BLOGS

Every New Year’s Eve people set resolutions. Those resolutions, more often than not, have expectations attached to them. Even setting resolutions on New Year’s Eve is an expectation that society puts upon the holiday. Are resolutions similar to the law of attraction? Or can they be? In this blog we will look at your New Year’s resolutions, the law of attraction, and how this time of year pulls those to the forefront of our lives.

Each New Year’s Eve, it is traditional for people to clarify resolutions for the new year. Oftentimes, they share them with one another. Those resolutions can be a form of manifesting a dream, or a part of a dream. It is using the law of attraction. Those resolutions can also be goals. Goals can also be a form of manifesting. They can be either a step in the process of or a tool in manifesting a dream.  (That will be discussed in a future blog.)

When setting your resolutions, see the outcome or goal of your resolution. State your resolution as if it is.

Far too often, New Year’s resolutions are anchored in the expectations of others. How do we know if our resolutions are anchored in expectations? Listen to your thoughts and to statements you make to others or yourself. Are you using the word should or need to or have to? Those terms will alert you to the fact that this is an expectation.

Why is this important?  An expectation says it’s something that others see that you need to do. It tells you that there is something incongruent with what you are setting as a resolution and what you want for yourself. For example, a man may set a resolution to lose weight and says, “My goal is to lose weight.  I really need to lose 15 pounds.” That tells him that while he feels uncomfortable with his weight, possibly because of external judgment or something he’s been told by somebody else,  he is also hesitant to start the weight-loss process.

He may not know what that hesitation is, but if he hears the expectation, he can start to explore his Self. Expectations show you something is not a match to how you feel inside.

If you are interested in self mastery or life mastery, those thoughts allow you the opportunity to explore your Self and any fears or fear-based emotions, and old beliefs. As you heal those inner most lingering experiences, you will find that your thoughts change and you will just simply do what you wish to do and, therefore, experience what you wish to experience. If you want to lose weight, you simply will.

So, expectations are one way to be alerted that there are old beliefs, doubts, or fears lingering in the background of your desires. Those are the culprits that sabotage your dreams. The law of attraction says that if you can feel it, sense it, know it, see it, and intend it to be, then so it is. If everything from your intention, to your thoughts, to your vision, to your knowing is in alignment, then you will manifest the dream. Interruptions on the in-between of those processes will either sort or slow down the manifestation of the dream.

When setting your resolutions, see the outcome or goal of your resolution. State your resolution as if it is. State it as if it is in the present and exists. If you put it into the future, it will stay in the future. State your resolution or desire clearly. If you leave it vague you will get vague in return. Finally, show gratitude in your statement and resolution. So, your resolutions need to be concise, clear, in the present, filled with gratitude, and in alignment with your own beliefs. At that point you can feel the confidence that you will manifest the desired outcome.

Listen for any expectations and feel any doubt that may exist as you state your resolutions. The more you can acknowledge that which hinders or interferes with the dream and the success of the dream, the quicker you can be successful.

This is the time of year for manifestation. Beginning with the winter solstice all the way through New Year’s Eve and the new moon of the new year, the energy is in alignment with manifestation. The winter solstice (see previous blog) is that time of year where we most manifest our dreams for the upcoming year.

The new moon in the new year is our first opportunity to manifest using the energy of the moon. So the winter solstice will use the energy of the sun and the first new moon of the new year will use the energy of the moon and the calendar of the earth. Even though the calendar is man-made it carries its own vibration and energy. So when you start to align the manifestation at winter solstice, your New Year’s resolutions, and your manifestation on the first new moon of the new year you have put great energy into your dreams.

In conclusion, you can see that New Year’s resolutions and the law of attraction are very much the same. The expectations that surround New Year’s resolutions tend, in many ways, to thwart their successes. So allow yourself to see your New Year’s resolution as a significant energetic statement that opens you to the manifestation of that goal. See it happening! 

Take any expectations or other fears or doubts that may linger in the background of your resolutions and acknowledge them, write them down, and release them as best you can. Just being conscious of them will help open the doors to manifesting your dream rather than thwarting it.  May each of you open up this new year with your dreams becoming a reality.

There have been myriad movies and books about going home for the holidays. Many are humorous, some are dark comedies and some are drama. Why is it that going home for the holidays is such an entertaining topic? Because a large majority of people can relate to the drama, craziness, and discord that surrounds a family gathering during the holidays.  In this article, I will talk about how expectations, assumptions, judgments, and taking things personally are a stage set for the mastery of challenges within you.  I will also offer some thoughts about mastering the holidays so that you can have a magical holiday season! 

One of the most common stressors during the holidays is the anticipation of the dynamics of gathering with family. The stress at the time of the holidays is mostly due to the expectations: expectations of family; expectations of society. Expectations are external to your truth. You learn expectations. Some of you will think, “I set my own expectations.” But you don’t. You are parroting the expectations that have been put upon you by others. This becomes a critical understanding at the holidays because the expectations are more intense and prolific than at any other time of the year. 

There is this expectation in society that says we should gather as a family during the holidays because that is what the holidays are about. There is a lot of hype about gathering with family. You can ask yourself what expectations you wish to experience during the holidays.  Think of all the thoughts with the words should, supposed to, need to, or have to in them.  That will alert you to the expectations that exist for you around the holidays.  For example, I have to get a present for Aunt Suzy or I need to think of a way to avoid the political talks. Those thoughts will help you see where you feel the need to meet family dynamics or expectations rather than your own.  If your truth were congruent with those thoughts, the above-listed words/phrases would, by nature, not be in your thoughts.  

The most obvious and prevalent expectation during the holidays is for you to show up to, or host, the family gathering.  Does it feel like you have to go so that you don’t disappoint them?  Or maybe you feel you need to be there for other reasons.  When you are struggling with the expectations and your feelings inside, you are not focused on you but instead are focused on the expectations of others.  You have left your Self out of the holiday planning. Now, you can see that you are going into the holidays without your Self present.

If you are entering the holiday experience without being aware of your Self and what you wish to experience, then it makes it much easier for things to affect you personally.  This is true for everyone.  It is true because when you are looking outward at others and what they expect, you leave yourself open to engaging in the other person’s storyline.  When you are participating in their story rather than yours, you are left unprotected from the assumptions and judgments made by the other person that might fly out of the other person’s mouth!

A family’s assumptions can spark defensiveness rather quickly because their assumptions anchor you to the past.  It does not allow for the truth of who you are or the changes you have made in your life.  Furthermore, your family members are the last people to truly know who you are.  They tend to see you as you were “then” and even then, you were not the person they thought you to be!!!

The assumptions of family can leave you feeling alienated or without a sense of belonging. Clearly, this is not the experience you wish to have for the holidays. Most of you want to be known for who and what you are! It can be frustrating for you to have to defend against, rather than teach, family members. It often ignites feelings of being unknown, unseen or unwanted. I read an article regarding people who feel alienated during the holidays and the response was to try to get them to find a way to be with family!!  UGH!  That is just going to complicate the experience!

The anxiety and dread of going into a family gathering with their judgments and patterns or maybe even trauma of the past can be daunting to many of you. And yet you go. You may go because of the expectations of society as well as family. You may feel bad or wrong (guilt or shame) if you do what YOU wish to do and not go. You may go because you’re still trying and hoping for acknowledgment and love for who you are.

If you go to the gathering with the hope or anticipation of love and acceptance and yet, again, feel ostracized, you may struggle to find some camaraderie somewhere. Sometimes there are family members with whom you can align and then there can be those with whom you can’t. This can put some of you in the middle of conflicts or gossip and leave you feeling torn or forced to stand up for someone else. These patterns are the old family patterns.  They are kept alive by assumptions and the need to rehash the past (whether outwardly or internally).

Too often families think they know one another but it’s all based on assumptions from history. In that assumption many patterns are kept alive, and many people are left unable to feel accepted as they have changed. If that resonates with you, you may feel like you must keep aspects of your life secret from the family.   That’s very limiting because it means you must tuck away important pieces of who you are and what your life is all about.  Imagine being transgender or maybe you’re in an interracial relationship and your family doesn’t know and you fear they will strongly disapprove. Do you go into the family keeping that secret?  Those are huge parts of you and who you are! While your family is assuming you’re still the person of the past, they will bring up issues and patterns of the past to hold you in that position. This can easily put you on the defense and frustrate you. Often you can be too busy defending yourself to truly teach them who you are and how you feel today and how you felt then.  This can again lead to feeling alienated or not belonging.

If family dynamics are uncomfortable, judgmental, and abusive, why do you go to the family gathering? Did you learn a long time ago that you need to do what they tell you to do and not what you wish to do? Did you learn a long time ago that if you do what you wish to do that it can have destructive/annihilating consequences?  Judgments in family can be very destructive.  When they become harsh and insulting then it is emotionally abusive.  Judgment comes from a person who is dealing with their own fears of judgment.  If you can at least walk away when this happens you will find yourself in a better place.

The fact that so many articles, books and movies have been set around the family dynamics of the holidays shows you how many people still have a very solid external focus in their life. If you are still trying to meet your family’s expectations or prove their assumptions and judgments wrong by being good enough, then you are not paying attention to the truth of you. In that truth is the knowing you are who you know your Self to be and you are absolutely good enough. And yet you know from family dynamics at the holidays that it can be a very disconcerting time when you’re hoping to feel acceptance, unity and approval.

When we talk about life mastery, we talk about living from the inside of yourself by knowing the experience you wish to have and then manifesting that experience. The holidays are a really important time to ask yourself how you want to feel and what you wish to experience for each of the holidays. For a minute, forget everybody in your life. What would you like to experience? If you’ve lost all your family and you feel somewhat orphaned and you would really love to feel a part of a family for the holidays, then ask yourself: of your friends, to whom you feel closest. Talk to that friend or friends and let them know that you would love to not be alone during the holidays. Ask them what they are doing. Or create a holiday event at your house and invite those friends who don’t go home for the holidays or don’t want to go home for the holidays. Step into your experience by creating it. 

In mastery it is about healing your Self so that all your relationships heal. Change the way you respond to the patterns of others, and you will change the way they interact with you. Your family plays a critical part in this life.  You will see a difference in the way your family responds to you when you heal your challenges enough to know the experience you wish to have and stay in that space, even around family. As my clients heal, the most common thing I hear is that when they go home, they feel like themselves (in contrast to feeling the shift inside as they acquiesce to family dynamics). Too often people can feel themselves shift back into the old patterns of family when surrounded by them.

When you look at going home for the holidays through the eyes of mastery, you want to address several personal questions:

1. What is home to you?
2. What would you like to experience for each of the holidays?
3. Where do I lose my ability to be present to my Self?
4. Do I have hope for a different, more positive, experience?
5. Do I still see the positives of what can be rather than accepting what has been?

More often than not your answers to these questions will allow you to see how your family sees all of this differently than do you. This year, honor your Self and let your Self dream up the perfect holiday experience for you.  Take the time to be aware of the challenges that haunt you from your history and begin healing.

What would it be like if each person in your family were able to be present during gatherings? What if you could all teach about yourselves and ask about others?  If you could all be present and open there would be no historic challenges present at the gatherings. Ironically, there may not be any push for family to unite. You would unite only because you choose to and not because the holiday season, or one another, expects you to. 

In conclusion, if you want to believe that going back with family is going to be warm and cozy and wonderfully accepting and loving, you are going to find yourself struggling with the old patterns and dynamics. That is why many people cringe or stress about gathering with family for the holidays. This year, reflect upon the holidays and ask yourself, honestly, what worked for you and what didn’t.  Whatever didn’t, those are the challenges that you can be aware can be healed, if you choose. Then ask yourself what YOU would like to experience for this holiday and create it!  Let this be a grand new beginning for you in YOUR life.  Promise your Self a beautiful holiday season with or without the expectations of family.

How can you accept the unexpected? Listen in as I define unexpected, learn about expectations, and talk about embracing challenges. I’ll also discuss how you can lean to live in the present.

Love doesn’t keep a relationship together. Communication and moving beyond your defenses does.

Often, people fall in love and wonder why it doesn’t hold. We aren’t “taught” to develop relationships. So magical thinking tends to take over. Love is always, right? No. There is fear and fear is the absence of love. For example, fear of not being good enough leads to jealousy, insecurity, mistrust, rejection, shame. Fear is in all people. Therefore, it must be in our love relationships.

If you learn to communicate from your Self and NOT about the other, you will begin to break the cycle of assumption and misperceptions that are anchored in and fueled by fear. Learning to communicate in this style is in opposition to how you were probably taught. It may not be easy but it is rewarding. In this way of communicating you will open your Self and the relationship to the infinity of life. Therefore, love grows and thrives. It does not stagnate and die.

Fear fragments and takes you away from love. It is fear, if not healed, that shatters the love. All fear marks, and is marked by, the challenges in your life. Everyone has challenges. It is by definition in this life. So the challenges and fears of life must be a part of your love relationships.

To learn to embrace the challenges (fear) is to open your Self to the healing of Self and relationship. As you open your Self to your truth, you are teaching your partner who you are and what you believe, perceive, and desire. You are speaking of your fears and challenges in an effort to allow the team or partnership to heal you and, therefore, with you.

As we learn to open ourselves to being seen and understood at this level we are learning compassion of self and, therefore, compassion of other. It is with the willingness to communicate your truth and to open your Self beyond defensiveness (or fear of threat) that you begin to live compassionately for self and other. This is where love resides. It is here that you will find everlasting love and companionship in your life partnership.

I wish you all great, endless love in this life – for Self and Other!!

Are you (or your children) tired of watching the beginning of your dating relationships turn into the same old relationships of the past? Learn why and what can be done!

At the beginning of a relationship, most people are close to their truth. They are open, playful, without expectation. Oftentimes, as the relationship starts to develop, people get worried about loss.

It may not be a conscious thought. It may just be a background feeling. Simply put, it is that fear (conscious or not) that alters the freedom of expression in the relationship.

What does “close to your truth mean”? Your truth, as I refer to it, is that part of you that is in absence of any fear-based feelings or thoughts. It is that part with which you entered this life, uninfluenced by others’ teachings, opinions, and judgments. It is that part of you that shines like the sun behind dark stormy clouds!

Each of you has a different set of challenges that define this life. They make up the dark stormy clouds that cover the truth of who you are. In life, we are constantly gifted with events that illuminate those challenges. This is to help us expand and grow and is not intended to destroy. It is your free will that allows you to choose to heal, ignore or blame when the challenge presents. If you do not choose to heal, the challenge tends to present over and over in your life until you address it. Your relationships are that fertile ground for the challenges to thrive or propagate!

While dating, each of you can meet several people at once, all of whom are good eligible partners! Ultimately, you will only pursue one of them! Why? This is where the clouds are subconsciously influencing the choice! You may be open and free in your original meetings with all of the people (your truth) but when you begin narrowing down your choice your clouds have a strong say so in the final decision. Ugh! This is because of the use of judgment, perceptions, and assumptions in the narrowing process!

So, the more you look at the patterns in the relationships or the characteristics in the person that appear over and over, the more you begin to develop an awareness of those challenges that most need to heal in your life. This then offers you the opportunity to empty a dark cloud and open to your light or truth!! The more you stand in your truth the greater the probability that you will meet that partner who matches you “truthfully”!

For those of you interested in life mastery, here’s a thought:
That point at which you “allow” the fear (challenge) to enter the relationship through you is the moment you create the initial separation and consequential feeling of loss. The unity you were experiencing that was so joyful has been interrupted. That break from the unity is reminiscent of your first fear when you entered this lifetime.

WEEK TWO

Welcome back to our 30-Day Challenge: Stress, Self and Better Health!

Let’s review last week’s challenge: Expectations. How many of you put the rubber band on your wrist? Were you surprised by the number of times you had to go for the rubber band? Did you notice a change in the number of times you noted the words of expectation as you went through the week? I don’t want any of you to change your words. That is stress producing. If the words are used (in thought or verbiage), listen for them and hear them but do NOT change them. The words will change on their own as you begin to learn more about your Self and what you are about.

How many expectations did you put upon your Self versus another? Was it lopsided or balanced? This will teach you what you learned. If you are more apt to speak expectations to others but not to your Self, what might you be judging in others? Or, vice versa, if you are finding yourself speaking expectations to your Self but not as frequently to others, what are you feeling about you and your worth?

Did you find your Self very aware of others using expectations? If so, you may be on the way to understanding from whom you experience stress versus from whom there is more support.

This is a great beginning for you all! As you join me in the online course you will learn more about the expectations versus truth and support. Let’s turn our attention to this week’s challenge!!

Stress, Self and Better Health: Self Awareness

It is very important that you learn to listen to your Self. How many of you like to be heard by others? Well then, that answers the question as to why you simply listen to your Self rather than constantly correcting your Self.

In living a balanced life, everything centers (or rests) in YOU! This life is your’s and is about you. Life, therefore, is experienced inside YOU! Consequently, when talking about developing balance in your life you must know what that experience means to you. As we talk about stress, self and health the self is in the middle of the equation because it is the very piece that balances the stressors and it’s health. So this week’s challenge will address self awareness.

Many times, when asked about your Self you may quickly answer with what you do. That is not, however, who you are. This culture tends to enforce an external view of self and others. This tends to be a large part of your stress level and, consequently, your health. So let’s go within!

In general, you can better any aspect of your life by knowing what you wish to experience as a result of the relationship with that aspect. If it is your career, how do you want to experience the hours you spend in your career? If it is your partnership, how do you want to experience your partnership? And so on… Too often you may find yourself saying “I want my job to be …,” or “I wish my partner was/would…” Both of those thoughts are of the external portion of the relationship. You want to ask your Self what YOU want to experience. It may sound something like this: I want to experience a fulfillment that gives me internal calm with each person with whom I work; or, I would like to experience a beautiful hum from the rhythm in my relationship with my partner. It doesn’t matter that others understand your experience or not. It matters that it makes sense to YOU!

So this week we will do an exercise that helps you understand how to define the experiences you are wishing to have in your life. What is your favorite type of movie, book or music? Write that down. Now, ask your Self why you like that type. Does it move you, make you laugh, excite you, etc.? As you move through the week see if you can come up with other experiences that type of entertainment evokes in you. It may bring up memories, challenges, fears, dreams, emotions, identifying elements, or so much more! While doing that can you name your favorite movie, book, or artist? What makes it your favorite? Answer that question as if there is no one else on this earth but you. this is not an easy request. Give it your best and we will do much more with this in the workshop!

I am so thankful to you all for participating!

WEEK ONE

We welcome you to our 30-Day Challenge for less stress and better health! Over the next 4 Mondays, we will offer you some information and questions that can be your beginning to decreased stress levels and increased health! At the end of the 4th week, we will offer a brief online course that will tie the 4 weeks together and allow you to deepen the experience. Let’s begin:

Stress, Self and Better Health: Expectations

It has been known for all of time that stress leads to illness and injury. Today our media reports that stress is the leading influence for illness. There can be physical, chemical and emotional stressors. The physical stressors can be injuries, working out, sunburn, etc. Chemical stressors can be unhealthy food, medications, petrolatum products, pollution, etc. Finally, emotional stressors are anything that evokes the fear-based emotions (versus the love-based emotions). Consequently, if we have great nutrition, awareness of our body, and live in an absence of fear we will not experience the impact of stress!! Let’s get real. Most Americans cannot say that is their life. So, what can we do to begin decreasing the stress in our lives?

The physical and chemical stressors are the easiest to implement change. Once you identify where the stressors lie, you can, one by one, eliminate most of them. For example, you can hire a nutritionist (for healthier foods) or install a water treatment system (for water without chemicals) or work with a physician who has a holistic practice (to eliminate medications) etc. The emotional stressors are more difficult mostly because they are not tangible and are fear-based (and no one likes fear!). So, this series will address the emotional stressors more so than the others.

This week we are going to address expectations. Expectations are inherent in almost all emotional stress. Expectations are those thoughts or comments that are from someone or somewhere else and do not match your inner desires. They are an external frame of reference. Even if you think you are placing expectations on your self, you are truly using expectations that others had put upon you. Otherwise, you would have personal goals.

Let me give you an example. If I get home at the end of the day and I look at the dishes in the sink and I think, “Wow, I really should wash all those dishes,” then, I am thinking I need to wash the dishes because someone told me I should. Should is word that represents the expectation. If, however, I walk into the house and I see the dishes in the sink and I say to myself, “I’d really like to clean his dishes and make myself a dinner tonight,” or, maybe I say, “Ah, I’ll clean the dishes in the morning when I awaken. Either of the last two sentences is going to be closer to the way I feel inside. Maybe they both are. But as soon as I think I “should” do something or I “need” to do something, then I have switched from a personal goal or desire to an external expectation.

There is one glitch!! In the “workplace” and competitive sports there are going to be inherent expectations. That is because of the external structure and that it is that structure that dictates the outcome or bottom line. Once you become aware of expectations within yourself, you then will learn how to separate those that are inherent in the structure and those that are personally affecting you. It is at that point you will learn to balance the external structure with your internal personal being.

So, here’s the challenge for this week. I want you to become very aware of when and how often you say or think the following words or phrases:

You can do this by putting a rubber band on your wrist and popping it each time you hear yourself say or think any of those words or phrases. You can also keep a little notepad (or tape a piece of paper to the desk) and make a mark every time one of those words or phrases comes in language or thought.
Second, I would like you to be identify if the expectations are of you or another.

Third, I would like you to become very aware of those words or phrases in others around you. Who, around you, expresses expectations the most?

Go forth!! Enjoy your challenge!!