The Real Reason to Not "Ghost" People - it's not altruism!

One of the most demoralizing experiences in modern life is being unemployed when you want to work. Anything that makes that process more onerous is something that you, as an employer, should think very, very carefully about. The article attached is about ghosting (you stop responding to emails when you lose interest in a candidate), a choice that more and more organizations are making.

As a job-seeker, you know how demoralizing this is.

But let me speak to the companies who are doing this, because ghosting is a choice that will harm you, both short and long-term.

As this author says, more and more angry people will let the world know how you behave. The really good candidates will give you the heave-ho, because a toxic work culture shows up in how the company disrespects potential employees.

There's a more important and immediate reason to cut this out, though, guys: People NEVER forget an insult. Never.

So many times, when I was an employee, a company that blew me off for one opportunity later wanted me for another. In one case in particular, they recruited me vigorously from my then-employer. Three years later. I had the immense joy of telling them of my previous experience and that I wouldn't work for them under any circumstances - and would make sure that they didn't recruit anyone else at my company either. SWEET.

Three thousand years ago, a very wise man said that winning a victory and crushing your enemies (ghosting your unwanted candidates) leads you only to sorrow because the crushed may lie down in defeat, but their hearts are burning for revenge. Increasing the number of people who hate your guts, will tell the world, and will thwart you when YOU want something - and you will, my dears, you will - later on is never a good business policy.

Courtesy is not just the ethical path. It is the long-term self-interest path. I'd walk it, if I were you. Create a kindly and generous "no, thanks" email, make a macro and send to everyone you don't have a need for right now, and sow the good will that you will need later on.

https://onlinecareertips.com/2017/10/respond-youre-victim-ghosting/

Preventing Dementia and Cognitive Decline, Part 1 More Sleep

The key to getting more sleep is to carefully train your brain to the 8 hours that you need.  If you are currently getting 5 or 6 – or less – then you need to plan your evening so that you are asleep 15 minutes earlier than usual. 

Think of your evening as your prep for a big presentation before a live audience.  You hone your speech.  You prepare notes on cards or pages.  You check the lighting and the sound.  You breathe deeply to reduce nervousness.  You hit the loo 10 minutes before show time.  Well, it’s the same thing with sleeping.  You need to prepare. 

1)      Make sure that you get at least 20 minutes of exercise/movement every day.  It helps “tune” your body to better health on all levels of metabolism and circadian rhythm, as it improves your brain, and especially memory, function.

2)      Make sure that you aren’t eating a heavy dinner less than 3 hours before bedtime.  When I worked in a corporate job, and stayed late at my desk, I had dinner in the office fridge, then came home and had a 100 calorie snack before bed.  That snack stabilized my blood sugar for sleep.  I still do the 100 calorie snack.

3)       Stop thinking about business, politics, doing Facebook, or anything else serious or potentially upsetting (no email!) for at least an hour before bed.

4)      Two hours before sleep time, use Dump the Garbage or a similar tool from Take Back Your Lost Heart or 101 Stress Busters.

5)      Sometime in the evening, HAVE FUN, something that engrosses you and genuinely brings joy – which passively watching TV doesn’t, usually.  101 Stress Busters has lots of ideas. 

6)      If you feel resistance to sleep time rather than joy, take a deep breath or five, and see if you can hear the “I don’t want to go to bed and you can’t make me!” voice.  The more it sounds like a 3-year old, the closer you are to Reality.  This is the part of you that will keep you awake until it gets some fun – and no amount of substitutes (alcohol, sweets, TV, you name it) will really satisfy.

7)      Develop an unvarying Go To Bed routine.  Unvarying is important.  You want your brain to get programmed to wind down as you go through the routine.  I cover this in the Kick Weight Loss to the Curb class and will cover it in my newsletter.

8)      If you have a spouse or partner who snores, insists on watching TV in bed (a VERY bad idea, because it associates the bed with TV, not sleeping, to his/her brain) or in any other way disrupts your sleep, sleep somewhere else.  If they want to sleep with you, then they have to SLEEP in the bedroom and do other things elsewhere.  For the last 3 years, hubby has had to get up at 3:30AM and of course, goes to bed much earlier than I.  So we have slept apart on commute days and together on non-commute days.  If your partner doesn’t love you enough to put your needs ahead of their desires, then you do what you need to do to take care of your health and safeguard your mental acuity. 

9)      If you find your sleep disrupted by trips to the bathroom, stop drinking in the evening.  I can’t drink anything after 4PM myself.  I gathered data for 6 months before I came to the latest I could absorb fluids before I had night-waking troubles.  For most people it’s 3 hours, not 6, so see what it is for your body.

Our bodies change and shift over time, usually gradually – elders have more trouble staying asleep because brains get poorer at releasing enough melatonin, and the over-55 set gets less exercise, for example.  If it’s relatively sudden, first check any changes in medications; have you started or stopped anything?  Then think: are you eating differently or taking/stopping a new supplement?  

Check with your doc or pharmacist (the latter are easier to get time with), to see if there is a known sleep disruption associated with the chemicals involved.  Supplements are less safe than prescribed drugs in the sense that there is no quality or purity control imposed by a government agency focused on our safety, but assuming the pills really are what the label says, the pharmacist can tell you what is known about effects of the supplement.  

And then there are hormones of menopause and perimenopause (starting anytime after age 43, on average), which are known to wreck sleep for a while.  Absent any of these known reasons, sudden sleep changes warrant a medical visit.

Kick Dieting to the Curb: Get and Stay at Your Healthy Weight – Forever!

https://soaringdragon.leadpages.co/kick-dieting-to-the-curb-get-and-stay-at-your-healthy-weight-forever/

Joy in the Midst of Sweat and Trees and Irises

Close your eyes and visualize "joy." 

Did you think about vacations or chore-free, work-free time?  X-rated subject matter?  

Most of us do.  After all, if you have too much work and chores and responsibility, you DO need respite from it.  You can - and I and my clients do - carve out time in the day to meditate, exercise, Reiki, pray - whatever your daily practice of Self-Care includes.


Of course, there is another road, one that we rarely choose.  So let's take a stroll down the Road Less Traveled By and see - it might make all the difference....

My husband took a week of "vacation" time and has been at my healing center in Ashland Oregon, getting megadoses of healing work, enjoying time for art  - and spending 4-5 hours/day in heavy landscape improvement (planting trees and bulbs) and repair.

I was out there with him, of course, mowing lawn, collecting acorns and running to the hardware store for more poles, deer netting and whatnots, along with backup vocals on the tree-planting.

*I* was feeling pretty sorry for myself, truth to tell.  Five hours/day is a 2nd shift, and you all know how much fun that is!  Parents, raise your hand and sound off.  Two-job wage-earners or job+college folks, groan in unison.

But Rick wasn't going down that road.

"I love working on THIS earth," he said, leaning on a shovel for a short rest-break.  "When I do THIS work, I am working for myself, for my future."


Working for myself, for my future.  Isn't that what everyone who is working hard on a degree or certificate is doing?  Isn't that what everyone who is earning a living, and maybe going the extra mile for a promotion is doing?  Isn't that what we entrepreneurs are doing?  

If we take a long, slow deep breath, close our eyes and talk it over with our spiritual guides or inner wisdom, won't we hear the same Truth?  

All this work, all these "chores" are labor for myself, for my future.  And who doesn't want a happy future?


Email me at victoria.leo.reiki@gmail.com for a FREE Getting Unstuck session (not a sales pitch).  You deserve to start working on your future today!

Want the Fast Track to Getting What You Want??

Playing with my cats earlier today….

Orono (a Maine Coon, natch) knows how to play Bat At the Cat Toy. She has lots of fun leaping and pouncing, and she knows that the fun is prolonged when she simply “counts coup” on her enemy, leaving the toy available for an immediate new game. The challenge is in the doing.

Gabriel, alas, finds the subtleties of Orono’s strategy perplexing. For him, the name of the game is catch that bird-substitute, hold onto it with jaws of steel, give it a neck bite and drag it off one’s lair and gloat over your victory. I have seen him shake his head – a feline ploy to help snap the prey’s neck. Sigh. His insistence on refusing to catch and release means that every time he catches the toy I have to wrestle it away from him before any of us can have any more fun. (If I don’t wrestle it away, he shreds it in too-authentic predator style.) He cannot hold on to his gettings lightly. He doesn’t share anything; he treats every treat as though it will be his last. He never lets go. He does not believe that if he lets go that he will ever get another shred of prosperity again. All evidence to the contrary will not shake him.

We all know people like Gabe. They snatch. They hold on to their possessions and the people in their lives with a death grip. That approach, they think, at the deepest, unrational limbic system where humans make most of their decisions, will allow them to be financially, professionally and in all other ways happy.

Funny thing is – exactly the opposite is true. Avoiding extremes of fiscal extravagance and unconsciousness, of course, if you keep a light hand on the reins of your life, you can feel nuances and changing circumstances and have a much better chance of staying on the sunny side of the street. When you are desperately trying to control someone or something, your hands get hard and insensitive; you can’t feel the nuances any more. Batting at your fun (or your sorrows) allows more fun to come in to your life. Desperately grabbing onto every shred of fun and refusing to allow the positive energy to circulate in the world guarantees that less fun will come your way – you are a dead end and energy wants to circulate.    

If that’s too fanciful, here’s the more concrete version: if you touch all the things and people who come your way with a light touch (not grabbing like Gabe), if you are not desperate to get the business or convince someone of something, if you are not convinced that you can manifest any and every outcome your desires can conjure, you invite people to come closer. Open, welcoming arms, open minds and communication without needing a particular outcome is more likely to give you what you really need, in a day/week/month/year/life. If you stop trying to manifest and just go about your work in the world, stopping to say “thank you” for whatever shows up, whether you label it as “Good [I got what I want]” or “Bad [I didn’t get what I want],” then you have the magic formula for a happy life.  Regardless of whether you got the million-dollar income or the wonderful spouse, you will be centered, content, happy, with dozens of friends who just adore you, because you are life-giving sun, pouring joy into everyone else from your own limitless supply.

Another fish will be along in the universe’s own perfect time.  

Go to Soaring Dragon. 

How to Make Changes; How to Vanquish Fear... Brene Brown and Eleanor Roosevelt

An excerpt from my 2017 book, Red State, Blue Heart, a memoir of my years in North Carolina….

HE WAS ENORMOUS!! THE SIZE OF AN AIRCRAFT CARRIER!! Well, maybe a pocket battleship. He came at me with vicious intent, a blow glancing off my skull and then he landed on my computer keyboard just as I hit the Publish buttom for my last night’s blog. I screamed (of course).  He attacked again and I screamed again, remembering to cover my mouth this time. He landed on the keyboard again.  The rational part of my brain (not doing much at the moment) would like you to know that he looked almost exactly like a (slightly) smaller version of the Shadows on Babylon 5, and I have my ex-husband the entomologist’s voice in my head telling me that most bugs are female, so I should say “she.”  

Notwithstanding the fact that she was the size of a house, I draped a towel over her and got her out the back door, but not without several false-starts and enough blood-curdling screams to bring my neighbors running. [Nice to know I have backup when I need it – god bless Southerners!]  So – what’s the point here, besides don’t invite me to a restaurant to eat chocolate-covered multi-legged creatures?

1) There are a lot more bugs in the moist and humid Southland than in the dry climates I live in now, and some of them are ENORMOUS and using all of their persistence and brain power 24/7 trying to get into my home to terrorize me. [I also need to work on my paranoid tendencies, yup.] Native Southerners have been laughing (mostly good-naturedly) at me for over three years. Laughing at one’s neighbors did not end with Jane Austen in 1815. It’s still good, clean fun in the 21st century. Y’all in non-southland states who are laughing at me right now – quess what? As global warming continues, the bugs are moving northward. Ah-ha!

2) fears are frequently not in proportion to the actual threat. Oh, yes, this is the big one. It’s fun to laugh at people who have exaggerated fear-responses to bugs and wasps, but the reality is that all of us have exaggerated fear responses to something – and it is usually more social/interactional than related to bugs and snakes and mousies, oh my. I work with people in career transition, people who want better health and vitality, and people in other kinds of transitions, many of whom stall part of the way through their way to where they say they want to go. Lots of reasons on the surface. They all add up to – at some point, fear takes over and no amount of encouragement or inspiration from others can counteract that internally-generated fear. My terror when confronted by a non-woman-eating insect is ludicrous.

When I look around me, I see all of us running away from little bugs who loom enormous in size and power, in our imaginations. Our brains are wired to respond to fear, as a way to keep us alive in a predator-filled environment. In today’s world, it is primarily social “death” we fear, an interpersonal attack, with words expressing judgment, condemnation or contempt. We unleash these weapons on each other to show how powerful we are [not realizing that it actually demonstrates just the opposite, to someone who has a strong sense of their own power], or to [benevolently] try to protect each other from what we see as dangers [because, of course, they are all-knowing and all-wise, godlike in their own perceptions and 100% know what the future will bring], or for gain [promotions, a date, you name it].

Most of what we are afraid of is not really the size of an aircraft carrier. So, what “bugs” have you been afraid of? Sure, you’re not screaming loudly enough to bring the neighbors running.  Maybe you have been shutting yourself down before you ever really consider certain options. Maybe you let them start to surface before you thrust them away, unconsidered.

A big source of fear in our lives is What Will [People in general or a Specific Person] Think? None of us like to admit that we crave approval, but nearly everyone does nonetheless. We hold ourselves back from achievement to avoid being criticized. We hold ourselves back from the possible failures that would propel us light-years ahead in personal growth, because we are afraid of the I Told You So and the amorphous Feeling Like A Fool. Well, I am here to tell you that actually acting like a “fool” is the least foolish thing you will ever do in your life.

It’s sometimes painful, when you are walking a pristine path without a trail, but it is in those moments that you are most truly alive, most truly in touch with the DNA and the person you were born to be.  Lots of people think my bug freakouts are funny; some consider them shocking, and try to induce shame in me for being so "weak," because I am "so strong and capable the rest of the time."

As Brene Brown would say, “Nonsense!” 

As Eleanor Roosevelt tells us, you gain courage from every time you stop to look fear in the face and don’t back down.  After a while, you can’t be frightened by anything.  You tell yourself, “Well, I lived through these horrors, I can live through the next thing that comes along.”  Eleanor conquered her extreme shyness and became a wonderful public speaker and fearless advocate for the powerless, one scary confrontation at a time.  Some of them turned out to be tiny insects when she confronted them, other fears stemmed from real danger.  But she built her courage muscles, step by step, and so can you.  And so can I. 

Your homework assignment for next week: 1) consider some of your fears as possible bugs, annoying but not life-threatening, 2) come running if your neighbors scream, and 3) put up plastic sheeting on your windows. It not only cuts heat/cooling losses and lowers your fuel bill, but it also keeps the damn wasps out.

Contact me for your FREE Getting Unstuck session (not a sales pitch).  Victoria.leo.reiki@gmail.com

Creativity to Boost Your Sleep!

My regular readers know how enthusiastic I am about creativity.  My class on using Creativity to Cleanse and Clear Specific Chakras (on learnitlive.com) is a big hit.  I use specific creative exercises whose action is to clear blockages in a specific chakra.  It's been a happy all-day class and I recently experimented with dividing it into chunks of a chakra or two, for people who digest big changes slowly.  I also include specific creative activities in all my really powerful transformation programs. 

Why?  Do I just like the idea of the whole world painting, drawing, coloring, making things with wood and cardboard, building kits, making mosaics and collages, and on and on?  

No, I'm not really addicted to paint.  I'm addicted to alleviating suffering.  Getting into your unconscious mind is the fastest, most powerful route to ending problems.  [I also use thinking-oriented, cognitive-behavioral techniques, but they only work if you already have an accurate idea of what really is the problem, and that is NOT usually the case.  My entrepreneur friends, you don't just need a tutorial on the new magical marketing tool in order to instantly have a million-dollar business.  Nope.]  

And how do you get into your unconscious mind when you don't have me in person or via video to guide you?  One way is deep meditation.  Another is listening to a journey with Belleruth Naperstek.  And another is to get yourself engrossed in color, shapes and the feel of creation in your hands.  My friends, you will never feel so close to god-like powers as you do when you step back from a work you created and realize the spine-tingling awe of "I MADE that.  From nothingness."  When you look at something you did and you feel deep into your DNA that you LIKE it - and you love yourself.  When you look at something you made with your own two hands (or whatever you have), and you feel deep in your DNA, "OMG, NOW I understand why I have always had trouble with taking charge, swimming, speaking in public, being praised, failing to excel at anything I try, ."

THAT moment of either pure joy or transcendent enlightenment is the real purpose of a consistent creativity practice.

So what about sleep?

After you have taken warm milk and melatonin, you turn off your blue light electronics, you have a bed that is not too hot or too cold, and you have made sure that you weren't arguing about politics or other aggravating topics for the two hours prior to bedtime, if you still can't sleep, start reiki-ing yourself.  Don't know reiki?  How about tapping?  Meditation of the Ommm and breathe style.

And if you haven't learned any of that, after you made a note for tomorrow AM to go to www.soaringreiki.biz and sign up to learn, then it's time to get up and pull out the pencils.  [Painting at midnight requires you to wash your brushes.  If you live with people who will be disturbed, go the colored pencils on quality paper route.  Same effect!]  Breathe deeply.  Close your eyes, call on your spirit guides, your goddess guides and helpers [another class at learnitlive.com, very powerful and fun.], or your Wise Adult, take a walk at the beach, or along a forest trail, and tell them all about it.  Then start to draw, without waking up your conscious mind at all.  Just let your "feelings" guide you to colors, shapes, and effects.  I have glitter glue sticks, animal eyes and all kinds of magazines, for pictures.  Whatever hair-brained idea pops into my mind, I breathe deep to make sure I'm not thinking, and then I let myself do it.  The results can be quite extraordinary!

When the emotional energy is discharged in a good cry or some creative arts, you'll be able to sleep.  Sometimes I take a few minutes to write down the insights into my journal for later cogitating as well as feeling.  But with the emotional burden lifted, I drift away.  

Bliss.....

The Road to Happiness - Right Through Your Bucket List

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPBgbOuU388

Want High Income, Recession-Proof Career, Deep Soul Clearing + Huge Positive Impact on Your Health?

And it all comes from the same FUN activity!

Whatever your career or business and your satisfaction level with it, I am sure that you remember your parents and high school guidance counselors pounding the "You have to go to college" message into you.  You might also recall the disdain all these fine folk expressed, overtly or merely through tone of voice, for the blue-collar workers.  Their jobs, because they work with their hands, were being offshored, but you - with your shiny new BA (or MA) - were a knowledge worker.  YOU were golden.  

Fast forward some decades.  Sure enough, the good-paying blue collar jobs of the Midwest were offshored and the sorta-good-paying factory jobs of the South were taken over by illegal immigrants.  Huge transition from fathers being able to support their families to fathers stuck in permanent unemployment, with no unemployment help, or re-employed at much less $, no benefits.  A world of constant anxiety, no security and no self-esteem.

Sounds like your guidance counselors, parents, pundits, everyone really, was right.  If you want money, security and good health (from lack of stress and from access to medical care and quality food), then you need to go to college.  Case closed.

But......  what about the people who listened to that advice more recently, with college costs having skyrocketed?  Huge education debt that is acting as an economic and personal sea anchor, preventing young people from buying homes, starting families or even moving away from their parents.

Compounded, of course, by the end of that lovely fantasy that knowledge work can't be offshored.  It was always logically true that knowledge work is the easiest to offshore.  No new factories to build.  All you need is a cheap call-center or a wired world where everyone from accountants to radiologists can do their work with a Hindi, Chinese, Vietnamese or Mexican accent.  Not to mention Hungarian.  My own work of deep transformational healing can be done from anywhere on Earth with a high-speed Internet link.  And not just by highly-skilled and experienced healers like me.  There are companies in the Puget Sound area who are hiring minimally-trained health coaches and hypnotists to work in crowded call-center environments at minimum wage!  Obviously, the quality isn't going to be as high as what I do with my academic degrees, certifications and years of experience, but this is exactly what has been happening to most of the knowledge-worker occupations.

So here is the actual reality:  A college degree is no longer the passport to the middle class, a road out of poverty and a road out of just-getting-by, that it used to be.  That equation is dead.  Unless you have a college degree in something immensely crucially essential and in demand, and which pays well, you may be feeding your mind, but you are wasting your money if you go anywhere other than the least expensive public college you can find.  [American Public University, entirely online, is very cost-effective, and I recommend it as one of a handful of quality for-profit colleges.]

Guidance counselors are still playing the "college for all" song.  So are all the "mean well" politicians.  But that is not the road to follow.  If you have someone in your family who is wondering how to get:

* Solid, steady income that cannot be offshored, ever, and which no recession will ever make a dent in AND
* a huge positive impact on your health because you have that steady security, and you can choose to either run your own business or work for a company AND
* the satisfaction of creation with your own two hands, 

.... then, my friend, you need to get them an apprenticeship in one of the eternal trades: plumbing, auto tech, electrician.  There are a few others, like chef and HVAC, that I can highly recommend, as well as craftsman carpentry.

Don't recoil in horror.

Shop Class as Soulcraft: An Enquiry Into the Value of Work (Matthew Crawford) sounded this alarm some years ago.  In my work with clients, I sound off on the value of creating things with your own two hands, as much as possible throughout the day, as the road to better physical health and to peace of mind.  The anxiety-stilling impact of doing creative work - anything from building a bird house to painting, coloring or crocheting - has been documented in medical studies as well as psychological.  The more you can create over the course of a day, the less tempting baby-back ribs are, the less self-control you have to exert to not eat dessert, the less onerous and more joyful exercise and movement becomes, the less interesting alcohol and tobacco addictions are, and the more "Damn, I'm GOOD!!!!" experiences you have in the course of a day.

Because I will assert to you with no equivocation whatsoever that the clothing you make yourself makes you feel like a queen, the doghouse you create yourself makes you feel as powerful as the Emperor Akbar and the book you write from the heart, or the paint you swirl on a paper or canvas is as sweet to your eyes as a priceless Turner.  

It's as close to the godly act of creation as we mere mortals ever get.  You need that fabulous feeling.  You DESERVE that fabulous feeling.  You can get that fabulous feeling.  

And when your grandkid the plumber arranges for you to never have a 4 hour wait for a stopped drain again, that feeling is priceless, too!  

Start today!

_______________________________________________________________________

Know what else you deserve?  You deserve to have all that procrastinating that you just can't figure out end too.  Every single time you waste time on Facebook instead of making progress toward your deeply felt dreams, you deserve better!  Every single time you decide that you will never succeed at what you want, you deserve better!

Accept my gift of a FREE Getting Unstuck session (not a sales pitch), and discover exactly what has really been holding you back or stopping you from achieving the life you really want.  Visit me at www.soaringdragon.biz, and we'll schedule your free session.  You need more than just "motivation" and inspiration.  You are plenty motivated to get what you want!  You just lack the specific tools to get back the barrier.   And I am very, very good at blockage-demolition!  www.soaringdragon.biz    victoria.leo.reiki@gmail.com

Thinking I Understand You.....

Thinking I understand you .... and I really, truly don't.

This quote is so important to keep in mind.

When I am most inclined to shoot off my mouth, full of certainty that I know what The Truth is - especially if I think I know the answer AND it's really quite simple, if you only...... - this quote flashes into my mind and I shut my mouth.  

How hard it is for this language-loving species of ours to get through to ourselves that sometimes the finest wordsmith on earth really, truly cannot convey an experience. You'll never know what war is like from watching movies, reading books or even listening to people.  You'll never know what a violent physical assault, especially a sexual assault, does to the depths of a soul from listening, reading or watching movies. [And watching movies can cause PTSD in empathetic people, so please don't.]  You'll also never know about parenting from having your nieces for a weekend or from reading, listening or watching.

You'll never know about the awe, the soul-shattering, body-shaking or very quiet transcendence that comes at the top of tall mountains that you climbed yourself.  You can't visit a forest or a waterfall in a video.  You can't imagine the near-extinction event our ancestors survived 60,000 years ago.

We call it humility.  Just an acknowledgement of the shouldn't-be-so-profound truth that we don't know everything, and we usually don't know better than the people who have had the experience.  It's just the human experience.  Until we actually have a Vulcan mind-meld, our experience-sharing ability will always be limited to what language can convey and some of the most important experiences are impossible to completely encapsulate in words.  



I work with entrepreneurs who want to blast through the internal barriers to success, stemming from events of their earlier life.  I also work with other serious professionals and people who aspire to being serious professionals, who are held back by traumas from childhood, previous spouse, military experience, traffic accidents, violence.  It may be formally-diagnosed PTSD or just "barriers" that need blasting away.  I don't pretend to be all-knowing.  I just have some very powerful tools for making the problem go away - permanently.  

You don't have to put up with less enjoyment than you could be having from life.  Contact me for a FREE Getting Unstuck session today.  A real session, not a sales pitch. Be impressed by all my academic degrees, specialty certifications, testimonials and special programs at www.soaringdragon.biz  Then contact me at  victoria.leo.reiki@gmail.com.

Soar With Dragons to Genuine Joy (part 1)

  What do you think is the most popular category for re-pins on Pinterest and for responses and shares on Facebook?  Inspirational sayings, right?  As a culture, we are starving for uplift.  How did we end up in this place?
Part of it is a reflection of economic realities.  Prior to the Reagan years, labor and management had a more equal balance of power.  With the near-demise of labor unions, the real wages of most Americans have dropped sharply, more and more of us have only part-time or contingent work with no benefits, we are working longer and have very little realistic hope of a dignified and comfortable retirement.  Having economic fears and anxieties simply means that you’re aware and paying attention.
Our health is a legitimate concern as well.  For the first time in history, life expectancy and overall health measures of adult Americans are declining.  Our young adult offspring have less hope and opportunities.  [If none of these categories apply to you, have compassion and generosity for the rest of us.]
In a reality where glib “don’t worry; be happy” platitudes are lacking in wisdom as well as empathy, how can someone like me insist that Happiness is the goal of ALL of my programs?  My answer to you:  Blast away all the external Barriers to joy that you possibly can and then learn the Secret Sauce that allows you generate joy internally.
So why am I such a joy advocate?
The first reason is physical health.  Anxiety and worry depresses your immune system, raises your blood pressure (which damages kidneys and arteries and leads to premature death and an end to sexual function), and wrecks your skin.  If you want to live longer, stop wasting money on supplements and potions and practice Reiki, EFT (tapping), meditation and daily movement.
The second is that joy is infectious.  All your other problems start easing, when you approach other people with a glow.  You can talk your bankers into outrageous rule-changes, you can encourage discounts and more-time-to-pay from nearly everyone, you can blind hiring managers to your flaws and weaknesses, and you can convince everyone else to have hope for their future as well.  You can even have the faith to commit to healing of long-festering problems (with me) if your expectation for your future changes.
How do you shift yourself away from dwelling on all your legitimate sources of dismay?
Well, you don’t want to ignore reality.  That is one beef I have with some less-than-wise proponents of Positive Thinking.  Did you know that in the 1950’s, the early advocates of civil rights for women and minorities were accused of fostering disloyalty and even treason because they were bringing up “negative” views of American society?  Don’t ever, ever allow a preference for a positive twist on your situation to morph into suppressing your first duty to tell yourself and others the truth about your life.  Black Lives Matter.  Women’s lives matter.  If this is “negativity,” then thank god for it.  Walk away from anyone who tries to suppress or muzzle your grasp on Truth.
But joy can be part of Truth, too.
Carve out time in your day, every day, for joy.  Joy is your natural state when you are fully present in your body, in your reality.  Stress comes from moment-by-moment time travel to the past and the future.  So -
Ø  Stop rushing from place to place, so you have time to breathe deeply and look up at the clear blue sky or the new daffodils or the cute dog walking your neighbor.
Ø  Have less things on your to-do list, if you have to, but make time for Reiki, tapping (EFT), yoga and meditation.
Ø  Give yourself time to breathe and be still, accomplishing nothing tangible, unless you count better physical health, sharper thinking and – joy.
 As one of my inspirational pins reminds me, “It’s just a bad day, not a bad life.” [On Pinterest – SoaringDragon]
And make time, at least once a week, to be creative.
Ø  Get some inexpensive ($5) watercolors or acrylic craft paints from the craft store, some painting paper or cheap canvases and swirl some colors around.  It’s called abstract art.  Don’t show it to anyone or ask anyone for an opinion.  If you get a negative remark, tell the person to shut up.  When you let go of the desire to “do a good job,” and get others’ approval, not only do you create great art – because “great art” is anything that is an authentic reflection of your feelings and your vision - but you will feel such an intense upwelling of pure joy, it will take your breath away.
Ø  Build something.  Get craft supplies or a kit and make something.  It doesn’t even matter what.  It is the PROCESS of the creation that reduces stress, gives you new insights into your life and makes you bubble with joy.  I used to build furniture.  I still build and create useful objects every week.  You can get addicted to stained glass and mosaic kits.  That is my fun time, and if you try it, you, too, can contemplate giving up your TV.  Go to Michael’s or Joann [never Hobby Lobby], just walk around and when something catches your heart, don’t talk yourself out of it, second-guess or shame yourself.  Buy it. Take it home.  Try it out.  Keep going into mindfulness, to keep the critical voices at bay.
 Ø  Embrace colors.  Color has amazing impacts on your brain.  Painting the prison walls calming colors really does reduce conflict.

Ø  Learn a new skill.  I keep telling people that crochet is so simple, children learn it easily.  I can crochet in the dark, with my eyes closed, while watching scenery go by on a tour bus, because it’s a simple tactile task.  With crochet, you can create stuffed animals, a nifty protector/carrier for your smart phone, purses, clothing, housewares galore.  My smart phone carrier has compartments for phone, charger, USB, earbuds, a credit card and ID.  I can use it as a purse for short trips where I don’t need a gazillion ID cards.  Knitting is fun and leads to the same bumper crop of clothing, gifts and beauty.

There are literally thousands of cool things to learn – and learning something new brings joy.   Sign up for something on Coursera, The Great Courses, Udemy or another learning site.  When you are learning, your pre-frontal cortex lights up, and when it lights up, so do your joy circuits.  And your Pride in Yourself circuits.  You deserve to feel that good.  Learn something.  Konnichi-wa!
 People like the Dalai Lama, who encourage you to seek joy in the midst of your troubles (while also having compassion for your legitimate pain and difficulty), are your true North Star if you want a life that soars.  You deserve to soar with dragons.  Take action today!
 Who Am I?I’ve been where you are, thinking that I could only truly harbor joy in my heart when every desire of my life was being fulfilled.  I learned better, and so can you.  We’ll start by clearing away the fixable external problems. Victoria Leo offers programs guaranteed to blast through your barriers to bring you physical health, peace of mind and soaring goddess energy!  Is your career or dreams of entrepreneurship keeping you up at night?  Do you need freedom from worry and lack of faith in yourself?  Do you need physical health?  Every program also teaches you how to generate joy from within.  There IS a secret, magic formula and I will teach it to you!

Victoria offers both science-based and spiritual solutions that really work! Visit www.soaringdragon.biz and choose the program that will transform your life.  You deserve to soar with dragons! Victoria’s Facebook group Healing Minds, Healing Bodies welcomes you, as does her blog SoaringDragoninJapan. You can find her books on Amazon, Nook, Kobo or at your local bookseller.
   

The Downside of Being Totally Focused on Success, Marketing, Goals

She was sitting by herself at a table while conversations swirled all around her. You know how a person looks when they are in an unfamiliar situation and they don’t have the language skills or social moxie to know how to insert themselves into the social relationships all around them? That’s how she looked, like a person on the other side of a glass wall. When a person is alone with their thoughts and happily so, they look different. After the first full day was over with no change, I wandered over and tried out my 6 words of Japanese. No signal success. So I fell back on my All-Purpose Solution to Life’s Problems That I Otherwise Have No Solution For – I crocheted her something. I put reiki healing symbols into the scarf. We stumbled through a conversation in English and I shared my email address.

Fast forward a month and she ends up in the Emergency room back home in Japan. She clutches my scarf and the reiki symbols pull healing energy to her; she feels the pain recede. Wow! Our email conversations change into deeper sharing of business and personal goals and dreams.

Two years later, she is one of my soul-sisters. She has brought me more business than my wildest dreams.

Why am I so moved by this serendipity?

Simple. All these beautiful personal (which would have been enough, I promise you!) and professional gifts came from a simple, kindly gesture, the sort of thing my mum raised me to do. I don’t expect or need anything other than a momentary smile to come from them. I don’t do them for Results. I just do them because someone I admire and love taught me that doing them is the rent I have to pay for the gift of living and breathing on this earth. I am so, so grateful, down to my toes, for the blessing that this serendipitous soul sister is in my life. My husband thinks that we were guided to that particular date at that particular resort specifically so that I could meet her.

Here’s what worries me: how many other angels have I missed, at times when I was so gripped with My Goals, or the urgent focus on my marketing or other Make It Happen activities, that I missed opportunities to pay my soul rent?

I don’t intend to stop working hard, harnessing brain as well as heart. But I have been reminded today of the importance of stopping, taking a breath, looking around and noticing if there are any needs that I can respond to, without an expectation of ROI. When I do, I am truly living. And every once in a while, without my controlling or directing it at all, I meet an angel. Blessed be.

5 Top Reasons Why You Need to Focus on THIS Form of ME Time

Some of us don’t give ourselves any Me Time at all, because we’re convinced, for family, gender or cultural reasons, that taking time for ourselves is selfish.  Some of us take our relaxation primarily with evening television or by physical pampering like mani-pedis.

I’ve shown you how having Me Time is the least selfish thing you can do for your family and career in another post.  For now, assume that you’re  convinced that you need Me Time and are ready to consider spending anywhere from 20 minutes to an hour on most days, entirely engrossed in your most creative, fun activities with absolutely NO guilt!  How does this sound?  Look what joys await you when you get up from the zoning-out-with-TV habit:

Ø  Diving into library books and magazines on crochet [come sit down next to me!]

Ø  Watching videos, and YouTube – humor, how-tos, history, science, drama, cute kittens.

Ø  Chatting with friends

Ø  Reading, especially about hobbies or interests that engross you (deep-ending in histories of Elizabethan England, Ancient Scythia or WWI)

Ø  Picture-intensive books about travel, garden makeovers or visual hobbies (art, crafts)

Ø  Listening to catchy, upbeat music.

Ø  Listening to audiobooks and podcasts.

Ø  Building or making physical objects, from bat houses and cat houses to human furniture.

Ø  As well as more specialized joys, like feeling the joy of warm water all around you, or taking a virtual bike-ride along the wine valleys of the Loire.

Now THAT’S what I call Me Time!   Are you ready to plunge into all this fun?  Good, because I want to give you the 5 powerful reasons why you want this particular form of Me Time:

Reason #1: Your chances of developing 14 different forms of cancer, plus diabetes, Alzheimer’s and heart disease plummet.  Your blood pressure and blood cholesterol plummet.  You add an average of 7 healthy years to your lifespan!

Reason #2: Your enthusiasm for life and your positive energy will soar, without you having to recite affirmations or engage in any other life changes!

Reason #3:  You’ll get fewer colds, you’ll be less liable to depression even when the days are cold, cloudy or rainy, your sleep will be easier and sounder and you’ll be able to successfully race for the express commute bus.

Reason #4:  Your career will improve because your mind will be calmer, your confidence will skyrocket, your ideas will be more creative and clever, and your increased energy as evidenced in your sparkling eyes and easy smile will convince management that you are overdue for a promotion to more responsibility.  If you own a business, people will be drawn to become customers because of the magnetism of increased confidence, which also manifests in smarter business decisions.

Reason #5:  You will be a kinder, more patient and understanding parent (with less effort), and all your personal relationships, including your marriage, will be happier and calmer.

So HOW do you get all these benefits and enjoy all that Me Time?

Are you ready for the Secret?  Take a deep breath, because it’s really, really powerful

Here it is: Go to the gym, or community center, at least three days/week, and engage in vigorous movement on the other days.

That’s right, it’s exercise! 

I go to the gym to get Me Time to deep-end in imagining new crochet projects while I walk on the treadmill or use a stationary bike.  My clients revel in the guilt-free joys of reading and taking vicarious trips, including the creative lady who bike-trips along the Loire.  She bikes in place and can taste all that lovely wine in her imagination!  Others enjoy guilt-free video or Facebook time as they bicycle or treadmill.  Gyms always pipe in catchy, upbeat music to help keep you moving as long as possible.  Home shops can be hives of vigorous movement as you build and create.  Once a week, hubby and I take a water aerobics class and laugh and giggle together as we leap, jump, and practice-box in the soothing warm water; after class we laugh and catch up with our friends. 

And it’s all guilt-free fun, because you are doing the #1 thing that you need for optimal physical and mental health, a happy life and successful career. 

Are you convinced that you hate exercise?  Want to bet I can’t change your mind?  OK, the deal is on!

Step #1: Sign up for my transformative, fun class here: https://zparkl.com/course/about/transform-your-relationship-with-exercise/.   This class focuses on the most powerful organ in your body – your mind.  It is in your concepts and beliefs that you turn away from the most powerful Me Time on the planet, with all the amazing benefits it brings you.  Exercise literally puts money in your pocket as it adds years to your lifespan.  For $19.95, it’s priced to be super-easy for everyone.  So go ahead, sign up!

Step #2: When you have completed the class, call or email me and book a FREE Getting Unstuck appointment.  If you complete my class, I will DOUBLE your free session to a full hour, and we will get to work demolishing the barriers that are holding you back from all the fun of the most powerful Me Time ever.  That’s my gift  and it’s worth a whole lot more than $19.95.  Maybe we can solve your time problem or blast away your other barriers and hand you your heart’s desire on a plate in one session.  Maybe we will only get part-way there.  The important thing is – you get a $70 value for only $19.95, even if my class doesn’t do for you what it has done for everyone else who’s ever taken it.

Are you willing to bet that I can’t make a Me Time addict out of you?  Sign up now at https://zparkl.com/course/about/transform-your-relationship-with-exercise/.

253-203-6676

www.soaringdragon.biz     

http://soaringdragoninjapan.blogspot.com/

www.linkedin.com/in/victoriacleo     

www.youtube.com/user/humanbio4everyone/videos

www.facebook.com/pages/Soaring-Dragon

www.facebook.com/groups/healingminds
https://www.pinterest.com/victorialeoreik/
https://plus.google.com/+VictoriaLeo/posts