Holding on My Passionately-Felt Goals - Lightly. And a creative brainstorm for business lights gently on my shoulders

Over the past 24 hours, a foot of snow has fallen. There were three waves and I cleared the car and the driveway each time. But the last wave went on heavily for 12 hours at the end of which, I am snowed in. Too much snow for little me and my hand-shovel to clear for a car, down my healing center's long, long driveway. And the street was scraped clear of topsnow, leaving only the ice layer. Not a smart idea to traverse with an ordinary vehicle with normal winter traction, unstudded tires. And the next two nights will be 12 degrees.

In the past, I would have fumed. This time, I cancelled everything, knocked snow off as much of the trees as I could reach, solemnly vowed to buy a 2nd pair of snow boots as soon as the weather clears (my Alaska-capable pair are at a relative's home in another state; it happens), and I am taking the day off from everything but wonder. Photographs. Videos. Painting, drawing and coloring.

Today will be a renewal day, and a creation day. An idea for a new online class came to me as I knocked and shoveled. Just like I tell you - it works. Exercise and wonder, appreciation and exhilarated motion yields divine rewards for my body, my heart - and my business!

All I had to do was stop saying "Dammit" and start saying "Thank you."

See my weight loss classes....

https://www.learnitlive.com/class/9879/Goddess-Connection-to-Drive-Weight-Loss-6-Weeks-to-Happy-and-Healthy

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

It's a good year. No, it's a bad year. No, it's.....

We so blithely talk about having a “good” or “bad” year.  What we mean is a time in which we got what we wanted out of life - we had health, a good marriage, a nice income, low stress – or we had a time that presented many challenges, sometimes intense challenge on one front – exceptional health challenges or frustrating unemployment .  My “bad” years frequently feature being nibbled to death by ducks – dozens of mild to moderate problems, but constant and relentless  - that lead your psyche to believe that the Lords of Creation have it in for you (as a Christian client referred to it) or that life is just a constant struggle with one stumbling block after another.

2015 was a difficult year for me.  2016 is shaping up to have lots of challenges as well.  I lost 5 weeks of my life to a serious bronchitis attack and now my beloved sister is riddled with cancer and breathing through her last weeks, the latter hitting with almost no warning.   Why did my goddess, angel and animal spirit cards, not to mention my Akashic consults, all tell me that this was going to be a “good” year?  Are they wrong – or nuts?

Maybe the latter is closest to the truth.

I think the disconnect can be explained by a story from one of the Buddhist scriptures, which I will paraphrase and shorten.  A farmer had a young son who was an excellent helper.  That’s good, his neighbors told him.  Then the boy broke his leg and it set poorly; he would always have a limp.  That’s bad, his neighbors said.  Years pass and the nation is at war.  All the young men are conscripted for military service.  All the fathers lose their young male labor and have to work hard in the fields.  Except our farmer.  Because the boy limps, he is excused from military service.  That’s good, the neighbors say. The young man does not die in the war and remains to help work on the farm, albeit at a reduced capacity.

This constant mental categorizing event outcome as “good” or “bad” is the major cause of our life’s dissatisfaction.  If things aren’t good or bad, but just are, we can move on to maximizing the value of what we have, like the farmer.  His emotions weren’t up and down, fluctuating with the “story” that his mind created about reality, like his neighbors were doing.  Some people read the story and think that the moral is that you have to wait to decide if something is good or bad, because of course the story ends up “good” – the young man does not die.  But the real meaning is much more profound.

So what about me?  Maybe I can be very sad, weep and journal and be hugged, but my sister’s untimely death isn’t “bad,” per se, just very, very sad.  Maybe it just is.  Maybe the bronchitis just is.  [Compare this with “the bronchitis is actually good because it got me to cut back on the number of overseas trips I was planning for 2016, which were exhausting to think about, much less do” which is the psych cognitive-behavioral approach, and a very good one it is, too, in getting us to see another possibe interpretation of the available facts.  But with all its virtues, it is only turning bad into good, not walking away from bad and good as categories, period.]

So I don’t think all those cards and Akashic messages were wrong.  It was my interpretation of them that was off-base.  They didn’t say I would have a “good” year.  They said that many blessings were coming to me.  It was I who mistranslated that into “nothing sad is going to happen.”   When I take a more balanced look at the year, the blessings – so many more than in 2015 – stand out in stark relief.   My gosh, what a shower of blessings, in business, in health and in new friendships and spiritual relationships.   Not nothing but blessings of course.  But blessings there are.  And all of it – without being labeled good, bad or both/neither – just is.

If you ask me how the year is going, I may make you comfortable by saying, “Many blessings,” because small-talk doesn’t require philosophy or truth.  But know that I know what kind of year I’m having.  I’m having a year in which I am alive, and all of it just is.

Have Courage and Be Kind: What do you do if you didn't have a Golden Childhood?

 Have you seen the 2015 version of Cinderella?  Wonderful movie isn’t it?  The theme – Have courage and be kind, and all will be well – stunned me when I saw the movie in the theatre, because it is exactly what my mother taught me.

Think about it.  So much of what “happens” to us is really the result of a lack of courage on our part.  We stay in harmful situations way too long, allowing ourselves to be more deeply hurt, because we are afraid of the unknown that lies outside of the Known But Awful.  We stay in jobs.  We stay in relationships.  We let ourselves stay connected to toxic people of all types.  We stay in toxic places, that suck our souls dry.  Why?  Lack of courage.

We fall into mistakes because we lack the courage to thoroughly examine a proposition before we commit to it.  We tell ourselves that we are following our heart or our intuition, but what we’re really doing is telling the universe that we don’t matter, that looking out for ourselves with a minimal Due Diligence is wrong, because we don’t have the right to stop a slick sales pitch in its tracks and examine it very, very closely.  If we really mattered to ourselves, we wouldn’t care who got pissed off.  We would move toward what is good for us, move away from what isn’t healthy, and smile kindly while we say “No, thank you,” which is a complete sentence. 

Ella exhibited both kinds of courage.  And many kinds of kindness.

And most lovely of all, the movie reminds people like me, who work every day to uncover, clean out and repair the effects of childhood damage in beautiful adult souls, of the importance of what parents and teachers do.  If you are a parent or teacher, don’t ever believe that the hard work you do every day is thankless.  It isn’t.  Adult Ella was able to endure her harsh young adulthood of emotional abuse and neglect because her core belief in her own value and goodness was never breached.  That “golden childhood” of parental love, appreciation and delight inoculated her, for a long time, against the slings and arrows of an outrageous fortune.  The wickedest adults could not make her bitter, angry and resentful, her soul shone in the darkest times, because she had a bone-deep belief in and memory of love.  Her youngest years protected her soul from shriveling under the heaviest hammer blows of adversity.  THAT soul is what the prince/king could not live without, and which gave him the courage to “become his own man.” 

That shining soul is the gift that those of us who’ve had a golden childhood carry with them, the armor that keeps them safe forever after.  The rest of us have to work harder – for years or decades, depending on the damage – to build that same deep, shining soul, that has courage and kindness as its north star.  When we do, we don’t have to battle against resentment, envy and uncertainty any more.  When we know, at the deepest level of our hearts, that we are lovable, then whether others do or don’t doesn’t determine our own behavior.  And then we become the hero/ine of our own glorious story, inspiring everyone around us.  We become the candle that lights up all the dark, scared candles around us. 

If you wonder if you’ll ever have Ella’s kindness and courage, know that there are healers like me in the world, who have the skills and the determination to help you become a person who can light candles all around you, a person with a genuine, rock-solid certainty of their own value, and the deepest humility about themselves.  You can do it.  We all can.  For those of us without a golden childhood, it can be a long, hard trek, but the mountaintop is reachable.  We really can all be Ella.  Blessed be. 

You Don't Need a Date for Valentine's Day!

Avoid the Short Cuts that Don't Work. Sometimes Truth is just Truth.

We've all heard the joke about the efficiency expert who thinks waiting 9 months for a woman to produce a child is a process that can be improved; just get 9 women to work at it for a month!

Doesn't work that way.

Neither does the new craze for shorter, more intense gym (especially weights) workouts.  The reasoning goes that we are all stressed for time, why waste time?  So far, so good.  But you have to understand that some truths are Truths; they are not a matter of personal opinion, and you cannot use willpower, vision boards or any other mechanism to overcome them.  

Good:  Warm up with a treadmill or other slow, rhythmic, aerobic moves for at least 10 minutes.  Then do your shorter, more intense workout, realizing that intense HAS to use perfect form and correct placement of limbs and weights, because if you are too heavy or too intense and you make even a small mistake in placement, you are going to get injured.  Injured removes you from workouts anywhere from two days to the rest of your life. 

Bad: Jump right in and start pushing and pulling at high intensity.  Muscles and fascia that have been over-stretched or over-tense during hours of work and worry, usually in the same position, are really ripe for a major injury.

So - impatience can kill you, just like your parents told you oh so long ago.

Take your impatience and treat it like the problem that it is.  Breathe deeply for a full minute.  Allow your muscles and connective tissue to relax a bit.  Pray.  Reiki.  Meditate.  State into the abyss until the urge to think that you can overrule the physical rules of nature, what your physical self needs, dissipates and you are returned to sane, rational humanity.  

If you only have 10 minutes, don't go to a gym.  Walk up and down the stairs at your job or home, at a walking pace.  Don't run.  You only have 10 minutes and you're not loosened up yet.  Or do yoga.  Cats and cows, boys and girls.  You can do it in a dress, in a cubicle, so you can surely do it at home. 

If you only have 20 minutes, walk on a treadmill to warm up for ten, then do intervals of rapid or hard work, with a slower pace. for another 10.  Cool down by walking for a few minutes.  

Any strategy is better than going from overstretched and over-tense straight into an intense, especially weights, workout. 

ANY time you feel "I have to" preceding something that violates the laws of physics or biology, know that as a signal to change your faulty thinking, not those natural laws.  

Two plus two will always, always equal four, not twenty four, no matter how busy or important you are, or think you are.  I permanently crippled my hands by exactly this kind of crazy decision-making, and it took me five years of rehab and you don't want to know how much pain and suffering to regain most of my function (and life), but the life lesson has left me with a permanent twerk toward a sane approach to facts.  Truth exists, apart from opinion.  Much of what we think of as fact, is truly opinion - but not everything.  

Slow down.  Breathe.  Make a sane assessment of what is truly possible (Truth) and commit to that.  Let go of everything else

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     

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The Real Cost of Over-Focusing on What is Lost

My cats are incredible teachers. They teach me patience - because they haven't got any. They teach me not to let my heart get hardened by betrayal and unfairness - because their hearts are always open.  And this month they reminded me of the importance of looking outward and forward.  The only part of my life that wasn't turned upside down by a remodel was my office. [That awful fate comes next month, god help me. ] So while the abode was in chaos the cats spent the day in a large open crate on the back porch. They had vistas of forest to behold, squirrels to squint at, birds to bedevil.

        What did they do? None of the above. Orono curled up into a ball and refused to emerge.  Gabriel spent the entire day staring inward at my office, intermittently meowing. There were birds eating from the porch railing (seed had fallen from the feeder above) not two feet from his head - and he is a mighty hunter and a great bird-watcher, ordinarily - and he was staring and crying fitfully, focused on what he had lost and no longer had. What a dork, is that what you're thinking? I was overwhelmed with compassion for them both, poor souls, because I know how many times I have done the same, sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for hours or days or (ouch) years.



The temptation to bemoan the lost past is so strong.   We know the value of what we have lost.   We don't really know the value of what we have to gain. Our amygdala has been set by evolution to the "worry about it" setting, and we DO, as a matter of biology, tend to come down on the side of caution when approaching the unknown.   With good reason, if you have read Man the Hunted and know the reality of the lives our ancestors faced.  It's darned inconvenient now, though, when we are truly safe most of the time.  Only meditation and other inner retuning can tame that automatic fear-caution filter. 

 So, my poor kitties are a model and teacher for me once again.  I look at them and resolutely focus on the future.... letting go of losses and resolutely lighting candles to dispel the darkness.


[This is adapted from Chapter 16 of my upcoming title Red State, Blue Heart, due for release in June 2016.  Want to get an announcement of the release?  Email victoria. leo.reiki@gmail.com.]

https://zparkl.com/course/about/transform-your-relationship-with-exercise/

6 Tools and Techniques to Make Healthy Self-Love a Reality

For some people, brought up by caring parents who wanted us to be generous and humble adults, the difference between healthy self-love and unhealthy selfishness, arrogance and narcissism, was not made clear to us.

In consequence, we grew to adulthood happily prepared to take care of everyone around us, be a rock of care and concern for all our loved ones, while relying on the attention of others to see to it that our own nurturing - emotional feeding - gets done.

That's not the way things are supposed to roll.  With due respect to our well-intentioned parents, hoping to steer us away from self-absorption, they missed the healthy balance point.

Self-love, so far from being a character flaw, is the foundation upon which every other healthy ediface of adult love and character is built.

Let me explain what healthy self-love is, and give you some specific techniques and tools that you can use to build this capacity within yourself.  It's never too late!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GKQe5VFm0gc

4 Steps to More Powerful – and Happier - Problem-Solving

A seminar attendee asked me yesterday what I considered the biggest blind spot in the human soul.  What would you say?  There are so many amazing candidates for that honor.  Close your eyes, breathe deeply for a few moments to let your heart soar, and watch all of your own candidates bubble up to the surface.

What did I answer?  What was “top of mind” for me, and what I said, was that we forget that humanity was never, ever designed to be a solitary problem-solver.  As far back as we go in the hominin lineage, and back much, much farther than that, we see groups of people constantly working together, healing each other, giving each other a hand up, seamlessly shifting from give to take, moment by moment.  Group living conveys so much benefit, from safety from predators to lowered cortisol levels and improved immune system function.  Today, the “predators” are rent increases, medical crises, car accidents and malevolent co-workers, but the same advantages are there. 

Except that we’re not taking advantage of what we evolved for.  Modern US culture creates people who grow up with the bizarre belief that they are supposed to solve their problems alone, figure out their dilemmas alone and rely on their personal resources alone.  THAT, I said, is the biggest blind spot in the American soul.  We evolved for alliances, and we stubbornly, insistently, cut ourselves off from our own strongest power and fastest road to success.*   So many of us have rebelled against the dangers of dependency and have gone to the other extreme, because those are the two choices our culture allows us.  Our souls want to be interdependent within a reciprocating system of allies.

The next time you have a dilemma, keep this blind spot in mind.  Here are some hints:

Hint #1:  You could hire someone to do some things for you.  You need to move, so you hire some people and a truck.  You need a stump dug and instead of putting your 50-year-old back out, you get a moonlighting young neighbor to do it.  Your small business needs bookkeeping and you hire someone.  When you hire someone, you send cash-energy circulating in the world, you allow people to feed and support themselves and their families and you tie connect yourself to the wider world.

Hint #2:  You swap with someone.  I don’t have the physical abilities to take care of my ¾ acre healing center entirely on my own.  I am a truly amazing healer of minds and bodies.  Put the two together.  

The swap might not even be obvious as a swap.  I spent 18 months in a weekly cleaning session every Saturday afternoon for a friend who was recovering from serious surgery.  He got the physical help he needed and I got two hours of stimulating intellectual discussion and deep philosophical insights.  That was a fair swap.  When I lived in North Carolina, I had all the neighbor kids at my house for a monthly Girls Night Out for their single moms, a nine-month swap instigated by me and enjoyed by all.

Hint #3:  You could receive a gift.  I spent two hours today sending a friend on her first Reiki and hypnotherapy journey to end her anxiety and insomnia.  I enjoyed the thrill of a really amazing healing session and so did she.  So many people have reached out a hand and pulled me out of mires, over the course of my life, and the same is true for all of us.  The universe contains both challenges and gifts.  Ask for the resources you need, from individuals and from public options.  Ask gently and if help isn’t possible from one source, keep asking until you have the resources you need to thrive.  Those who can’t help you directly can send you their prayers.  Breathe deeply and let the prayer-energy fill your soul and give you the courage to keep going.

Hint 4:  You could borrow or repurpose a resource someone isn’t using.  So many times, when I have been tunnel-visioning on a problem, someone will come up with a resource that could be repurposed to give me what I need now – either my resource or theirs.

The only failure is the choice to turn inward and believe that you are an entire universe.  You aren’t and never can be.  Your DNA is screaming for you to expand your vision.  The resources to solve your dilemmas exist.  After you have brainstormed, repurposed and juggled your own resources, expand your heart again and see what the wider energetic world might have for you as a swap, a purchase, a repurpose, a borrow or a gift.

Don’t fail.

*Yes, I really talk like this.  On our first email exchange, before our first in-person date, my future husband said that I looked a lot like his step-daughter.  Sure, sez I, because 60,000 years ago, massive volcanic eruptions killed off the entire human species except for 2000 individuals in East Africa, so all the 8 billion of us alive today are the descendants of a very small gene pool, so of course lots of us look alike.  I don't try to be a nerd. It just leaps out of my throat on its own.

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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.