Here we are, exactly half-way through the first month of the year. Only 16 days in and it feels belated to say, “Happy New Year!” But indeed it is a new year and with every new year comes new resolutions.  Maybe your resolution is to stress less, play more, cut back on the sugar, the swearing, the procrastination.  All of the above?

Usually around this time many people are beginning to lose the steam that got them out of the gate on January 1.  I know because I could barely get a parking space at the gym the first few days of the year and now, what do you know?  More spaces already.  Where are you with the resolutions that you made for 2010?  Are you still on track?

As a life and relationship coach, I often assist people in getting back on track.  When we set resolutions we set them with the best of intentions.  Yet, the best intentions still don’t always lead to the best results.  Two days ago a client called me feeling utterly defeated.  Let’s call her Shelly.  Shelly said to me, “Laura, I swore this was going to be the year I lost this weight.  I was going to go to the gym three times a week and I was going to start taking care of myself.  We aren’t even two weeks into January and I have already blown it.  I am embarrassed to tell you this, but I just had chocolate cake and cookies for breakfast and I haven’t been to the gym since the 1st.  I am just worthless I tell you!”

This is not the first time I have heard this tale from a client.  Shelly has been trying to lose this weight and change her lifestyle for years.  Shelly, like so many others, seems to fall under the delusion that somehow January 1st has some type of magical power that makes all of the things you’ve ever wanted easier to achieve.  Let me let you in a little secret: January 1st -same as any other day, and every day holds the possibility of transformation.

I was quick to remind Shelly that she had not ‘blown it.’  She had some cake and cookies.  Maybe it’s not the most healthful breakfast choice; but it’s also not the end of the world and it’s certainly no reason to give up on the dream.  What it does show is that Shelly needs to get clear about what her dream really is.  If you set resolutions this year, and especially if you have already “fallen off the wagon” it is time to put your goals into perspective.

Getting what you REALLY want

When we set goals or resolutions in our lives we have a tendency to become overly focused on the outcome.  If you focus more on what you REALLY want, not just what you think it looks like (in Shelly’s case it looks like 150 lbs.) you have a better chance of having your cake and eating it too!

So how do you find what you really want?  First, get curious.  Take a look at all of the things you have resolved to do this year.  For each one ask yourself this, “When I have xyz, how will I feel?”  I asked Shelly, “When you weigh 150 lbs and are going to the gym three times a week, how will you feel?”

“Great!” she exclaimed.  ”Why, ‘great’?” I asked.  “Because I will feel strong and confident in my own skin, I will feel like I can take on the world.  I will feel like my life is worth something.”  When you look at your response you are looking for the feelings that you desire.  The feeling that Shelly is really seeking from these goals is the feeling of worth.  The feelings of strength and confidence are really outgrowths of what Shelly truly desires:  to feel worthy. 

Another client, Kevin, felt the same way about money.  He wanted desperately to make six-figures last year.  When I asked him how he would feel when he had the income he desired, he revealed that he would finally feel safe and secure.  What Kevin really wants to feel in his life is safe and secure and it is Kevin who has decided that safety and security look like a six-figure income.  It’s fine to have this goal, just as it is fine for Shelly to have the goal of weighing 150 lbs, but not if the focus on the goal outshines the focus on the feeling. 

To get what you think you want (the money, the perfect number on the scale, etc.) focus on what you know you really want- the feeling underneath.  Realize that you wouldn’t want the outcome if you didn’t imagine that it would give you the underlying feeling that you desire.  If Kevin thought the money would make him feel exposed and vulnerable he wouldn’t want it.   What we are all really seeking in each of our resolutions is to bring to the surface something we need to heal.

Now that you have found out what feeling underlies your goal, you can start healing today by asking yourself the following questions:

What is preventing me from feeling this feeling right now?

If you find yourself blaming someone or something else for you not being able to feel this now, stop.  Step into your power.  You can’t begin to heal if you are putting your feelings in someone else’s hands.  You create your own reality and you can start healing right now.  How are YOU preventing yourself from having this feeling?  Once you are able to see how you are blocking yourself, it will become easier to start making behavior changes that will align you with your real goal.

What can I do to create that feeling in my life today?

Forget the past.  Harness your power and start with baby steps.  If you imagine that weighing 150 lbs a year from now will make you feel worthy, ask “what would make me feel worthy today?”.  Do something, no matter how small, that aligns you with that feeling NOW.  When you align with that feeling today it creates an energy field in your life that will attract that same feeling in the future.  You know, that future a year from now where that 150 lbs is. 

Start your true process of transformation today.  Remove your attachment to the outcome and focus on the feeling you want.  By letting go of the attachment and giving yourself what you REALLY want right now, you don’t have to wait for your future to bring it to you.  Magically though, by giving it to yourself right now, it expands and grows, giving you more of that feeling in the future.  So, if you have associated that feeling of worthiness with weighing 150 lbs, you may just get your wish.  That is what I call having your cake and eating it too!

At 12:47pm, Monday, December 21, 2009, we will once again reach the winter solstice.  This is a very special winter solstice for us in Maryland this year.  Yesterday over 20 inches of snow fell in what will now be known as the ‘Blizzard of 2009.’  This is the biggest snowfall the state of Maryland has ever had in December and certainly the biggest snow we have ever had for our annual winter solstice celebration.

While most people have holiday parties, I have a winter solstice celebration.  My friend Karen and I have held a small ceremonial gathering on this day for the past 6 years.  We celebrate in many ways, one of my favorite being with a gifting blanket, which I shared with you in last year’s blog and was recently re-published in a holiday publication called, Cheer! 

This year will be even more special, and cold, because we will circle our fire pit standing in almost two feet of snow.  We will walk to the pit in the ceremonial garden in silence with only the light of the moon and our candles to guide us.  While this is longest night of darkness, from every night forward, more light will come as we move steadily towards the spring equinox.      

Each person has a sprig of evergreen rope.  As they make the ceremonial walk to the fire we ask them to think about something in their life that they would like to bring more light to.  Maybe they have been hiding from their true nature and want to bring their spirit more fully into the light.  Maybe this past year held a great deal of challenge and pain and they are ready to release it and start living life in a new light.   Whatever it is they wish to surrender, they imbue into that evergreen rope. 

As we reach the raging fire and stand to circle its flames, Karen and I begin the ceremony with a smudging and blessing.  Each person may share their thoughts or bask in the stillness of the night.  Then we begin the release and the celebration of the light.  We collectively take our rope to the fire and toss it onto the open flames.  As it burns, the scent of pine and wood fill the cold air.

I am always amazed as I stare at my burning sprig of evergreen.  As I contemplate the light overtaking the burden that I have imbued within it, the embers, as if with wings, carry it to the heavens.  They seem alive, as if they are dancing -thrilled to have been set free into the light.  I watch in awe and with a great sense of peace as I realize that all of us are together sharing in this same desire to move out of darkness.

And while we desire to move into the light, we also honor the darkness for its own unique purose. The solstice is also the time for the planting of your next seed.  It is a time to think about what it is that you would like to plant in the dark of the ground for safe keeping until the arrival of the spring equinox.  What would you like to birth into your life in the coming year?

We make a small pouch out of cheesecloth and herbs.  We have bowls filled with sage, lavender and tobacco.  You create your own unique blend of herbs and tie them together.  It is as if you are making your own unique seed to plant for the coming year. You imbue your ’seed’ with that which you want to keep in the ground, safe and protected until it is ready to be birthed  at the light of spring.  Each person keeps their “cheesecloth seed” and takes it with them as a reminder of that with which they have spiritually and intentionally planted.  Truth be told, Karen and I had actually even planned on having everyone place actual seeds in the ground this year.  But due to a lack of seed paper at the craft store and 20 inches of snow, we have decided that the old way works best.

Now with less than 24 hours to go, I feel the movement happening.  I sense the darkness overtaking the light and I am reminded that everything has its season.  I encourage you to use the powerful energy of this solstice to bring light into your own life.  This is a time for reflection and celebration. Contemplate the things that you are ready to release to the light and the things that you would like to plant for the this coming year.  Think of it as a way to prepare your New Year’s resolutions just a little ahead of schedule! 

I celebrate the light within each of you.  Happy Holidays and many blessings for a happy and healthy New Year!

If you read my blog last year you already know that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday!  True, I am pretty much a sucker for the whole holiday season in general, but there is something really refreshing about a holiday that emphasizes the spending of time over money.

In last year’s Thanksgiving blog post, I shared a special activity that you can share with those you love during your holiday celebration.  It’s a tradition I started several years ago in my family and it is always anticipated.  In case you missed it, check it out here. 

If you have ever had a class with Tim and I, then you know our favorite thing is to teach people how to bring more consciousness and intentionality to their lives and relationships.  Well, what do you know, Thanksgiving just happens to be the perfect time to bring our very favorite thing to something else I am sure you will be doing this holiday season…. cooking and eating! 

Before I started this “aware” eating and cooking practice for myself I noticed the strangest phenomenon.  Every January, without fail,  my dryer would break.  The washer, no problem.  The dryer, cursed.  “The dryer temperature must be affected by the cold weather setting in,” I thought.  “Why else would it be getting hotter and thereby shrinking all of my pants?”  As you can guess, after a few months, which also happened to coincide with many hours at the gym, the dryer magically fixed itself.  “Must be the warm weather coming!”  Not quite.

All of that holiday eating, drinking, baking…oh my.  The problem isn’t all of the tasty treats, parties, or even the dryer that must be shrinking your pants.  The problem is that we do most of our holiday cooking and noshing pretty unconsciously. 

Sure, we all want to have dryers that function properly year round, but there is a more essential reason for being mindful about what we are cooking and eating.  When we are mindful, we are grateful.  We physically embody gratitude.  You don’t have to mentally be thinking, “I am grateful for this, or I am grateful for that.”  Simply pausing and being present in the moment with your Aunt Helen or that pumpkin pie, is an act of gratitude.  We honor, we respect and we intentionally bring our conscious awareness to the abundance that is flowering in that moment. 

This holiday season, I challenge you to bring mindfulness to your meals.  Whether you are cooking them or eating them, I have some tips for you: 

Cooking with Consciousness

The kitchen is a great place for magic.  Everyone loves a good home-cooked meal and during the holidays they are plentiful.  When you spend time making and preparing food, a piece of you is literally infused into it.  In the same way that germs can contaminate food if you touch it with dirty hands, your energy also travels into whatever you are preparing.  Have you ever eaten a meal that someone cooked for you when they were in a foul mood?  Did you notice it just wasn’t quite as good?  There is a reason for that.  When you cook unconsciously, whatever is going on for you emotionally, spiritually, physically and mentally is absorbed into the food. 

When you go into the kitchen to cook for your family and friends this holiday season think consciously about what it is you want to “feed” them on all levels. I put a different kind of intentional conscious magic into every dish I create for the holidays.  Mine usually looks something like this:

“I am infusing these sweet potatoes with the emotion of love. As my guests eat it let them feel love, let them know love, let them be love.” 

“As they taste the bitterness of this sauerkraut, let them know that when life tastes bitter they are spiritually supported by the universe.”

“These collard greens go to the strength and healing of the immune system.”

“These mashed potatoes are filled with thoughts of prosperity and joy.”

As you are preparing your intention infused culinary creation, stay present and mindful.  Tune into your breath and let all of the kitchen utensils become an extension of your intentions.  As you chop, whip, roll and slice, feel the feelings that you intend to infuse into your delicacy. 

One warning: There is one downside to cooking with consciousness; there are rarely any leftovers!

Eating with Intention

As you sit down to eat your consciously prepared meal, or one that was likely made with the same level of consciousness as the 15-year old scooping your fries, try this:

1. Take a deep breath.  Really feel your breath as it travels all the way into your belly.  Tune into your sensations of hunger and your sense of fullness and feel where you are in that moment.  Are you hungry, starving, full?

2.  Examine the food on your plate and become present with it.  Take another breath, appreciate how it looks and smells. 

3.  Set your own intention.  Before taking a bite decide how you would like this meal to feed you.  Even if you didn’t cook the food yourself, you can put your own intentions into the food.  You will influence its energy and affect it too.

4.  Take a bite, chew it slowly and mindfully.  Really taste the food.  What is the texture, what is the temperature, the flavor, the spice?  How does it feel in your mouth?  How does it make you feel?  Salad certainly feels different than a turkey leg.  How?  Find out, inquire within.  Taste your food on all levels.

5. Digest.  Digestion is a very involved process in the body, one in which we should all be thankful for.  I don’t know anyone who has worked a day in their life as hard as our digestive systems work for us every day!  Be present for this process too.  Stop every several bites and check in.  Am I still aware of what’s going on here with my body or has my fork turned into shovel that I am now filling a trough with? Just check.

6. Enjoy.  This is an automatic step.  When you begin to practice mindfulness in eating and cooking you will begin to enjoy the experience of food even more. 

When we enjoy life, we are living and breathing gratitude.  And when we are living and breathing gratitude we shine light on the whole world. 

May all of your meals be filled with gratitude!

Happy Thanksgiving!

This month’s blog post comes in response to two separate requests for me to address this topic.  I think it is something all of us can relate to, but few of us know what to do about it.  Here’s the scenario:  You have been up since 5 a.m., worked for more than 8 hours, not to mention taken care of the 50 other things you also had to do today.  All you have been dreaming about since you woke-up was when you would get to crawl back in that bed again.  Now you have finally made it.  It is 11:30 p.m. and you are so tired you are sure you will be asleep the minute your head hits the pillow.  First you toss, and then you turn.  Then you readjust the pillow.  5 minutes goes by.  25 more minutes go by.  You are so tired you could cry, but you can’t sleep.  Why?  Because you can’t stop thinking!

We have all experienced the dreaded “thought stream” that feels more like an out of control raging river during times like these.  Ellen DeGeneres even has a hilarious skit about this in her “The Beginning” stand-up sketch.  Whether you are reminding yourself about the money you left in your pants or rehearsing what you will say to that co-worker who thinks it’s okay to drink the community juice out of the carton, two things are for sure:  you are not sleeping and you are not comfortable with it.

Ironically, it is not the thinking that is the real nemesis; it is the resistance to it.  The resistance is what keeps us stuck in the stream.  This is not just true for those annoying thought streams at night, but true for life in general.  What we resist persists. 

Whenever you experience discomfort in life, there is resistance.  The tricky thing about resistance is that it is often unconscious.  It can come in the form of aches and pains, illness, anger, boredom, anxiety and even tossing and turning at night.  The trick to a more peaceful sleep and even a more peaceful life does not come from trying to address all of those various thoughts begging for your attention at midnight. The true peace comes from addressing the underlying cause: resistance. 

The 1,001 thoughts that you are having as you lay there are not the real problem.  It is the voice that says, “All I want to do is go to sleep and I can’t stop thinking.  This is so frustrating!” that’s the real nemesis.  That, my friend, is the voice of resistance to “what is.”  Resistance is totally understandable.  We learn from a very young age to move away from pain and discomfort.  It becomes an automatic response.  Yet, just because something is automatic, does not mean it is the most effective.

Those new to meditating often experience similar effects to the tossers and turners.  I have had many of my students tell me they can’t meditate.  When I ask them how they know, they say, “Because I can’t stop thinking.”  In actuality, meditation is not the absence of thought, but rather the non-resistant witnessing of thought.  When you catch yourself thinking about the money in the pants or the crazy juice guy, stop.  Instead of beating yourself up and getting frustrated about it (resistance in disguise) just notice it.  Try not to actually follow the thought stream down its path.  When you find yourself caught up in thinking, just witness it.  I tell my students to simply say, “Thinking” as a way to note to themselves that it is not something to get frustrated about; rather it simply is what it is.  The big secret is that when you witness what is going on without judgment, the resistance in all of its unpleasant forms starts to melt away.

Here is what this might look like when applied to our previous scenario: You are lying in bed; it’s been 30 minutes since you tried to sleep.  Thoughts of the money in the pants and the juice guy assail you.  All of a sudden as if waking up from a dream you realize you have been thinking about these things for 30 minutes.  STOP.  DO NOT then think “great, there I go again thinking, I will never get to sleep.”  No beating yourself up.  Instead, just witness what has happened without judgment.  A simple labeling “thinking” will suffice.   Focus on your breath as you breathe in and out for several moments and concentrate on relaxing.  When you start thinking again, and likely you will, treat it with this same compassion and again stop the stream and label it “thinking.”  The more that you get in this habit of witnessing, labeling and allowing the sooner it will cease to be a problem. 

Resistance may not seem like that big of a deal if all you are missing is a few hours of shut eye, but this pattern of resistance affects us in far deeper ways.  As Steven Pressfield says, “Most of us have two lives. The life we live, and the unlived life within us. Between the two stands Resistance.”  When you find yourself in these patterns of resistance at night or during meditation it’s really just a signal that something in your life needs your attention -your compassionate witness. 

How do you know if you are resisting in other areas of your life?  Easy.  Wherever there is discomfort, there is resistance. Period.  The solution to healing discomfort in your life is by healing the root cause: resistance. So how do we start to heal?

Healing Resistance 101:

1. You must first become aware that it is there. Discomfort= resistance. If you are uncomfortable, you are resisting. You don’t need to know what it is, why it’s there or what is causing it.

2. Once you notice resistance, go into curious mode. Become super curious of what is going on for you. Become the watcher, the witness. Notice your thoughts (”thinking”), notice your feelings. Simply notice, with compassion and non-judgment.

3. When you treat your discomfort in this way most of it will probably disappear immediately, but not if you’re focused on having it disappear, which is more resistance.

4. Watching your thoughts and feelings in this way requires practice. Our automatic reaction to discomfort is to run from it or think, “Make it go away, NOW!” Know this and just allow your thoughts and feelings to be without running from them.

5. Remember that resisting what is does not stop it from being what is. Only witnessing, allowing and accepting have the power to transform your life.

6. Focus on your breath and when you find discomfort, move into it, not away from it. BREATHE.

The next time you find yourself tossing and turning or feeling really uncomfortable, I challenge you to let it be okay.  Watch it, witness it, and breathe.

Sweet dreams!

The Mercury retrograde is upon us once again.  For those of you who have no idea what I am talking about, don’t worry you’re not alone.  Many people are not aware of the different energetic influences that are around us all the time.   The Earth’s movement through space constantly changes how it relates to the other bodies in the solar system.  Whether you are consciously aware of it or not, those changes directly affect this planet and consequently its inhabitants -us!   Just think about how tides in the ocean work and you will realize this is not as ‘woo woo’ as it might sound. In my opinion, astrology is not the end all be all, but it is definitely a useful tool.  It is great for highlighting certain patterns that can benefit from our attention.  So, what is this Mercury retrograde nonsense and what does it mean for me? 

Astrologically speaking, we have just entered into a Mercury retrograde cycle (September 6, 2009-September 29, 2009).  There are 3-4 periods each year, each period lasting about 3 weeks, when the planet Mercury appears to be moving backwards (retrograde).  When a planet goes retrograde, anything that the planet governs is typically knocked completely out of whack. 

Mercury governs both communication and travel.   During a Mercury retrograde, you can pretty much count on all things travel to be fraught with more annoyances than usual- traffic jams, accidents, late arrivals, etc.  While the traffic jam on the freeway can make you want to pull your hair out, it’s not quite as detrimental in the long term as communication issues.

Mercury retrograde affects communication in every way imaginable.  Phones, computers, office equipment, contracts, new jobs, the list is endless.  Any tool that we use to assist in communication falls under this influence.  It is often thought that you should avoid signing contracts during these periods and avoid entering into new agreements.  Typically, work done under this influence ends up having to be re-done due to some type of communication break down.  During a recent retrograde, I had a letter that was sent to a large number of people.  I proofread it three times and then I gave it to someone else to check.  After it was mailed out, the ‘Mercury retrograde’ mistake was discovered.  As I write this, I wonder how many mistakes I will later find in this very blog!

While it affects our communication tools, it also affects us as communicators in general.  Effective communication is essential, especially during these times when communication has an external strain.  These communication issues usually become most highlighted with the people we communicate with every day. 

So imagine this.  You skipped breakfast to get to work a little early.  That didn’t work out well because you have now battled through an hour of unexpected traffic, making later than you would have been if you had eaten breakfast.  Upon your arrival, you find that the internet is down.   You are also without your lunch because you were too busy fixing the broken fax machine at home when your spouse told you “not to forget your lunch.”  You are now so hungry you could eat your arm.  Your cell phone rings.  It’s your boss telling you she wants to see you immediately about the incorrect title you gave her in the letter you just sent out to 1,000 people.  Just as you think it cannot get any worse, the office assistant appears in your cubicle chomping loudly on a mouth watering foot-long sub.  With a mouth full of salami he says, “Man, you would love this sub.” At this point, your aggravation, frustration and hunger are completely debilitating your ability to communicate effectively.  You briefly fantasize about ripping the sub out of his hand and beating him with it.  Suddenly you also feel the urge to call your spouse and tell them it’s their fault you’re so hungry and forgot your lunch.  Did I mention it’s a Mercury retrograde?  Breathe.  Before you rip the sub out of your assistant’s hand, start screaming back at your boss that you don’t care about her stupid title anyway and possibly start a civil war with your spouse, do this….

Learn to communicate mindfully.

Based on the ancient yoga sutras comes the idea of speaking mindfully.   You can filter your own communication, and thereby communicate more mindfully and compassionately by asking these three questions:

1. Is it truthful?

2. Is it kind?

3. Is it necessary?

Ask yourself first, “Is what I am planning to say the truth as I know it to be?”  For example, let’s say that you have noticed that your sister has lost a bit of weight.  You are about to say to her, “Wow. It looks like you have lost some weight.”  This may indeed be a fact, but is it kind to say it?  

To determine if your speech is kind you need to be truthful about your motives for speech.  Ask yourself, “Why am I saying this?” or “What do I hope to accomplish or achieve by sharing this opinion/information?”  Maybe you motivation in saying this to your sister was actually a way of congratulating her.  However, maybe your words were instead motivated by jealousy.  You have to be truthful with yourself about the intentions behind your communication. 

 A famous quote says it best, “Before you speak, ask yourself, is it kind, is it necessary, is it true, does it improve on the silence?”  The silence piece helps us to understand how the necessary comes in.  If what you are about to say is not superior to silence, say nothing at all.  We often see examples of when it is not ‘necessary’ when we think of gossip.  Often times we hear juicy pieces of information that we just can’t wait to share with others.  But if you ask yourself,  ”Is it really necessary to share this?” You usually find that it isn’t.  What need are you really serving when you repeat gossip?  If it is not in service of truth or kindness, keep it to yourself.

This practice of filtering communication through these three inquiries is effective not only during a Mercury retrograde but in your everyday communication.  These retrograde periods are an excellent for going inwards and re-evaluating the way you communicate.  Use this great opportunity to re-evaluate how and why you communicate.  When I first began this practice, I realized how much I communicated when I didn’t really need to.  Often times in group discussions I would find myself reiterating a point in a new light.  My communications were passing the first two filters just fine; but were they necessary?  I came to find that for the most part they weren’t.  It was simply my trained way of communicating in social settings.  Upon realizing how little of my communication was necessary, I started talking a lot less and listening a lot more. 

On that note, I’ll stop talking and instead let you use this retrograde to enjoy your silence!

Blessings!

Rev. Laura

How it all Vegan….

A few weeks ago I decided that I was going to change my diet and “go vegan.”  I’ve been a vegetarian for 17 years so how hard could it be to merely eliminate dairy?  It’s just one more thing, right?  Wrong.  Considering I don’t even drink milk directly I actually consume an incredible amount of dairy.  This is because my favorite drug of choice happens to be made from it-ice-cream, sweet, glorious ice-cream.  Let’s also not forget the cheese -melty, soft, gooey cheese.  As a vegetarian you really come to depend on cheese since most establishments offer “cheese sandwiches” as their singular vegetarian offering.  

The sad truth is that I relied on dairy the way junkies rely on their next fix.  No matter how crappy my day was, I could always count on my trusty bowl of ice-cream to make it all okay.  I sought pleasure in it.  Don’t get me wrong, it’s completely appropriate for you to enjoy your food.   But enjoying your food is not the same as seeking pleasure from it.  For example, a nice glass of wine to accompany a meal, cool.  But when you use wine as a way to ease your pain and drown your sorrows, it becomes a vehicle for relief and a coping mechanism, not just a tasty beverage. This, my friends was what dairy had become for me.   When I felt stressed, I was not seeking red pepper strips with hummus.  No.  I was seeking Breyer’s Vanilla Bean double churned ice-cream with peanut butter, chocolate syrup and whipped cream on top.  Before I start salivating let me share with you some of this journey.

First, I totally did not expect the reactions that I got when I told my friends about my decision to go vegan.  Many of them got really defensive.  It was as if I was telling them THEY were becoming vegan.  “Why?!” they all exclaimed. “That’s really stupid” said another.  So, just incase you were thinking the same thing as you read this, I felt an explanation was necessary.    

My decision is very personal and multi-faceted.  I care about the animals, my health and the environment, but I have never been an activist.  I don’t believe in preaching.  I think it is judgmental and highly ineffective.  Who am I to say what you should do, think, feel or eat?  When it comes to our choices in life, certainly we are influenced by others but ultimately the decisions we make are for ourselves and represent our own values.  Our decisions need to come from our own internal sense of what is true for us as individuals.  I can say that those who have influenced me most have done so by being a living example of their principles, NOT by preaching to me.  I am a fan of the “walk your talk” mentality.  Which gets to the heart of why I made this decision: last month I realized I wasn’t walking my talk.

Every one of us has a still small voice inside.   This still small voice doesn’t necessarily speak in words, it could also feel like a nudge or an intuition or a gut reaction.  I like to think of it as an internal compass.  It is what gives you your bearings.  It provides guidance as to which way leads home and which way takes you off course.  Some call it guidance from God, some call it their inner knowing, but the fact is no matter what your particular faith is, we all have this direct connection to our own source.   So for now, we will call it “our compass.”

My compass had been giving me a strange reading for a couple of weeks. In the last several weeks I saw an influx of healing clients. Two of them inspired this blog post.  After one of my sessions I found myself feeling anger.  As you know from my “you spot it, you got it” post, I took this as a definite sign that this meant there was something in me that needed to be addressed.  The heart of what I was angry about with my client was their level of denial.  It was astounding and frustrating to me.  How could anyone be so smart and deny things that were so obvious?  So of course I had to get real with myself, realize it wasn’t about them anymore, and find out what in the heck I was denying. 

It may sound odd, but for weeks prior to this my inner compass had been suggesting that I give up dairy.  I barely let myself acknowledge this compass reading because I simply could not handle the ramifications of such a suggestion.  Heading this advice would mean giving up my favorite vices, ice-cream and cheese.  At a time when I was already feeling stressed?  I think not!  So I kept denying that I was receiving the guidance at all.  I would go to the fridge, get a bowl of ice cream and I swear I could feel my compass steering me in another direction.  The more it steered the more I rebelled and denied. 

I thought it would be too hard and I didn’t want to give up my drug of choice. So I denied that I was having a problem.  Then on the night that client left, after my second bowl of frozen moo juice my “Aha” moment came.  “THIS is why I am mad at my client; the denial is what I spot because the denial is what I’ve got.”  I am mad at him for denying his inner voice because I am doing the same freaking thing.  I finally put down the spoon and headed immediately to my meditation cushion and I sat and I cried. 

A long time ago I made a decision that I would always walk my talk.  How can you help someone to heal something that you yourself can’t heal?  The answer: you can’t. Would you go ask your bankrupt sister for advice on how to save money?  No.  She can’t help you if she can’t help herself.  So how was I going to support my client in facing his own denial if I didn’t have the guts to face mine?  In that moment I knew what I had to do, not because anyone was forcing me, but because I am passionate about living my values and being the change I wish to see.  So THIS my friends, is how and why it all vegan. 

In the midst of all this, another client responded to my recent request for “Ask Rev. Laura” questions post.  This is where you send me your questions about life and I attempt to answer them.  Note to you:  Send Rev. Laura a question immediately for next month. Thank you. So anyway, turns out that this client wanted to know about the very thing I happened to be working on: finding and following your inner guidance.

He asks, “I have been feeling so directionless lately.  I am sure this is a really common problem that all of us have, but none of us really know what to do with.  Can you talk about this and share something that might be helpful for those of us feeling directionless?”    I just did this myself, so the timing couldn’t have been better!  My directionless friend, this is for you!

How to locate, read and follow your inner compass:

Step 1. Locating your compass.   Your inner compass is not in your head, so get out of there.  Your inner compass exists about 18 inches lower, at your heart center and down into your belly (hence the term: gut reaction).  To get yourself there, proceed to step 2.

Step 2:  Be quiet!  Yes, I am talking to you, Mr. Mental Commentary. Spend time each day, even if it’s just 5 minutes by yourself, quiet and sitting.  I recommend sitting because lying down will cause you to feel sleepy and drift into unconsciousness.  We are trying to GET conscious of our feelings, not take a nap. 

Making quiet time increases the clarity and strength of the inner voice.  This is mainly because unlike Mr. Commentary, Ms. Intuition does NOT raise her voice.  So by getting quiet you encourage Mr. Commentary to step down as your default compass bearing. Ms. Intuition will then seem to be getting louder although it is still the same quiet encouraging voice.  You will recognize this compass bearing because Ms. Intuition suggests, quietly and NEVER tells you what to do. 

To make sure that the guidance you are getting is truly from your compass and not from Mr. Commentary a good red flag is the feeling tone behind it.  For example, if you hear a voice that says, “You are so stupid for eating all this ice-cream, you are a fat cow with a dairy problem, moo.” THIS IS NOT YOUR INNER GUIDE.  This is your ego and mental commentary.  If it sounds more like, “you have been angry about your clients denial, is it possible that you have also been denying something?  Like your reliance on ice-cream? Maybe you could try eliminating it and seeing how that feels.” It is a lot more likely that’s the voice of your inner compass.  The true compass will never tell you what to do, but will merely suggest a possible direction.  It is up to you if you choose to follow it or not. 

Step 3:  Read the compass.  This is the most challenging part.  Often times we tell our selves that we don’t know what to do next, which leave us feeling directionless.  Now let’s think for a minute.  If we ourselves don’t know what to do next, who do we think does?  The bottom line is no one knows more about what is right for you than you.  If your compass has been suggesting that you try a different direction, know that it’s normal to react with denial.   Yet you must be willing to look at what your compass is telling you.  Change is scary, no doubt about it, so don’t worry about changing right yet.  In this step, simply allow yourself to read what the compass says without judging it and without feeling like you have to act on its guidance immediately.

Step 4:  Follow your own direction.  Now that you have accepted where you are and have gotten some direction from your compass, it is time to act.  Just because now is the time, doesn’t mean it will happen right this second.  For me, my guidance to move towards veganism felt so far from where I was I had to spend a few weeks gathering the strength and courage to take a step forward.  Keep your intention focused on the direction you want to move.  Imagine that you have already made the leap.  Feel what it might feel like to take this direction.  Feel in your body how it feels to successfully reach that goal.  Then let that vision of your success pull you towards your goal.

Step 5:  Arrive.  Now that you have mustered up the courage to take that first step, keep moving towards your destination.  The first few steps on any path feel awkward and uncomfortable.  Do not, I repeat, DO NOT take this discomfort as a sign that you have moved in the wrong direction.  It always feels that way at first.  Think of a drug addict who quits heroin.  If the addict judged his success based on how he felt 72 hours after sobering up he would clearly think he failed.  Withdrawal and change is uncomfortable, suck it up.  On the other side awaits a new clear path so stay your course.  All that said, I acknowledge that the first few steps are the hardest.  I also acknowledge that you can definitely do this! So take a breath, put one foot in front of the other, and follow your own direction.

In the end, this whole vegan thing is the appropriate direction for me, for right now.  I don’t know what my inner voice will guide me to next week, next month, or next year, but I will be listening.  I offer you many blessings on your own unique journey.  May you have the strength, the courage and the faith to trust in yourself and move fearlessly towards your own North Star. 

Namaste!

The changing of the seasons is once again upon us.  I love the changing seasons because it provides an awesome opportunity to step back from your life and really take stock of where you’ve been, where you are and where you are going.  The summer solstice, aka the first day of summer, occurs on Sunday, June 21^st this year.  I invite you to take time this weekend to get a little introspective about the lightness and darkness in your own life.  But first….If you read my post back in December about the winter solstice then you already know that solstice literally means ‘sun standing still.’  On both the winter and summer solstice, we respectively get the longest night and day of the year.    The Summer Solstice has been celebrated for centuries but in recent years, it is once again gaining a lot of interest. In short, it’s not just for witches anymore!  Traditionally, the summer solstice is a celebratory time.  It marks the time when you harvest what you planted in the spring.  It is also a traditionally ‘fertile’ time of the year (wink, wink).

Did you know that the term, ‘honeymoon’ is actually associated with the summer solstice?  That’s right, the “honey” moon is the traditional name for the moon that happens during the solstice.  Weddings often occurred during this time and the couple would share foods made with honey so that their lives together would be sweet.  The honeymoon provided an opportunity for the couple to be alone with each other and celebrate their union.

The moon symbolizes the cycles of a couple’s relationship as it waxes and wanes from full moon to full moon. Just like the moon, a couple’s relationship has its brighter moments and its darker ones. As a minister and coach, the past month was filled with both the light and dark moments.  One day I would be performing a wedding ceremony and the next day I would have a client sitting on my couch telling me their relationship was finished.  Both the solstice and my life experience this past month are good reminders that life is always about both aspects.  Sure, it would be nice to celebrate and feel light and free all of the time but it would not honor the great teacher that is the darkness.

On the summer solstice, I like to think of the sun shining light onto the darkest aspects of my life.  I use the light to reflect on the things that I normally keep in the shadows.  Since it’s also the season of love it is particularly important to shine this light into the relationships in your life.  Typically, we are able to learn more about ourselves from our failures than from our successes.  When you look around at the situations or relationships in your life, ask yourself, “What are my shadow aspects?”  We all have them, the key is finding out how to shine light on them.  Remember, that which we put in the shadows usually likes to remain there.  It takes true intention to really get in there and see what the heck is going on.

Looking at our shadow side in personal relationships can be challenging.  After all, we hid it in the shadows for a reason, right?  It can be difficult to recognize the things in our lives that are holding us back.  The first step to healing these things in the shadows is to shine some light into the darkness.  But, how are you going to do that?!
This is where I like to employ one of my very favorite tools- “You spot it, you got it.” 

The quickest and most effective way I have ever found to get a person to figure out what is lurking in their shadow is to employ this technique.  If you are ready to bring some light to your darkness, try this out.

Think of someone, usually a close someone, who drives you freaking bonkers.  And I don’t mean a cute, affectionate bonkers.  I mean the, “If this person does this to me one more time I may have to rip their face off” kind of bonkers.   I want you to close your eyes and bring that person to mind.  Ironically, the close someone who comes to mind can often be someone you also love very much, say your spouse.  Sure you love this person, but maybe there is one thing they do (arrives late, lies, forgets your birthday) that makes you insane.   The key here is that it is not just something that you don’t ‘like’.  You want to think of someone that does something that you completely loathe.  You will know the difference.  The loathing has a real charge to it while disliking something is more of a preference thing.  We all have likes and dislikes but that is a lot different from a feeling of intolerance. 

To illustrate, let me expose myself with my own, “I spot it, I got it.”  There was once a certain someone in my life that had a severe issue.  Let’s call this issue, “I wouldn’t know the truth if it hit me over the head with a shoe,” or “dishonesty is my middle name.”  This person’s incessant lying drove me to the brink of insanity.  I just couldn’t understand it. 

However, I had learned a long time ago that the people in our lives are here to be our mirrors.  They can only reflect back to us things in which we need to see in ourselves, and that includes the light and the dark.  The basic idea of the “You spot it, you got it” teaching is:  you can see their fault so clearly, because you have the same one.  ”Baloney!” I thought when staring into my own “You spot it, you got it” mirror.  “I am so not a liar!  I never do that.  In fact I think it is insane!” 

Unfortunately, I also knew this tool had never failed me. So I knew I needed to shine the light a little brighter into my own shadow.  This is when I learned the valuable truth -relationships don’t provide regular mirrors, they provide distorted fun-house mirrors.   I knew this reflection could not be exact.   I was not going around lying about what I had for breakfast, as this person was. I asked myself, “What about their behavior is really making me nuts?”  It was definitely, their lying.  I had to ask myself, “Where in my life am I being dishonest? Where am I liar?” 

The inquiry alone was enough to break me wide open.  I had to get honest with myself.  I realized that I too had been lying, but not to other people, to myself.   I so badly wanted to be ministering, coaching and serving.  I felt it so deep in my soul but I kept pushing it down.  I was scared of putting myself out there.  I was afraid of what people would think.  Every time I felt my spirit pushing me in that direction, I would start to lie to myself.  I would tell myself things like, “but you don’t have a church, this is not practical, you are not good enough,” fill in any interchangeable negative self-talk here.  I would constantly talk myself out of moving forward, that is, until I spotted it.  I spotted the lying that I hated so much in the other person right in my own heart.  In that moment I made a strong commitment to get honest with myself and as you can see, the rest is history.

The most amazing thing about doing this process is that it is transformative not just for you, but for the other person too.  Once I got honest with myself, the strangest thing happened.  Within a few weeks “dishonesty is my middle name” suddenly started becoming more honest.  It made me realize that the relationships we have in our lives -co-workers, friends, family, lovers, are all there to teach us valuable lessons about both our light and our shadows.   We simply have to be willing to let in the light.

This summer solstice why not use all the light present on this longest day of the year to enlighten yourself and your relationships!

 

April showers bring May flowers.

When it started pouring rain in the middle of my tennis match last week, I tried to remind myself of that saying, “April showers bring May flowers.”  Truth be told, that noble quote came only as an afterthought to my initial reactions—annoyance and disappointment.  I had been stuck in my office all day, just itching to get outside and enjoy the warm sunshine and my first match of spring.  No sooner had I put on my tennis skirt and arrived at the court, it started pouring.  I ran back to my car, now soaking wet and a little miffed.  As I sat in my car, hoping it would pass, I thought about that other little rhyme about rain, “Rain, rain, go away, come again another day.” 

 When the ‘rain’ comes in our lives we certainly don’t want it to come again another day; we just want it to go away.  This is how many of us deal with the painful things in our life and understandably so.  When we are confronted with something that annoys us or disappoints us or in general just makes us feel downright crappy, we usually just want for it to go away.   Sure, it makes logical sense; why wouldn’t I wish for the rain to go away during my tennis match?  But, it doesn’t acknowledge the simple fact that no matter what I wished for, it is not what IS right now.  What “is” right now is that it’s raining and I am annoyed.  Any amount of pushing those feelings away isn’t going to work.  It’s tricky because sometimes it may seem like it did work, but really anytime you push something down without addressing it, it just reappears later in a new form.

I had a friend once who hated her job, I mean REALLY hated her job.  She told me she could not deal with how crappy it was making her feel.  She frequently told me how miserable the job made her and how she fantasized about quitting.  Then one day, in a triumphant door slamming tirade that went something like, “find someone else to do this &*!&@ job for squat!”  She quit.  I remember when she called me that day, ecstatic about her new freedom.  “I never have to deal with those miserable people again!” she squealed with delight.  It wasn’t until about three weeks later, when still hadn’t been hired for a new job that those familiar feelings she felt at work resurfaced. 

All this talk of rain reminded me of the exercise I did with her when it was raining on her parade.  The purpose of the exercise is to heal your emotional suffering, no matter how big or small.  I learned this exercise from my meditation teacher, the amazing and wonderful, Tara Brach. 

 I am providing an account of how the “RAIN” technique worked with her issue, but let’s make this more fun!  Follow along with me and try to use this powerful technique for your own healing.  Read the exercise first once through to get a feel for how it works.  Then think about a situation in your life that really brought up negative or uncomfortable feelings that you really didn’t want to deal with.  Really think about the situation.  Close your eyes.  Let all of your emotions and thoughts about your painful situation rise to the surface.  Then do this….

RAIN—an acronym for healing emotional suffering

R- Recognize- notice what you are REALLY feeling, all of it.  In my friend’s example the strongest feeling she ha was that of feeling like a failure.  Just recognize what your strongest feeling is at its root.

A- Allow- give yourself permission to feel whatever is coming up from you without judgment.  We have a tendency to rationalize our feelings away.  Know this: feelings cannot be rationalized away; they are there to be felt. 

When I had my friend do this exercise she recognized that on some level she felt like she was a failure for quitting. Even though she realized this mentally she never let herself experience the feeling of failure because she kept rationalizing with herself that she shouldn’t feel that way.  “I chose to quit so I shouldn’t feel like a failure.”   It doesn’t matter what you “should or shouldn’t feel”.  That is a judgment.  In fact, if you even think “I should or shouldn’t feel ______” take it as a sign that you are rationalizing your emotions and not allowing what is to just be.  In this stage of allowing, do only this: allow. 

I- Intimacy/Investigate- now that you are allowing your feelings to be whatever they are, get really intimate with them.   Getting intimate means getting out of your head and instead getting into your heart.  To do this you must investigate what the emotion feels like in a very physical way in your body.  It means asking questions like, “What is happening?  What in me needs attention or acceptance? Where do I feel the tightness in my body?”

For my friend it went something like, “Okay I accept that I am feeling like a failure.  In my body I feel this as tightness in my chest.  My throat feels like it is closing and I can feel tears filling up in my eyes.  I also feel my stomach turning.  I have felt this way before.  Actually, come to think about it, I felt this way with my parents as a child.  I remember I hated this feeling and I did everything I could to avoid it.  Which I guess didn’t work because the feeling is still here.”

This is a perfect example of something changing form.  The feelings of failure she didn’t deal with from the past are still asking to be felt and are now popping up in whatever situation provides the fertile soil. First it came as a child and wasn’t felt, then in her job, now in her quitting of the job.   

You may be thinking, Laura, this exercise does NOT sound fun.  I can’t argue.  It is never fun to deal with the crap we don’t want to deal with.  But I can promise you that this ancient Zen saying is true, “with emotions, suppression leads to momentary relief and permanent pain while expression leads to temporary pain but permanent relief.” Trust that if you actually feel these things they will eventually stop returning.

N- Non-identification- this basically means not taking your emotions too seriously. 

By now you have gotten pretty deep into your feelings.  Sometimes we get so deep that we forget that we are anything BUT that feeling.  It is easy to feel consumed by negative emotions and that is often one of our main fears in experiencing them.  But as long as you remember “this FEELING is not me, it is just a feeling that will pass,” you will be well on the road to healing. 

For my friend, she went through several boxes of tissues during steps one through three.  As we got to the N of RAIN, I gently reminded her that she was more than just her feelings.  So I will now remind you: Never take yourself or your feelings too seriously.  Buddha believed that life was suffering.  You’d think that he would be a pretty bummed out kind of dude, yet in every depiction of the Buddha, he is smiling.  This is because he also believed that life was also in many ways illusory and therefore not that serious.   The mantra of this stage is “It’s not that serious.”

If you followed along you are probably feeling pretty run through the ringer right now and that is okay.   I have used this technique many times to move through my own emotions and I have never regretted it.  Staying with your emotions with a compassionate and open heart, full of awareness, is what heals.

When you go into healing your emotions, go in with a compassionate heart.  Love yourself and allow whatever comes up to be.  Even if you happen to be standing in a tennis skirt in the pouring rain cursing at the sky, just let it be.  Know that you are more than that one feeling in that one moment.  Know that your true essence is loving awareness and that healing is always possible.

I hope that by allowing these “showers” your flowers will bloom!

Love and Light!

Even though I am Irish, I never felt a real kinship with St. Paddy’s Day.  Don’t get me wrong, I am a fan of any excuse for raucous celebration!  But this year St. Patrick’s Day has a much deeper meaning to me.

In September, I finally made the trek back to Ireland to learn a bit about my heritage and experience a taste of what life had been like for my father‘s family on the Emerald Isle.  His immediate family now lives in the U.S. where they are spread out from coast to coast.  We don’t see each other often and thought a great way to reconnect would be a trip back to the old country.  My aunt, uncle and grandfather all took separate flights and met up with us (my dad, my husband Tim, and yours truly) at the Shannon airport in Ireland.  I knew having three generations of Cannon’s in a house for a week was going to be interesting to say the least.  Let’s just say I was trapped in a house where all of the men had a serious, and almost disturbing, fascination with farts.

The first day, I stepped outside to get some fresh air (quite literally) and then I saw it.  The reason for our journey to Ireland stood as a towering mound in the distance- Croagh Patrick. Croagh Patrick is a mountain located in County Mayo on the West Coast of Ireland.  People have been ascending the 2,500ft mountain for holy pilgrimages for over 5,000 years.  It was on the summit of this mountain that Saint Patrick fasted for 40 days in 441 AD.

 For years, it had been my Aunt Vanessa’s dream to take the pilgrimage.  A few years back she severely injured her knee and several surgeries later we all wondered if she would ever be able to make it up this beast.  Since my Uncle Declan, Tim and I were decently experienced hikers we figured that if she really wanted to do this, we were going to help make her dream a reality. 

What we hadn’t exactly anticipated was that my 80 year old, over 200 lb. grandfather was also insistent on making the trek.  My grandfather, P.J., is someone who never quits.  He is the most determined man I have ever met.  Even to this day, he walks 5 miles everyday without fail.  Knowing this fact gave us some security that he would be able to make the distance.  It was really more the terrain and incline that we worried about. 

The sign at the base of the mountain indicated that the hike would take a total of about 3.5 hours to complete the climb and descent.  Knowing that we were going to be hiking with a smoker and two sets of bad knees we decided that we better give ourselves double the amount of time to make the journey, “just in case”. 

I had wondered how we were going to hike the steep slopes in a country that is known for its rain.  I have hiked on my fair share of muddy trails and it can be pretty treacherous.  The days leading up to the climb I wondered how so many people were able to make this climb in the wet conditions.  Yet as soon as I started on the trail all of my wondering ceased.  On this mountain you don’t hike on the wet ground.  You hike on rocks, but not just any rocks, loose boulders.  It’s one thing to feel unstable when the ground is muddy in certain areas.   It is another thing entirely to feel unstable with each and every footstep you take. 

We started out the hike around 11am.  Knowing it would be a half-day hike, we brought a few bottles of water and lunch for when we reached the top.  Everything started out fairly calm. My father charged ahead in front of all of us and would stop periodically and wait for the rest of us to catch up.  Declan and I backed up Vanessa as she climbed cautiously with her knee.  Tim was in front of us backing up my grandfather who also seemed to be charging up the mountain with excitement.  As we climbed, the ocean below us got further and further away.  Yet somehow the summit did not appear to be getting any closer.  The hike was taking a bit longer than we had anticipated and we began taking more breaks.  We paused to read a sign at an odd make shift shelter. It indicated that this would be the place that a helicopter would drop down for you should you get injured.  The only way off of this mountain is by hiking down or being air lifted off.   At this point my father’s “complaint train” had departed the station and he was saying things like ‘hiking is stupid,’ ‘why would anyone think this is fun’ and ‘I think I will wait right here.’   Doubt of whether or not we were going to get up this beast started to arise, but we kept pushing on.  

The last leg of the climb is the most challenging and it required a lot of effort to get the lot of us up safely.  I couldn’t help but feel how this climb was like a spiritual metaphor for life.  We started out with the best of intentions, but we had no idea what challenges we would be faced with along the way.  All we could do was put one foot in front of the other and take the next step, and every step mattered.  Each step was the difference between making it and not making it.  In the end, we did make it to the top and the view was utterly breathtaking.

At the top of the mountain is a small stone church where people were praying.   I took the time to walk around the summit alone as the others ate their lunches.  I walked out to the edge and took a seat.  I marveled at the view of the ocean below and I thought about what St. Patrick must have felt on this mountain, for 40 days and 40 nights.  I meditated on the experience of the climb.  Each part of the climb had been emotional.  There were times when some of us thought of giving up, or had doubts that we could do it, yet we pushed on.  Sometimes we vocalized the thoughts, and sometimes they just echoed in our minds.   I was feeling pretty peaceful and exhilarated when out of the blue my emotions took an unexpected and dramatic turn.  All of a sudden I became aware of time.  I realized that the climb up should have taken only two hours but it took us more than four hours.  Something inside of me said “leave now.”  Fear began to set in and I knew I had to round up the others for our journey back down.

We began our descent around 3pm.  Knowing this leg should take an hour and a half I figured that even if it took us three hours we would still be able to get down the mountain in plenty of time.  Down the mountain we went.  My father again charged ahead of the pack.  Tim stayed with my grandfather and Declan and I were helping Vanessa navigate the treacherous descent.  I started to notice that my grandfather was really having a difficult time with the descent.  When you climb down there is far more weight and pressure on your knees.  Since Vanessa was feeling the burn I knew my grandfather was feeling it too.  Then he slipped.  He caught himself on the jagged rocks and Tim grabbed his arm to brace his fall.  We shouted for him to try and sit down and slide down the mountain but it was no use.  Boulders aren’t exactly made for sliding down. 

Tim and Declan both took my grandfather on either side and began to give him more assistance.  He was clearly struggling and we started taking breaks- lots of breaks.  It became increasingly difficult both physically and emotionally, especially as it got later.  The sun had started to go down on one side of the mountain.  There was still light in the sky when his knees gave out completely.  Only a few steps would get taken before a break was necessary.  It became even more discouraging as we started seeing people that had passed us as they were on their way up the mountain now on their way back down.  People started becoming sparser until it got so late that others had not passed us for at least an hour.

Vanessa, my father, and I had gone a bit in front so that we could find the least treacherous of the rocks for the three of them to walk over.  I remember looking back at Tim’s face and seeing a determination and focus like I have never seen.  He was determined to get my grandfather off that mountain.  We were more than halfway to the bottom but at the pace we were going I knew that it could still take hours to get him down.  Knowing that we had run out of water hours ago and had no supplies I started to get concerned.

I took a moment and closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I was feeling a nauseating mix of adrenaline, fear, anxiety, determination, and hope.  Again, I imagined that these emotions were probably not all that different from how St. Patrick had felt on his 40 day stay.  I was then suddenly struck with a deep sense in my gut that just said ‘get down and get help now before it is too dark.’ 

I told the rest of the group that I was going to hike down to get help and a flashlight and then hike back up to help them.  I started to literally run down the mountain.  I was seemingly flying over the unstable boulders I had so gingerly crossed before.  When I got down to the parking lot my heart just sank.  Everyone was gone.  The visitor center was closed.  The parking lot was empty, except for our car and one other.  I realized there was no one to help and I just stood there as the last rays of the sun disappeared and I prayed for a miracle.

 Suddenly I noticed that there was a truck pulled up to the restrooms and I ran over yelling for help.  A janitor came out looking quite bewildered as I tried to explain what was happening.  Unfortunately, he spoke Gaelic, and I did not.  We were able to communicate enough for him to point me to the road and help me to understand that there was a pub close by.  I took off running in that direction.  I went inside this tiny pub where the bartender and two locals sat.  Frantically, I tried explaining the situation.  They told me that the only thing to do was to hike back up to the helicopter point and call for the helicopter.  Knowing that we passed that point hours ago, I figured a flashlight was my next best bet.   They loaned me a ‘flash lamp’ and I ran back up the mountain.  

As I reached Vanessa I told her she was close and could make it the rest of the way and to bring the car as close to the bottom as possible.   Just as I passed her I saw the most amazing thing.  Rounding the corner were the men, plus two more.  Apparently the other car in the parking lot had belonged to two men from Ireland who had hiked the mountain many times.  When they crossed paths with my family and saw how bad the situation was they refused to leave without helping to carry him down.  They each took an arm and a leg and the four of them hoisted my grandfather over their shoulders as if he were a pharaoh and tried to cautiously maneuver the boulders. 

They navigated the dangerous terrain, in the dark, carrying a more than 200lb. man on their shoulders and coordinating synchronized movement down boulders.  It was truly incredible to witness.  We reached the bottom of Croagh Patrick a little after 8pm, nearly 9 hours after setting out on our “3 hour” hike.

We profusely thanked the two angels who came to help us on our journey.    We all got into the car and were silent.  There were truly no words for the vastness of the experience- the joy, the defeat, the triumph.  As I sat in the back seat staring out the window at the stars, I was overwhelmed with emotion.  Generations of humans had pilgrimaged Croagh Patrick for thousands of years, and on this day three generations of Cannon’s did it too. 

St. Patrick’s mountain and our journey was a metaphor for what is truly important about life.  You can’t go it alone.  Life is enriched by all of the people that surround us.  We share a collective experience as human beings.  We all have dreams, hopes, fears, challenges and triumphs.  Each of our bodies experience pain and joy.  Life requires that we all do our best to dig down deep and find the courage inside of each of us.  The courage helps us to put one foot in front of the other and move forward with a determined spirit towards the summit of our destiny. 

I wish I could do more than just recount the story of what happened on Croagh Patrick, but so much of it is indescribable.  It was one of those experiences that just changes you and reminds you to be grateful for the bounty of life’s experience.

That day in September became my “St. Patrick’s Day” and now every March 17^th I will also think of St. Patrick and that crazy mountain.  So this year, when you are drinking your green beer or watching the St. Paddy’s day parade, take a moment to think about the summit of your life.  Think about the challenges you are facing, the struggles which seem too big to surmount and take comfort in knowing that we are all in this together and with faith, hope, courage and love we will triumph.

In the past, I contested that Valentine’s Day was nothing more than a manufactured hallmark holiday and a perfect excuse for me to eat chocolate, lots of chocolate.  If you have been following my blog then you already know that I have dedicated this year to ‘living in love’.  So for this month’s post I wanted to share a little bit about my journey with living in love and how I got here, one donut at a time.  I dedicate this post to the wonderful women I had the opportunity to teach these ‘loving yourself healthy’ concepts to the other night. You inspire me!

For those of you who don’t know about my weight loss journey, the fat and skinny of it is that I lost more than 50lbs., going from a size 16 to a size 4. People complemented me and told me that I inspired them to live healthier lives.  The problem was I felt like complete shit.  While I was graciously accepting the complements, in my heart I felt like I was living a lie.  People would say, “Wow you must feel so good now, you look great.”  “Thanks, I feel fantastic,” I said.  When what I really wanted to say was ‘”Don’t envy me, I don’t feel any better then I did when I ate Duncan Hines frosting out of a tub.”  I knew that there was a difference on the outside, but I just couldn’t shake this feeling that it still wasn’t enough on the inside.  Something was missing.

I concluded that if it didn’t feel like enough that meant that I hadn’t done enough.  I needed to push harder, lose more weight.   I thought, once I lost just five more pounds then I would finally be done, it would be enough.  Then I reached that weight.  Then I lost another five pounds.  Then, guess what?  It still wasn’t enough. The feeling I thought would be on the other side of those five pounds, wasn’t.  Sound familiar?  I had this sense that I was was always running towards something that never ended up being there. 

Deeply, what I wanted was to get off the damn hampster wheel.  I wanted to stop feeling good for losing five pounds only to know it meant feeling bad if I didn’t.  I wanted to find deep peace, but a deeper fear always kept me clinging to that wheel.  I feared that if I got rid of my inner critic that screamed, “Hey fatty, get back on the treadmill,” I would lose all control and be wearing a moo-moo and shovelling ice-cream in my face before I knew it.

The point is, often times we tell ourselves if we can just lose five pounds, or get a new job, or get to the gym five times a week that will do ‘it’.  But will it really?  Or will you get there and still feel that something is missing?  The truth is when you are looking through the lens of ‘not enough yet’ you will always remain in the ‘not enough’ mindset.  When you put your happiness ‘out-there,’ that is where it will always stay.

If you want to make real and lasting transformation you have to start by figuring out the essence of what you really want.  Then give that essence to yourself NOW, not in the future when you finally…. (Fill in the thing you are waiting for here.)  If you want to lose weight, then you need to ‘lose the WAIT,’ literally. Stop waiting for your life to produce what you think you want and give it to yourself now.   But how?

I asked the weight loss group I coached on Friday night what they wanted.  They responded with:  “To lose weight, to have more energy, to look better, etc.”  “But, what is the essence?” I asked them.  “What is it that you perceive you will feel once you get these things?”  They looked confused.  “How do I know how I will feel if I don’t have it?”

The truth is that you already know how attaining your object of desire feels or you wouldn’t want it in the first place.  After all you wouldn’t want a million dollars if you thought it would make you feel crappy once you got it.  No.  You want it because you percieve that it will make you feel something better than you do now, atleast you think so.  Unfortunately, the form itself (money, weight loss, etc.) is never going to make you feel something that you aren’t already allowing yourself to feel now.

For most people, especially with weight loss, the feeling that they are seeking ‘out there’, 10 less pounds from now, is ‘self-love and self- acceptance’. Ironically the only place it can be found is ‘in here.’  Basically if you don’t love yourself now, you are not going to love yourself in the future when some external thing happens.  Loving yourself is something you can only do in the present moment and it starts with accepting your situation just as it is now, unconditionally.  Understand that accepting doesn’t have to mean being happy about your current situation.  I know that you may truly want to lose 20 lbs. that is fine.  But if your motivation to lose 20 lbs. is because you feel  bad about yourself now, you are just going to continue to feel bad about yourself in the future, 20 lbs. less or not.

The law of attraction states that like attracts like.  Self-hate now is NOT going to attract self-love in the future; it is only going to attract more of itself.  If the essence that you are seeking is self-love, you can only feel it by taking action and allowing yourself to feel it now. 

So this Valentine’s Day I want you to treat yourself with love and give your heart what it really wants.  Set aside some time to think about anything you have been putting ‘out there’.  What feeling are you going to allow yourself to have in the future, only when you… fill in the blank.   A lot of clients tell me they are going to ‘relax’ once they…. take a vacation, finish this or that project, find a mate, etc.  I challenge you to figure out the essence of what you have been seeking and give it to yourself this Valentine’s Day.  Who knows, maybe by actually giving yourself what you really need you may also get what you thought you wanted, or maybe something even better!

Happy Valentine’s Day!  Live in Love!