In No Particular Order...

      This week's selections originated in a "mountaintop experience."  I was sitting with my cat, Joy, meditating in the sunshine this winter.   Between one moment and the next my perspective shifted completely.  It was as if I could see my life and business from the outside.  I realized the mistakes I had made in my business in 2012.  I had been "selling" what I was interested in, not what drew clients to me.  People come to my business for a light, happy healing and learning experience.  It is all about fun and play.
     Unfortunately, in some ways, I had forgotten how to play, what makes everything fun in life.  So, like all people who have educated the play out of themselves, it was time to do a little research.  Here are some of the results (and, leave me a message if you want more, I have loads of material):



The Red Rubber Ball at Work: Elevate Your Game Through the Hidden Power of Play

     From the clever cover (yes, the ball really is rubber) to brevity of the stories this book is a wonderful physical representation of the powerful ideas within. Through many examples, Kevin Carrol demonstrates how entrepreneurs in a wide variety of fields transformed their childhood play into thriving businesses.  The variations allow the readers mind to work it's way back to early memories then project forward into their own lives.  At first, I found the third person narrative format off-putting, but after the first chapter it became more comfortable.  He also includes recommendations for further reading and putting the principles to work in your own life.  As he says "Start now. The ball's in your court..."

    I'm also a big fan of the TED talks.  We believe that we should work to be happy, but could that be backwards? In this fast-moving and entertaining talk, psychologist Shawn Achor argues that actually happiness inspires productivity.

      Did you know that to college students $5 looks like coffee?  At TEDxCambridge, Michael Norton shares fascinating research on how money can, indeed buy happiness -- when you don't spend it on yourself. Listen for surprising data on the many ways pro-social spending can benefit you, your work, and (of course) other people.

Love the Body You Have

I had an interesting thought a few days ago sparked by a hole in my photo album.  I’ve been searching for pictures for my website and, though I've been teaching yoga for years, there are only 4 pictures of me doing yoga and none at all of my classes (the photo at left I call downward dog with upward cat).  I realized I had never been satisfied by how my body looked as I did yoga.  Not that I was embarrassed, I have no problems demonstrating anything. I just don't feel photogenic.  Aren't all yogis tall and slender? 

Now, this body has taught yoga class every Tuesday for the last 9 and a half years, how could I be so disrespectful of it?  What if, rather than considering the body mine, I look at it from the outside and think about it as if it were someone else’s.  What if I treated my body like it was loaned to me by a friend?  Think about how careful you are when driving a friend’s car.  It gets returned without a scratch and the tank is full of gas, right?

So, if the body is a loaner, the first thing we need to do is appreciate the gift.  After all, how would my spirit express itself without hands to type or a mouth to laugh?  It puts gratitude in a whole new light.  I can see the strength and endurance of the legs, the cleverness of the hands, the pleasure of curly hair.  Arm balances are so easy in this body, and so is sitting on the floor.  The neck hurts, so I should take better care of it.  It’s tired, I'll

give it a rest.

Isn't this mental shift interesting?  It’s like treating ourselves the way we treat a beloved pet.  Ignore the slobber, appreciate the love.  This week try one yoga practice or one meditation session from this point of view.  It is remarkable.

Just Send a Little Reiki

Sometimes there is a person in your life who just drives you crazy.  There is no way around it.  The very act of them breathing in a room you are in or sharing electrons on the computer just sets you off.  This is a good time to realize, hey, maybe it’s me.  That person may do many things “wrong” and really need fixing, but the only thing we have power over is our minds and how we react to people and situations. 

Recently I have had this experience with someone I see almost every day.  It seemed like they were always doing things specifically to hurt me or just being inconsiderate.  It got to the point where just thinking about the person was enough to make my blood boil, not a good situation for someone who “sells” peace of mind (through yoga, reiki and meditation).  This needed to be fixed.

I sat with the problem, meditated, prayed, but couldn't see where my change was.  How was I to let go if I couldn't see what I was holding onto?  When the cause is so difficult to determine, I always look to reiki, because it flows to the place where it is needed without guidance.  I decided that each time I got angry, or each time I even thought about the problem, I would use the distance symbol to connect to our relationship then send it reiki.

Let’s just say in the beginning, over the course of a day I would give over 2 hours of reiki to this situation alone (preoccupied? Oh no, not me.  No, never.  Okay, so all the time…).  The relief was almost immediate.  Instead of living in frustration and anger, I would move quickly into a state of flow and calm.  It’s impossible to send reiki and stay irritated.  I hate to admit just how often I sent reiki, but there it is.

 I also decided that it would not be a “sit down and get serious” kind of thing.  I sent reiki while driving, doing the dishes, walking around the house, cooking dinner; all of the situations where the body is moving, but the mind is free to drift. 

I began to see differences in the relationship after a few days.  It was easier to be together, decisions were made in common, I no longer went out of my way to avoid them.  Two weeks later, as I type this, it is difficult to even remember what a deep funk I was in.  Cheaper than therapy, eh?  So, next time you feel this way, rather than “fixing” the other, try taking it easy, living in love rather than marinating in irritation.  Just send a little reiki.  

In No Particular Order...

   This week the focus is on diet.  Not weight loss, not going on a diet, but rather what is the optimal way to feed the only body we have been given.
      I have always been interested in food.  I love to cook and bake, but as I have gotten older, I have noticed that what I was putting in my body did not seem to be serving it very well.  My sleep was not great, I had been slowly gaining weight, and I felt tired all the time.  Something needed to change.
    Of course, I dived into research and this is what I found...

The China Study: The Most Comprehensive Study of Nutrition Ever Conducted and the Startling Implications for Diet, Weight Loss and Long-term Health 

    We all know that smoking is linked to lung cancer, but I was startled to find that the link between milk products and prostate cancer is just as strong.  This scientific study is so large it took 10 years to compile the findings.  Data was gathered on 367 variables from 6,500 adults.  Blood and urine samples. Measuring everything the families ate for 3 days.  The scope is mind- boggling and so are the results.  After reading this book, I gave up meat and most dairy immediately (sometimes butter creeps back in, we all have weak moments).

  Prevent and Reverse Heart Disease: The Revolutionary, Scientifically Proven, Nutrition-Based Cure

      At the same time Dr. Campbell was doing the China Study, Dr. Esselstyn was coming to the same conclusions in working with his patients.  As a practicing surgeon, he began to notice that many of our treatments for heart disease only relieved the symptoms, but left the problem in place to reemerge in a few months.  He created a trial to study the effects of a plant-based diet on heart disease.  The title says it all.  Not only did this diet slow the disease down, but in many cases, it was completely reversed.  In following his recommendations, I have noticed better sleep (sometimes), lost a few pounds, but most significantly, my monthly menstrual complaints (pain, irregularity, and did I mention, pain), which had begun to really affect my life in the past few years, have completely disappeared.  Amen to that!


My last two recommendations are movies.  The first is Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead.  It chronicles 2 men with a chronic autoimmune disease taking their lives back through juicing and eating a plant based diet.  I love how forthright, but also funny the film maker is.  He takes complete responsibility for his health and will do whatever it takes to reclaim his life.  Here's the film on YouTube.

   My final pick for the week is Forks over Knives.  The film is a great overview of the research supporting a plant based diet.  There are interviews with both of the authors listed above and many others.  If you want to dabble your toes in the ocean of information supporting a new way of looking at food, this is your beginning.  It is available on Netflix or for $3.99 on YouTube.

     Good luck and remember, eat to live, don't live to eat.

Making Life Meaningful

      What makes you get up out of bed in the morning?
      If your first thought is 'duh, the alarm clock', try going a little deeper.  Do you leap out of bed with the idea that today will be a pleasure, doing what you love?  Or is rising from bed a slower, more painful process?
     On the islands of Okinawa, they have a concept that we don't even have a word for in English (like schadenfreude in German).  It is called ikigai which can be loosely translated as "the reason to get up in the morning" or life purpose.  I first heard about it in The Blue Zones: Lessons for Living Longer From the People Who've Lived the Longest.  Here is the same concept on YouTube .

     The concept has always made sense to me intellectually, but never in the context of my life.  I've been a student, a naval officer, a mother, an employee, a volunteer but none of these 'jobs' were the reason to leap from bed.  All of these things were what I do, not who I am.  Let's just say the whole thing bugged me.  This fisherman on Okinawa still relished fishing at 86; it was his ikigai.  Where was mine?

     It crystallized this week.  I went onto the Authentic Happiness website and took the VIA survey of Character Strengths.  The results were baffling.  What a useless group of strengths.  Here they are:

1. Appreciation of beauty and excellence
2. Spirituality, sense of purpose, and faith
3. Curiosity and interest in the world
4. Love of learning
5. Zest, enthusiasm, and energy

      Doesn't it kind of look like a recipe for the eternal college student who has studied art, art history, divinity, and basket weaving?  When I looked at it from the perspective of ikigai, it looked different.  It became very clear.  My reason to get out of bed in the morning was almost the same as my business mission statement (Creating a more peaceful world one satisfied client at a time).   My ikigai is "make each meeting matter."  

      Not only does it make each person I meet a little happier, but it also is a continual challenge for my personal growth.  Sometimes it's just easier to resent the person in line who is yelling at their kids or who cut me off in traffic rather than loving them into a better world.  What is interesting is that I have been living by this "rule" for all of my life, but writing it down clearly was such a relief.  Not only did it clarify some past decisions but it also freed me to be the person I have always been.  Strange, but wonderful.

     Now, a lot of you readers I only touch through these posts.  To make this meeting matter, I need to provide interesting information in a clear manner that helps make your life better.  I hope this post fulfills those criteria and helps you find your ikigai.  The journey is worth it.

In No Particular Order...

  Spend any time with me and you are bound to hear the phrase, "I am reading the most interesting book ..."  followed by how the particular book can shed light on whatever it is we are talking about.  The discussion generally devolves into a search for pen and a scrap of paper to jot the title and author.  This is invariably lost in the depths of a pocket or purse. So here it is, in no particular order, a list of the books, videos and articles that are influencing me this week...





God: A Story of Revelation  By Deepak Chopra

    Have you ever wondered what it was like to meet a saint?  To talk with someone who interacted with God on a daily basis?  Deepak Chopra has.  Each chapter is devoted to a great spiritual leader, from Job to Julian of Norwich to Rabindranath Tagore.  He reveals the story behind the story for each of these great leaders.  It has introduced me to several great thinkers that I only knew in passing and also reveals the underlying structure in our story of divine revelation as seen by Chopra.

The Maslow Business Reader Edited by Deborah C. Stephens

Maslow was standard fare in the leadership courses I took at the Naval Academy, but somehow I just applied his pyramid to those I lead, not myself.  This book has really helped me to see where in my life my needs are fulfilled, and why I am unhappy with some of the things that I have that everyone wants (hint: look to the base of the pyramid)

      This TED talk from Nicholas Christakis describes how social networks (the ones in the flesh and blood world, not Facebook) can help detect epidemics earlier than ever.  It made me wonder why I ever wanted to be popular because the people with the strongest social networks (which I think probably describes me) are most likely to catch the flu earliest.  As I am working through my third cold of the year, I do begin to wonder...

Why am I so needy?

      In life it seems like we are always stumbling from one crisis to the next.  Even if there is nothing really "wrong" or threatening, somehow there is always a negative that we can choose to obsess over.  As I meditate and do more yoga, body and mind awareness becomes second nature.  What this means expressed in the life I'm living, is that I've begun to notice I seem to be needy all the time.
      Now, I'm sure it's not a new pattern, but I've been pretty self-critical about it.  I mean, really, isn't this something one gets over?  The good news is, according to Abraham Maslow in The Maslow Business Reader , no, I'll never get over it.  Needing is the human condition.
       Somehow when I learned all of this in leadership classes, I missed the part that said to exist is to desire more and better (or more likely, I just applied this to others, not myself).  Maslow states "...when a need is fairly well satisfied, the next prepotent ("higher") need emerges in turn to dominate the conscious life and to serve as the center of organization of behavior, since gratified needs are not active motivators  Thus, man is a perpetually wanting animal."  To restate simply, there is always going to be the next need. Those are the words of divine freedom.
   Even the yogic practice of vairagya or non-attachment (learning to let go of the many attachments, aversions, fears, and false identities that are clouding the true Self) is in pursuit of our need for self-actualization.  I guess it's not just me after all.