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A Miracle - Text from Great-Great-Great Grandma!

Three years ago, my dead great-great-grandmother sent me a text message.

Let me tell you the story…

Back in January of 2010, I was resting at home after a whirlwind trip teaching and leading workshops. I was finally home and grounding out, ready for some do-nothing time.

That's when I received a text message on my phone, from my DAD's phone. It said:

"You is da one we love."

What a strange text to get from my dad! I wrote back, feeling a little weirded out, saying "Hi Dad, I love you too." But he didn't respond. I called him. No answer. I felt funny about it.

The next day, I got a second text:

"Do you know who dis is?"

When I saw this second text, I felt shivers run all over my body. I suddenly could sense who was texting me. This was my great great great grandmother, Berta Potter. She was the mother of William J Creque, my Caribbean great-grandfather. They lived on a small island in the British Virgin Islands called Anegada.

I doubted myself. I called around, and confirmed that my Dad was in Mexico, WITHOUT HIS PHONE. He had left his phone, turned off, on his desk in San Diego. He was nowhere near his phone. And no one else had access to it either.

Now, I'm psychic and all, but the fact that my ancestor was TEXTING me was pretty amazing and kinda creepy - even for ME!

Shaking, and feeling FULL of inspiration, I went to my laptop, and opened my fingers for her to type. I do this "automatic writing" sometimes as a way to channel messages straight through.

*** continued ***

When I wrote for her, my Grandma Berta asked me to come back to Anegada. She said that it was time for me to "harvest" the power that is there for me - a power that comes through my ancestry. I told her I accepted, and would come. I planted a seed then to return to Anegada as my grandmother suggested. But those were intense times for me, and the timing was not right then. Through these last 3 years, I have stayed open to receiving a clear RESONANT YES opportunity to go back to Anegada.

In the past two months, my two remaining grandparents from the other side of my family passed away. Three days ago, I eulogized my Grandma Lue, my last remaining grandparent. I thanked her for instilling in our family a culture of playful creativity, affectionate love, and joyful service. I could feel a shift in our family and in my own self. Suddenly, I can feel that I have moved up a generation. Now I'M the mom, and my mom is the grandma. I felt a calling to step into my own leadership even more.

Yesterday, a dear friend called me to invite me to step in to fill a vacated spot on a trip in the Caribbean. The first destination on this pre-planned trip was… you got it… the tiny and rarely-visited island of ANEGADA. Of course I knew this was a gift and a major sign. I booked the tickets immediately, and committed to going. Boom. Just like that. I'm packing after I write this for you!

What an unexpected miracle!

How could it be that I had the time in my schedule to jump on this? More miracles. An engagement in the Bay Area was canceled, and my clients were set up for the following week. An unexpected infusion of funds gave me the resources I needed to make it happen. At the right time, and with the RESONANT YES, all the details fell into place.

Now, I am celebrating with joyful gratitude, and saying YES to the whole procession. I'm doing this, because I KNOW that my GRATITUDE and celebration are what keeps this kind of flow moving in my life.

So, NOW - I invite you to plant your own seed in this Springtime, and KNOW it will sprout. In my case, the prophesy took 3 years to come to fruition. But my confidence and openness to receive, along with the generosity and connection of my dear friends, have made it all possible.

Enjoy your own miracles - small and large. And know that the more you CELEBRATE them, the more will come to you!

***

Do you feel blocked to this kind of serendipity and abundance?

Maybe it's time for a profound shamanic clearing with me?

You are invited... CLICK HERE for info!

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Passion and Purpose

What is your passion?

Is it scary to ask yourself this question? Do you fear the answer? Does the answer fail to fit your current lifestyle choices?

What is your passion?

When I ask, does your brain immediately kick in with reasons not to listen to the answer? Reasons to discredit your first impulse, your fantasy, your dream?

What is your passion?

When I ask, does your inner child perk up his or her ears, curious to see if the adult-in-charge (that's you) is brave enough to reveal the answer to the world without withholds, without compromise, and without expectation?

It might be less scary to answer the questions the world is constantly asking, like "What do you want?" or "What's your plan?" I imagine your brain has the answers to these ready at-hand.

What does it feel like to sink into your Wanting - the Raw Energy of Wanting - using the stories of what you want simply to fuel the flames of passion. What is it like to build this passionate desire, without believing the stories and conditions your mind has about what it needs or wants to satisfy this longing and desire? What if the feeling of this desire is already its own answer?

Passion is the raw juice that fuels Purpose. It is the motivation for Devotion. It is our Creative Force and Strength.

When we can manage to embrace and ride our raging Passion while allowing the Spirit to guide through Intuition, and the Mind to choose wisely, we have found our Path and our Purpose.

Lots of people who come to me for a session report that they feel disconnected from their Passion, and they feel without Direction or Purpose. I notice that when they give themselves permission to feel their Passion, wild and unreasonable, like a fire in the belly, the clouds begin to clear. The Path begins to form - just the first step, and then the next. The Way opens. If you have a trained mind, and an open connection with Spirit, but the Way is not yet clear, you might try basking in the flames of your Passion, and watch the Path emerge.

***

Want some help clearing the BLOCKS to feeling your passion, or clearing the SELF-SABOTAGE that prevents your passion from blossoming into motivation and ACTION?

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Even the Pope is a “Recovering Catholic”

For many of us, there’s plenty to recover from. Whether you choose stay in the Church and lick your wounds and salvage your faith from within, leave the “Mother” Church for spiritual sustenance elsewhere, or walk out with the one-finger salute in the air, it’s hard not to admit, fellow Catholics, that many of us are now in “recovery.”

The Church is losing numbers. The old restrictive rules (no birth control --really?) are getting harder to explain to the younger educated masses. Isn’t it telling that even the Pontiff himself is withdrawing from his role because of the pain and mess that has resulted from the child sex abuse scandals, as proof is revealed that the Church fathers have been protecting the abusers? So which Catholics are NOT recovering, at this point?

I believe we’ve reached a tipping point of the “Recovering Catholic” phenomena, and it’s time that we start talking about it.

What’s the damage?

So you’re a Recovering Catholic. What might you be “recovering” from? The Catholic Church has long-insinuated, if not openly embraced, some judgmental perspectives that are becoming more and more difficult to swallow as we become more educated, and our society becomes more egalitarian. Here are a few underlying assumptions in the old-style Catholic teachings that have made it tough to remain Catholic for many....

• The underlying belief men are superior in holiness, and women are beneath, as the originators of sin.

• The desecration of sensual pleasure (touch, sex, pleasure in general) as a life-affirming gift.

• The denigration of the body itself as inferior to the “spirit.”

• The relegation of a rebellious activist progressive Jewish leader and mentor (Jeshua) into an oppressively sanitized image of a dutiful blonde martyr who is pretty hard to relate to.

And then there are some “rules” that make even the "best" Catholics wiggle in their seats, because they just seem silly.:

• Condemning the use of birth control technology or medication as tantamount to murder because it can "kill" a fertilized egg a.k.a. baby (including “the pill” and condoms).

• Exclusion from full participation (communion) anyone who is divorced (whether or not they instigated the divorce or could even prevent it!).

• Denigration of those who might be attracted to someone of the same gender (this includes a lot of priests, of course, which makes ever more confusing).

• Mandated continuing pregnancy for all women, including those who have been raped.

• Exclusion of women from any significant position of leadership in the Church (i.e. priesthood or “above”)

• Catholic priests cannot marry, even though there have been exceptions for previously Protestant married priests who become Catholic.

Even though the Church and Catholics are devoted to promoting the love of Christ in the world, many of the structural historical actions have created true travesties and pain. These include:

• Massive numbers of women who have been imprisoned and abused with the Church’s blessing (Magdalene Laundries provide just one example),

• So many youth abused by sexually-repressed priests (of any sexual orientation) through the years and across global borders, under the Church’s protection.

• Countless colonial travesties through the years as the Church participated in the “evangelization” of indigenous people who too often ended up devastated or dead.

Millions of good people are Catholic. Millions find God in the Church. Church leaders are good people trying to do the right thing. But the numbers are dwindling in churches worldwide, because it is getting harder and harder to “divorce” the Church (pardon the pun) from the ugly, judgmental, and outdated positions, rules, and practices that many know would sicken the guy we call Jesus.

Being a "Recovering Catholic" doesn't mean you HAVE to leave the Church, but for many of us who feel the pain of the inconsistencies, it comes to feel like the only palatable choice. I am one of those who left, but still holds gratitude and respect for my time in the Church and all it gave me.

My Story: From a Campus Minister to Recovering Catholic

I walked my faith in the Church for over 30 years. I LOVED my Catholic faith, and my church community. From the age of 7 onward, I was singing with my full heart in the choir, eventually becoming my Catholic high school’s Student Campus Minister, designing masses and retreats for teens to open their hearts to Christ. I studied theology in grad school while I was in law school. I continued as a super-active and aware Catholic for a long time, even knowing all this “bad” stuff. I reasoned that the downsides of the Church (institutionalized denigration of women and the body) were balanced by the upsides! I hoped to be part of a change from within!

Yet after giving birth to my daughter in the year 2000, which was an experience of true ecstatic spiritual empowerment and embodied sensual bliss, I could no longer stand walking into my dearly beloved childhood church. I felt opened at a whole new level. I was much more intuitive, and I was awakened to a different perspective. The Church had not changed. I had. Jesus was still there. But so were the countless other carriers of sacred wisdom and grace.

Suddenly, I noticed that the images in my church were all of men, except for the Virgin and other sad and somber women saints. I noticed that my uncle, who had been divorced against his own choosing, was not welcome to receive Communion. I remembered that as a girl, I was told apologetically that I could NEVER hope to be a priest as I’d hoped.

For me, it was not a decision to leave the Church. It was a realization. In my integrity, I could no longer count myself a member of a religious organization that was doing this damage, and even HIDING the damage, especially when it showed very little intent or ability to change. That was it for me. I was a recovering Catholic.

After I left the Church, I began to realize just how much internalized sexism, judgment, guilt, body-disconnect and shame I had to recover from. And this recovery became a spiritual journey that led me to levels of freedom and intimacy with my creator that has gone much deeper than what I experienced within my church.

I continue to feel personally grateful to the Church for the education in ritual, in prayer, in community building. I am grateful that it provides a space for prayer, for community, for service. I pray that the Church “herself” might WAKE UP and begin doing the RECOVERING so that her global community doesn’t have to do it all painstakingly for “her.”

So what now? What are the gifts of being a Recovering Catholic?

How can we walk (inside or outside the Church), and make the best of what we have been given by our Catholic background?

Recovering Catholics, who manage to release the shame and guilt, can harvest and enjoy the blessings of the tradition. Because of our background with the Church, we have experience that benefits us in the world! Here are some reminders of what there is to CELEBRATE as Recovering Catholics:

1. Reclaiming ritual celebration – even if you’re no longer into the mass, the liturgy of the Catholic Church likely imbued you with a deep respect for symbolic ritual. Ritual, at its most basic definition, is the act of doing something physical, using symbolic movements, things, and actions, to embody your prayer, or your intention, alone or in communion with others. Ritual is something all of us can do to strengthen and focus our intention and prayer. Recovering Catholics have the opportunity to make our own rituals, celebrations, and symbolism, informed and inspired by the church’s rich symbology, but not controlled or limited by it.

2. Sexual integrity – in a world where the messages and images of sex are often degrading to women AND men, as recovering Catholics, we have a chance to re-define our own sexual values in ways that promote love, honesty, and responsibility – as these are the HIGHER principles of any religion including Catholicism. While we do not have to be bound by rules or judgmental attitudes, we can transform the repression into a healthy concern, level-headedness, and prayerful discernment, creating our own version of sexual integrity that celebrates BOTH responsibility and the sacred pleasure that an embodied relationship brings into our lives.

3. Healing the wounded paradigm – since we have experienced the effects of an archaic system that de-valued many forms of feminine wisdom, personal empowerment, and sexual self-determination, many recovering Catholics have experienced the pain and shame that brings. Who better, then, to set about changing the paradigm? We - who have experienced our intuitive wisdom being set aside for rules, our celebration of beauty and humor being punished with the ruler, or even having experienced outright sexual abuse within the Church – we become experienced, wise, valuable agents of change. We can transform the pain and righteous rage into a devotion to pray in our own way, and to make a better world for our kids and grandkids.

It’s bigger than that...

Replace recovering “catholics” with “jews” or “lawyers” or “republicans” or “professors.” The truth is, all of our old restrictive systems of judgement and top-down moral doctrine are being tested and dismantled under the rising awareness of the masses, the expanding freedom of information as seen via the internet, and the natural evolution of the human mind. We are all Recovering. And that, I feel, is something to celebrate.

Are you a recovering Catholic?

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Feminine Confidence

She strides into the room, hips swaying gently, her footsteps landing soft and secure as if this room were her own. She breathes in the fragrant air of this place, her heart rising toward the sky, a smile lighting up her face as she looks around, curious and noticing all the beautiful details. She can feel the whole world smiling back at her, appreciating her, opening to hear what she has come to say. She feels the support of her history behind her, and she knows she is in the right place, at the right time. With a small prayer of gratitude, a teardrop forms at the corner of her eye as waves of poignant and pleasurable fullness wash through her. She knows she may just burst, overflowing, and she is ready and willing to do just that.

Who is this woman in your mind?

If this were you, what would be the circumstance before this moment, to put you in this state?

This is a peek at Feminine Confidence.

[It is not limited only to women, by the way. Re-read the story above, substituting “he” for “she.”]

Feminine Confidence is what it feels like to be FULL of Feminine Essence. When we have released the major blocks to embodying this soft, emotionally rich, sensual and powerfully connective force, we radiate feminine power. Both men and women have parts feminine and masculine energies. Though it tends to be that most women embody Feminine Essence and Feminine Confidence more often than most men because our bodies are literally built for this energy.

If you wrote a similar portrait of Masculine Essence, you might write more about the body’s force, the sharpness of focus, the clear problem solving mind, the passionate drive to create, the protective strength and kindness. And yes, women embody this energy too. Actually, we women have embodied it so much, that we’ve forgotten about the Feminine aspect of our power.

This Masculine Essence has been written about enough. Productivity, goal-setting, problem-solving, strength and getting things done – these are the basis of our current, though changing, cultural values. And many women have sacrificed their Feminine Essence to become adept in their Masculine, for the sake of achieving “success” as we have defined it under these terms.

Yet we are all, men and women, longing for the meaning, the earth-connection, and the deep nourishment of the Feminine. Women are longing to feel their beauty, their relaxed sensual enjoyment of life, their inherent worth and wisdom. Many men long for the ineffable sweetness of the feminine that sparks their masculine into action. They admire symbols of the sexy confidence of a woman in her full pleasure and satisfaction, and they long for the real thing. Without Feminine Confidence embodied, women are left feeling successful but unfulfilled, sexually numb or frustrated, and too tired to really enjoy anything. Men are left feeling frustrated and disempowered because they can never do “enough” to satisfy the women in their lives. We are all starving for HER for the fullness, the meaning, the depth, the rich sensual sacred mystery of life!

As both men and women, then, we are CALLED to embody our own Feminine Confidence, filling ourselves with the body-sense of our Feminine Essence. It is time to invoke the Feminine Power back into ourselves and thereby into the world.

Here's how!

Steps to Feminine Confidence:

1. Safety and Security for the Little Girl Inside.

GOAL: Without confidence in the basic physical safety and security, the feminine does not rise. When we feel insecure, we enter fight or flight, and the “emergency response” team in the body takes over, leaving no room for the expansive receptive state of our Feminine. The nervous system calms when the whole being knows it is safe. This is the goal.

ACTION: Imagine a little girl version of yourself living inside of you. Ask her what she needs to feel safe in life. It might be 2 months rent in the bank, or food in the fridge, or a backup plan just in case, or a promise not to relate with someone who hurts her feelings on a regular basis. Different people need different things to allow the nervous system to relax, so you must approach this inquiry with acceptance and an open-mind. If your little girl tells you what she needs, and you berate her or try to negotiate down from there, you may well lose her trust. She needs what she needs. This is subconscious primal stuff. It is generally non-negotiable. Be advised that what your inner little girl needs to be safe may change – even day-to-day! To move forward with embodying Feminine Confidence, you MUST be willing to connect in a living relationship and dialogue with this part of yourself, and you must protect her as you would your own child. Make your inner little girl safe. This is a pre-requisite to all else. Without this basic safety and willingness to relax, you can not move forward into Feminine Confidence. The little girl part of you will sabotage attempts to do so, so that she can be sure that safety comes first. That is her job.

2. Slow Down and Breathe.

GOAL: To open to the Feminine, we must relax our dependence on the Masculine energy in our lives. This requires slowing down, breathing deeply, and relaxing the systems meant for pushing productivity. The rhythm of the Feminine Essence is flowing, not staccato. Pushing, striving, and focusing are more part of the masculine. We don’t want to give up the masculine ways. But to attune to the Feminine Essence, we need to make some room for her, to focus on her for a while as we have been focused on the Masculine for a long time. Then, we can have the freedom and discernment to balance the two energies at will inside of us!

ACTION: As often as possible, Stop and Sense. Stopping can be just sitting quietly, standing still, or just taking a conscious breath. The breath is heralded in just about every tradition for the easiest tool to relaxation, awareness, and wellness. It really is that simple. Stop what you are doing, and take a deep breath, then let it out unrestricted like a breathy sigh. Repeat. This counts as “Stopping.” Now, SENSE what is inside you, and then what is outside of you. Do this with a conscious choice towards wonder, compassion, and curiosity. Look inward, feel inward – what emotions, sensations, and thoughts do you notice? Treat them with kindness, patience and curiosity. Now look around your surroundings with the same appreciation, curiosity, and kindness. Take it all in, and dare to enjoy it, seeing beauty everywhere. Although this sounds easy, our culturally-trained preference for criticism will often get in the way if we let it. This “stopping and sensing” requires a dedication to self-acceptance and love in order to move forward into Feminine Confidence. It is counter-cultural. It is revolutionary. And it transforms. Like the first step of Safety, this step can not be skipped on the path to Feminine Confidence.

3. Pleasure is Feminine Essence.

GOAL: Our most common word for “Feminine Essence” is Pleasure. Re-filling yourself with the sensual creative force of your feminine wisdom REQUIRES that you welcome the experience of pleasure, and that you find yourself willing to experience pleasure of many types and forms. Our culture has trained us out of pleasure. It has taught us that pleasure in the body is all sexual, and that it’s shameful. It has taught us that hard work is valuable, and pleasure is a luxury. It claims that if someone is experiencing pleasure, they are not productive and therefore not worth so much. Since the Feminine Essence IS pleasure – we must release our cultural restrictions on pleasure, and re-learn how to welcome natural sacred pleasure into our every moment.

ACTION: The good news is, pleasure follows directly from stopping and sensing. From the place of stopping and sensing, I encourage you to hold the intention that you can enjoy every sensation, every breath, every look around. If this is difficult to do, then pray/ask/intend with all your might that the restrictions to pleasure be released from you. It is easiest to practice this pleasure of appreciation when you put yourself somewhere you find beautiful. Go to the beach, the park, the forest, the top of a building in the city which affords a stunning view – and stop, sense and take pleasure in the sight. When you are seated in front of your favorite dish at the table, take full pleasure in each bite you take, savoring every moment. Allow whatever pleasure you experience to fill your whole body, without restriction. Pleasure experience can be amplified with deep breaths, and also with happy sounds like moans and giggles. Give yourself permission to amplify and celebrate the simple pleasures of life with breath and sound.

4. Embody Feminine Confidence

GOAL: Now that you are accessing Pleasure (which is the closest word we have for the Feminine Essence, remember), it is time to embody this force to create the subjective experience of Feminine CONFIDENCE. Pleasure can be a sensory experience held mostly in the mind and awareness. To really embody pleasure and the confidence it brings, we need to bring awareness consciously down into the body.

ACTION: If you are enjoying the view, the food, the sense of the wind on your skin, breathing deeply, and even sounding your pleasure with a sigh, a little moan, or a giggle, you are on your way to embodying the Feminine Essence, and experiencing the full confidence it brings when your body is FULL of this energy. To take it all the way into the body, it is time to MOVE. Dancing is the oldest and most clear path to this embodiment. But in our culture, dancing has become another competitive task which is either done well or poorly. So in this exercise, you must be willing to give up your judgments on your own movement, on your dance. You must be willing to return to a childlike FUN attitude of imagination and play while you move your body.

Here are three options for moving your body into fullness of pleasure, joy and Feminine Confidence:

1. Jump for joy and giggle or whoo-hoo in celebration (yes, you can fake it till you make it.) Put a big smile on your face, consider the beauty and pleasure you have been experiencing, and jump up and down while making happy sounds. Do this until you feel FULL of joy! OR…

2. Shake and wiggle your pleasure response through your body, while making your happy sounds. Allow your spine to wiggle, shake your hands and legs, and imagine the pleasure you have been experiencing to FILL you through your whole body and to the tips of your arms and legs. OR…

3. Put on some music (if you’d like) and DANCE your own way, moving your spine, your arms and legs. Don’t lie down or sit down or convince yourself you can “dance” without moving much. You NEED to bend your spine, move your whole body – arms up, legs up, everything moving in BIG movements (this is not the “white-man’s shuffle” you learned in junior high dances). Here too, make your happy sounds and keep BREATHING.

Doing any one of these 3 options while breathing very deeply, intending to cultivate joy and pleasure, moving it through the whole body will bring you to your own state of FEMININE CONFIDENCE. When you stop moving, allow the energy to remain, coursing through your body.

Now read that first paragraph again, and acknowledge that you are feeling closer to that. You are embodying MORE of your Feminine Confidence.

To remain in this state from day-to-day, month-to-month, and onward, try this 5th step...

5. Embrace your Feminine Divinity

GOAL: With a culture that still focuses on our masculine gifts, it can be a challenge to remain devoted to cultivating the Feminine in ourselves, and in the new balanced culture we long to create.

ACTION: Embrace the Feminine as Divine. You likely already have been trained to pray to a male God. Yet, the wisdom traditions remind us that "God" is neither male nor female. Years of praying to a FATHER only, though, have left us imbalanced. To rectify this imbalance in your own subconscious, pray to the Feminine. Choose a symbol - Mother, SensualOne, Earth, PassionateOne. Choose a goddess symbolic of the feminine aspect you most need to embrace in yourself. And pray. No need to give up your male version of god. Just add a feminine devotion as well! Choose an established religious deity if you'd like (the Hindu tradition offers many to choose from, for example). Allow the Mystery to show up, supporting you in your intentions, and reminding you when you have wandered off course. Devotion is the feminine form of Discipline. Worship the Feminine, and you will keep coming back into balance.

The ART of Cultivating Feminine Confidence is, like many things, a matter of practice. Yet it is worth cultivating. Step by step, as you PRACTICE these steps, you WILL come more and more into your sensual awareness, your pleasurable enjoyment of life, and your own feminine power and wisdom. Your intuitive wisdom will rise, and more miracles will occur in your life. You will become magnetized to attract other joyful people. Your Feminine Confidence will inspire others to their own. And your Feminine Essence will call out the balanced Masculine Essence of clarity and service in the men (and women) around you too. Cultivating Feminine Confidence is one of the most valuable things you can do for our culture at this time.

Thank you for coming fully into the power of your pleasure and feminine essence!

***

Want HELP coming into your Feminine Confidence?

Why, That's what I do BEST! And I want to help YOU!

First, I want to CLEAR the blocks that might make this harder to do on your own. This is my special gift. I clear blocks at the soul level, so that you are not anchored anymore to the pain and limiting training of your past. You feel freer, clearer, and able to move toward a future you never dreamed possible. Finally! You'll have more access to that little girl inside, and more ease in stopping and sensing. You'll be able to do these steps better than ever before.

Then, I want to GUIDE you in applying just the right practices for your lifestyle to OPEN your FEMININE beauty, wisdom, and power.

Finally, I am here to CONNECT you with your own guides and purpose, to continue on your path feeling fully resourced, fueled, and JOYFUL about the way forward. I can help you see what is YOUR OWN VERSION of Feminine Confidence and help you GET THERE.

Click here to learn about my Feminine Confidence sessions package.

Give yourself the beauty, delight, and confidence you've always dreamed of by simply enjoying being your SELF.

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From EMOTIONAL MUCK to INSPIRED CONFIDENCE

It's time to make your SEETHING EMOTIONS fuel your confidence, not your craziness!

Many folks are feeling emotionally turbulent, with the old muck at the bottom of the pond being stirred up fervently. That pond muck doesn't smell very pleasing. But it sure is full of composting fertilizer for your creative expression in the world.

The challenge at this time is to actually step out of the murky pond of emotions, carry the muck into the light, and churn it into your creative projects without procrastinating, escaping, or just lazing around.

What's your muck? It may be coming through your dreams...

By pond muck, I mean those old emotions you didn't have time or energy to feel when they were triggered in the past. Well, with the stars and cycles aligned as they are, you are either FEELING them or at least DREAMING them. Yes, the dreams right now are intense. Whether you remember your dreams or not, you may be waking up more tired than rested.

Here are the THREE BEST WAYS to harvest the muck, and then I'll show you how to let it fertilize your creativity...

1.Meditate (don't roll your eyes...you know, just sitting quietly and breathing totally counts) to give time for the pond muck to rise while you are conscious, and able to breathe through the feelings so they can move;

2. Go to bed earlier, sleep longer - to give yourself to dream AND rest. Yep, that dream thing does take extra energy when you're processing emotions from the past. You noticed, but you are so stingy with your sleep! Give more time to dream, and you'll have an easier time when awake.

3. Cry if you feel like it - Growl if you feel like it - Throw a fit if you feel like it - just don't try to make sense of any of it because it's old material. Express it with open jaw, open breath, and it will move. Remember, artists often appear nuts. That's cause they're not stifling their emotional expression. And neither should you!

How to apply aforementioned fertilizing muck to your creative projects...

Don't believe your thoughts when you're feeling blue. Instead, breathe through and express (as mentioned above) and then get artsy in your own way. Dance, move, draw, write - doodling counts. And then get quiet again, and let inspiration flow. The emergent inspiration is the sign that your fertilizer is working - sprouting clarity, new ideas, and the palpable feeling of connection to inspiration.

Another way to look at it - You are cultivating a FEMININE form of CONFIDENCE. This is the sensual experience of confidence that leaves you KNOWING you are an ARTISAN of LIFE. Read this article to get a deeper understanding of Feminine Confidence, how it is different from Masculine Confidence, and how to cultivate it...

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New Moon Ritual to Manifest your BUSINESS

Want to take full advantage of New Moon energies to create your successful, inspiring, fulfilling business in this world?
Here's an idea for a ritual to do just that.

The 20-Minute Business Plan Ritual

1. Pretend you are in 8th grade. This is important. I don't want you holding yourself to a grown-ups professional standards. Got it? Okay.
2. You have a pop-quiz essay to write. You have 20 minutes to write a business plan for changing the world using your own special gifts.
3. Set the timer for 20 minutes. Don't plan it out beforehand.
4. Write your essay, following these headings: "My gifts - What I'm good at", "My fantasy day at work", and "Here's what happens to the people I help" Write for 20 minutes, and just make sure you get something under each header. Fortunately, this does NOT have to make any sense or inspire potential investors. It just opens your creative channel and tunes you towards manifesting a dream life.
5. Now that it's over, don't fix it. Whatever you wrote is fine. You can, however, get extra credit for drawing pictures to go along with it, preferably in crayon.
6. If you email me a picture of it, I will give you a FREE 20-minute phone mini-session where I'll advise you as to how to make your dreams come true. Yep, that's right. Since you read to the bottom, you get a special treat if you follow through. Don't you feel great about being a good student? This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it and I'll contact you to set up your session!

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Community vs. Business: What's the difference?

by Mellissa Seaman

Intro: This article was written in 2011, when I was fully involved as an active member of two intentional communities that also had strong business components (Harbin Hot Springs and Avalon Springs). I was honored to attend an international gathering of retreat center leaders from around the world. All retreat centers share both a community aspect and a business aspect. Balancing the two is an ongoing challenge, as it is in any profit-making endeavor...

***

I was shocked, but a deep validating calm seeped into my bones as I found my face nodding in affirmation. “It’s pervasive,” I thought, “it’s not just us.” As I looked around the circle, I saw heads nodding with the same flush of recognition in the faces of leaders from 15 other community-based holistic retreat centers including Harbin, Esalen, Spirit Rock, Mount Madonna, Findhorn, Kalani Honua, and Breitenbush Hot Springs.

Leaders of Breitenbush Retreat Center had just shared that despite their fully democratic, accessible, and inclusive decision-making structure, one of the biggest cultural issues was an “Us vs. Them” mentality among the community members toward management. And those who complained the most about their feelings of powerlessness in the process were those LEAST likely to share specific ideas, to participate in the many open meetings, or to step up for a turn in a leadership position in this worker-owned cooperative. “They say it’s ‘Us vs. Them,’” explains one of Breitenbush’s leaders for over 20 years, “when actually it’s ‘Us vs. Us!’”

This statement was followed by nervous giggles and then silence in the room.

Community Vs Business. Us vs. Them. Management Vs. Residents. This dichotomy is played out in the exploration of decision-making processes in many community-based retreat centers. From Findhorn’s full-consensus model to Breitenbush Hot Springs’ representative democracy to Esalen’s conscious hierarchical model to others who have an either spoken (or often un-spoken) Guru/Founder-has-veto-power rule, it seems that all systems have one thing in common. No matter how the decisions are being made, the decision-making structure is often attacked for serving private interests OR for being ineffectual – or both.

What is it that draws us to the “intentional community plus retreat center” lifestyle? We come to live the dream. We come for community. We come to live connected, respected, and in harmony. And yet, we long for the same sense of purpose, of right relationship, of security and respect that we strive for in the greater culture, and in the realm of business. We are looking for the balance of Community and Business. And we expect to find the perfect balance within retreat centers devoted to consciousness, relationship, and human potential. Should retreat centers and intentional communities be expected to solve this deep personal and cultural divide? Or are we really just responsible for bringing it into consciousness - tracing it back into the personal and cultural belief structure that Community and Business are irreconcilable to one another?

My realization, and the topic we spent much of the rest of the afternoon discussing at the Holistic Centers Gathering hosted by Harbin Hot Springs on that beautiful day in May was: Community vs. Business… this is just an outward projection of the argument that continues to plague us as individuals and a society at a far deeper and more personal (and invisible) level. We learned that no matter how great your decision-making system is, this underlying friction will create tension, conflict, and occasionally painful splits even in the most “conscious” community. And the only “cure” is open conversation – not to solve the problem – but to release the charge, to engage awareness, and to empower collaborative wisdom.

Is there really a dichotomy between Business and Community? I have been thinking a lot about it since helping to vision, found, and create structures for Avalon Springs (a developing community-based eco-resort down the road from Harbin). And as a Stanford educated lawyer-turned-shamanic healer (no I’m not kidding), I have a business foundation as a spiritual person that gives me a different perspective about value-based community.

As a businesswoman, I value letting the most talented leaders lead, and the most talented gardeners garden, the most talented teachers teach. I am shocked by the common “community-minded” view that everyone should take a turn at management or leadership, when not everyone is suited for that role or even wants it! I imagine that this view is founded on an underlying assumption that leaders are “worth” more than the talented gardener or home-maker. I see this as an insidious piece of outdated old paradigm worldview that has infiltrated the “community” mindset. Why not value the talent and gifts of each person according to how much they can actually contribute to the whole, and not based on old ideas that management is harder/more valuable? Why not let the natural leaders lead? Why is leadership seen as a reward given to those with seniority, even if it is not their forte’? Where are the young natural leaders with the new fresh ideas?

From what I’ve seen visiting and living in communities, we are a bit behind in holding plans, structures, and ways to “get-er done.” Show me a community that doesn’t have at least one unfinished eye-sore project sitting around because no one is stepping up to make it happen. So why aren’t we communities utilizing the best that the business world has to offer? We hesitate to even speak in business terms for fear of being seen as “corporate.” Honestly, every time I say the word “Business” out loud, I feel many of my community-minded friends flinch! Is the flinch coming from wisdom or is it the relic of long-held wounds?

We’re missing out. Business models have roles and structures that help to get stuff done, and modern businesses support this with lots of collaborative processes and open input systems. This is the direction that mainstream businesses are moving in (though the movement is slower than some of us would like). For example, Open Space Technology and World Café are collaborative work-space models that are becoming more and more valued for their help in creating collaborative creative space that moves businesses forward both in the “get-er-done” sense and also in creating a positive creative culture that supports humans as the key resource of every business or any organization. The business world is realizing that community, collaboration, and honoring all workers as human beings is the only way to be successful. So, I’ll ask again: why do we “community” people poo-poo the tools the business world has to offer? Have we become our own version of the arrogant clique that we came here to avoid or transcend? Are we unconsciously in some sort of competition with the Business World to show them that we can change the world through existential means, and we’ll do it better than them with their logic, their expertise, and their money?

I feel strongly that “Business” and “Community,” when done right, are the SAME - a collaborative group of individuals who share a common purpose (mission statement), offer something of value to the world (product/offering), and have structures that support right relationship, equal exchange and respect, and an underlying intentional culture that creates a beneficial lifestyle for participants and the greater community. But right now, it seems the folks who like the structure and money part tend toward “business,” and the folks who value the social cultural aspects tend toward “community,” and both sides are left incomplete and unwittingly lonely for the other. It is as if we had a painful divorce years ago, and we don’t even remember that we could be in love.

***

Postscript:

When I am deep in shamanic journey, working for a client, looking at her blocks to be released, NONE of them are labeled "blocks to business" and "blocks to relationship." Blocks to connecting, to receiving, to manifestation - these affect ALL connections in our lives equally.

Relationships, connecting, creating... this is the BUSINESS of LIFE.

If you'd like to free yourself from the BLOCKS to making this easy, I can help in just ONE session.

Click here NOW and set yourself FREE from the blocks that hold you back in all areas of your life.

***

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The POWER of the Resonant Yes!

How to ALWAYS make the RIGHT CHOICE

by Mellissa Seaman

When it’s hard to choose, it’s just not time to choose yet.

Here’s a way to make sure you ALWAYS make the right choice.

It’s called the RESONANT YES.

You know how sometimes, your feeling of YES is so huge, so clear, and so obvious that you realize you never even made a “choice?” You are walking in a new direction, confident, aware, awake, and overjoyed, knowing you will succeed.

It’s great when it happens spontaneously, but how does it work?

Imagine that you are not just one person. You are more like a council of selves. (You already know this, right?) Your personality has a lot of different aspects, and they aren’t always easy to map, define, or hear. But they are in there.

I’d like to propose a map to play with, just to help navigate the process of discerning internally which parts want what.

Let’s use the map of the body and it’s energy centers or chakras. Let's imagine there is a different version of you at each energy center. Here we go:

At the bottom of the body, the root, we have the PRIMAL caveman/cavewoman. Do you know this aspect of yourself? This one has primal wants related with survival and reproduction.
At the lower belly/womb area, there’s the DESIRE self – the one who wants pleasure and luxury and delicious things.
In the middle, there’s your AMBITION self and the will, determination, and the discipline to keep moving forward.
At the heart, there’s the ROMANTIC self who longs for connection and loving experiences.
At the throat, you’ll find the TRUTH self who wants to be heard in its inspired message, and the unique perspective you have.
At the brow, imagine the SACRED self whose values go beyond the tangible benefits of this world into a realm of what is mystical and beyond this life.
And in the mind, there is the COMPUTER self who makes the plans, weighs the risks, and analyzes the benefits and drawbacks of every thing, sometimes logically.

When ALL of these SELVES agree on a choice, you might experience each of these energy centers LIGHTING UP together. You might feel a RIVER OF ENERGY move up your body, creating enthusiasm, hope, and delight. Your perspective may suddenly feel clear, undeniable, and incredibly motivating. You literally LIGHT UP.

This, my friends, is the RESONANT YES.

But it does not stop here.

When a person is LIT UP with the RESONANT YES, they seem to become SuperHuman. Whatever they turn that light towards, is likely to SUCCEED. You have seen this happen, both with yourself and with others. When it does, you are amazed at the power and luck that surges through your life. You wonder how you came upon this level of support and serendipity.

When we LIGHT UP with all of our energy centers in a full YES state, we literally become power plants, generating energy, enthusiasm, and joy that is palpable to those around us.

The RESONANT YES fuels the BEST businesses, organizations, relationships, and projects.

This RESONANT YES power is the most sought-after stuff on earth. It is what we are looking for when we go to church, when we fall in love, when we join a community or movement to make things better. It's what we want MOST. It is not a response to outer circumstance or the environment. It is an inner response to the right alignment of a choice.

For me, becoming SuperHuman is how we become MASTERS of the RESONANT YES.

Here are 8 steps to WELCOME the RESONANT YES:

Devote yourself to the highest good - align with what is good for everyone, not just what you think you want.
Pray in your own way, welcoming in helpful energies and aligning with ally energies
Go outside and touch the earth – the planet is magnetic and the source of all "stuff" in your body and life!
Stop staring at your computer screen and engage with real people to share the palpable fuel for life.
Follow the Green Arrows - the signs your intuition sends you.
Be Inspired by listening to whoever is talking – they are a messenger for you!
Acknowledge your fears and breathe into them to let them move
Practice Gratitude to be open for your own YES.

The RESONANT YES is your birthright. But fear-based cultural and even professional training can rob you of your intuitive power and the resultant MAGIC in creating your own life. Time to re-claim your ability to KNOW what is RIGHT for you FULLY. Time to feel PASSIONATE and CLEAR about what is right for you, leading you to SUCCESS. You are invited to cultivate, embrace, and celebrate your own RESONANT YES!

***

Would you like more information on these 8 steps, with practical tips on how to use them in your REAL LIFE? Join me for the F*R*E*E* 30-minute Tele-Class webinar on Wednesday January 16 12:00-12:30pm where I'll reveal HOW to open yourself to the Resonant Yes so that you can CREATE your life by making the RIGHT CHOICES for you at each step. Become a master of the RESONANT YES!

My SuperHuman Subscribers will have a second 45-min call at 12:35pm where they can engage in deeper dialogue, ask questions, and receive a personal transmission to empower their practice of the Resonant Yes. Want to be one of them? You can. Sign up here and come to SuperHuman school!

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