"Navigating Turbulent Times"

We are getting ready for my children, their pets, and their partners, to join us for Thanksgiving.  I love family "home for the holidays" and when they bring company-animal or human-even better!  Our house benefits from a thorough cleaning, the gourmet cooks confer for menus, and the fall flora shares it’s beauty in floral arrangements.

I am grateful for a holiday that reminds us to offer gratitude for the gifts of life. Life can be overwhelming at times and it can be tough some days to stay focused on the positive. Taking a break to enjoin with community in celebration, is restorative and taking time to be with loved ones in celebration is critical for balancing out life's challenges.

Whether it's the weather, the economy, the environment, the age-old conflicts, life is turbulent these days.  There is no doubt heavy lifting is being demanded of humans and my personal experiences with challenges have me optimistic about humans being up to the challenges....challenges requiring our faith, trust, and understanding of ourselves, our infinite possibilities, and each other.

Here are some tips and tools for navigating our turbulent times:

* Learn to embrace "different"....different choices, different beliefs, different conclusions.  When we long for our life to be different yet continue to choose the same as always, we are simply doing what I call “circling the drain”. Begin to make "different" your BFF and fasten your seatbelt for how quickly things in your life begin to change!

* Lead life more through the wisdom of your heart..... and less through your mind's desire for control. Become honest with yourself where you rationalize and compromise your integrity, stop doing so, and watch your self-respect will take off!  Living with integrity to your heart and soul is priceless, and living with integrity creates faith in yourself and life!

* Discern, decipher, and delight.....in the abundant guidance and support being offered by your heart and soul for challenging times. Life will brings you both challenges and the means for meeting your challenges. When you learn to tune into-and trust-the wisdom and guidance of your body, your emotions, and what shows up in your day, life goes from scary and random to delightful and amazing!

* We all need a village.... to be healthy, to be happy, to realize our infinite possibilites. The myth of the rugged individual is just that.....a myth. The lie of strength through independence is being updated by the truth of strength through honoring your interdependence with others. The presence of others-whether by choice or "coincidence",  not only helps you get by in life,  relationships bring learning your staying "safely in control" cannot deliver!

Knowledge alone cannot meet the challenges and changes your life is bringing to you; there is more information available than ever before in human history and our world is in crisis. Learning to honor the deep wisdom of your heart and soul is no longer optional, it is the new normal of smart, safe, and able. Creating a dynamic relationship with the resources and wisdom of your infinity will deliver what your mind alone cannot......the miracles your life and your world are awaiting.

"Embrace More of Your Mystery"

One of the unexpected delights of motherhood was how the curiosity and delight my children brought to each day spilled over into my life as well. Mystery was not a challenge nor the unknown of the world experienced as a threat. Mystery instead was an invitation to engage and enjoy, to discover and delight,  to be curious and creative. Waking up to a new day of life was reason enough to wake up excited. It is this quality of innocence combined with fearlessness that Buddhists term "beginnner's mind"and Jesus talked about as being more powerful in reaching "heaven" than the power of accumulated wealth.

With time and learning from those older than ourselves, being realistic, practical, logical, and safe became how we met our days instead.  Choices that with the passing of time and with the grace of awareness, we realize are false gods for happiness and satisfaction in our life. What feeds our soul we often mete out to ourselves in portions miserly, while being generous in our efforts to avoid life's mysteries.  No wonder we can find ourselves depressed, despairing, and denying what we love in life!

So if you would like to engage the gifts of mystery more and dispense with being less than happy, here are my suggestions:

1. Schedule time each week to be lazy, be unavailable, be non-productive for an hour or two. Becoming anxious just reading these words?  Then you may have a case of  joie de vivre challenge. Solution? Ask a friend to partner with you for scheduling time off the hamster wheel of tasking your life away.

2. Studies too plentiful to reference here illustrate again and again how living like a "human doing"can kill you. Even our logical, realistic, practical scientific studies shows how essential relaxation and enjoyment are for the health of your mind, body, and soul.  Seems as though it actually IS logical and practical to take time to play and daydream, especially for grown ups.

3. When your realize what brings you pleasure or joy, don't rationalize it away nor defend it to others......embrace it. Being part of a family tribe is primal and being part of a tribe brings the challenge of claiming your sovereignty and integrity. So while we all have family patterns that at times challenge us, embracing the power of being a grown up grants you the ability to pivot patterns that pain you into empowered choices for joy and for living what has heart and soul for you.

4. Commit to daily care of your soul; it is as essential for your health and happiness as the self-care you offer your body and mind.  Learn to meditate and if you don't like one way of meditating, try another, for there are many many ways to meditate. Meditation's effects on developing parts of our brain other than the limbic-fight or flight-brain are well-documented, making meditation essential for our changing and challenging world. And the care of your soul benefits your body and mind as well as no longer being at the behest of your primal reactions in life.  (Check out the book "How God Changes Your Brain" for current results on meditation's effects on brain development)

Now while I am poking at the over-scheduled, information-overloaded, task-oriented world we live in, the results of to-do lists that never end is no laughing matter. When we value "doing" more than engaging the mystery of ourselves and life, we suffer in health, happiness, and wholi-ness.  There is an upper limit to the return of "doing" and truly no limit to the benefits of engaging our mystery and majesty of being.  (Did you know the word "hue-man"derives from Latin and means "the radiant being"?)

My loving challenge to you is this.... once a day, go from tending your to-do list to taking an action for the sole purpose of being happy.  Not an action you can justify for a purpose practical, not an action you can justify in service of another....simply an action for the singular purpose of making youself feel good....period.  Delight again in the sensual experiences of a body, revel in the deliciousness of your physical senses, and allow more of the awesome sensory experiences offered with every breath you take.

Can "woo woo" really change your life?

My journey with “woo woo” and it’s power practical, began when my
health crashed while working as an architect for Boston hospitals.
Only 23, I was looking at the diagnosis of infertility, colitis, kidney
and gallbladder disease making the choices for my life.  Grace stepped
in, I agreed to manage a hospital project in India, and the ensuing
choices and experiences changed my health as well as my understanding
of challenge as well.  The rest is history as they say-3 children au
natural, organs all accounted for, and results at yearly check-ups my
physician marvels as being decades younger!

Our ability to create as humans is awesome, real, and quite scientific
as well.  We have been taught to distrust ourselves and our abilities
and to believe mystery, magic, and miracles are only for those lucky or
special enough. Beliefs are powerful and in case you missed the memo,
our world is evolving in historic and life-changing ways.  Why would we
humans-daughters and sons of the Earth-not be part and parcel of the
evolutionary changes as well?

So what is the secret to having woo-woo change your life? You’ve
learned about woo-woo out of the wa-zoo and nothing has really changed!

1. Look for where irony is residing in your life and you will find the
presence of the sacred not far off.  Irony is where logic hits the
edge where man-made rules no longer hold power and the power of the
soul begins.  Looking back on when my health crisis appeared, it is not
lost on me the irony of having this happen while working with
world-class physicians!

2. Taking action signals to your soul a commitment to what you desire
to create. And thinking and talking involve little risk to your status
quo of comfort and control.  As Einstein pointed out, is a bit of
insanity on your part to expect change from no action!

3. Be grateful for what you don’t like in life, for contrast can serve
as an important kick in your butt!  Pay attention to what you love in
life and give it more of your energy and less energy to what others
have told you to do.....happiness loves integrity!

4. Your default setting for your choices, your beliefs, your happiness
in life are often just that-your defaults.  As you would not expect
your computer to perform optimally with software decades old, happiness
and satisfaction in life require updating your beliefs and your choices
for realizing your greatest happiness and satisfaction in life .

One of the most significant evolutions we are undergoing as human
beings is to no longer believe ourselves separate from our soul,
separate from creating as gods and goddesses walking the Earth.  As
Einstein wisely observed, insanity is making the same choices over and
over and expecting the results to be different.  You can no longer make
the choice to separate yourselves from your soul, from your humanity,
and expect the challenges in your life and in your world to go
away......Now THAT’S Magical thinking!

"Happiness is Your Birthright"

I love watching the Olympics for what humans are capable of as well as for the stories behind becoming an Olympic althlete. Over and over I hear how the athlete has chosen to commit to what makes them happy, even when that happiness takes sacrifice, courage, and challenges them over and over. As Gabby Douglas said so beautifully "What makes my heart sing, what makes me happier than anything else in life, needs me to be it's champion".

Happiness is our birthright and as with any right, requires you to champion it through your actions. Even the US Constitution weighs in on happiness, stating how all citizens of the United States have the right to pursue happiness. And with the Webster dictionary defining the word "right" as "the moral entitlement to have or obtain something or to act in a certain way", it is clear happiness takes action......action that is yours to take and action we often demand others take for us.

One of the first things I establish when working with a client is clarity on where lies their happiness, for happiness is personal. Often people are living scripts handed to them by those who love them, but whose scripts are not true for YOUR life, times, or happiness. Yes,it takes effort, courage, and investing your resources to discover and champion your happiness in life. And when you pursue your right to happiness and learn how to champion your happiness, you are choosing to empower your life abundant in joy, delight, and satisfaction.

Want to pursue your right to happiness? Check out my suggests below:

1. If you find yourself writing in your journal or diary about the same
"unhappies" as when younger, your right to happiness may need some
pursuing! No need to cast blame or shame, nor compensate when not
happy....reality TVanyone? ACTION- Find yourself a good coach, mentor,
or healer and begin to champion yourself and your happiness as your
right and your priority!

2. Listen to yourself during the day and notice where you blame others
for your feelings, your reactions, your burdens. (This one may take a
few passes as our cultural training supports blaming others for almost
everything!). ACTION-Choose something in your life to pivot from "not
happy" to happy and commit to it for a week and notice what changes.
(One of my faves is keeping my mouth shut when I want to react to those
who bug me with their driving!). When I pivot from reacting/judging,
not only do I take responsibility for my ignorant judgements, I find my
mood is much better at the end of a day of driving!)

3. Take inventory for where in your life you have resigned yourself to
"less than happy", perhaps even chalked it up to life as an adult. This
is an example of living a script handed to you by those, who while they
loved you, their life is not yours to repeat. Don't despair...simply
take action, for pursuing happiness needs your attention and your
care. ACTION-Make a list of what makes you happy-no matter how
"childish" it may be-and commit to action on one at least once a week.
It may be challenging to the adult you" but the "child you" knows how
important having fun is for being an adult.

4. Happiness means different things for different people, and even
different things at different times in your life. Make your right to
happiness a priority in your life, gather the support you need for
growing your happiness, and delight in sharing your happy with others.
Don't despair if your happiness differs from those you love, nor insist
on common happiness. ACTION-Exchange happiness, delight in other's
happiness, and don't deny your happiness as deserving your attention,
your time, and your pursuit.

Truth is, it does take effort, can be uncomfortable or challenging to pursue your right to happiness. And, taking responsibility for your own happiness inspires others as well for taking up their right to happiness. And a world with more people championing their happiness is a world with less people choosing blame and unhappiness.....now that sounds like a right happy to me!

"The Reminder of FireFlies"

I have reached the age where more than 3 hours sleep is a gift and have evolved strategies for being awake when most of my world is not. The strategies vary depending on the season, for the cold of winter invites staying in bed and simply reading whereas the heat of summer invites me to crawl out of bed for a place cooler.

Wide awake at 1:30 am one morning last week, rather than simply keeping company with the haunting thoughts my logic and rational thought could not resolve, I took myself out to our front porch. Stars were visible, the hum of the insects more so, and not a sound of civilization was present. Yet despite this peace and quiet, my thoughts were still full of challenge and fear....and then, as though in answer to a prayer, a most magical delight appeared!

Yogis teach how each part of the day has a unique energy and how each energy supports us in a different way. The early morning (1-4 am) is thought to be the time of day the separation between the world physical and the world of spirit is the thinnest.....when the sacred is but a breath away. No surprise to those who work in hospice or critical care units; the early morning hours are when most people pass over.

Many spiritual traditions respect the energy of the early day through gathering in community and in prayer, for what haunts us in the physical world calls for the power and means of the spiritual world. While I no longer set my alarm for 3 am, I do make certain to awake an hour or two before beginning the daily duties of mom and business. Beginning my day with the sacred, aligns my day with the gifts of faith, trust, and wisdom ....in myself, in life, and in my never being without infinite guidance and support.

Oh...and what was the gift that relaxed my thoughts and replaced my concerns with delight? Fireflies....scores and scores of fireflies, their blinking lights everywhere I looked! No longer was I feeling the weight of my thoughts, for delight was insisting on my attention instead. I laughed and thanked the angels of light, and in lightness of spirit, back to bed I went and slept soundly the rest of the hours of the night.

"The Poetry of a Dead Bee"

Last week, while in my garage gathering tools for working in my yard, I heard the sound of a bee buzzing.  Interpreting the buzz as angry, I made haste from the garage as I am allergic to bee stings.  A few days later, I found the bee dead on the table in the garage and realizing my mistake, tears sprung to my eyes. The bee was the endangered honey bee and had been serving in my yard.  In feeling my sorrow at it’s preventable death, I realized my mistake.  I had heard the bee’s buzzing as anger and it was my response to anger-not my medical risk-that led me to turn away from helping the bee escape the garage.   Now, you might be thinking “Really JaiKaur....you are going to feel badly about something as small as a dead bee!?”.  My short answer is yes....my longer answer is there is nothing small about the power of emotions.  Taking the care and time to tend to our  emotions, can lead to learning both surprising as well as powerful.   In my family growing up, anger was the emotion most common and used often as a stand-in for other emotions being felt.  Sadness, disappointment, anxiety and more were also present, but these emotions were not safe for expression (and they signaled weakness).  The “one size fits all” of anger in our family meant anger expressed was often emotional messaging confused.   My commitment to renovate my relationship with emotions has resulted in benefits great. I have learned emotions-not unlike the written language-have a poetry as well..... poetry being where rules step aside for an expression of soul.  The poetry of this dead bee offered itself for learning how I responded to my perception of anger with fear.  And if my misunderstanding of an emotion led to the death of a bee, where else were my emotional misperceptions creating harm?   In your daily life, in your relationships and love, in your longing to live your wild and precious gift of life....where are you misunderstanding an emotion? Here are suggestions for updating your relationship with your emotions:   Anger is an emotion that has gotten a bad rap and an emotion often used to cover other, more vulnerable, emotions.  Where do you use anger to cover other emotions or to diminish your intimacy with others?  (Mmm....) What emotions scare you-in yourself and when expressed by others?  What scares you about this emotion?  What do you believe would happen if you simply let yourself feel  emotion instead of controlling your emotions? Where do you find yourself hijacked by your response to other people’s emotions-otherwise known as reacting?  Ask yourself if reacting to the other person somehow keeps you safe, for often our reactions stem from our need to be safe or in control. What we consider safe at one stage of life will change with time and learning from our experiences in life.  What reactions to emotions of yours are old hat and need to be updated?  (Hint-they are the ones where you don’t feel better after you react).   We have been taught to label our emotions as “good/bad, right/wrong, spiritual/not spiritual etc”.  Emotions are simply energy offering us understanding and wisdom about our life, as long as we can allow the emotion to unfold.  The next time you find yourself reacting to an emotion-yours or another’s-pause and invite yourself to become open and curious instead. I did and the poetry of a bee brought me learning for understanding the difference between anger and a call for help.

"Women's Evolving Relationship With Men"

Articles such as "The End of Men” and "Are Fathers Necessary” while provocative, trivialize and distort the seismic evolutionary changes between women and men. Yes, the relationships between women and men are being buffeted by strong evolutionary winds, whether the relationship is of love, work, or family. And while the facts of expanding choices, opportunities, and social mores may be held as cause, the truth is evolution is transforming power through the relationships of women and men.

The evolving power of relationship requires women embrace a form of power distinct from the current power paradigm, not simple assume it’s helm. The evolution of power requires the courage of women to take up their healing, to wield their power as women, and to commit as women to honoring all as sacred. Women’s compassion and love, our gift of vision, and our sacred inspiration and wisdom are critical for leading not only our life, but our world.

On my computer is a note where I have written the reminder "understand all through compassion or to mis-undertand these times". Compassion is choosing to respond with the heart and soul of ourselves to another....essential when our initial impulse is to react at another. And while my emotions may dance me around and my mind may lead to me judgment, committing to compassion reminds me we are soul companions in the journey of life. And, choosing compassion requires the courage of our heart and soul.

So what does compassion have to do with the changes in women's relationships with men? The relationships of women and men are changing from power of men over women to women's independence expanding her choices in life. These evolutionary changes challenge not only the relationships of women and men, they also challenge women in how and what our newly empowered self serves. With power, will women dismiss men as we were once dismissed and denigrated or will we choose to heal and transform power? Without compassion as a guiding value, the distortions created from power without consideration for all of life will simply repeat itself.

So how do you begin to become aware of your power as woman in your relationships with men?

* Become aware of where you either diminish or elevate yourself in your relationships with men. Is your inner talk about men, yourself, and other women pivotal in your life inspiring?

* Become aware of your beliefs about women and men in relationship. Are these truths you want to continue fueling with your life or hand-me-downs in need of updating or discarding?

* Become aware of where you expect men to either rescue you or place them in the driver's seat for your happiness. Are you willing to empower your own happiness, mproving the happiness with the men in your life?

* Become aware of where self-care is calling; self-care is essential for not only our body but our heart and soul as well. Where we lack self-care is often where we demand another cares, demands not constructive to happy and healthy relationships.

The invitation inherent in any crisis or challenge is the opportunity to improve what is. The invitation in the crisis in the relationships of women with men, of the masculine with the feminine, is to improve what is. A Cherokee wisdom says it well: "A woman, I go into the darkness to heal my wounding and as woman, I emerge from the darkness only then able to heal man". As women, as the grace of god, healing our past is our sacred call to transform our future, serve our sacred destiny as women. My prayer is as women, we truly embrace healing into our power as women, for the benefit of all living.

"The Compassion, Courage, and Changes Calling in the Relationships of Women with Men"

Articles such as “The End of Men” and “Are Fathers Necessary” while provocative, trivialize and distort the seismic evolutionary changes between women and men. Yes, the relationships between women and men are being buffeted by strong evolutionary winds, whether the relationship is of love, work, or family. And while the facts of expanding choices, opportunities, and social mores may be held as cause, the truth is evolution is transforming power through the relationships of women and men. The evolving power of relationship requires women embrace a form of power distinct from the current power paradigm, not simple assume it’s helm. The evolution of power requires the courage of women to take up their healing, to wield their power as women, and to commit as women to honoring all as sacred.  Women’s compassion and love, our gift of vision, and our sacred inspiration and wisdom are critical for leading not only our life, but our world. On my computer is a note where I have written the reminder "understand all through compassion or to mis-undertand these times".  Compassion is choosing to respond with the heart and soul of ourselves to another....essential when our initial impulse is to react at another. And while my emotions may dance me around and my mind may lead to me judgment, committing to compassion reminds me we are soul companions in the journey of life.  And,  choosing compassion requires the courage of our heart and soul. So what does compassion have to do with the changes in women's relationships with men? The relationships of women and men are changing from power of men over women to women's independence expanding her choices in life.  These evolutionary changes challenge not only the relationships of women and men, they also challenge women in how and what our newly empowered self serves.  With power, will women dismiss men as we were once dismissed and denigrated or will we choose to heal and transform power?  Without compassion as a guiding value, the distortions created from power without consideration for all of life will simply repeat itself.   So how do you begin to become aware of your power as woman in your relationships with men?  Begin to become aware of where you either diminish or elevate yourself in your relationships with men. Is your inner talk about men, yourself, and other women pivotal in your life inspiring?  Begin to become aware of your beliefs about women and men in relationship. Are these truths you want to continue fueling with your life or hand-me-downs in need of updating or discarding? Become aware of where you expect men to either rescue you or place them in the driver's seat for your happiness.  Are you willing to empower your own happiness,  mproving the happiness with the men in your life? Become aware of where self-care is calling; self-care is essential for not only our body but our heart and soul as well.  Where we lack self-care is often where we demand another cares, demands not constructive to happy and healthy relationships. The invitation inherent in any crisis or challenge is the opportunity to improve what is.  The invitation in the crisis in the relationships of women with men, of the masculine with the feminine, is to improve what is.  A Cherokee wisdom says it well: "A woman,  I go into the darkness to heal my wounding and as woman,  I emerge from the darkness only then able to heal man".  As women, as the grace of god, healing our past is our sacred call to transform our future, serve our sacred destiny as women.  My prayer is as women, we truly embrace healing into our power as women, for the benefit of all that lives.

Spring's Call to Let Go and Let Grow!

This week, while interviewing a perspective client, I had an ephiphany about why change-even when it would bring pain relief-can prove to be challenging. While the woman's sorrow and pain were valid given the challenge of the situation, the expert opinions and studies she offered to support her despair were not. My epiphany was not how our beliefs keep us from the happiness we want, or how fear of the unknown (change) can be more powerful than the pain we are in.  My epiphany was how much faith we place in the authority of others and how little faith we place in ourselves as divine.

People come to me with their trust and for my faith in their ability to create more happiness, health, or harmony in their life. Our process begins with assessing how they support themselves, how they care for themselves, and how they create their choices. Together, we discover where they claim their authority for creating their life and where they are blaming others for what they lack in life. Clarity of what to grow and what to let go begins the process of creating more of what they want in their life.

If you want more happiness, health, or harmony in your life, here are a few suggestions for beginning the process:

• “Learn the difference between the facts of your mind and the truth of your soul” Our mind loves information, control, being right, and fear feelings as unsafe. Our soul loves freedom, is playful and curious, knows feelings bring wisdom, and wants our vast magnificence to be expressed. A conscious relationship between our mind and our soul is the foundation to creating happiness and success in life.
• “Become aware of where you give away your authority to experts outside yourself and where you discount your own truth and wisdom”. Life brings us challenges and questions in trust we will share and express OUR answers for creating our world. While information can be useful as a beginning, the answers to our challenges and questions in life rest in our heart and soul.
• “Essential to successful relationship is the willingness to extend respect, compassion, and tolerance for understanding each other”. Being happy and successful in life requires honoring yourself as a dynamic relationship between earth and ether. As with a successful relationship between people, a successful human honors both their humanity and their divinity as essential to being human.
• “Understand all through compassion or misunderstand the situation”. Our heart is where our soul and our Self meet, our infinite spirit and our limited lifetime. When we take our conflicts, our unknowing, our confusion “to heart”, we invite the resources and wisdom of both our divinity and our humanity for a creative alchemy for solution.

We are learning how to live our divinity for our humanity and how essential the soul of our life human. We are being called to no longer separate ourselves from our divinity, often through transforming what we call impossible into possible. Life does not set us up to fail, simply we need to learn how to reclaim ourselves as the experts of our life and honor the relationship we are as humans as the magnificent alchemy of heaven and earth.

In the words of Hafiz, a 14th century Persian poet whose wisdom is timeless:

“We have not come here to take prisoners of ourselves and others but to surrender even more deeply to love and joy,  We have not come into this exquisite world to hold ourselves hostage from joy and beauty,  Run run my dear from anything that may not strengthen your precious budding wings,  Shout to your reason “O please O please come out and play,  For we have not come here to take prisoners or to confine our wonderous spirits,  Rather to experience ever and ever more deeply our divine freedom, courage, and Love”.                                          

                                                                                                                     

What's Love Got to Do With It? Choosing Love in the Good, Bad, and the OMG! of Our Relationships

Women have long been considered responsible for relationships and while this can feel a bit like responsibility assigned without consent at times, even science is validating women’s innate biology for skills and prowess in relationship. (Check out this article!)  Soooo, if we are the masters of relationship, then it would follow we are all experiencing only happiness in our relationships...not!
Biology alone does not determine how we experience life.  Our beliefs, choices, and our interpretations factor into how we respond to life and people. Believing people are either good when they behave as we want or wrong when they do not, is choosing control as our premium value at the cost of our relationships.
Measuring life-and people-with the yardstick of control leaves little room for the treasures offered by the unexpected in life. Being human is a sacred process,  passion, and purpose, not a product, perfection, nor power over others. “Either-or” thinking may keep our limbic brain happy about not being eaten, but it will not honor our power to choose compassion, to heal history, and to learn more about ourselves and “the other”.
 So the next time you find yourself reacting to the unexpected in someone, consider:

•  Taking a few deep breaths in and out before saying or doing anything. Deep breathing brings us into our more neutral core and gives time for the less reactive parts of our brain to come on-line in our processing of what is up.
• Remembering we always have a choice to immediately react or to pause and then respond when people do the unexpected or undesired. Choosing to respond is taking responsibility for our emotions and fears as we are being triggered by another.
• Being inquisitive about what is being triggered within brings gifts in ways unexpected. While we may believe we know what we need in life, life’s gift of messing with our knowns, shows us the love and beauty the unknown in conflict offers us.
• Self-love is the foundation of love we offer others and a lack of self-love shows up in judging, blaming, and shaming others. Taking time and care to love our imperfect selves is crucial to being able to love others when imperfect.

Contemporary relationship invites us into a deeper and richer experience of relationship than simply meeting needs and control. Contemporary relationship chooses healing our family and history, tending to our emotional wounds, and happiness over being right.  Tending our heart and honoring the heart of others is the foundation of contemporary relationship...a choice for peace, joy, and happiness for ourselves and our world.

The Contemporary Power of Women....Are You Exercising Yours?

Women have been given valuable social approval and currency for using their power to care for others first and tending to themselves second. This dynamic is partly innate and partly through generations of learning how being “nice” and "good" was preferred by others.  Changes initiated by increased access to birth control and financial created more choices and opportunities for contemporary women....and often our deepest integrity as women was absent in our choices and changes.
One of the challenging truths my clients-men and women-hear me offer is how avoiding exercising our power often derives from a case of the “pleaser first, me seconds”.  And while we may truly believe a lack of conflict equals safety for ourself or a relationship, avoiding conflict is avoiding exercising power.  Not knowing how to exercise our power constructively we often choose instead to suppress expressing ourselves with integrity.  And we all know how well THAT works as a strategy! Conflict is natural, necessary, and an invitation for our power (expression of ourselves) for informing, illuminating, and uplifting ourselves and the other.
So how do you know if you are challenged with exercising your power?

1. You tell yourself it’s not a big deal when a friend or family member puts you down in front of others-again!-and you don't speak up (for yourself) for that would not be nice. Instead, you spend the rest of the day silently seething and fantasizing about moving to where nobody in your family will ever find you!
2. You long for more intimacy with your lover than watching TV together every night and tell yourself to be satisfied and not "rock the boat" as you pour yourself yet another glass (how many is that tonight?) of wine.
3. You find yourself drawn to tending those at the end of their life, but finding a training program for hospice care that doesn’t interfere with the soccer carpool has been impossible.I mean, how can you ask others to put themselves out with helping you? What calls to you (heart and soul) will just have to wait until the kids are grown up and people don’t need you (never!).
4. You grew up learning how important making others happy was for making those around you happy in life, so pleasing others is easy. But as you sit in a yet another meeting at a job you truly dislike, you wonder is this really as good as your life gets?.

There is not a woman alive who does not experience insecurity at times with exercising her power.....when to speak up, where to show up, when to stand up.  What creates security and certainly in our expressions of power is new (really old) learning, practice, and the courage to honor power inside as well as outside. Exercising power as contemporary women requires our time and care for listening, trusting, and taking action from wisdom of the silence within ourselves. This is not the power we learned of control over others ....this is the power of the clarity of our wisdom, the courage we commit to living our convictions, and the compassion we offer ourselves and WITH the others in our life.

We live in a time of rapid evolution, our gift of a lifetime for our souls to evolve the sacred marriage of life as human. Whether we live in fear or live in faith and trust depends on our choices of beliefs, skills, and integrity we engage as we navigate our days.....days calling for living our grace in ways practical and for honoring the grit of life as sacred.

"Release and Renew" Ritual for a Year New

Happy New Year!  It's the first week of new year 2012, a time we are invited to let go of our disappointments, our regrets, our sorrows from year past to create room in ourselves for our dreams and visions for a year new.  Unlike New Year's goals that can fizzle once we go back our days and usual habits, ritual calls upon not only our mind, but the earth elements and the sacred as well for making it so.  And at the end of 2012, when you look at the seeds you wrote down and what that then created in 2012, it will blow you away!  So take 10 minutes to begin your new year anew with the ritual I call  "Release and Renew".

"Release and Renew" Ritual

1. Write down on separate slips of paper your resentments, your grudges, your anger and rages, the unforgiven, the wrong-doings of others to you, your sorrows, your depressions, the ones you despise....you get the idea.  Make certain each one gets written down on it's own slip of paper.
2. Bury the slips of paper in the ground with sage or cedar if you have some, or if not, with some evergreen needles.  (If where you live does not allow you to bury the slips of paper, then burn the slips of paper and bury the ashes).
3. Write down on separate pieces of paper the seeds of what you will cultivate through this year....commiting to your compassion more than your judgment, commiting to transformations effortless through calling on grace vs believing it takes hard work and luck to create, commiting to being open to more questions and curiosity and needing to control less, etc.  Place your commitment seeds on your altar if you have one and if you do not have an altar, it's time to create one!
4.  Pray for the next moon (30 days) on what your heart frowns upon as well as what lifts up your heart and soul.  In the realm of Sacred and Earth, all is energy and simply, our clarity is needed for what is released and what is renewed in our hearts and world.

Our human minds are powerful-and-placing our mind as the driver of our life was never meant to be it's role.  As we move into our future,  our challenges will need us to meet them with our full capacity as human beings-the wisdom of our heart, the depth of our soul, and the infinite power and reach of our spirit.  As women, our innate caliber and capacity makes us leaders in living more of our depth and dimension as humans for creating the fabric of our daily life, containing the well-being of all in our communities, and allowing nothing save peace and harmony on this Earth.

Make your dreams really really big for 2012, plant your seeds through commitment to your humanity and your divinity, and call upon the sacred to do the heavy lifting.  We are so blessed by our gift of a human life....simply, sometimes we forget we are powerful gods and goddesses walking this sacred ground of Earth.