The Road to Happiness - Right Through Your Bucket List

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

Seek Happiness, yes! Insist on character and integrity in yourself, yes! They go together, yes, yes!!

 Character, integrity and self-control: Starting to look kind of attractive, actually

Do more of what makes you happy.  It’s so easy for this to become a joke, an invitation to self-indulgence and hedonistic indifference.  I was struck this week at how American culture has shifted from character values that I grew up with.  A woman that I gifted with a $100 piece of exercise equipment complained to the Facebook group admin because the equipment didn’t fit under her bed.  Oh, waaah.  [I mistook the vendor and posted it wrong, then corrected it.  Hint: the originally-described equipment wouldn’t have fit under her bed, either.  And since when am I or anyone else responsible for something fitting under your bed?  Bring it back or otherwise deal with it.]  

How I was raised: if someone gives you something as a gift, the ONLY acceptable response is “Thank you.”  Then shut up, completely, permanently and forever.  Even if it’s the wrong size, the color is horrible and it doesn’t fit under your bed.  You don’t pretend to be grateful to the gifter’s face and then spew complaints to an authority-figure third party or the rest of the family or Facebook Friend cohort behind your gifter’s back. 

People used to think less of you for that kind of weasely behavior.  No more.  And maybe that’s a mistake.  Maybe we want to take our culture back in the direction of character.  Maybe we want to embrace actions of integrity – like talking TO people, not ABOUT people.  Maybe we want to deal with it a bit more and whine a lot less.

I know that after the Great Recession, in which I and millions of other Americans lost our shirts, with a weak, contingent-labor-loving employment paradigm, and about 1% of the previous level of economic and emotional safety, a lot of us are very, very frightened, to our cores.  Frightened of outcomes that would be unthinkable in any other advanced First World country, like living on the street.  And when people are scared, and know that they have no power to get back at their oppressors, they look for the nearest easy, weak target for their rage.  They find that easy, weak target in people less able than themselves – people who are financially struggling even more (and can’t fight back effectively), who are disabled, who are a minority color or religion or culture.  Or even just the nice people like me who are kind, generous and not as sly and political as they are.

What if we all just collectively cut it out?

Do more POSITIVE THINGS that make you happy.  Color with your kids, then put them to bed early and relax with a book for an hour.  Make nice with your neighbors who like you kids and will supervise their homework while you go to the gym, listen to Taylor Swift and improve your health.   Find the “free museum” day and take yourself off for a date with joy.  As the frustrations of the day build up, stop, take five deep, slow breaths and visualize tropical paradises or some of your life’s happy memories.  You have them, you know you do! 

Do this enough times and you won’t come home ready to spew lies and vitriol on your fellow-travelers through the travails of life.

Do more of what makes you genuinely happy.  Kicking the dog – or your fellow struggling humanity – will never do it.  My mother taught me to have courage and be kind a half-century before Disney turned it into a cliché.  Do more of that – and you will be happy.  

Having trouble being happy?  Call for a FREE Getting Unstuck session!  No sales pitch, a free roadmap to how to make life less fraught and more fun.  You deserve to be happy....

Call 253-203-6676 or email victoria.leo.reiki@gmail.com.   www.soaringdragon.biz

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Digging Deeper Into the Terror Attacks, A Brilliant, Simple Explanation for American Disengagement

What We Miss When We Jump….

One of the key teachings of all the wisdom traditions concerns the dangers of jumping to conclusions on the basis of inadequate information.  Our limbic systems, bless them, never, ever think that they have inadequate information.  What we call a capacity for critical thinking is merely a limbic system that has been trained to stop, loop in the prefrontal cortex, and then and only then step lightly to a not-deeply-held conclusion.  Everyone who has taken the training with me is glad they did. 

I’ve felt for some time that the answer to “why didn’t Americans get emotionally involved with the East African embassy bombings?” wasn’t simple racism.  I knew that the knee-jerk “they’re all racists” explanation for why there hasn’t been a Je suis Ankara movement to complement the solidarity Americans felt with Parisians after the terrorist attack, was missing a core truth.  But simply knowing that someone else is engaging in simplistic thinking isn’t the same as being brilliant oneself. 

Then I read an article in APU Insider [In Homeland Security contributor Sylvia Longmire] that supplied the brilliant missing link. [I got my 2nd MA at APUS, great school.]  The reason why Americans are emotionally wrought about Paris is because we either have been there, someone close to us has been there and connected us to it vicariously or we dream of going there (mostly because – again – it is someplace that others we know have been).  Few Americans have been to, or wish they could go to, Dar es Salaam or Ankara.  Psych research clearly shows that a huge part of emotional connection is familiarity.  When something is just a point on a map, we humans don’t feel connected.  But places that feel “familiar,” we care about.  [Advertisers understand this: even if you rationally don’t want to, your limbic system, where decisions are made, feels more positive about products you have heard about repeatedly.  The familiar has a positive vibe to it.]  

** My earlier post misattributed the brilliant idea.  Pls forgive my error.

Sign up for a FREE Getting Unstuck session with powerful coach and transformation guide Victoria C. Leo, at www.soaringdragon.biz

The Most Important Mind Shift for Driving Real Change

We are all prone to this. But we have to battle it. Fear what is dangerous, certainly.  

But - to change your present reality into one of joy, freedom and accomplishment, breathe deep, gather your courage, connect to your spiritual sources of strength and protection - and step forward....  

Focus on what you will gain, to reduce the human fear of the unknown....  

All you need to give up is what is harming you, not serving you, giving you temporary pleasure and long-term damage.

Classes for May - Transform Your Life

The Spiritual Path to Loving Exercise and Veggies [Yes, you will!]

4/30 10 AM;  5/21 2 PM

So many Americans hate exercise and won't do it. Not MY clients! They have learned the spiritual path to genuinely (no gimmicks) loving to feel their bodies move, and loving how they feel with veggies. We never have trouble making time for the things we love to do, and the things we love to eat. No willpower needed for me to spend an hour creating things with crochet, or photographing distant planets and galaxies. I love it! 

You love things, too. And you don't have to use any willpower to get yourself to do these things, do you?

In this one hour class, I will start you on the road to LOVING your body, moving, and loving the taste of really good, healthy food. The spiritual path is unrelated to any religion or faith. Your spirit core is where your deepest desires live. Not the substitutes that you crave, because your life is too stressful and too filled with have-to, and not enough true joy. Not that. Your spirit core will lead you to the vision of yourself, and the decisions about your life that will transform your life - and your surface desires that now are driving your life in unhealthy directions.

You can love exercise as I've learned to love it - because it is a time of loving myself and my family, preparing to do my very best as a healer, and having fun. In a typical week, I joyfully splash and play in water, deep-end in wonderfully creative dreams of crochet and acrylic artwork, and touch the deepest core of my soul. It's a wonderful life! 

No matter how many hats you are currently juggling and how many years it's been since you had anything other than popcorn and TV for yourself, if you take this class, you will be setting forth on the Hero's Journey to Health.

After the class, you'll have the option of discounts on the entire transformation program. www.soaringdragon.biz

https://www.learnitlive.com/class/8844/The-Spiritual-Path-to-LOVING-Exercise-Veggies-Yes-you-will#

Meet Your Biological Ancestors

5/3 6PM;  6/3  10 AM

Within Homo sapiens itself, you have over 10,000 generations of ancestors! Your people domesticated plants and animals, migrated across continents and created gorgeous works of art. Moving back farther in time, there are thousands more - the people who first tamed fire, developed language and created home bases to nurture babies and elders.

Getting in energetic connection to all these generations, connects you to their characters, their struggles, their triumphs and their tragedies. Connecting empathetically to these DNA contributors to who YOU are, allows you to question your own deeply-held beliefs about your life, deepen your empathy for yourself and others, increase your pride in your own courage and virtues.

Clients have reported everything from better sleep to losing unwanted weight after completing the day-long class that includes both biological and past life ancestors. The clients who beta-tested this shorter version reported significant shifts in their inner landscape. You will too! Join us live for interaction and join us via recording if you can't.

Pre-requisites

A sincere desire to understand yourself, and a willingness to be transformed, in mind, body, spirit and soul.

https://www.learnitlive.com/class/8591/Meet-Your-Biological-Ancestors#

The 5 Magic Components of Your Successful Self-Care Program (Starting with Self-Love)5/10 6PM;  5/21 3:30PM

How many times have you tried and failed to launch a permanent self-care program?  The fault is not in you or in your stars.  All you need is the RIGHT tools and the RIGHT incentives.  You are guaranteed success!

This class will introduce you to the 5 must-have components of your successful self-care program, and help you in putting your personalized plan together - something flexible enough to get you through "bad days" and powerful enough to generate serious change in your health and wellbeing.  You CAN transform your life, no matter how many barriers you see on the road to self-care.

You owe it your yourself - and your family and your business/career - to invest an hour in learning these 5 components, so transformative, they feel truly magical!     www.soaringdragon.biz

https://www.learnitlive.com/class/8843/5-Magic-Components-of-Your-Successful-Self-Care-Program-Starting-with-Self-Love

Harness Your Goddess Energy To Stop Self-Sabotage

5/11 5:30PM; 5/12 6PM

Have you been trying to stop your self-sabotage and generate more confidence for your life, your business or your family? Not working, huh? STOP beating yourself up! You are using the wrong tools, that's all.

In this workshop, you will connect with your inner goddess energy (not associated with any religion or faith!), and watch the real barriers to your successful completion of your goals start to crumble before your eyes. Take effective action against the barriers that are holding you back.

Enrollment is limited for the highest-quality experience.

https://www.learnitlive.com/class/8839/Harness-Your-Goddess-Energy-to-Stop-Self-Sabotage

The Secret Ingredient of All Successful Transformations

5/16 6PM

We all have barriers that we would like to blast away.  Why is it that some of us succeed and most don't?  What do those "lucky" winners have that YOU don't?  It's simple!  No matter whether it is a new career or a healthier, slimmer body, a new love life or freedom from addictions and habits, a better handle on adult ADHD or a new freedom from the effects of past trauma, all successful transformations rely on one special ingredient - that coaching can't give you and therapy doesn't want to.  Come explore the Secret Ingredient and discover how to use it to blast through the barriers keeping you from your heart's desire in 2016!

https://www.learnitlive.com/class/7551/The-Secret-Ingredient-of-All-Successful-Transformation

Claim Your Power, Claim Happiness

5/19  6PM

It looks like you have multiple goals, but you don't really. All of them - money, family, business- are about happiness that comes from getting What You Want. So first we will explore how to remove external barriers to happiness.

Then we put power back into your hands. All these years, you thought that power to be happy was "out there." It's not. 

Sure, it makes sense to remove as much of the external barriers to happiness as possible (see Magic Ingredient and other classes that spend an hour on just that). But what do you do about the situations that just stubbornly refuse to change? Do you have to be unhappy because your mate doesn't materialize and wealth doesn't manifest? 

No simplistic "don't worry; be happy" jive here! This is the real road to taking back the power that you always had, Dorothy. You don't even need ruby slippers to wield THIS power. This is the infinite power within you.

All you need to tap all that power is courage to confront what you have been doing to sabotage yourself, to prevent yourself from taking this power. Do you have the courage? 

On the other side of the river is a power no one can take away from you! 

https://www.learnitlive.com/class/8840/Claim-Your-Power-Claim-Happiness

Retrain Your Immune System: Smarter Cells, Healthier Life

5/16  12 noon; 5/21 10 AM

Your immune system is a complex of different cells and messenger molecules that try to identify both external invaders and internal malfunctions (proto-cancer), coordinating with each other for your best health. The stem cells that trained in your babyhood start to malfunction over time, leading to both an upsurge in invaders getting through and also mistakes leading to auto-immune diseases.

The bad news: medications and herbals can only boost or suppress the whole system. To get an auto-immune disease to calm down, you suppress the whole immune response and you get sick more often. What do you do??

You CAN teach your immune cells to be more discerning! Through the power of advanced hypnotherapy and specific imagery, you can calm a cytokine storm without coming down with the flu. You can boost your NK cells in their cancer-killing work without stimulating other T and B cells to the point where they start looking for enemies that don't exist (and make you ill).

Come get a sample of the process before you sign up for a complete program. You CAN have more power over your immune response!

You will have an opportunity for discounts on the complete Retrain Your Immune System (www.soaringdragon.biz) as well as an 18-hour MP3 on How Your Body Really Works, explaining all these immune system components and interactions in detail.

https://www.learnitlive.com/class/8842/Retrain-Your-Immune-System-Smarter-Cells-Healthier-Life

The Spiritual Path to Permanent Weight Control: Blasting Through the Barriers

5/19 6:15 PM

Have you been struggling with your weight? Does it seem impossible to get results that last? Are you TIRED of counting calories and constantly telling yourself NO? Do you feel like a failure? [You're not. Your strategies are ineffective, that's all.]

Trying to change your life with only willpower and "inspiration" is a losing strategy. It will work for a while, but it can't transform your life. The complete Spiritual Path program WILL! The key to success is using the right tools, in the right way, consistently and with intentionality. Once you have your first experience of blasting through the barriers that are keeping you from success, you will never look back - never return to the old, ineffective strategies. 

Spiritual means a connection to the transcendent, which has an infinite number of forms. Religious means adherence to practices, rituals and dogmas. This class harnesses spirituality to unlock the door to PERMANENT weight control.

If you have been able to achieve permanent weight control, great; keep doing what you're doing. If you haven't, it's time to admit that what you're doing isn't working for you, long-term, and commit to a new program that really works.

Join a group of dedicated seekers who are tired of the old shame and blame game and are ready to combine effective action with joy. You can do it! This is the road to success.

https://www.learnitlive.com/class/8440/The-Spiritual-Path-to-Permanent-Weight-Control-Blasting-Through-the-Barriers#

Just had a breakthrough? Know your power? Consider this.....

Reframing Insults Puts Power Where It Belongs - In YOUR Pocket

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?  

Getting angry at a jerk is usually a "weak" response.  Realizing that your respect and integrity will never be diminished, in discerning eyes, by the actions of a jerk gives you the emotional space to take a breath and make a non-attacking response.  Truly, emotionally realizing that the jerk is incompetent, not powerful, defangs the attacker in the eyes of your reactive limbic system.  This is easier with a hypnotherapy journey, which my client used, but if you devote time to it, you can reprogram your deep heart and soul on your own. [Call me.  It's shorter, more fun and more comprehensive if a pro does it with you.]

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 – and not be motivated to learn! - but the exasperated bad manners are gone.  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 and ignore her incompetence.  

His stress level (and all the bad effects that brings) is way down, so it’s another example of how healing minds heals bodies as well.  Call me for a free Getting Unstuck session.

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

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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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New Year's Resolution 4: Not My Circus, Not My Flying Monkeys

I bought a plaque a few years ago: it says NOT MY CIRCUS.  NOT MY MONKEYS.  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 of trying to control absolutely everything in the whole wide world, including all the outcomes of your life.

> 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 circuses from poisoning YOUR peace of mind is probably the #1 challenge of our lives.  

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 of your peers, 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