am not certified in or prefer not to work with, I'll tell you, and recommend a good alternative.  I love to show people ways to save money through effective between-visit work.

It all starts with an email or phone call. We can do very powerful healing work in any time zone, via the wonders of videoconferencing!   victoria.leo.reiki@gmail.com   www.soaringdragon.biz   253-203-6676 (Pacific Time, normal working hours M-F, Sat occasionally)

It's the Simple Things..... That Are So Hard

The Power of Simple and Sincere Praise

Sometimes it's the small things that count.  I have a client who recently transferred to a new group with a "mentor" who was making him miserable.  In listening to him, the causes and solutions became clear.

The cause?  She raced along at breakneck speed, such that Michaelangelo or Einstein couldn't have kept up - and used an exasperated tone of voice when anyone asked a question or even asked her to slow down.  You can understand his pissossity at the meta-communication that he was an idiot.  You can understand why he wanted the basic respect that he deserved as a highly-regarded professional.

I started by getting him to reframe the situation from anger to an understanding that this young thing just didn't know how to teach.  When he was sure that no sane person would actually think he's an idiot, he was able to hear that, and shift his energy from defense to commiseration.  Who doesn't remember what a jerk they were when they were 20-something?

Then I got him to manage her - with praise. The first time he thanked her and praised her for her knowledge and thanked her again for her efforts (all very sincerely), he saw the first smile he'd ever seen on her face.  "She walked away with a spring in her step," he marveled.  A month later, he has no trouble interacting with her.  She will probably continue to not know how to teach anything, but the exasperated bad manners are gone - and in any case, my client knows how to interpret her bad manners.  Reframing it as her incompetence at teaching [“these young folks,” he tells himself] allows him to genuinely praise the things she does well. 

His stress level (and all the bad effects that brings) is way down, so it’s another example of how healing minds heals bodies.....  The next time someone insults instead of mentoring you, or you feel legitimate anger arising, stop, take a deep breath, and consider the possibility that your "enemy" is just incompetent - and we've all suffered from that disease.  The same person who has literally saved lives can't figure out her GoPro, allegedly the simplest camera on the planet.  I need compassion.  We all do.  

Down the Driveway, into a Wonderworld

Last night, I came home at 1 AM after picking up someone at the airport.  It’s a rural property, and as my headlights swept down the long driveway, at the far edge of the property 8 glowing eyes twinkled back at me.  The tapeti lucidi of a group of deer!  Two of them swiveled their heads and half-stood, but the others were unworried.  Although they’d never seen me come or go at that ungodly hour before, they knew that I was not a danger.  As I pulled up and parked as far from them as possible, and then exited as quietly as possible, the two “nervy” ones settled down into their sleep positions again. The doe, young fawn and two teen males, who might have been the mum’s fawns from last year, made my heart sing.  The peaceful energy as they settled back to sleep made me smile, but it was more than just a charming scene.  For just over two years, I’ve been watching the local deer who live in proximity to my healing & retreat center.  Generations have grown up under my fascinated attention.  Yet there was more to experience, a whole world of movement and activity, safety and comfort as well as ambush and death, going on mere feet from my door, that I knew absolutely nothing about, because it was happening during the hours when I wasn’t watching.

It makes sense, of course.  Homo sapiens is a diurnal species, as are deer.  We all sleep at night.  No matter how mindful I may be of my surroundings, there will always be lives being lived, sometimes mere feet away from me, that I know nothing about.  Still, this experience has sparked a new respect for the wonder and excitement to be found in life.  It’s so easy for us to think that we understand “what’s going on,” that reality is a known quantity.  If we discover that we don’t even really know what is happening in our physical environment, how certain should we be – about anything?  No matter how well we may think we are “on top of” our lives, we will continue to turn a corner, head down a driveway and walk straight into delight, and wonder, and beautiful, sweet new worlds.  

_________________________________________________

I offer 30 minute Exploration Sessions for new potential clients who want to get from where they are to where they want to be.  For the kinds of barriers that I am most effective in demolishing, the transformation I can drive is absolutely amazing.  People like you have been freed from a lifetime of 50-pound emotional packs they never knew they were lugging.  Trauma is healed.  Habits and addictions like smoking and poor nutrition are overcome.  Lives are transformed.  If you have a problem that I am not certified in or prefer not to work with, I'll tell you, and recommend a good alternative.  I love to show people ways to save money through effective between-visit work.

It all starts with an email or phone call. We can do very powerful healing work in any time zone, via the wonders of videoconferencing!   victoria.leo.reiki@gmail.com   www.soaringdragon.biz   253-203-6676 (Pacific Time, normal working hours M-F, Sat occasionally)

Listening to the Sounds of Autumn (Fall)

One of the great joys of this season is the visual appeal of bright colors - red, yellow, orange - as the leaves change colors and then fall.  The English word "Fall" for this season refer to the falling leaves.  And what a beautiful, joyous vision it is!

So why do I talk about the "sounds" of fall?  Well, in my house, more is falling than just leaves.  Did I mention that I live surrounded by 19 oak trees.  Oaks produce acorns!  Every time we have a wind storm, that wind detaches a lot of acorns, which are thrown against my roof with force, producing quite a clatter and barrage of "bang, bang, bang, bang."

I laugh about the clamor with my neighbors. And I admit that raking and sweeping all the acorns from the driveway every morning isn't the most fun form of exercise I can imagine.  Yet when I allow myself to stop being annoyed about the acorns, I see so much beauty in the "music" of those acorns falling on my roof all day and all night.

And the best part of it all?  When I go out to sweep and rake every morning, right after I meditate and practice Reiki for 40-60 minutes, I enjoy the cool air, the diffuse light of right-after-dawn, and the quiet stillness in which deer come to feed on the acorns.  They remind me of the joys that that fall music brings me.... and I remember to pile up the acorns where the does and fawns can find them, instead of removing all of them.

What sounds of fall do you hear where you live?  Do you take early-morning walks and watch the earth change its colors and sing new songs to you?