Enjoy!

Peace and Blessings for a fabulous 2012!

Michelle

There’s something about the end of one year and the beginning of the next that invites review and reflection. Without this calendar marker, it’s really just another day—but, for me, January 1 always feels momentous. It’s like drawing a line in the sands of time between the past and the present: whatever happened in the past stays in the past. And though I acknowledge that the past affects my decisions now and in the future, a new year invites new awareness, new thinking, newness of all kinds. Perhaps this is one of the reasons I enjoy creating traditions for stepping over the line. New Year’s Eve marks a point in time when one foot stands firmly on one side of that line, in the past, and the other foot in the present. And so, my New Year traditions include two parts:

Part One: Review and reflect on the past
I usually do this part of the tradition on New Year’s Eve, though I may also spend time during the first week of the New Year. First, I browse journal and calendar entries for the previous year, as well as last year’s New Year’s Chart (see below), to remind me of the various events and changes that occurred during the year. Note that I wrote “browse,” not “read,” because reading would take way too long, though I do read the letter I wrote to myself at the beginning of the previous year.

Then, I freewrite for twenty to thirty minutes, sometimes longer, with the following questions in mind (feel free to adapt this list in any way that works for you).

• What did I hope for and what did I accomplish?
• How has this year affected me personally and professionally?
• In what ways have I been disappointed and in what ways surprised and encouraged?
• What has been my greatest delight?
• Where have I let myself down?
• What has changed for me and within me?
• Have my values or beliefs shifted in any way?
• What fears have I overcome and/or what fears have I developed? And Am I more or less hopeful?
• How have I grown and what have I learned?

Part Two: Looking forward to the future

Create a New Year’s Chart. This is a fun, creative activity you can do alone or with other family members. When my children were little we used to do this together on New Year’s Day. You’ll need a large piece of paper and several colored markers. If you want to add fun (and time) to the activity, you can include glitter pen, stars, stickers, and pictures that you cut from magazines. The thing to keep in mind about this activity is that it is not about resolutions or even setting goals.

It’s about wishing and dreaming and thinking large.

1. Write the new year in large numbers at the top of the page.
2. Next, draw six circles and label the circles as follows (feel free to change these as suits you). Be sure to allow plenty of space around each circle:
3. Things I want to do.
4. Things I want to be.
5. Things I want to learn.
6. Things and people I want to see.
7. Places I want to go.
8. Adventures I want to have
9. Choose a different color for each topic or give each person a different color, and begin brainstorming all the things you’d like to do, be, learn, and see, places you want to go and adventures you want to have, around each circle like spokes off a wheel. Categories to think about while brainstorming include relationships (family, intimate, friendship), work/career, recreation, health, spirituality, community, and education.
10. When you’re done, post the chart on a wall. You can continue to add to it as you see fit over the next week or so. You may decide to keep it up on the wall all year as a reminder or to put it away and bring it out next New Year’s eve during the Review and Reflect part of your own personal New Year’s tradition.

“Sincere Forgiveness isn’t colored with expectations that the other person apologize or change.  Don’t worry whether or not they finally understand you.  Love them and release them.  Life feeds back truth to people in its own way and time.”   ~Sara Paddison

I have been thinking a lot about forgiveness lately. I have a client who has been struggling with a very challenging situation in her personal life, one in which she wishes she could be forgiven, but her friend is still too angry to even talk to her.It is my belief that as human beings we have many opportunities to forgive people or situations as well as ourselves.   And forgiving oneself is a simple act or attitude that can restore a sense of peace and balance in our lives even if we do not receive acknowledgement from an outside source that we have been forgiven.

Let me explain. If we can manage to come from a perspective that everyone is doing the best they can in every given moment it is much easier to offer up that same kindness and compassion to ourselves. If that is hard for you to believe, sit with it and open simply to the possibility that it is true.  We all make bad, even awful choices sometimes but in those very moments I would like to suggest that you did what you thought was the right thing for you or another in that moment.

As a society that has a strong religious undercurrent, forgiveness is often considered an action.  And, in that action there is an inherent sense of a power dynamic. As in: you do something to me and I offer you my forgiveness so that you may let go of any guilt you are carrying.  For example in the Catholic church you would go to a priest and confess your sins at which point you would be forgiven and could get on with your life. In the Jewish religion you would fast on Yom Kippur and wipe your slate clean. A friend accepts our apology and we are forgiven.

But what if that person decides that they will not forgive? What if they are so hurt and angry that they can’t and won’t forgive?

I am suggesting that forgiving ourselves is a more authentic and deep way to move on. If you can come from a place of compassion, from your own realization that you are human and sorry to say it but prone to fallibility, then you can forgive yourself and let go. If the person you’ve hurt isn’t ready to forgive you don’t suffer in the interim. You own your mistakes, you apologize, you do your best to rectify the situation but if the other person is holding on to her anger and pain that is not something you also need to bear.

In a recent article written by Rabbi Rami Shapiro in Spirituality and Health magazine the author suggest that if we focus on forgiveness as an attitude then something totally different happens inside of us.  He suggests that we can’t escape suffering, nor should we want to.  Life is what it is: a blend of joy and sorrow, happiness and horror.  Having the ability to offer forgiveness to yourself as well as others won’t change life from happening but it can free you from dragging down your moments of joy.

Is there anything in your life that needs forgiving?

In your journal write about a time when you were left unforgiven.  Write your own forgiveness letter starting out something like this….

Dear (your name goes here)

I want you to know that I forgive you.  I realize that we are all humans, doing human things making mistakes, and learning and growing from them.  I would like you to know that I love you and forgive you…

And continue the letter however you feel inspired.  In the end see how you feel and then check it out, can you offer that same forgiveness for another?  Often the compassion we can give to ourselves matches the amount of compassion we can give to another.

Peace~ M

A brief lesson in life and death…

I am deeply saddened by the deaths of two great thinkers.  I have been processing the death of Steve Jobbs for the last few weeks, thinking about his contributions to society through his brilliance, innovation, and courage to follow his heart and his willingness to not be liked.  He was magical and of course he had his shadow as we all do but that doesn’t take away the light of his greatness.  This morning I found out that James Hillman has died and my heart breaks.  James Hillman was a man who was imaginative and creative and who was willing to question what didn’t make sense to him.  What does this mean? What’s next for us?  How do we acknowledge their greatness? I have been fortunate in that I have never had someone truly close to me die.  I have had friends of friends die and I have had people whom were acquaintances pass away, but at this moment I feel a tremendous sense of loss.  And I feel this loss even though I wasn’t close to either of these men nor did I know them beyond their works.

These two men made huge contributions in their own unique ways to our societies. They changed the way we think and the way we approach innovation.  They were truly creative geniuses.  These two men live inspired lives and thought outside the box and were often chided because of it.  They changed the world in their own unique ways.  So I am left with this feeling of what now? This sense of what’s the take away?

I have a belief that there are no voids in nature, that when something is removed something has to take its place good or bad.   I believe that with the passing of these men, new creative geniuses will rise up and think outside of the proverbial box of our generation.

But with the passing of something great we must also take a moment to think about how we as individuals were touched by that experience and how can we take what we’ve been given from these men and use it to learn and grow?  How do we take the proverbial nectar from these giants and use it as nourishment for our own souls inspiration?

When I think of great people who have past I often think about what their greatness teaches me as an individual and how I can use some of their gifts to continue the work of moving forward as person and inspiring others to do the same.  I believe that enshrining someone work does not honor the fullness of their gifts although it has its place in the grieving process; their lives are more than their art.  What does their art teach us about ourselves?  When I think of Steve Jobbs or James Hillman and the way they lived their lives I think of living courageously, I think of following my own heart’s desires and trusting that process.  I think of honoring my own inspirations.   When James Hillman wrote his first book he was brushed aside and told that he had just set back psychology 300 years.  He laughed and was pleased as he felt that the way psychotherapy was being conducted was wrong in that the ownness was being place too much on the individual and not enough on culture or society. It is that ability to trust his own instincts that I appreciate and honor.

Whether or not either of these men touched your lives is not the point of this post.  My question for you is if you’ve had anyone in your past that you have lost, how have you processed that for yourself.  I would encourage you to spend sometime, maybe 10 minutes, an hour or a day and think about all the characteristics of this person.  What can you bring from them into your own life?

Maybe its more courage to live an inspired life, maybe its taking time to honor your own creative genius, maybe its being more accepting, more loving, I don’t know but I believe this is the best way to honor those whose deaths have impacted you in a significant way.

Peace ~M

Adolescence can be a time of turmoil not only for those going through it but for the family as well.  It seems that the everyday stress that teens have to deal with increases exponentially for each generation.  Not only do they have the same or similar stressors of competition in academics, sports and fitting in with peers as we did, but they get to learn how to navigate the influences of a vast array of drugs, technology, and increased competition in college entry.

We all know that our journey through adolescence can be one of the most challenging times in our lives; it’s a time of individuating, our childhood fades away, we are neither adult nor child.  It’s a time of struggle with moral issues, with social interactions and can be a time of friction in families.  Erik Erikson the developmental theorist suggested that this is a time for the teen to begin to establish his own philosophy of life and it is also a time that strong devotions to friends and causes become paramount.

With all of these changes on the horizon how do we help our children cope while at the same time developing a different set of skill sets as parents?   As parents the most important thing we can do is make sure that the lines of communication with our children are open. If for some reason your child feels more comfortable talking to a relative or family friend, let them have that resource, but also make sure that you as the parent or guardian can also communicate with this other adult.  We can help open lines of communication by being available if and when our kids want to talk.  This may not mean giving advice or having an opinion, it may mean just listening and then asking if they want advice or would like to hear how things worked when you were a kid. It also may mean biting your tongue when they simply need you to listen.

Also in my work with teens I have found that often they appreciate a story, not only stories from your childhood but also stories that sort of relate to what they may or may not be struggling with.  So… you as the parent get to work on your inner storyteller and tell some tales its okay to tell someone else’s story or add to a story of your own to add a moral question. In this way they get to tease ideas out in their own mind or tease it out with you. There are lots of great books out there; I’ll give you list at the end of this post.

What if your child appears to be really struggling with some anxiety and self-esteem issues?  First, normalizing anxiety is a good thing as we all experience some anxiety and in small amounts anxiety can be a positive thing. Anxiety is our body’s fight or flight response; our body’s alarm system as it were.  So in mild doses it can act as a sort of motivator to study harder or pay more attention or do something with more caution.  That being said if it anxiety lingers for too long an individual might experience feelings of doom or foreboding if this is happening to your child it would be best to enlist the help of a counselor and primary care physician to get a better handle on might really be going on.

For mild anxiety symptoms here are some strategies that your child can employ that may help alleviate some of his symptoms:

1.     Relaxation. Chilling out with friends or watching T.V. or surfing the web isn’t really relaxing nor are drugs and alcohol.  Doing some yoga, deep breathing or tai chi help the body on both a psychological and a physiological level.

2.     Get enough rest, eat a good diet, and exercise.  All of these ensure that our minds can do the work that is expected of us, all help our bodies to feel more relaxed and strong.

3.     Connect with others.  Spending time with friends and family help us to feel more supported and secure.  Having a place to let one’s hair down helps kids feel happier and less worried.

4.     Connect with Nature.  Going for a walk or running bare foot in the grass has a way of helping people let go of the things that might be less important in that moment.

5.     Think positive thoughts.  Having dreams about the future, focusing on what brings joy, creating a wish list or thinking about positive possibilities for the future can help bring more positive energy into our children’s lives. Working with them to learn some of these techniques can be good for both of you

Adolescence can be tough on everyone so take some time, play, and remember to smile.

Peace ~M

At our very best we can move from this connection with the world and then withdraw from it easily and at our leisure. However, often our careers and family and other obligations pull us out of this natural rhythm into one that over time can, and will, end up having a negative impact on our lives. If we only move outward and don’t take the time to retreat- anxiety, depression, fatigue, over indulging and pulling away from those who generally provide us with the love and support we need are often the outcome.

Each of us has to find a way to take the time to retreat and renew on an ongoing basis. Now you are probably thinking,” Yeah, Michelle, sounds great but I have real responsibilities and commitments that I have to keep, people are depending on me.” Sure it’s okay if every once in a while you stretch yourself when what you really need to do is retreat, but if over time this becomes the norm,  your health suffers: mental, emotional, and spiritual. I want you to know that it is within your reach to make conscious choices about when you will make contact and when you will retreat. It takes some practice but when we are able to do this we then come from a place of balance in our actions and decisions. Remarkably, things begin to flow.

As a first step, try this week to just notice your body’s desire to make contact with the outside world or its desire to retreat and recoup. Then when you’re ready, choose to follow what your body is telling you, even if in the past you would have pushed through.  Let me know how it goes.

~peace michelle

Parents,

who hasn’t lost their temper or been so confused by the behavior their child is displaying that they throw their hands up in defeat?

Well, I don’t know about you but I have, I have wondered; am I being to hard, how will my child and I get along in the future, what sort of values is she learning and integrating in her little mind, how can I help her be her best self…

Sometimes I can to be patient to a fault and other times I can lose my cool and in those moments I find myself apologizing for it later… what’s that teaching her?  Well, in a positive way a child can learn valuable skill sets from a parent who is willing to own a mistake or two.  It shows the child that we are all human beings and that we make mistakes, and that we get to be accountable for the fault that is ours.  However, if it happens too often those same children might learn some not so positive things like; my parents are out of control, they might learn its okay to fly off the handle any ol’ time just make sure you say sorry later or they may even learn that they need to take care of their parents in an emotional and rather adult way.  Either way it is ultimately be better if those times of us flying off the handle are few and far between.

In my pursuit to understand parenting and be a better clinician I have studied many books and taken many classes on parenting and child development, what I have found most helpful is the idea that in order for us to be well rounded and (sane) parents we need to take care of ourselves.   We need to have our anxiety levels in check so that when your child is about to jump off the top of your balcony you can do something more strategic besides yelling, which may actually frighten them into falling.

Lets just take a moment to talk about self-care. In the myriad of things that a parent has to do through out the day, how much time gets devoted to self-care?   For me, I find that its something I have to schedule in just as I would any other appointment.  I set my alarm in the morning to do some writing, reading and meditating before anyone else gets up, that way I can ensure quiet uninterrupted space.   If you aren’t a morning person then maybe in the evening when everyone has gone to bed you might be able to take a moment and write about how your day went, what could have been different or maybe just lay on the floor and breath for five minutes.   Whatever, it is that brings you some peace and relaxation just make sure you make time to do it at least once a day.

When it comes to parenting many times we are being pushed beyond what we have learned ourselves or even what we know about parenting.  However, if we have taken care of ourselves we have a better chance of being able to handle the pressure and complicated nature of parenting.   So, make sure to take some time to pursue your passions and make them about you not your children ultimately it will make you a better parent in the long run.

Food for thought

1.     When you hear the word self care what are the immediate messages that come into your mind?  Write them down and then create an opposing positive message for instance:

a.     I don’t have time:  (positive) I do have time I just have to find it

2.     Think of a time when you thought your child or children were out of control. If you had greater control over your emotions, how could the situation have had a different outcome

3.     What sorts of fear stop you from focusing on yourself?  List them out and think about where they came from. Maybe some sort of work ethic from a family member…

This is an actual question a client posed to me the other day:  great question, No?

So what do values have to do with anything you ask, well, my dears, everything.  You see we find our values in everything we do.  For instance when your walking down the street do you make time to stop and smell a beautiful flower or are you the type of person whose family always comes first.  Now, let me just say that guilt can often times peek its nasty head in our trip, so to say.  I have to mention that little gremlin guilt because often times I find that my lovely well-intentioned clients might feel guilty if say, personal success comes as a higher priority to them than community or family for that matter.  Remember that just because we might have a high value on a particular thing it doesn’t mean that the rest is negated.  So… its true one can have a high value on personal success and also have a high value on family and community.

Then comes balance, so how do we balance our lives when we have an innate drive for achievement, while we also value peace and relaxation.  How do we then find balance in all of the things that we value: because just a little secret between you and me… most of us value more than five things and when the pressure is put on most of the time we have a hard time choosing what our top values are.

Remember that some values change over time and within different culture contexts, its been said,” Cross a river and you’ll find a new set of standards, values and morals.”  We however are talking your personal values, the very things that make up who you are and what your cherish most in this lifetime.   With all of that said, what are your personal values and how are you honoring them or not in your life at this time.

Lets try a brief values exercise and see what comes up for you, by the way I would love to hear what you think about the exercise and how values are showing up in your life a this time.

Cheers:

Michelle

Values exercise:

This should only take around five to ten minutes at the most so it doesn’t need to be a big ordeal.  Remember this is just a beginning exercise just a little taste to get you in touch with part of your essential self, the one that knows.

First:  find a comfortable seated position or lying down, close your eyes and take some nice deep breaths.  Breathing all the way into your low tummy area, abdominal to be correct, but breath here for a few moments and then begin to let you mind wander to a time in your life that was particularly challenging.   Go deeper into that time and be present in that experience.  How did you get out of that situation? What was your motivation for getting out at all? Who did you think of, if you thought of anyone at all?  What were you looking forward to when it was all over, or were you looking forward to anything?  As you ask yourself these questions you might want to open your eyes and begin to journal, let your thoughts just freely flow for about 5 minutes or more if you have the time, by all means don’t quit writing if you don’t have to.   When you’re done with the writing, read what you wrote.  Are there any values you can see right away? Are there any hidden values in there?

Check it out and see what comes up and then you might say, how am I honoring that essential part of myself or not?  Or how could I honor those parts more?

Best to you and may your journey be filled with all the abundance life has to offer.

M

When you know who you really are, you are able to manifest your deepest desires. You are able to experience abundance, joy, and fulfillment. Yet most people confuse their true identity with their self-image. They identify themselves with external things, including their possessions, titles, money, perceived status, and the opinion of others. This is known as object referral. By their very nature, objects change, so as long as you remain in a state of object referral, your life will feel unstable.

The opposite of object referral is self-referral or identifying with your inner self – the unchanging essence of your soul. In this state you have an internal sense of abiding happiness regardless of what is happening around you because you aren’t identified with transient objects or events. Your true self is:

• Connected to all that exists
• Unlimited and unbounded
• Infinitely creative
• Fearless and willing to step into the unknown

Since your true self is an inseparable part of the field of pure potentiality, the intentions that you set from this level of your being are powerful. When you’re established in your true self, you are able to harness the infinite organizing power of infinite intelligence to manifest your deepest desires.

After Reading this I was thinking, yes and how do we get from that place of object referral when we are constantly looking outside of ourselves for clues as to who we are at any given moment.

There are actually many ways to connect on a deeper level with ones-self and many of those ways are along the lines of finding  things that are particular to you those things that in your most intimate moments with yourself you say to yourself, “I am really in love with this….”

However, our world or the world that we have created in this moment tends to be one that requires a lot of our attention like an unruly child  that constantly begs for our attention, our lives have a way of  requiring that we  always think about what’s next for us or what we have to do next.

With all this in mind my invitation for you this week is to find 5 or more minutes a day for you to just be with your self.  Not doing anything just being.  You can meditate if you want, if that is something that feels good to you or practice one yoga asana, but mostly just be… relax in a chair (no reading) lay down and let yourself really rest, tune in to your breath, imagine clouds above you and try to feel that movement in your own body or the gentle rocking of waves hitting the side of a boat.

Just something where you have an opportunity to tune into your true, pure, peaceful self; no attachments just you part of everything.  Relax…

Om shanti