2012, Chakras, the Super Moon, and you!

We've all heard about 2012 by now. It is an astronomical event of 26,000 year cycles that coincides with many historical and legendary time periods, events in our history as a people and with the planet's history too. It has been most clearly written about by the ancient Mayans, although it is referenced in the Bible, the Torah, and in the hieroglyphs in Egypt. All major religions and societies have referenced it. We are now in the stage known as The Great Shift, and it has been written about as a very dynamic time in our history.

But what is it really about?

At it's core it is a choice point. Some say it is an evolutionary focal point. During times of great polarity we will have to decide whether we are creating our individual lives from a fear point, or from a place of potential. Living small, or living the Soul Contract. And each choice will immediately lead to new choices that you could not have seen mere moments ago. It is a cumulative effect and as we reach the 2 year arc of the bell curve (Dec 2010 - Dec 2014) things speed up drastically. A time of faster and faster options placed before us.

The flavour of the choices we need to make will come in a particular order too; survival and family, relationships, willpower, divine connection/forgiveness, speaking our truth, seeing the Divine plan, and living in connection with the Divine...all while here in a human body. For those of you who are familiar with chakras, this is the order of the choices. We are creating the new foundation or Red Chakra that will sustain our next cycle...and we are doing it now! Today. So pay close attention to what choices are before you right now!

And speaking of now, we come to the Super Full Moon. Astronomically speaking, a Super Full Moon occurs when the moon is as close as it will get to our planet that year. Astrologically speaking, that means the 'magnification' effect of those energies are also at their peak. That this is occurring at the Earth Shift known as Imbolg/Candlemas/Groundhog Day...HUGELY magnifies this intensity.

So we are now in a place where both FEARS and HOPES are magnified for you...tenfold. Which place do you choose to create from, and how can you create momentum to make these choices easier?

Take baby steps of action in the NOW. For those of you who say, "But I don't know what I want or why I'm here", use the following steps:

1. What are you most passionate about (children, car racing, healing, changing the planet etc.)?
2. Use your imagination (it's just a game) to feel/hear/see what your world might look like when you are DOING that...what might you be doing?
3. Now from there work backwards from the vision to the now.
Example: You love kids and want to change how they are taught...you see yourself teaching others HOW to allow full body learning...so that means in some capacity you are going to be a spokesperson/teaching/training others in some techniques. So you make a plan to get certified as a trainer while you are exploring techniques you love...so in the now, what is the step you can take today towards that plan? It might be researching training companies, or attending a training, or having a meeting...as long as it's an ACTION! Which will put you on your path to magnificence and out of your comfort zone!

Rationalizations. Excuses. We all have them. Really good 'reasons' to stall on things we know we want to be doing, or things we said we would be doing, and aren't.

Why is that? Why can't we just keep going?

In my opinion it has a lot to do with skill. I believe after working with so many clients and students that generating MOMENTUM and using it is a skill set. You have to learn it...which means it is learn-able...which also means all our monkey-mind talk about why we don't do it, is just cheap monkey-mind talk. Oh - then you need to practice it DAILY.

What action do MY GOALS need me to take today? Often the next big step is not the final destination, just merely another step on the path of your magnificence. Go ahead and notice that comfort was not in the sentence! It's the ACTION your GOALS need you to take...not the action you think you need, or are comfortable with. Does that make sense? The goal determines the criteria, not your emotional state.

Here are the steps to learn this new skill:

The first step in learning something new is becoming aware of what you currently do. Is using your family your favourite excuse, or your spouse, or your job, or your health? Are you OK with this action as long as you stay in the local vicinity, or only spend 'x' dollars, or that your parents approve?

The second step is catching yourself in the old pattern and REPLACING it with new thoughts, and actions every time you catch yourself doing your old pattern. The good news is that your unconscious is very, very trainable, and it will run the new patterns of magnificence with the same efficiency as the patterns for living small.

The third step is resourcing through others. You must TELL people what you are doing and check in with like-minded people often. Isolation breeds excuses and living small. Survival patterns are about isolation. Thriving patterns are about resourcing!!!

The fourth step is to have an action plan where you ACTION something every day. This is how momentum is quite easily generated and (here's the key)...MAINTAINED. As you soon as you achieve the step or goal, toss that momentum towards the next step.

A small step, everyday, gets you to your goal. So to quote an anonymous brilliant person posted on Life Hacker.com (a site for making life easier)..."One thing at a time. Most important thing first. Start now."

Commitment & The Law of Attraction

You've planned. You took the appropriate action, or so you thought. And yet the idea or deal still fell through. Why? Well it could be that you have unconsciously sabotaged your project at it's most basic level. You may have neglected to create space, or failed to commit to the space that was created. In either case the result is predictable; failure. And it happens all the time.

So let's start with some definitions:

COMMITMENT: In the quantum energetic world, commitment means you have spent the time, money and energy necessary to make something happen. It doesn't need to be equal parts; for example you may spend more time than money, but unless all three have been spent, you have not made a commitment.

CREATING SPACE:
Before something can show up in your world, it has to have somewhere to go. If you are going to buy clothes, you have to have space in your closet. Literally. It has to exist in the real world. Real world things involve physical things like space, contracts, money, having time blocked off, etc.

How does this apply to a project? Let's say you want to run an event. You need a date and a location. The location needs to have a contract and it needs to be signed. Ideally a deposit at least should also be exchanged...then you get to 'own' it. It's yours. Unless you have a space locked down in the real world there is no place for the people to go to.

CONGRUENT:
Your body, mind and heart are all on the same page. The Universe takes it's cues from you, so if part of you wants this, and part of you doesn't (even if MOST of you wants it) it still won't happen. You are sending mixed messages, and at best, you're result will take a lot longer to show up in your world.

How does this apply to a project? Let's say you are excited about this new opportunity, but also afraid of putting yourself out there and taking a risk...emotionally or financially. You will spend 'x' amount of energy creating, and 'y' amount of energy stalling. In the end you may have a 'zero' or negative balance. You can't create something out of nothing. And those fears lead to the next definition.

UNCONDITIONAL:
You are congruent that no matter what you are going to do whatever it is you wish to do. There can be no back door. If you leave yourself an out, you haven't committed AND you are not congruent. This is a guaranteed way to fail.

How does this apply to a project? Let's say you want to run an event and you decide that you need ten people to make this event work. So....you stall on signing the contract. You say to yourself, "When I have ten people registered, then I will sign the contract". WRONG ANSWER!!! If you don't believe yourself enough to commit to a project or idea, how is the Universe, (or anyone else for that matter) going to believe you enough to commit to it?

Of course you can set criteria. I need ten people to run this event is fine...as long as you sign the contracts first. Make sense?

So as we all gear up for the fall and busy-ness, use the above definitions to make sure that you are getting the biggest bang for your buck. We all want to work smarter, not harder.

Good luck everyone and feel free to contact me with any questions or comments!

Resources and Goals

The new year is a great opportunity to start fresh, turn over a new leaf, or make a new goal. Often though that new start becomes just another brick in the wall of our frustration. So what makes some goals a success and some a failure?

It's all in how it's constructed. It turns out that there really is a formula after all. It's been used for ages with successful business leaders and now you can play with it too! In our Designing Your Destiny two day trainings we teach the structure to people, along with how to blow out fears and install your goals neurologically.

Success also has a lot to do with how well you reach out to others too, so if you pride yourself on doing it alone, you may never get there. Resourcing means creating, maintaining and using your connections.

The structure is S.M.A.R.T. It takes traditional goal setting and adds in a quantum twist!

Part 1:
S: Your goal must be specific. Really specific.
'I want to be my ideal weight' is not specific. 'I want to be 130 pounds, toned, healthy and fit by June 21, 2009 through eating smaller meals, increasing my exercise, and becoming more educated about food', is specific. If you can't name it in a sentence or two, you can't get it!

M: Your goal must be measurable. No feelings can be in your goal!
How will you know that you have achieved your goal? You see the scale number, or your jeans are looser, or you have lost 3 inches on your waist, etc. Your goal must also be for you, because unless you want it, it won't happen!

A: Your goal must be attainable, and as-if it's NOW.
If you are only makeing $30,000/year now, setting an annual income of $1,000,000 probably isn't attainable as your first financial goal. If you've never gone to the gym steadily before, setting a goal to go five days a week probably isn't attainable, but walking three times a week certainly is. When you've mastered that, then set a goal to go to the gym for three days a week.
You also need to put your goal inthe present, even though it may be grammatically incorrect.
So I am enjoying...I am celebrating....I AM...

R: Your goal must be realistic.
A woman once told me her goal was to have her body process sugar like protein. Not only is that unrealistic, but by current body design she would have been dead if she achieved it. Make your goals realistic, and build on them.

T: Your goal must have an end date and it must be towards what you want.
Note that the goal I listed earlier had a time on it. You must put an end date on your goal, otherwise it's just a wish.
In my fall blogs we spoke about Towards vs. Away. Towards wealth is different than Away From poverty. Very different. Make sure your goal only has positive language and only describes EXACTLY what you want.

Part 2:
Look around your world, listen to what friends and family are saying...who can you tap into as a resource to assist you? Announce your goal to your family! Give people an opportunity to assist in creating your success. Success is fun for everyone!

And if you don't know what to do, make sure you keep asking until you do. This is where a coach can make all the difference in the world. Coaches work towards specific goals with clients, so make sure someone is coaching, and cheering you on.

Happy goal setting everyone. Have fun!

December Celebrations

I'm visiting my family in the U.S. As I write this it is the day after the US Thanksgiving, arguably the largest American holiday of the year. It is also the busiest shopping day of the year, “Black Friday” - so named because if the books don't get into the black by the end of today, they won't get into the black by year's end. On Black Friday the stores open at 5am and limited availability items are the norm to lure shoppers from their warm beds. It is also the official beginning here of the Christmas/holiday season.

As I begin pondering my angle for this Celebrations blog my brother-in-law interrupts with a top breaking local story; a 37 year old man has been trampled to death by a crowd that broke the doors down at 6am to get the 'early-bird' specials at Walmart. They also knocked down a 28 year old pregnant woman, and thankfully initial reports say she and the baby will be OK. Before the day is out five similar stories are reported in the New York City area.

Leading me to ask the question; exactly what are we celebrating this season? Why do marketers speak about 'surviving' the holidays? We now know that what you focus on grows, and that led me to ask myself what I wanted to focus on this season.

It seems that in our technologically connected world, that we have become more and more isolated. Although we have access to everything, we have forgotten how to connect with everyone. In my mind the core of the season is about relationships...the giving and receiving and the joy that comes from that inter-connectedness with all things. This allows me to open the door and look at my relationship with myself, my parents, my spouse, my family, my peers, my past lives, the Earth and humanity, and my relationship with the Divine. The deeper my awareness goes, the more choices I have.

So this season I have decided to focus on Celebrating Relationships. Below are some concepts and strategies to help us have fun and keep our focus. Connecting is about giving.

1. Stay aware of your focus! Is it on the have to dos or want to dos? If it is on the have to dos, bring your focus back to why these relationships are important to you, and do the task with that frame of mind. It will alleviate lots of stress.
2. Decide to be a Secret Santa while out and about. See how many smiles you can create with a kind look, word or gesture. Anonymously pay for the person behind you at Tim's. Spread the joy.
3. Prioritize your time by limiting your social engagements. It doesn't mean becoming a hermit. It does mean accepting only those invitations that truly vibe with you.
4. Gifts are meant to bring joy, not create stress. Think about hand creating a gift. You've got no time to shop; think gift cards. They are all the rage for a reason.
5. Hate the craziness of the stores? Shop on line. Make sure you see the lock that signifies that it is a secure site. Also stay on familiar sites to keep yourself safe and sound.
6. Donate time and/or money to a shelter, or food to the food bank, or deliver turkeys and food baskets with your church. Give to your favourite charities. Decide to help a total stranger in need.

Happy connecting everyone and have a great holiday season and a healthy, happy and abundant New Year!

November Harvest and Gratitude

Halloween has just passed and it got me to thinking about why this time of the year has significance in so many cultures and religions. Around the world themes on this holiday involve the finishing of harvest, a time of 'in betweens' , and the honouring of ancestors and those who have gone before us. In many cultures this is their new year, and before you can celebrate the new, you have to honour the old.

In keeping with the ancestors theme I began to wonder why we are ever-ready to harvest the negative and overlook the positive when it comes to our families? If perception IS projection and as Carl Jung said “we can see nothing except ourselves” than what does that imply about our how we unconsciously feel about ourselves?

Wikipedia has this to say about harvest:
“In agriculture the harvest is the process of gathering mature crops from the field. Before the 16th century it was a word that referred to the Autumn season. In fact the word comes from old English hærfest, which meant Autumn (the German word Herbst has the same origin and still means Autumn). The word is a compound word (hær + fest) and its first part has Indo-European roots in *kerp meaning to gather, pluck, harvest. So hærfest indicated originally the joyful celebration of finally being possible to gather the mature crops; it extended afterwards its meaning to the all period beginning with the harvest (autumn).“

Have we forgotten the joy of harvest, of the gathering? Have we forgotten that it is a process, not a destination? Have we forgotten how to sift out the gems from the silt? And having found those gems, have we forgotten to take them into the quiet 'in between' times to polish them and bring out their lustre. Or is it just that we have forgotten in our automated society that harvest, while joyous and gratitude-filled, is work? Harvest requires focus and effort. Once again, what you focus on grows. Imagine if we focused on our gratitude and celebration of ourselves and others? Wow! What 'sparkles' we could all share!

We are often a strange culture in North America. Our busy-ness often leaves us disconnected from our selves, our families and the planet itself. In our disconnection I think we have lost the importance of harvest. So in honour of hær + fest I'd like to consciously harvest some of the treasures from my family, both through blood and marriage. Feel free to make your own list. It's an amazing exercise.

Here are some of my 'harvest gratitudes':

• To my mother for showing me that love has many forms including fierce, messy, and highly dynamic forms of love

• To my mother for the power and exhilaration of dance. It is still a power-full part of my life.

• To my father for showing me that pragmatism and negotiation get you to your goal too

• To my father for showing me that you can't respect others unless you respect yourself first

• To both my parents for the living definition of courage; action in the face of fear, not fearlessness

• To both my parents for proving that a committed, passionate relationship is not only possible through hell or high water, but that anything else is settling.
  

• To my sister for showing me that stability is as important as passion. Together they are the best combination of them all.

• To my sister for showing me the power of laughter. You still make me laugh until I can't breathe

• To my family for teaching me that you don't need to understand to love. Love IS.

• To my grandmother for understanding that it is truly simple: the Goddess needs her God

• To my grandmother for showing me the treasures in simple things

• To my mother-in-law for showing me that wisdom can be passed down through the generations, and that our stories are sooooooooooooo important

• To my brother-in-law and father-in-law for showing me that fighting for and living my dreams is essential to well being

• To my daughter for showing me that we have all been here before and old souls come in small bodies. It's been a joy to know you again.

• To my husband, soul-mate and business partner: You are my rock. Thank you for proving that the five year old was right; from lifetime to lifetime that magic is real, and so are you.
  

October Change: Towards or Away From

Fall is one of my favourite seasons. There's this sense of anticipation in the air. The trees are changing, and dropping their leaves. The air is changing from cool, to crisp and cold. Everyone is solidly in the midst of intense activities. The holidays are changing from Thanksgiving into Halloween.Change is solidly all around me.

So you'd think that with all this change around me, that it would be easy to move forward into the changes that I want to create in my life. Yet, this seems to be the exact time that everyone slides backwards into old patterns. It's really interesting, actually. From a brain perspective that is.

This backward slide seems to bring with it a reinforcement of the past negative things we think about ourselves; I'm not strong enough, I'm weak willed, I'm not smart enough, I'm lazy. And actually it's usually none of these things at all. It's a component of strategies. And it has to do with the direction of our thoughts; towards our goals, or away-from our pain.

Last month I wrote about strategies; the 'how' we do what we do. This month we need to refine our strategy focus in terms of the 'movie in our heads' that we are creating from. Are we focusing on what we really want, or on not creating more of what we don't want. And by focus I'm referring to that little voice in your head that chatters at you all day long – you know the one with all the negative, disaster thoughts? I call it our 'monkey-mind'.

Let's use money as an example. Most people want more money in their lives. So I'll ask clients, 'When you think about having more money, do you have a picture?”. They always say yes. (And here's where it gets interesting). When I ask them to detail the sights, sounds, and feelings of what they are seeing they usually say something like “so now the bill collector won't call”, or “my spouse won't yell at me over the credit card bill”, “I hear my parents telling me I'll never understand money”, etc.

In NLP language, those are called 'away-froms'. Remembering that the brain can not process negatives, this translates in your brain to...(you guessed it), having more calls from the bill collector and more yelling at bill time. The rule is: Whatever you focus on, grows. So focusing on what you don't want brings more of that into your life! What the monkey-mind continually chatters about, is what you get!

If you're willing to use a quick and powerful tool to keep you on track to your goals, then go through the following exercise:

1. Imagine that a magic wand has waved itself over your life and that there is nothing to fix! You have all the money you really need to live the way you wish to live. You are healthy. You are in a great and passionate relationship. Remember to really imagine that this is the case! See it. Hear it. Feel it. It's just an imagination exercise, so really play at 100%.

2. Ask yourself, “Now what?”. Specifically. Imagine, in detail, with all of the colour, sights, smells, sounds and textures possible. If you weren't spending all your time on problems, what would you create with your life? Imagine it. See it. Hear it. Feel it. Make it so real that you can taste it. This becomes your new goal. Now if you said “I don't know”, than that's the problem! You can't create something unless you know what you're creating!


3. Spend as much time every day with this new goal as you did with your problem. Talk about it with friends and family, imagine it, research it on the internet, draw it, create a brain map to it, make it real to your self and everyone around you. That way you will be spending your energy creating something positive, rather than negative.

Remind yourself that this is more than a 'think good thoughts' game. This requires specifics, time, energy, and eventually it might even entail money too. But one thing at a time. Begin to make your goals and dreams more real to you than your obstacles, and you will reprogram your own Unconscious to use all of your resources to create consciously towards your goals. It happens fairly quickly and it's fun too.

Happy 'Towards' Everyone!

September Strategies: How we do what we do

September is right around the corner, and that usually heralds the 'start up' of our fall activities. School is back in session; we put away thoughts of vacation and cottage; and are prepared to bend ourselves back to the grindstone.

And this year I've found myself asking, “Is that the best way?”. Can we not work smarter, rather than harder? I'd like to think so, and as is the case with my coaching clients, there are a few guidelines that seem to help.

For this to be effective, it's important to tackle one area of your life at a time. I always ask clients, “What area of your life (health, career, relationship) if it were brought up to your expectations, would have the most impact on the rest of the areas of your life?” That's the area to do this exercise with. Pick one or two key 'pain points' (I don't make enough money for example) and then go on to the paragraph's below.

First we need to determine if the problem is the 'what' or the 'how'. Is it 'what' you are seeking or attempting to accomplish that is the problem, or is it 'how' you are going about it? The following questions will all determine if it is a 'how' problem:

1. Do you find yourself continually stuck in the same pattern? Dating the wrong people or playing out the same relationship dynamics? Maybe fighting with not making enough money, or not having enough health?


2. Are you physically, emotionally, or mentally tired (or exhausted) from fighting the same fight? Is there part of you that says to yourself “I just don't know how much more I have to give?”


3. Do you find yourself getting to your goal, and then slipping back again? Quitting and then restarting to smoke, or losing and regaining those few pounds?


4. Do you feel that if you were just stronger, or had more willpower than you could just get to where you needed to be?


5. Or have you just accepted that 'it's just the way it is', and you'll never be able to change?
   

If any (or all) of the above sound like you, don't despair. It's just a strategy, and the good news about strategies is that they are changeable. Strategies are 'how' we do what we do...at the unconscious level. In certain situations where feelings are triggered, a behaviour automatically follows. And it's fast! The strategy fires and runs, often within seconds. And yes, we have a strategy for everything that we do.

A friend of mine often reminds me that doing the same thing, over and over again, while expecting a different result, is the definition of insanity! From an NLP Coaching perspective, it's also a strategy and so it can be shifted to work with your current situation!

So, on a practical level here are some tools to move us in the right direction. I find it's helpful to think like a designer in terms of how things blend together, and to stay focused on my big picture.

1. Although it's been said before, “If you want something different, you need to DO something different.”. So find something to add to your routine that is different. Speak to someone different about your situation; read a book; go to a training...as long as it's different from what you already do.


2. The brain doesn't act on a negative. What that means is you can't 'not do' something, you have to replace it with something else instead. So instead of 'not snacking', you go for a 10 minute walk instead.


3. Do your new something for 3 weeks, and it will be your new automatic behaviour.
   

I love working with strategies because often the smallest change, produces the most amazing results. So as we move into September, remember to play with the design of your life. You are the designer, after all, so enjoy your renovations. I wish you all of the colours, textures and sounds to make your experience the most vivid for you!