Aspire Magazine - Feb/Mar 2013 - The Essence of Love

Cover

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www.AspireMAG.net | February/March 2013

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www.AspireMAG.net | February/March 2013

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CONTENTS On the Cover

FEB | MAR 2013 THE ESSENCE OF LOVE

Wisdom & Self-Growth

16 Soulfully Being: Spirit vs. Ego

by Jeanna Gabellini, CPCC

Discover the Seven Keys to cultivating a stronger relationship to Spirit that leads to full selfexpression, freedom,joy, peace, and fulfillment.

24 Interview with transformation goddess, Shann vander leek In this insightful interview you’ll meet Shann, a delightfully curious transformational coach, author, Yoga playshop teacher, and motivational speaker.

She supports powerful women in transition who are ready to reclaim their feminine sovereignty and transform their precious lives.

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20 Living the Big StuffTM: Embracing Change

by Kristine Carlson A s p i r e welcomes our new columnist Kristine Carlson. Her column Living the Big StuffTM will cast a light on a way of living that will help you to develop the mindset to embrace “what is” and take steps in moving forward on a path of transformation as you return to joy.

www.AspireMAG.net | February/March 2013

30 Simply...Empowered!

Soul Mates and Soul Supporters

by Crystal Andrus Synergistic relationships happen every day – in life, romance, friendship and in business. Learn more about these incredibly meaningful and empowering relationships.

33 Living a More Conscious Life

by Jennifer Howard, Ph. D. When you’re living a more conscious life, you’re being with yourself and for yourself deeply, moment by moment.

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CONTENTS 36 Six Ways to Nourish and Renew Your Spirit

by Renée Peterson Trudeau

We all crave sacredness and ritual in our everyday lives. Spiritual renewal is essential to our emotional well-being. Here are six ways to nourish and renew your spirit.

40 Colorscope

by Elizabeth Harper

ColorScope is a unique system designed to stimulate your intuitive skills. By choosing the color you are most drawn to you actively access the wisdom of your subconscious and the voice of your soul.

42 Meditation: SelfLove in the Palm of Your Hand

by Mal Duane The personal journey of how meditation led the author to a deeper understanding of and love for herself.

“You will find as you look back upon your life that the moments when you have truly lived are the moments when you have done things in the spirit of love.”

Henry Drummond

46 Allow Love: Radiant Gems to Magnetize Love, Friendship and All that is Love!

by Margaret Ann Lembo

Learn how to incorporate the powerful energy of gemstones when working with your intentions.

Health & Wellness 50 Living the Goddess Lifestyle: The Love Barometer

by Lisa Marie Rosati We l c o m e Lisa Marie Rosati to the Aspire family. Lisa’s column Living the Goddess LifestyleTM will encompass everything that it means to be a modern day Goddess in today’s world from healthy recipes, herbal remedies, empowering self-love rituals and more.

53 Mindful Awareness, Health and Healing

by Janet Nestor

Spiritual and emotional strength comes with moment to moment mindfulness. Here are ten ways to incorporate mindfulness in your life.

56 If You Only Make One Resolution

by Christiane Northup, M.D.

Having spent the last 30 years assisting women in healing themselves, Dr. Northup has come to see our bodies as true altars—the most sacred places in our lives.

Here she shares the one resolution all women should make this year.

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CONTENTS 58 The Wise Woman Way: The wise woman tradition empowers women

By Susun Weed

Learn more about the oldest known healing tradition that empowers women.

Relationships

62 A New Way of Looking at Love that Changes Everything

by Marci Shimoff

What if you could experience a love that didn’t depend on anything outside you? What if you could love for no reason?

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“A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge.”

Thomas Carlyle

65 Are You Being a Good Friend…To Yourself?

By Christine Arylo

Take a stand for the most important relationship in your life – the one with yourself – by saying YES! to becoming a really good friend – maybe even a best friend – to yourself.

70 Women Starting Over: Six Ways to Step into a New Vision for Who You Are

By Rev. Dr. Charlene M. Proctor

It is possible to live a life of purpose and passion after 40. Here are six ways to “stay on purpose” and step into a greater vision of who you are.

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73 Wabi Sabi Love: A Tale of Learning to Trust

by Arielle Ford

Wabi Sabi Love shows you exactly how to see your partner in a whole new light, so you begin to appreciate, even celebrate your partner’s imperfections.

75 Rekindle the Flame of Your Love

by Stacy Corrigan

Here are four simple, yet powerful steps to fan the flame and rekindle your relationship. It’s the little steps taken each day that make a profound difference.

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Dare To

Fall in Love

(with yourself)

“There is nothing more powerful, beautiful or free than a woman who truly loves herself.”

- Christine Arylo, founder of Madly In Love with ME™

Make it official this February 13th Celebrate the international day of self-love Events in San Francisco

Los Angeles

San Diego

Austin

or Your House?

Get The Madly in Love with ME™ Kit Today -- It’s FREE! Go to www.ChooseSelfLove.com and get daring, practical and fun ideas and how to’s on what it really takes to love yourself - to have more than selfesteem, to grow your self-compassion, self-trust, self-empowerment, selfcare and more! Plus as an added BONUS you’ll receive in the kit: Self-Love Meditations - Connect with the love YOU need Self-Love Party Pack - Throw a Self Love Party for the women and girls you love Self-Love Song & Poem - Make your relationship with yourself the best one yet

CHOOSE SELF-LOVE NOW...

CLICK HERE & Get Your Free Self Love Kit now Inspired by the best-selling book, “Madly in Love with ME, the Daring Adventure to Becoming Your Own Best Friend”

www.ChooseSelfLove.com

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CONTENTS Career | Business

78 Inspired to Write?

Writing Magic: Is it Time to Share Your Gifts with the World in a Big Way?

by Lisa Tener

Do you have a book in you?

If you’ve ever wondered how to begin here are some insightful questions to get you started.

FEB | MAR 2013 THE ESSENCE OF LOVE 84 The #1 Most Blown-Off Success Principle Ever

by Christine Kane

In order to succeed in life and business there must be a balance of energy. We need to allow ourselves to receive in order to thrive.

Here are some ways to practice receiving and succeeding.

86 8 Ways You Can Sabotage Your Search for Life Passion

by Barrie Davenport

Finding a life passion involves trial and error, practice, and patience.

Those you see living passionate lives were once where you are right now. It is possible!

81 Job vs. Calling

by Marianne Williamson

One of the most positive transitions you can make is from viewing your work as a job to viewing it as a calling.

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LINDA JOY

||

Publisher & Editor-In-Chief | Linda@aspiremag.net

Creative & Brand Direction || Rachel dunham | www.HummingbirdCreativeConcepts.com Editorial Layout || Sarah J. Mendes | www.SLJDesign.com Graphic Designer || MANDY PALMER | www.GruveDesign.com COO || Kim Turcotte | www.SoulPurposeBusinessSolutions.com Mailing Address || P.O. Box 1149 | Lakeville, MA 02347 508.265.7929 ADVERTISING || Email Linda@aspiremag.net Mission to inspire info <Click HERE>

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ATTN: Service-Based Business Women

Without Struggle or Frustration!

Today, many women who own passion-driven, servicebased businesses are feeling frustrated. They are struggling to attract a consistent flow of perfect, paying clients.

They donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have clarity!

Do You? CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT

Just How Much Business Clarity You Have

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EXPERT COLUMNISTS

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KRISTINE CARLSON Living the Big StufffTM

LISA MARIE ROSATI Living the Goddess LifeStyleTM

An unyielding believer of Living the Big StuffTM and not sweating the small stuff in order to experience true happiness in life, as a bestselling author and inspirational speaker Kristine Carlson continues to expand on the phenomenal success of her late husband, Dr. Richard Carlson, beloved author of the Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff series. www.KristineCarlson.com www.DontSweatMoms.com

Passionista Lisa Marie Rosati is an Inner Goddess Catalyst for women and the Creatrix of The Goddess Lifestyle Plan.

Lisa mentors women on how become a Modern Day Goddess by consciously designing a luscious Goddess life, cultivating radiant health and creating a lucrative business using and directing their feminine fire. www.GoddessLifestylePlan.com

LISA TENER Inspired to Write?

CRYSTAL ANDRUS Simply... Empowered!

An award-winning authority on writing and publishing books, Lisa Tener guides you to joyfully express yourself in writing. She blogs for the Huffington Post, serves on the faculty of Harvard Medical School’s publishing course, and teaches her own Award Winning Book Writing Courses in person and by interactive teleseminar. www.LisaTener.com

Crystal Andrus is a leader in the field of self-discovery and personal transformation.

From a tough beginning—she has risen to become a best-selling Hay House author, international speaker, women’s health advocate, spokesperson for Haylo Health, and Founder of The SWAT Institute.

Crystal’s message is one of resilience, strength and inner power. www.CrystalAndrus.com www.SWATInstitute.com

SUSUN WEED The Wise Woman Way

ELIZABETH HARPER ColorScope

Susun Weed is an internationally renowned herbalist, author, and director of the Wise Woman Center in New York. She is a revered voice of the Wise Woman Tradition, where women’s bodies and women’s emotions are valued. Susun is a founding grandmother of the herbal renaissance and the originator of the concept of complementary medicine. www.SusunWeed.com

Elizabeth Harper is an internationally acclaimed teacher, intuitive, healer, and the author of the award winning book Wishing: How to Fulfill Your Hearts Desires. Elizabeth is on the faculty at the highly acclaimed Omega Institute in Rhineback, NY and is invited to speak around the world. www.SealedwithLove.com

www.AspireMAG.net | February/March 2013

FEATURED CONTRIBUTORS

Christiane Northrup, M.D.

Marci Shimoff

Mal Duane

Marianne Williamson

Dr. Jennifer Howard

Arielle Ford

Jeanna Gabellini

Rev. Charlene M. Proctor

Barrie Davenport

Janet Nestor

Margaret Ann Lembo

Stacy Corrigan

Christine Kane

Share

YOUR WISDOM! WITH OUR READERS

Christine Arylo

RenĂŠe Peterson Trudeau

CONTACT US TODAY TO LEARN ABOUT OUR AWESOME CONTRIBUTOR OPPORTUNITIES!

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LETTER EDITOR

FROM THE

LINDA JOY is a passionate believer that there are no failures in life — only lessons to be learned and shared.

Welcome!

Whether you are a new friend and this is your first issue or you are a long time member of our global family I am honored that you are here. Since 2005 Aspire’s mission has been to bring women the inspiring, empowering content that speaks to the heart of who she is as a woman.

A Labor of Love! The February/March “Essence of Love” issue launches Aspire’s new logo, brand and editorial layout that I feel truly captures the love, light and energy of who we are. The creative visionary behind our beautiful new look is Rachel Dunham, Branding & Design Expert and friend that I’ve had the pleasure of working with for close to seven years on the creation of all my brand images. Rach, you are truly gifted!

Now on the iPad! Along with launching our new look, Aspire is now available with the option of downloading every issue to your iPad through our relationship with MagCloud.

Connect with me! om/ http://www.facebook.c y aJo ind PublisherL

My greatest wish for you is that you discover on these pages the message that your heart needs and your soul longs for, and that it takes you one step (or many) further along the path to living a joyful, inspired and authentic life.

ajoy

https://twitter.com/lind http://pinterest.com/ lindajoyinspire/

LINDA JOY Publisher & Editor-In-Chief | Linda@aspiremag.net

Here’s What I’m Reading Right Now...

FROM MY BOOKSHELF 14

www.AspireMAG.net | February/March 2013

Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead by Brené Brown, Ph. D. Brené shares that by embracing our vulnerability we are able to live more courageously, passionately, and authentically in every area of our lives.

WISDOM & SELF-GROWTH

“ Knowing others is Wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment. ”

Lao Tzu

Trusting

Your Inner GPS

Each of is born with a powerful internal guidance system. Whether you call it inner wisdom, intuition or a gut feeling – recognizing its presence is the first step in strengthening your connection to this powerful source of wisdom, creativity and inspiration. Here are three simple steps that you can start with to tune into your inner guidance system.

1 Daily Quiet Time

Start slowly... even five minutes a day spent in solitude allowing your thoughts to flow in and out sends a signal to your guidance system that you are tuning in.

2 Trust Your Gut Received a feeling or hunch?

Follow it. By taking action steps (even small ones)

3 Journal Journaling is a powerful tool for tuning into our inner voice.

There is something about pen and paper that allows our thoughts to just flow. Try it!

Ask yourself an open-ended question and see what answers appear.

Live & Virtual

UPCOMING EVENTS

CHECK OUT MORE ONLINE!

AspireMag.net

SACRED HEART TEACHINGS || DETAILS! Linda Joy with Shann Vander Leek BIRTH YOUR BOOK in 2013 || DETAILS! Linda Joy with Lisa Tener POSITIVE MENTAL SHIFT || DETAILS! Host Mal Duane & 12 Guests

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SoulFully Being: Spirit

Vs.

Ego

BY Jeanna Gabellini, CPCC

Have you ever felt as though there were two opposing forces inside of you, each pulling in opposite directions? Below are Seven Keys to cultivating a stronger relationship to Spirit that leads to full self-expression, freedom, joy, peace, and fulfillment.

Spirit vs. Ego Spirit simply loves life and people and is endlessly curious about exploring and experiencing the world. This energy force is alive and free, creative, expressive, abundant, and playful. This part of ourselves guides us calmly and adeptly through new and challenging experiences. Its guidance doesn’t come from the “head’s thinking”, IT is much more powerful, wise, clear, and knowing than the mind. Intuition, heart, inspiration, love, joy, and

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peace are associated with this energy. When we access IT, we feel warmth, serenity, centered, and connected to the world.

Life flows. We’re fulfilled, fully self-expressed, and every moment is a magic moment. When we live from Spirit we know all is well and life is a joy.

Ego is more practical, cautious, judgmental, and protective. It wants to look good to others or, at least, avoid looking bad. Ego likes to control, although pretends that

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it doesn’t. It views the world as a potentially harmful place, fears being hurt and exposed, and thus remains separate, isolated, and closed from others. It blames, criticizes, compares, and makes excuses. “Should” is one of its favorite words. Ego energy looks for answers from its mind -- although it often confuses reality with something made-up.

It is self-righteousness and holds a “better than attitude,” protecting the insecurity that lies just beneath the surface. Living

Spirit is the life force energy about experiencing, creating, expressing, and connecting in this world; Ego is a bodyguard or tour guide. Its job is to keep the physical body safe and guide spirit through the journey of life. However, it often oversteps its duties and responsibilities.

Most people don’t realize the nature of these two individual forces and continue to struggle between the two energies.

Sometimes it feels like we have split personalities but rest assured, this is part of the human design. The Ego is much more forceful when it comes to being in control and thus plays a more dominant role in our

lives — often suppressing our true self. For many people, Spirit shows up sporadically when we let go of our thinking minds, spend time in nature, engage in something creative, meditate, or seek assistance. Have you noticed as soon as you surrender solutions appeared? When you become more conscious about the nature of these forces, you can learn to access this all-knowing, wise, and powerful force more consistently.

The result is a life with more peace, joy, love, abundance, and creative flow, and less stress, scarcity, and fear. Both Spirit and Ego are always there to access. And as human beings, we need both to exist.

DISTINGUISHING EGO FROM Spirit Since the Ego can be sneaky in its expression, it’s important to recognize its nature. I’ve included a list below of Ego characteristics and its Spirit counterpart. Separation is the common theme to each word set below. The Ego strives to keep you separate from the world, separate in relationships, and separate from your Spirit and its full self-expression, joy, and inner peace. It does this through resistance, restriction, blame, selfrighteousness, and fear.

The Ego also expresses itself as neediness, which is a form of separating from self (from your power) — believing that to be complete you need something “over there.”

Ego

Spirit 17

Wisdom & Self-Growth

isolated within the confines of the body, ego mostly just wants safety and independence.

• Separation vs. Connection • Mind vs. Heart • Victim vs. Taking Responsibility • Excuses vs. Results • Shoulds vs. Inspiration • Resistance vs. Acceptance • Restricted vs. Freedom • Confusion vs. Clarity ssed • Suppressed vs. Fully Self-Expre • Worry vs. Anticipation • Stuck vs. Creativity

Take the first word in each pair. Perhaps you already recognize how familiar they are to you — as it is for most human beings. Imagine living your life predominantly from separation, shoulds, confusion, restriction,

• Stressed vs. Peace • Frustrated vs. Resourceful • Protection vs. Vulnerable • Fear vs. Love • Laziness vs. Nurturing • Doubt vs. Trust • Scarcity vs. Abundance • Shut-down vs. Open • Shame vs. Acceptance • Apprehension vs. Courageous • Struggle vs. Flow

resistance. How would that feel? According to David Hawkins, the author of Power vs. Force, it is how 83% of the population lives.

Take the second word in each pair. Imagine living a life predominantly from

joy, peace, love, creativity, freedom, and full selfexpression.

Hawkins states that only 17% of the population access this way of being, so, while it may not be the norm, it is possible.

SEVEN KEYS to Cultivating Connection with Spirit How can we access Spirit so that it naturally becomes the dominant energy force in our lives? How can we maximize the peace, joy, and flow in our lives?

1 Get Present

hen we’re truly in the present moment, W we have great access to Spirit. When we’re focused on the past, feelings of regret, pain, and turmoil can overtake us, cutting us off from Spirit. When we’re focused on the future, we often get distracted in feelings of worry, hope, and fear. Starving our energies prevents us from creating now. It is in the present moment where we find peace, joy, and connection to Spirit.

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2 Choose High Vibrations

hen we’re truly in the present moment, W we have great access to Spirit. When we’re focused on the past, feelings of regret, pain, and turmoil can overtake us, cutting us off from Spirit. When we’re focused on the future, we often get distracted in feelings of worry, hope, and fear. Starving our energies prevents us from creating now. It is in the present moment where we find peace, joy, and connection to Spirit.

3 Take Responsibility through Conscious Choices

4 Radically Reduce Thoughts

For most people, this is a tough one. Our human Ego-dominated minds like to run non-stop. Are you doing the thinking, or is Ego thinking you? Even the most intelligent minds must ultimately learn to break free of thought and find stillness because this is where true freedom lies. It is only in the stillness of the mind where our connection to Spirit comes alive.

5 Humility

go is about being right, criticizing, and E judging. Stepping into humility is the fastest way to release the Ego’s grip. Admitting critical, judging, or self-righteous behavior is liberating. Stepping into not knowing is more powerful than being right.

6 Listen to Spirit

How do you tell the difference between the Spirit voice and the Ego voice? The Ego voice is almost always associated with feelings of angst, resistance, doubt, fear, questioning, guilt, and confusion. Spirit’s

7 Soulful Challenge

One of my favorite practices is to just act on Spirit’s voice. Throughout the day, consciously listen for Spirit to guide your decisions. Clear your head, ask for guidance, and listen. Then act before your Ego can jump in and start analyzing Spirit’s request. Just trust and go with it. If Spirit doesn’t respond immediately with direction, just wait, an answer will show up. Often it doesn’t make sense in the moment, but then becomes clear later. Try this for one week. The gifts are incredible.

COMmitment to tHE PROCESS To cultivate a deeper relationship to Spirit and radically reduce the control of Ego in your life is a process. You’ll notice yourself getting stuck, being fearful, resisting life, and blaming others. But, as you deepen your commitment to the process, you will find you’re able to recognize the destructive and unconscious patterns in your life more quickly and make responsible, conscious choices leading to empowering action.

Jeanna Gabellini, CPCC, is recognized as a leading expert on the Law of Attraction and how to blend that knowledge with proven strategies to achieve ROCKSTAR results in business, finances as well as emotional and physical health. Click here to claim Jeanna’s powerful free CD Transforming From Chaotic Entrepreneur to Conscious Leader or visit www.MasterpeaceCoaching.com.

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Wisdom & Self-Growth

our Ego likes to play victim and lead you Y to believe that you’re not powerful or have a choice. No matter what the circumstance, there is always a powerful, responsible choice available. What do you need to ask for? What do you need to let go of? Whose help could you request? What’s the next step you could take? What is your ultimate outcome? When you take responsible action, you are responding to Spirit. Don’t be a victim, make a conscious new choice.

voice is clear, wise, knowing, precise, and brings peace; it more often serves your Greater Good.

LIVING the

Big Stuff !

TM

EMBRACING

L

ife is a process not a destination, and so we find ourselves at different times for different reasons in the crossroads of transition. “Living the Big Stuff” will cast a light on this path to help you to develop the mindset to embrace “what is” and

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Change

BY Kristine Carlson

take steps in moving forward on a path of transformation as you return to joy.

The big stuff of life embraces all of it! It includes the grand life-events that bring us great joy: Weddings, graduations, the

We don’t always get to choose what happens to us, or what happens to the people we love; many circumstances can change our lives. Many life situations can present us with difficulty that alters our life plans, too.

For instance, when someone we love dies or becomes ill, or we lose our job, then, our worlds can be pulled apart. While some of our cumulative life choices will affect our health, we don’t consciously choose to become ill, but we may find ourselves in the Doctor’s office receiving bad news. We have people like our children and our parents as they age to care for on a daily basis even though we may be going through emotional crises. We may have an accident and this requires us to alter the manner in which we live. There are times we may be in the throes of addiction; either we ourselves are in recovery or we are assisting someone we care about. These things happen to all of us, and the challenge is to move forward with resiliency and grace. Charles Darwin said: “It’s not the strongest that will survive.

It’s those whom are the most adaptable to change.”

Embracing change isn’t easy for most people. Our egos create the need for us to have control over our lives and hence the illusion that we do. Truth is, the only real control we have, in the face of adversity, is how we to move forward. Life is a process, not a destination and the path to healing starts here:

THE FIRST STEP Accessing your INNER courage You must, first, be willing to step into your life and that can bring up understandable fear of the unknown. To overcome your fear, I want you to remember a time when you had tremendous courage. I mean really think back in your entire repertoire of memories to a time where you know you changed the direction of your life or someone else’s life by the choice you made in the moment.

We’ve all done many things, big and small that reflect courage. Spend some time in reflection of this experience, and journal it. Feel it again, vividly, experiencing in your body all that you did when your fight or flight mechanism kicked you into full gear of choice. When you chose to do this courageous act, you made the difference.

Life could have turned out quite differently, right? The same is true for your life now as you access the courage you need to step into life as it is.

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Wisdom & Self-Growth

birth of our children, and such. And, “living the big stuff” also means moving through life transitions brought on by adversity, heartbreak, and our necessary as well as unnecessary losses. When it’s smooth sailing, appreciate it with tremendous gratitude because you just don’t know when you’re going to hit stormy seas. Sometimes, life throws us a curve ball and one of my favorite Richard Carlson quotes is: “The circumstances of your life don’t make or break you, they reveal who you are.”

Step Two Becoming the Victor When my beloved husband of twenty-five years suddenly died from a pulmonary embolism on a flight to New York, my life changed with a phone call. Within 48 hours of this horrific news, I sat down and had a talk with myself. I said: “Kris, this is going to go one of two ways for you. You will stand in what you have been given, even though you hate this, because you know that this has shown up to teach you something big.

You have been greatly blessed, but now, you have just entered your graduate soul work curriculum.”

When you are in a fork in road of transition, there are just two mindset paths: The Victim or Victor. The Victim decides to avoid pain and to numb out allowing adversity to steal vital life energy that could otherwise transform negative circumstances. If you are not able to access the courage you need to lean into your situation, you may feel broken by life without any conviction that you will come out the other side whole and complete. The Victor says: “I will play the hand that has been dealt to me even though I know it may be difficult and painful, and I will accept what has been given to me as my life 101 soul-work curriculum. I will overcome these undesirable circumstances and learn from them.”

When you enter into a transformation process and embrace change with an open-heart ready to step in and move forward; you will overcome. As you open to transformation,

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you will heal and become stronger, wiser, and more ready to live fully in your authentic expression. Most importantly, you will return to joy. The only problems that you can’t overcome are the ones that kill you. (I haven’t encountered any of those—yet.) As I’ve overcome tragedy, I can honestly say, “I don’t sweat the small stuff because I am living the big stuff.”

An unyielding believer of Living the Big StuffTM and not sweating the small stuff in order to experience true happiness in life, as a bestselling author and inspirational speaker Kristine Carlson continues to expand on the phenomenal success of her late husband, Dr. Richard Carlson, beloved author of the Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff series. Learn more at www.KristineCarlson.com and be sure to download your Free Mom’s C.P.R. Kit at www.DontSweatMoms.com

“ Love doesn’t

need reason.

It speaks from

irrational wisd

the

om

of the heart.”

Deepak C hopra

Introducing The Live Online Program With Goddess Lisa Marie Rosati:

The Secrets To Unleashing Abundant Energy, Detoxing Your Life & Cultivating A Goddess Glow!

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INTERVIEW WITH

Transformation Goddess

SHANN VANDER LEEK I’m excited to introduce you to Shann Vander Leek in an intimate interview.

Shann is a delightfully curious transformational coach, author, Yoga playshop teacher, and motivational speaker. She supports powerful women in transition who are ready to reclaim their feminine sovereignty and transform their precious lives.

She is a mama, wife, entrepreneur, artist, and mentor to the women who are ready for her transformational programs. Shann’s courageous journey of self-discovery encompasses yoga teacher training, deep shadow work, silent retreats, The Artist’s Way facilitation, wise women circles and healing sweat lodge ceremonies.

Shann, we’ve known each other for a little over three years and you’ve been a passionate role model in my personal journey of self-care and self-discovery.

Not only are you a self-care enthusiast, but your own healing and discovery work led you to create the profound and healing Transformation Goddess Sacred Heart Teachings. I’ve experienced this new program and would love to start our conversation here...

What are the Sacred Heart Teachings?

As a transformational coach and self-care enthusiast, I believe we must remove the barriers within that keep us from experiencing joy and compassionate self-

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care. We subconsciously erect protective walls around our hearts to insulate ourselves from the pain and trauma we once endured.

The Sacred Heart Teachings is a pathway (a guide) to open your heart and heal your past so you can experience more joy. This multimedia experience wraps the reader in an outpouring of empathy and awareness of the female experience. Each of us deserves to understand that beneath our personal stories of pain and discomfort, we can access wholeness, love, and compassion.

This program is for women who are brave enough to dance with their shadows, wipe the mirror clean and bust their precious hearts wide open. My hope is that many women will begin to heal their hearts with this experience.

What inspired you to create the Sacred Heart Teachings?

I created the content based on my own sacred healing process and personal transformation over the past ten years.

For most of my professional life (before becoming an entrepreneur), I was powerful, successful, and living the high life. It wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t until after my daughter was born that I realized my inner-wisdom, my true feminine light, was on the low side of a dimmer switch. The mask of folly I chose to wear at the time was that of a hard working and success-driven leader.

I was in tune with my masculine warrior energy and way out of touch with my femininity. I thought that if I was powerful, wealthy,

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insanely private, and veiled, I could be safe from judgment. If I armored my heart, I wouldn’t have to face the shame and guilt of not being perfect. The mask allowed me to excel in business, but didn’t do much for me or my personal life. I had to resurrect the goddess energy buried deep inside. I had to get to the bottom of what I was afraid of. I had my work cut out for me.

It sounds as if you’ve “lived” the teachings...

For years I thought I could be happy and fulfilled because I had a ‘good job’ and was bringing home six-figures. In reality, I could buy anything I wanted, but had no idea how to properly care for myself. With an inner critic on the loose, I had to learn how to put myself and my healing at the front of the line to be a good role model for my daughter.

I didn’t even realize that I’d shut down physically, mentally and spiritually. I had to make friends with what I call ‘the monsters under the bed’ and learn how to honor myself as the beautiful, talented and loving woman (that I now know) I am. Money couldn’t heal old wounds that needed to be explored with loving kindness. I had

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to sort out the baggage I still carried from being bullied in middle school. I had to stop punishing myself for the unconscious choices I made as a young woman. I had to excavate the suppressed feelings from a lifetime of issues around my relationship with my father. Combine all of this with the underlying current of Catholic guilt, and I had to free myself from an unbalanced mind, body and soul. I choose to share this personal story because I’ve had a lot of emotional healing to contend with over the last ten years, and I know that I’m not alone.

You say the time for healing is now. What do you mean?

I think too often we as women put everyone and everything before our own needs.

My goal is to inspire as many women as possible to be willing to put themselves at the front of the line, heal their past, take care of their bodies, nurture their dreams, and make the best use of their divinely feminine talents.

We can give the most when we are living lives we love. Living in the present moment.

We can be the best friends, mothers, wives,

and business owners when we are feeling nurtured, fulfilled, inspired and self-expressed.

What is the vision that drives Sacred Heart Teachings?

The vision for the Sacred Heart Teachings is to guide women to face their fears, forgive themselves (and others), heal what hurts, and open their hearts. Each one of us deserves to experience life with more levity. More joy. With deeply profound unconditional love.

To be fully present and shine our light, we must explore our darkness. The Sacred Heart Teachings guide you to get to the root of what is weighing you down so you can let go of what no longer serves you and liberate your heart.

I believe that when each one of us heals ourselves, we invite a profound shift in compassion for ourselves and the world.

When you experience compassion and trust, you feel loved. You’re at home in your body, and your relationships with yourself and others are at their best.

I believe that at this magical time, compassion for ourselves and others is the direction of the conscious collective.

How is this program different from other inspirational offerings?

What is unique about the Transformation Goddess Sacred Heart Teachings is that

it’s a soulful and introspective experience. A multi-dimensional offering - incorporating the mind, body, and soul together with journaling prompts, gentle yoga classes, guided relaxations, poetry and BIG love. This sacred journey provides a safe space for the reader to dig deep and then gently resurface.

I’ve packed this interactive experience with lots of love. I’ve prayed, journaled, and jammed through the creative process. It feels so good to create these teachings to share with the world.

How do we know if we’re ready to dig in and heal our wounded hearts?

You know you’re ready when you can say yes to trading in guilt and shame for grace and selfacceptance. You’re ready if you are tired of not letting loved ones get close. You’re ready when you realize you deserve to trust again. I hope that each person reading this interview will take pause and summon the courage to begin some form of sacred healing.

Sacred healing comes in many forms and offerings. I’ve enjoyed silent yoga retreats, dancing like a dervish and yoga teacher training. I’ve made peace with myself through deep shadow work and healing sweat lodge ceremonies. I’m currently part of a wise women’s healing circle. I write morning pages (most days), pouring my thoughts on the page and making the most of my experience from working with, and facilitating The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.

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If you are ready to put your energy where your joy is, you are ready to heal your heart.

What can women do right now to start healing their past?

The Sacred Heart Teachings includes powerful coaching exercises to support women who are ready to heal their pasts. The best thing women can do right now is forgive themselves and forgive everyone else who’s ever done them harm. Carrying the weight of a painful past is like committing an act of violence against yourself, every day. Imagine being rid of the burden, anger and grudges you’ve toted along with you over the years.

How would it feel to let them all go? I can tell you from experience that it feels incredible.

How else are you helping women transform their lives?

I earned my 200 hour yoga teaching certification to create and facilitate luscious living playshops for women involving yoga, guided meditation and creative expression.

I voice and share breathing exercises, relaxing guided meditations and podcasts on iTunes. As a transformational coach, I support women in transition who are ready to reclaim their feminine sovereignty and transform their precious lives. I’m an active blogger and create weekly podcasts for Anxiety Slayer and Transformation Goddess. Women are ready for multidimensional self-care. I am here to support them through their transformation.

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Do you have anything else to share with our tribe?

Create time for sacred emotional healing.

Learn to honor the miracle that is YOU. Know that you can reprogram your critical mind, heal your past, and open your heart.

You are LOVED.

How can people find out more about the Sacred Heart Teachings?

I am excited to be joining you on February 26th for our sacred telecall and premiere of the Sacred Heart Teachings. During our call, I’ll be sharing a look inside the Sacred Heart Teachings and will give our listeners transformational tools they can implement immediately.

CLICK HERE to learn more about joining Linda and me for this empowering Free call. As a thank you for registering, you’ll receive immediate access to my free Body Scan guided relaxation from my Transition to Calm album.

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SIMPLY

Empowered!

Soul Mates & Soul Supporters Both Bring So Much to Our lives!

BY Crystal Andrus

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I

Synergy is when the sum of two things working together totals more than the sum of their individual parts. It most often happens when you meet someone and instantly bring out the best in each other.

Synergistic relationships happen every day, in all walks of life. From corporations merging to successful self-help programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous, worldchampion sports teams, Grammy award– winning musical groups, or even two people falling in love . . . the list is endless.

Although finding someone with whom you’ll have absolute synergy is rare (because both people must be highly calibrating and resonating at extreme levels of selfacceptance and love), it’s incredible when it does happen. This connection between two perfectly aligned souls is often referred to as finding your “soul mate” or “kindred spirit.” (But don’t get caught up in the term soul mate, as it is so overused. It’s more important you simply understand that this ultimate synergistic union transpires on all levels between two people—sexually, emotionally, spiritually, physically, and intellectually.)

When we’ve found our soul mate, we’re more powerful, confident, energized,

A soul mate union can’t be enforced or manipulated.

It simply is. And fighting it is futile.

While we’ve all experienced synergistic relationships that might not be soul mate unions, they are incredibly meaningful and empowering. These people are our “soul supporters,” and when we’re with them, we feel an instant connectedness—a knowingness—and there’s no mistaking it.

And although we can’t always understand our connection, we simply feel it. Our souls have attracted them into our lives for a reason—most likely, it’s time for us to climb a ladder, heal an aspect of our consciousness, or make a shift in our awareness.

Soul supporters come in both sexes and in all races and religions, and they’re necessary for our evolution. They may nurture, inspire, teach, guide, stimulate, calm, or even challenge us at times; and they might be around for a month or a lifetime—the duration is irrelevant. Sometimes people come along at a time when we’re struggling for clarity, and during our interaction with them, the answers we’ve been searching for suddenly become so apparent. We’re excited, even overjoyed.

Synchronicity brought these individuals

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Wisdom & Self-Growth

magine this: You enter a room and are inexplicably drawn to a man you’ve never met. As you begin to chat with him, you experience a burst of energy or exhilaration you can’t describe. You’re simply connected—synchronicity has brought the two of you together, and synergy is at work.

enlightened, sexy, fearless, and beautiful with them than without. They make us better people, and we make them better, too. Our combined power equals far more than the sum of our individual parts. This doesn’t mean we won’t sometimes disagree or that our personalities won’t be different, but a soul mate relationship will always survive the test of time.

into our lives at exactly the right moment— as the saying “When the student is ready, the teacher appears” alludes to—but our sudden clarity can often become clouded with fear and doubt. Afraid of losing them, we hold on tighter and try to make them be what we want them to be; yet true love needs no direction or control. Our soul understands this, knowing that once the healing has happened or our souls have evolved, these people may stay close by or drift off in another direction, and it has nothing to do with love.

As long as there’s growth and learning, a relationship will sustain itself, yet all too often we start making plans about this person or relationship. Our ego needs to make sense of everything, to label everyone in its attempt to control, and we find ourselves trying to possess our soul supporters and define ourselves by the relationship.

The mind-made self can never understand the true reason you’re attracted to someone, and very often you’ll end up confusing it with something different from what it was intended to be. Ask yourself if you’ve ever pursued someone as a lover when perhaps he was meant to be a business partner or convinced a lover to go into business with you when he was never meant to share anything more than your heart. And then when the relationship doesn’t work out the way you thought it should, you blame that person for not measuring up, when perhaps it was you who tried to control it in the first place. How many times have you held on to a relationship, job, friend, or lover longer than you should have, and then ended up

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resenting it, becoming angry and hurt when it’s over?

Remind yourself that soul supporters are so for life, and always embrace those who once brought you a spark. Let them go when it’s time, but know that you selected everyone in your life for a reason—the lesson is to understand why. Your outer world is always a healing tool to look at what’s going on in your inner world.

Soul supporters won’t necessarily be the people who nod their heads and smile at everything you say and do . . . some of your greatest teachers, lovers, friends, and associates will actually be those who challenge you the most. They arrived in divine timing and will teach you what you are meant to learn. Maybe soul supporters are here to “get us ready” for our soul mate?

Truth be told, perhaps everlasting love—the “soul mate kind”—only happens once we’ve become the woman we’re meant to be. Then, and only then will we know when we’re with the person we are meant to be with!

Crystal Andrus is a leader in the field of self-discovery and personal transformation.

She has risen to become a best-selling Hay House author, international speaker, women’s health advocate, spokesperson for Haylo Health, and Founder of The SWAT Institute. Crystal’s message is one of resilience, strength and inner power.

If you are ready to create a life (and love life) you, click the following link to receive Crystal’s 21-Day Create and Sustain Success Course absolutely free. (This normally sells for $297)

Living a more

Wisdom & Self-Growth

Conscious Life

BY Dr. Jennifer Howard

“One realizes that all of existence is a manifestation of consciousness; that ultimately everything is made out of consciousness.” – A.H. Almaas When you’re living a more conscious life, you’re being with yourself and for yourself deeply, moment by moment. No matter how attractive quick and easy solutions seem, lasting change can’t happen in the time it takes to deliver a pizza. It takes time, attention, and commitment to address and heal the layers of who we are and grow in consciousness.

We experience life in degrees. You can choose where to place your attention and intention, creating a life that feels better than it does now. You can grow, change, and deepen your ability to navigate life. You can expand and illuminate your experience of consciousness.

You can mature toward greater integration and wholeness.

So, what is conscious living?

From the deepest sense of ourselves, our inner life longs to be experienced, understood, and validated. It’s rich with

To be conscious means to observe what’s present, and implies being awake or awakening to your deeper truth, an inner realization, or circumstance.

Living a conscious life means having the willingness, curiosity, and courage to stay present to your thoughts and feelings, to the meeting point of body, emotion, mind, and spirit. It means staying present to the impact you have on others and your environment, as well as the choices available to you. To live a conscious life—to be awake and aware—is to be gloriously alive!

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nuance and complexity, and meant to be sipped and savored. It’s not meant to be swallowed a week at a time, controlled by our past programming and endless “to do” lists. Slow down, take a deep breath, and truly feel life. Every moment, even a painful one, contains gifts of wisdom and joy if we’re willing to remain conscious.

Living consciously includes uncovering, grieving, and working through your historical childhood difficulties, along with the programming they created. It’s your job to return to your blocks, those stubborn problems that keep you from experiencing your wholeness and embracing your potentials. As you identify and heal them you create change. This opens the door to the emergence of your real self.

You might be thinking, “Grieve my childhood difficulties?! Is that even possible? Won’t that take forever? Why should I go through all that effort? What problems will it solve?” To understand why it’s needed, let me ask you a few questions:

1• are you living the life you’ve always dreamed of?

Often, from a young age, we have an idea of the kind of life we want to live. We have specific goals in some areas, others we paint with broader strokes, and some goals change with time. Do you feel your life expresses your deepest desire? Are you moving toward your greatest vision of life?

2• Are you the person you want to be?

When you reflect on who you’re being in life, you may discover you’re suppressing important

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qualities and traits while expressing others that don’t feel like the real you. Are you being your authentic, empowered self much of the time?

3• is there a persistent complaint, pain, or longing in your life that you’ve yet to heal?

Sometimes, no matter how much we work on ourselves, we encounter the same inner obstacles again and again.

4• are you living and feeling fulfilled by your deepest mission in life, serving others, and making a difference?

We’re here to contribute to the world in our own unique way. Sometimes that contribution makes big waves, and sometimes our expression of service is quiet, subtle, or deeply personal. Each is as important in its own way. Are you making the difference you know you can?

5• are you satisfied and fulfilled in your relationships?

This is an area in which we often compromise, give in to resignation, and feel we’ve gotten the best we can get. Are you frustrated and unfulfilled in your personal and professional relationships?

6• IS YOUR WORK ALIGNED WITH YOUR LIFE-PATH, AND ARE YOU SATISFIED WITH YOUR PROGRESS?

Are you doing what you’re burning to do? Does your professional life (your job or your business) express who you authentically are in the world?

Are you achieving the results you want?

Living a conscious life changes your everyday experience in measurable ways. You’ll

You’ll relax into the most subtle and profound realms of awareness, the inner silent still point in consciousness—the silence that feeds body and soul. Father Thomas Keating, in his book Invitation to Love, said, “Silence is God’s first language; everything else is a poor translation. In order to hear that language, we must learn to be still and to rest in God.” Conscious Living 2.0™ practices can lead you into wisdom and inner silence. Some might call this opening more fully to God, Wisdom, or unified consciousness. I like to call it “enlightening-ment,” meaning that for most of us enlightenment is not a destination or graduation into a permanent higher state of consciousness, but a moment-bymoment experience constantly fluctuating between degrees of wholeness and limited consciousness.

Once we’ve experienced and embodied this enlightenment, whether for a moment or more, the time spent in this impersonal state, stillness, spaciousness, silence, or wholeness leaves its mark on us forever. You probably know what I mean, and can feel it as you read. When we travel that territory, our capacity grows. We’re a little more relaxed and a little less fearful, more compassionate toward ourselves and others. We’re more

attentive to our lives and the still small voice within.

In the book Buddha Standard Time, Lama Surya Das defines enlightenment as a “deep flash of awakening to the knowledge that we are much more than our time and spacebound material selves living in a material world. Some people awaken to enlightenment

by Grace, seemingly without effort, but most of us stay obsessively stuck in the past or the future, running our mental trains backward and forward in that track every minute of the day.” Yet, he goes on to say, “Each moment is intersected by a realm of infinite spaciousness and timelessness, known in Tibetan as shicha, the Eternal Now.” It’s possible to be excited about life, even on a bad day, when you’re doing what you came here to do! Fulfilling your mission—the one unique to you—is possible; I’m doing it, and I’ve helped many others do it too. You can feel happier than you ever thought possible! @2013. Dr. Jennifer Howard. An excerpt from Your Ultimate Life Plan: How to Deeply Transform Your Everyday Experience and Create Changes That Last.

Reprinted, with permission of the publisher. Published

by New Page Books a division of Career Press, Pompton Plains, NJ. 800-227-3371. All rights reserved.

Dr. Jennifer Howard is a licensed psychotherapist, energy healer, and spiritual teacher. She’s the author of Your Ultimate Life Plan: How to Deeply Transform Your Everyday Experience and Create Changes That Last, Huffington Post blogger and the host of the weekly radio talk show, A Conscious Life. Visit her website, www.DrJenniferHoward.com, for meditations, articles, and free gifts.

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find greater ease, resilience, contentment, and success. As you learn to be present to physical sensations, emotional feelings, and thoughts, you’ll develop ego strength, and move more comfortably with the ups and downs of life. You’ll be well on your way to walking the conscious life path, embodying greater freedom and happiness.

6 Ways to Nourish & Renew

YOUR SPIRIT

By Renée Peterson Trudeau

It’s 1976, and my mom and dad are sitting quietly with their eyes closed, hands resting upward — thumb and index finger touching — while my younger siblings crawl on their backs and shoulders. My older two brothers and I sit near them, holding our own meditation poses, bored, rolling our eyes and counting the minutes until this ritual will end.

At least once a week or whenever things got stressful, my parents would pull all five of their children — ranging in age from ten to one — into our library for a family meditation.

As much as I complained, a part of me was deeply fed by this spiritual practice.

Nourish & Renew

Spiritual renewal is essential to our emotional well-being. “Soul food” helps us nurture our essence, feel centered, build inner strength, live in integrity, trust life, and experience a connection to a higher power., feel a sense of purpose, and experience meaning in our lives.

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There are many different ways we explore and nurture our spiritual lives. For some of us this includes spending time in nature, conscious movement, whether that’s dance, breathwork, qi gong, yoga, or jogging, prayer and meditation, practicing gratitude, music or artistic expression or enjoying the company of babies and small children.

Some of the daily practices that provide me spiritual nourishment, include:

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• Creating ritual • Cultivating stillness • Accepting what is • Serving others • Living in the present • Choosing happiness

Creating Ritual

When we mark important transitions or milestones in our lives — whether it’s your daughter’s first period or your son starting kindergarten — we connect to the sacredness of life in the everyday.

Cultivating Stillness Stillness, whether experienced through prayer, meditation, or reflection, is our time to be alone and connect to our inner wisdom or our higher power — what I call our internal GPS system. It’s essential for all of us to carve out time for reflection each day — ideally, first thing in the morning, when our minds are most quiet. If our outer world is a reflection of our inner world, don’t you want to take time to weed and care for your inner garden?

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We all crave sacredness and ritual in our everyday lives — not just around birthdays, Bar Mitzvahs, and weddings. Rituals can be both carefully planned events and casual but regular remembrances. Cultivating the latter can be as simple as voicing gratitude before a meal, creating regular space in your day for contemplation, setting an intention before a yoga or movement class, scheduling morning and/or evening meditations, lighting a special candle in your home or work space before you start the day, or creating family “support circles” in which you take turns sharing your needs.

We remember that life is mysterious and unknown — and way more than a to-do list. Rituals help remind us that we’re all swimming in the same big, vast, miraculous, and awe-inspiring ocean.

Developing Acceptance for What Is One of the biggest gifts I’ve received from meditation is the ability to live more comfortably with “what is.” Life is like the weather in Texas — constantly changing.

Temperatures shift wildly and unexpected thunderstorms suddenly blow through.

Meditation has helped anchor me, so that despite this impermanence and turmoil, I’ve learned how to be still and find my center in the face of it all.

We have a finite amount of energy available to us each day. When we get stuck fighting “what is,” we waste our precious energy on what we can’t change instead of focusing on what we can. Perhaps we struggle with our current state of unemployment, chronic pain, an astronomical credit card bill, a car accident, or a too-busy life. We can’t change what’s already happened, but we can change our perspective and how we choose to experience what happens tomorrow.

Peace is only a thought away – if you’re willing to challenge, and transcend your own thoughts.

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Practicing Service to Others For the front of my mom’s brown-flecked funeral service program, I chose the quote

by Mother Teresa, “The fruit of love is service, which is compassion in action.”

We are all interconnected. The more we reach out and are present to one another’s pain and suffering, the stronger we become and the easier it is to embrace the esoteric idea that we’re all one. I believe ultimately a huge shift in consciousness can occur —not when everyone meditates together an hour each day, although that would certainly help — but when everyone takes it upon themselves to reach out and help one another navigate this sometimes scary, often isolating and perplexing, but ultimately beautiful world. Sometime that might look like serving soup at your local homeless shelter and other times, it’s helping out your neighbor who just lost her husband.

Living in the Present Many stress-management gurus and spiritual teachers believe the answer to everything is to just “be here now” or to “be with what is.” Many of them say all suffering and emotional distress would end if we simply stopped resisting being in the moment if we just embraced the “now.”

One weekend as I sat on the couch with a fullbody cold: a splitting headache, body chills and a nose that was running like a faucet, I thought about this principle. And, as I watched the things I was missing fly out the window

On the couch with a head cold was exactly where I was supposed to be. Be here now.

Choosing Happiness Three of my immediate family members died unexpectedly between my twenty-sixth and thirty-fourth birthdays. Throughout most of my twenties and into my early thirties, I let those losses dictate how much, how often, and when I could experience joy. For years, anytime I started to feel light, free, or happy, the old feeling of “waiting for the other shoe to drop” would creep in.

Can you only be happy if things are going your way and all the stars are aligned in your favor? In recent years, there’s been a lot of focus on the psychology of happiness, and one thing is clear: happiness isn’t something that happens to us; it’s something we create.

I believe we’re born with the innate capacity to experience emotional well-being and joy; it’s our birthright to feel good. Happiness bubbles up from our spring of well-being (which needs tending to flow). We’re wired for happiness. We just have to remember

to choose this and consciously return here moment to moment.

It’s easy to forget who we really are. To lose sight of what really matters. To fall asleep and not remember how interconnected we all are and that we’re fully human and, at the same time, divine.

A regular spiritual practice — whether that’s daily meditation, prayer, involvement in a spiritual community, singing, or volunteer work — serves to anchor us. It grounds us and helps us navigate the challenges we face from just being human. It helps us stay awake.

When we consciously connect with Source, we bloom into awakened souls, vibrant beings and partners, and conscious parents.

We begin to trust the rhythm and flow of life and we let go and relax into the beauty of our true nature.

An internationally-recognized coach and consultant, speaker and author, Renée Peterson Trudeau is the author of the award-winning The Mother’s Guide to Self-Renewal: How to Reclaim, Rejuvenate and Re-balance Your Life, co-author of Courageous Parents, Confident Kids: Letting Go So You Both Can Grow, a contributing author to best-selling What Happy Working Mothers Know and her newest book is Nurturing the Soul of Your Family: 10 Ways to Reconnect and Find Peace in Everyday Life (New World Library 2013). Learn more at www.ReneeTrudeau.com

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— my friend’s birthday party, my son’s piano recital, working on the garden, cleaning my office — and surrendered, connected to my breath, and felt myself arrive in the present moment, I could feel my resistance dissipate.

A sense of peace slowly settled over me.

I temporarily suspended my desire for things to be different, and as I released my expectations about relationships, work, and obligations, out went their siblings: worry, anxiety, and stress.

by Elizabeth Harper

Set an Intention to receive inspiration from your Soul. Close your eyes and take a deep breath into the center of your being. When you are ready, open your eyes, select a color and open your heart to the message from your Soul.

Blue

Before judging someone else, think on this. The person who challenges you the most loves you more than you know, and is probably one of many of your soulmates in disguise. Relax, wear blue to calm the emotions, and remain open to universal truth.

Green

Your nurturing instinct has been focused on others, and with so much activity going on around you it is easy to forget your own needs. Let go of your concerns for others; run a freshly plucked branch of sage through your aura to cleanse, return the plant to the earth, and then meditate on bringing balance back into your life.

Brown

You can finally stop looking, love is in the air and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s here to stay. The result of all your hard work is a huge pay off as well as a smooth ride from now on. Infuse your world with the aroma of Cacao. The natural aphrodisiac scent will open your heart chakra to even more sensuous delights.

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Magenta

Even if you think you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have an alternative, in truth you always have a choice. By embracing this concept you eliminate powerlessness and take back your life. Burn some Rose Geranium oil to mobilize your hidden emotional reserves and enhance your creativity.

Olive

Orange

This is a time of reunions with old flames, distant relatives, and school friends.

Connections with your past augur the turning point you have been yearning for. Try a few drops of Orange Flower essence in water for emotional and mental equilibrium.

Yellow

Purification is at the top of your heart’s agenda. An intimate conversation with a friend clarifies your self-care decisions and will influence the way you nurture your body.

Drink lemon water or lemon tea to purify your system and place some lemon peel on a heater to cleanse energy in your space.

Pink

A surprise gift evokes some unexpected emotions. This is a blessing in disguise offering you the opportunity to realize what belongs in your life and what no longer serves you. Use Rose essential oil or rose petals in the bath to bring peace and love into your heart.

Red

Imagine a cake mix. All it needs to become something sweet and appetizing is a little added heat. This is the way things are for you. You have the right mix; all you need

White

You are in a cleansing phase, bringing more awareness into your mind, body, and spirit, releasing the past, and preparing for a lighter future. Place a piece of Selenite crystal on your heart to raise your vibration to the next level while shedding light on your next step.

Turquoise

Despite skillfully balancing your relationships with a blossoming career, something has got to give! Before you make any decisions be honest with yourself. Hold a piece of turquoise and ask for guidance. You will receive what you have been searching for - the truth.

Violet

The “Violet Age” is upon us and you have been chosen to help the shift happen seamlessly. Before the world can transform to become a peaceful place to live in, change has to occur within you first. Wrap yourself in violet, place Charoite and Amethyst crystals around you, and make an intention to “be the change you wish to see in the world.”

Elizabeth Harper is an internationally acclaimed teacher, intuitive, healer, and the author of the award winning book Wishing: How to Fulfill Your Hearts Desires. Elizabeth is on the faculty at the highly acclaimed Omega Institute in Rhineback, NY and is invited to speak around the world. www.SealedwithLove.com

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There is no point over thinking or worrying about a past conversation. Bring your focus back to this present moment. Add a few drops of Cardamom oil to a burner; its aphrodisiac qualities will make you leave your worries behind and gently ground you in the now!

is some passion. Sprinkle cinnamon in your coffee, the spice will warm your heart and the aroma will invite action.

Meditation:

Self-Love in the Palm of Your Hand

By Mal Duane

W

hen I got sober many years ago and cried out for help, my Higher Power/ God/the Universe, very clearly told me that I would need to meditate.

To be honest, I knew without a doubt that I had to follow the guidance of this universal power who had come into my life to change

me, but part of me wondered with a business to run, two dogs, a cat and a bird, how was sitting quietly in a corner going to help?

I couldnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have been more wrong. But, my feelings about what I thought meditation was were right! That kind of meditating, sitting quietly and trying to silence the restless chatter in my mind wasnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t working. I needed to look within to find self-love.

I needed a different kind of meditation. I needed to tell myself, in silence, that I was loved and that I was precious.

Eastern yoga type meditation emptied the mind, but I also needed to fill up my heart.

As women, we are raised to be sympathetic and gentle creatures. This is a beautiful gift from God. But not everyone deserves our sympathy. We need to learn that no matter

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This was a controversial thing for me to feel, let alone write down in a book, as I eventually did. I imagined people saying; well that is just plain selfishness. Even in some recovery groups, saying that you needed to put yourself first would be misunderstood by some.

But there is an ancient piece of wisdom that I have learned in my own recovery journey.

I am not a doormat.

That’s it. That’s my key to self-love.

To take this a step further, it may be helpful to meditate holding onto or looking at an object of beauty. It could be a stone or a piece of sea glass, something of beauty that is on display in your home so you see it regularly.

Having it on display works on a subconscious level as a symbol of persuasion. When we look at it, we know it means we are imperfectly beautiful, we have a right to be seen and we are committed to loving ourselves and changing our lives.

It is much harder to clear out negative thoughts than to replace them with another positive thought. Doing this begins to shift our consciousness to a new awareness.

And then we open ourselves up to all sorts of wonderful synchronicities. The universe is no longer hearing your messages of selfloathing and panic. It is hearing your prayer

As women, we are raised to be sympathetic and gentle creatures. This is a beautiful gift from God.

Wisdom & Self-Growth

what, our integrity, our peace of mind and our self-respect comes first before anyone else.

of self-love as your new dominant thought and it will respond with corresponding opportunities. Seeing the stone tells our brain we are working on change and we are moving forward.

I have a friend who has a raw ruby stone she holds onto when she meditates. When she got the stone, she had her eye on a much different necklace from the jewelry designer, something more business like that she could wear on a job interview. The jewelry designer insisted she should get the ruby necklace and for some reason my friend agreed.

One day as she was holding the stone in her hand admiring its smooth texture and nuanced colors of pink, purple and sangria, she found herself meditating, having found it impossible to do so for more than a few minutes before.

It is very difficult to sit quietly and clear the mind when it is worrying about your bank balance, your weight and the new face cream you can’t afford.

Not to mention, when we are young we are

43

raised to give to other people and to be good little girls. We receive messages that we should be passive, kind with no boundaries and to take care of others without taking care of ourselves.

Holding onto the stone gave her permission to tell her positive things about herself such as: • I will no longer allow anyone to mistreat me.

• I love my _______________ (fill in the blank) hair, laugh, ambition.

• I have overcome so much, I am so proud of my strength.

For women, our meditation has to include building ourselves up. We have to start new traditions. Where self-love is not an afterthought or something that comes after spirituality.

Self-love IS spirituality.

Women have always had to adapt to the methods available and the terms ascribed to them until they could make a change. This was exactly my thinking when I put together my Positive Mental Shift seminar that’s coming up. PMS now has an empowering and entirely different meaning!

As spiritually evolved women we have to make the changes to change the outcome and transform our lives.

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www.AspireMAG.net | February/March 2013

A new ritual could be giving a friend or a daughter a stone and a piece of paper with everything good and special you see in them.

Or just give them the stone and explain that it is for them to see their beauty and strength.

A sweet sixteen party is nice but the practice of self-love is invaluable.

We have to continually stand for our own values, self-love being one of the most important. Perhaps this should be learned much, much earlier than 16. Women need rituals that give us the information and power that we need to start thriving businesses, prevent and stop addictions, help us choose good relationships and leave bad ones more quickly and to take care of our mental, physical and emotional wellbeing.

What self-love rituals do you practice?

Can you think of any think of any other ones that we could start together?

After triumphing over devastating life challenges, Recovery and Empowerment Coach and bestselling author Mal Duane’s life is a powerful testimonial to all women to believe in the power of possibility. Today Mal is passionately dedicated to supporting and empowering women in healing the shackles of the past, moving through their fear and self-doubt and awakening to the wisdom within. Mal serves a global audience of women through her inspirational offerings – from her personal coaching programs to her highly successful Positive Mental Shift teleseries and her award winning, bestseller book Alpha Chick: Five Steps for Moving from Pain to Power. Stop by www.AlphaChick.com today to claim your free Alpha Chick Workbook and Five Steps for Moving from Fear to Faith audio.

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Allow Love:

Radiant Gems to Magnetize Love, Friendship and All that is Love!

by Margaret Ann Lembo

Y

ou are love. Your true essence is love.

Be aware that you are love in all you do, say, think, feel, smell, taste, or know, and you will be happy and healthy all the days of your life.

Do you want more caring supportive people – friends, family and colleagues - in your life? Perhaps you want a companion or significant other to share your life with. Or possibly a reigniting of a current romance will open you to more joy and happiness.

The trick to attracting what you really want, whether it is love or a more consistent spiritual practice, is to stay focused on your heart’s desires. Whatever you vividly imagine must inevitably come to pass.

And what a better way to energize your enthusiasm for your ardent desires than with glittering gemstones!

Color and gems coupled with intention offer you the gift of attraction as well as distraction to re-focus you from those troubling thoughts as they redirect your attention over to our wishes, dreams and aspirations with their luminous light. They remind you to focus on

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www.AspireMAG.net | February/March 2013

what you do want, not what you don’t want.

It’s easy to work with gemstones. Simply carry a stone in your pocket, purse or brief case or place it on your desk or in your pillow case at night before sleep. As you place the stone or stones on or around you, form the intention or thoughts as to why you are using that rock. If you want more love in your life, you may use a rose quartz. Need more self-confidence? Use a citrine. Every time you touch the stone, look at it or think of it, remember why you are working with it and reaffirm your intention.

You deserve love, attention, caring, companionship and mental and emotional support. It’s up to you to attract people, places and situations into your life that fit the description of what you desire. Start

to start the love magnet. My favorite affirmation for love is:

Focus on your heart. Put all of your attention and awareness on the heart center – heart chakra – located at the center of your chest.

This is the energy center aligned with love, compassion, kindness, relationships and all that is good. We are all in relationship with everything. Relationship is part of our lives down to the minutiae! Our connection with other people has myriad levels, including friendship, neighbors, acquaintances, coworkers, employees, supervisors, authority figures, family, extended family, and so on. It includes relationship with animals, nature, and even inanimate objects such as cars and TVs. The heart center, the color pink, is the place where you hold the energy of divine love, friendship, romance and the root chakra, the color red, is the place where you hold the energy of passion, seduction, sensuality and much more.

“I am love. All that is attracted to me and all that surrounds me is love.”

Create a grid of love in your home or office as a fun way to attract romance into your life. Here is what you’ll need.

1 2

A clearly written intention or “the list” of what you want in a romantic partner.

Pink and red gemstones - rose quartz, rhodonite, rhodochrosite or pink tourmaline and garnet or rubies.

3 4

Black and grey stones – hematite, black tourmaline, black obsidian or black onyx.

Your imagination and belief that anything is possible.

Pink and red crystals amplify your intentions for love and romance. Grab a piece of rose quartz, rhodonite, rhodochrosite or pink tourmaline to attract kind and caring energy.

Want a little seduction or spicy romance?

Add some garnet or rubies to the mix as the red vibe will heat things up. Establish clearly thought through intentions and affirmations

47

Wisdom & Self-Growth

by removing what isn’t working as well as objects or situations that perpetuate what you do not want. Then establish a clear magnetizing vibe to bring forth love and all that is love.

Using the bedroom as an example, here is an example of how you can create grid. Stay focused on your intentions as you place the rocks. The pink stones are vibrating love.

The red stones are attracting passion. The black or grey stones are deflecting negativity and anything that is unlike love.

• Under the 4 corners of the mattress • On the nightstands • On the dresser • On your window sills

your attention on what you are magnetizing to you.

Everything vibrates. All vibration has a sound and a color associated. All thoughts create reality. Match the color tones and gemstones that your wear or carry – or place in your space – with the thoughtforms that create your desired outcome and watch a beautiful reality unfold.

Now it’s up to you. Start attracting more love and romance in your life today! Match your clothes, gemstones, jewelry, nail polish and so on with the thoughts of your dreams and desires and magnetize your beloved in a sparkly new way!

Imagine that these stones are emanating rays of pink light to connect them establishing a sphere of love and goodness. Every time you step into your bedroom, consciously remember and know that you are stepping into a sphere of love. It surrounds you and the whole room as it radiates love and wellbeing.

And, don’t stop with creating the crystal grid. Dress with consciousness! Use these same colors and intentions in the choices you make in the clothes, accessories, and gemstone jewelry you wear. A ruby ring, a pink shirt or a red set of under garments chosen and worn with the intention of attracting more positive loving experiences into your life will certainly and undoubtedly create magic for you. Throughout the day as you see yourself in the mirror, look down at your clothes, or glance at your ring, you’ll be reminded of your intention and it keeps

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www.AspireMAG.net | February/March 2013

Margaret Ann Lembo is the author of Color Your Life with Crystals (release date April 1, 2013) Angel Gemstone Oracle Cards; Chakra Awakening; and The Essential Guide to Crystals, Minerals and Stones. She is a spiritual entrepreneur and practitioner, aromatherapist, and the owner of The Crystal Garden—a book store, gift store, and spiritual center. Learn more at www.MargaretAnnLembo.com. Photos courtesy Andy Frame.

HEALTH & WELLNESS

“True Health is only

possible when we understand the unity of our minds, emotions, spirits, and physical bodies.”

Christiane Northup,

MD

Read Online!

3 Tools for Your

Emotional Self-Care Tool Box Janet Nestor

Mindful living makes life easier and kinder.

A mindful life-style is one lived in the moment, conscious and aware of personal feelings and the feelings of others in your environment. It is directed by positive thought and a loving heart, never judgmental or critical. So … here are some mindful life-style ideas for your emotional self-care tool box.

1

Think positive, and if you catch negative self-talk, re-word your thought immediately.

2

cally automati s. it , e il m S tres internal s reduces

3

Treat your compassio self with n and k no matter indness what!

Live & Virtual

UPCOMING EVENTS

CHECK OUT MORE ONLINE!

AspireMag.net

POSITIVE MENTAL SHIFT || DETAILS! Host Mal Duane & 12 Guests SACRED HEART TEACHINGS || DETAILS! Linda Joy with Shann Vander Leek BIRTH YOUR BOOK in 2013 || DETAILS! Linda Joy with Lisa Tener

49

LIVING the

Goddess Lifestyle

THE

Love BAROMETER

BY LISA MARIE ROSATI

I

Remember a time in my life when I let others set the barometer of how much love I could experience in my life. When I was little, my parents and schoolmate’s opinion and treatment of me set the level of how loved I felt… then later that responsibility was passed on to my lovers. Because I didn’t know any better, I spent years putting my Love Barometer into the hands of other people and letting them decide how loved I was allowed to feel. This toxic behavior was a disaster because I unknowingly gave others the power to make or break me … sadly

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many women innocently do the same, they continuously give their power away to others.

I can tell you that the first forty years of my life consisted of a series of emotional rollercoaster rides, butt loads of tears and contained more DRAMA than a mindnumbing episode of As the World Turns!

Why, because my self-worth was dependent on others, I gave them full control of my Love Barometer.

Being a seeker, I often questioned why “love” had to be so hard… I continued to do my inner work and finally (Yippee – Hooray) I was able to hear the little whisper inside of me. And she softly said “You Lisa, are the lover you’ve been waiting for ... fall in LOVE with yourself”… WHOA - that was the freaking BEST ADVICE EVER (and I gave it to myself) … I completely transformed my life experience by falling totally, madly and completely in love with MY LIFE and ME! The little voice that saved me was my Inner Goddess. I’ve learned to listen for her wisdom and trust her guidance completely.

Then, the self-love you feel mirrors back into the world attracting more love straight back to you!

Love and all it’s divine power is manifested from within you! You cannot accept more love than you’re willing to give to yourself. You see, the love fest begins with the way you love yourself.

In the past I was desperately searching for “love injections” from the outside world to fill me up, so I could feel good… feel full… feel lovable … feel loved. I was insatiable because my love vessel

1Make yourself THE priority

Take care of your self first, by attending to your fundamental needs such as self-care, body movement, proper sleep and healthy eating. Women somehow believe that this kind of selfdoting and self-concern is selfish and therefore a bad thing. The truth is that it’s not selfish to take care of yourself and be interested in your life, your goals and your heartfelt desires. If you’re not, who will be?

The answer is no one.

was empty most of the time. Any morsels I’d get from others were quickly burned up and I’d find myself feeling empty again.

That all changed when I made the decision to make myself a priority in my life.

Make this YOUR year to take control of your Love Barometer.

Here are some of my favorite ways to cultivate self-love:

2Give to yourself too 3Know Women are hard wired to give, it’s in our DNA. Giving is a beautiful thing, but it becomes a problem when you forget to check in with yourself and lose sense of what you need because your so busy thinking and taking care of everyone else’s needs and feelings before your own. It doesn’t need to be “ME, ME, ME” but you must adopt the mantra of “Me Too”.

Yourself

Who are you? Do you know what you want? What you desire? What you like?

What you don’t like? Before you can honor your needs, dreams and wishes, you need to know what they actually look like. Spend some alone time, take out your journal and ask yourself some introspective questions.

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HEALTH & WELLNESS

These days she speaks to me through a bullhorn; instead of a whisper, the volume is loud and clear.

4Set Healthy

5Accomplish

Boundaries are an essential part of having a healthy relationship with others – and yourself! In order to set your boundaries, figure out your limits. What’s appropriate behavior for you and for others? What are you willing to say yes to? What are your deal breakers? How would you like to be supported? To sustain your boundaries, you must communicate your needs directly (don’t expect others to just know). Let people know when they’ve crossed a boundary. Preserving your boundaries isn’t easy, but it’s important for respecting and honoring yourself.

Nothing feels better than setting your mind on something, then accomplishing it.

It could be a big or a small accomplishment; clean out your closet, write a book, take up painting. Setting a goal and following through is such a boost! When I began my journey to selflove I started setting really small goals for myself in the form of tasks. With each completed task, I found myself feeling proud of myself. The pride felt good and it began to fill my love vessel! As I continued setting and following through on my goals, I began admiring myself for the woman I was bE-ing.

Before I knew it, my love vessel was full … I was in LOVE with ME!

Boundaries

re formidable o m e rc fo a “Love is is invisible - it It r. e th o y n it than a easured, yet m r o n e e s e u cannot b transform yo to h g u o n e l u is powerf ffer you more o d n a t, n e m in a mo al possession ri te a m y n a joy than could.”

Things

is de Angel a r a b r Ba

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Now my love vessel is not only full, it’s overflowing and the people in my life drink from its overflow.

I’ve taken control of my Love Barometer. A once empty girl who desperately searched for love morsels now has love to spare and to share! ©2013 Lisa Marie Rosati

Passionista Lisa Marie Rosati is an Inner Goddess Catalyst for women and the Creatrix of The Goddess Lifestyle Plan.

Lisa mentors women on how become a Modern Day Goddess by consciously designing a luscious Goddess life, cultivating radiant health and creating a lucrative business using and directing their feminine fire. www.GoddessLifestylePlan.com

MINDFUL AWARENESS HEALTH & WELLNESS

Health & Healing

BY JANET NESTOR

L

ove of self brings softness toward self. You are less critical â&#x20AC;&#x201C; less judgmental of yourself and others. Therefore, relationship with yourself and others improves. When your relationships improve, the quality of your life improves and you naturally have more joy. Your moment to moment joy produces all kinds of positive internal change and allows your body an opportunity to heal itself. Your stress level is down. Your fear level is down. You are more connected to source because your reduced stress and fear allow you to open your own internal door to the light and love within.

Spiritual and emotional strength comes with moment to moment mindfulness. However, when we are preoccupied with success, failure, fear, and overwhelm, the presence of our inner being, our spirit, cannot be felt. Negativity blocks our true nature and our conscious awareness. When blocked, all kinds of negative symptoms are experienced. Feelings of alienation and abandonment are common, as are feelings of anxiety, including those internal jitters that can wrack our mind and body with misery.

As a species, we often become ill because of our lack of mindful awareness. We miss subtle clues to damaging environmental conditions and subtle internal changes that are needed to avoid the illness. Even when sick we ignore, or donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t recognize,

LOVE ourselves and TRUST ourselves ALL things are possible.

When we

the small voice within that is always talking and teaching, clambering for our attention.

Mindfulness reverses this habit of ignoring intuition and insight. With mindfulness we are focused on listening and observing, which naturally keeps us in the moment.

Our inner wisdom encourages us to experience minute to minute living. When we trust and believe in ourselves, we begin to enjoy each moment of our life.

How interesting it is to give in to what is. Acceptance opens doorways to new experience, growth and healing. Many

53

books have been written about mindful acceptance and all of them ask us to leave the past behind and stop pre-living the future.

How do we do this? How do we accomplish mindful, now focused living?

walking meditation and the focus on the repetitive inbreath and step, out-breath and step brings you to mindfulness. You’ll notice that there is no room for wondering thoughts and a chattering mind.

MINDFULNESS

3

Take a deep breath and hold it.

If you’ll notice, the “hold it place” before you exhale, your mind is perfectly now focused. Not a thought exists, and you are mindfully exploring your breath.

4

TEN Ways to Experience

1

2

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Match your step with your breath while practicing

Smile, and then immediately focus on your body’s response to that smile.

As you focus on your body’s response, all else ceases to exist! You are being mindful of your smile and your body’s response.

Go stand by a creek, a lake, a river, a puddle!

Toss in a rock and quietly watch the circles ripple outward from the point of impact. You are practicing mindful observation.

www.AspireMAG.net | February/March 2013

5 6

Rock a baby, hold a kitten, play with a puppy. You’ll be immediately in the moment.

Kiss your lover.

Your focus on the kiss brings you fully into the moment. Be mindful of how the kiss affects you.

7

Ask the angels to come be with you, to surround you.

Use your imagination until you can really feel them.

As you focus, you are impacted by the energy of the moment and mindful of your experience.

8

In his book The Power of Now, Eckhart Tolle asks us to listen for our next thought.

9

On a warm day, spread a blanket on the ground and watch the clouds pass by over-head.

You’ll be lost to the world and completely involved in the actively. You’ll be mindfully watching the clouds, body relaxed, now focused.

10

Stop worrying about whether you can achieve mindfulness or not.

The worry prevents the process.

The less you think about your ability to achieve a mindful state of being, the easier it is for you to accomplish it.

It is up to each of us to create the kind of life we want. You can’t have the life you desire, unless you consent to live it. Allowing small shifts in behavior begins to create change within your body’s chemistry and within your thoughts. You are secreting fewer stress hormones. You are producing more feelgood endorphins. Your autonomic nervous system is balanced. You realize you enjoy the results of the changes you are making, and the heightened pleasure creates the motivation to continue your transformational journey.

Mindful acceptance of a physical illness, including issues we usually think of as emotional distress, is like wrapping a cold infant into a warm blanket. Mindful

acceptance means you have stopped fighting against an illness and stopped fighting against life. Fear causes us to fight anything we feel is harmful or unpleasant.

Acceptance causes positive change.

When you’ve stopped the war against an illness, against yourself for getting sick, and against your medical helpers, true healing begins. This change in attitude does not mean you’ve given up. It simply means your mind, body and spirit are free to create wellness and you have begun to trust the process of life.

Janet Nestor is an author, speaker, and a holistically minded licensed professional counselor with a diplomat in energy psychology. She specializes in working with individuals and groups, teaching and empowering participants to find their life path and their joy. An expert in stress and anxiety management, Janet has written two books on the subject. Her first book, Pathways to Wholeness, is a mindfulness guidebook empowering readers to adopt a more relaxed, now focused and joy-filled life.

She recently released Nurturing Wellness through Radical Self-Care: A Living in Balance Guide and Workbook. Like Jon Kabat-Zinn’s books on mindfulness-based stress reduction, this inspirational guide will be your constant companion on the journey to lasting wellness.

Learn more at www.mindfulpathways.com

“ If you don’t take ca

re of your body, where are you going to live? ” Unknown

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HEALTH & WELLNESS

Sit quietly. Tell yourself, “I am now listening for my next thought”. As you listen for your thought your mind is focused on when the next thought will appear. The silence of listening may last for 2 seconds or for 10 minutes. If your mind is quiet for 2 seconds, and this is a first for you, congratulations!

If You Only Make

OnE Resolution

BY Christiane Northrup

H

aving spent the last 30 years assisting women in h e a l i n g themselves on all levels and at all life stages, I’ve come to see that our bodies are the true altars—the most sacred places in our lives. Without flourishingly healthy bodies, nothing else matters, not even wealth. Yet some of you still take your bodies for granted, instead of deliberately pay loving attention to them.

If you think that paying loving attention to your body sounds silly, selfish, or selfabsorbed, then consider this: Your body needs regular doses of comfort and pleasure to be optimally healthy. Without it, you are much more likely to seek pleasure from external and unsustainable sources and behaviors, including drugs, alcohol, and sugar.

My top resolution for women this year is simple: “Listen to and respect your body more than you have ever done before.”

I’ve written the following user-friendly affirmations to get you started.

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1

I cherish and love my body all the time, no matter what—even when I feel too fat, too old, too weak, or have cellulite. My body is where my soul lives. I beautify and worship this temple when I care for and love myself— and that includes activities like flossing my teeth, exercising and stretching, eating slowly and sensually, and breathing fully.

2

When stressed, I do things that bring me comfort—a nap, a cup of tea, a walk in the fresh air. I always avoid criticizing or beating myself up.

3

I deliberately bring goodness and pleasure into my life—even when it’s so much easier to complain. I know how easy it is to go negative, how easy it is to focus on what’s not working. But I now look moment to moment for what’s going right. And my good—and the pleasure associated with it—expands.

4

I honor my emotions—all of them— especially sorrow, grief, and anger. I feel these fully instead of reaching for a glass of wine, a cookie, or a pill. I know that my body and soul will let me know what I need if I take a moment to truly feel my emotions. I acknowledge that I cannot heal negative emotions with my mind.

5

I ask for help when I need it, knowing that this gives others the gift of being of service to me. I surround myself with people who uplift and support me, not those who tear me down.

6

I invoke Divine Order regularly—knowing that the perfect solution for ALL of my problems and all of my requests has already been chosen. And when I simply relax into being guided to the right action, everything falls into place easily. This approach is far less stressful than trying to make things happen.

7

I breathe fully in through my nose and out through my nose. This balances my nervous system and effectively calms any excess stress.

8

I smile at myself in every mirror I pass. I revel at directing my smile into every cell in my body: my thyroid, my tongue, my throat, my lungs, my heart, my blood vessels, my kidneys, my intestines, my

muscles, my genitals, my bones, my skin. I close my eyes and send well being and acceptance to all of my body parts, one by one, every day.

9

I revel in the wonder of nature and the Earth.

I belong to the Earth, and she is my true Source. I regularly commune with the elements—the wind, fire, water, and earth. I commune with trees, flowers, plants, and animals, and they commune with me. I regularly walk barefoot on the Earth, knowing that the Earth emits an electromagnetic field that is healing for me.

10

I expect magic and mystery in my life. I greet each new day with the anticipation of a young child— eager to see what wonders await me!

This information is not intended to treat, diagnose, cure, or prevent any disease.

All material in this article is provided for educational purposes only.

Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health care provider with any questions you have regarding a medical condition, and before undertaking any diet, exercise, or other health program. © Christiane Northrup, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.

Christiane Northrup, M.D., a boardcertified ob/gyn, is a visionary pioneer, beloved authority in women’s health and wellness, and the author of the ground breaking New York Times bestsellers Women’s Bodies, Women’s Wisdom and The Wisdom of Menopause. Following a 25year career in both academic medicine and private practice, Dr. Northrup devotes her time to helping women truly flourish. Follow Dr. Christiane Northrup on Facebook, Twitter, at www. drnorthrup.com, and by listening to her weekly Hay House Internet radio show Flourish!

Make 2013 the year that you really come home to your beautiful body and the Earth. If you only make one resolution this year, I encourage you to make this your top priority.

Spend time every day worshiping the temple of your soul. Your body will reward you many fold.

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HEALTH & WELLNESS

Healing requires having compassion for myself and taking myself into my own heart.

The

Wise Woman Way

The Wise Woman Tradition

Empowers Women

BY SUsun weed

T

he Wise Woman Tradition is the oldest known healing tradition on our planet. It offers a unique view of health that is woman-centered and deeply empowering to women. This is in stark contrast to orthodox â&#x20AC;&#x201C; and most alternative â&#x20AC;&#x201C; healing traditions, which are based on male viewpoints which disempower women.

the assumptions behind what I was taught. It was clear to me that alternative health care disempowers women as much, or more than, orthodox medicine does. They both actively assume that the norm on which assessment of health is to be based is masculine in gender.

The medicine I learned in school was based on a linear, scientific, male worldview whose truth I did not question. When this medicine failed me, as a woman and a mother, I sought alternatives. Herbs helped me take care of myself and my family, simply and safely, but I questioned

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Assuming that a healthy male is the definition of health may not seem like much of a problem, unless you are a woman. This core assumption has hurt, and continues to hurt, women in a multitude of direct and indirect ways, from the deeply personal to the widely political. This

assumption leads to attempts to “correct” – with drugs and surgery – physical and emotional states that are normal (and healthy) for women, but not for men.

• Focusing on simple remedies that are easily accessible • Sharing information freely • Offering compassionate listening • Renaming her weaknesses as strengths • Reminding her that her body is the body of the earth, is the body of the goddess, is the sacred ground of being.

Much of modern medicine seems complicated and difficult to understand.

Many alternative remedies are also complicated, some are unduly expensive, others require special training and initiations. This disempowers women. The Wise Woman Tradition, by focusing on simple remedies that are easily accessible, and by sharing information freely, allows women to feel competent and powerful in taking care of their own health.

The Wise Woman Tradition heals by nourishing the wholeness of each unique individual. Nourishing has three primary aspects: simple ceremony, nourishing foods, and compassionate listening. When women are heard, when we listen to each other, then we feel validated and empowered.

Harking back to the consciousness-raising sessions of the 1970′s, and informed by Native American teachings of the talking

The Wise Woman Tradition empowers women to:

HEALTH & WELLNESS

The Wise Woman Tradition empowers women by:

• View themselves as healthy, even when they have problems • Create their own healthy norms • Honor their natural cycles and changes (puberty, menses, pregnancy, menopause) • Define themselves from a womancentered viewpoint • Connect with other women for personal and planetary healing. stick, compassionate listening reshapes women’s stories so they can reshape their lives.

One of the great gifts of the Wise Woman Tradition is the renaming of our weaknesses as strengths. When we allow ourselves to be depressed, outraged, yearning, griefstricken, confused, fearful, bitchy, and more; when we allow all that we are to be part of us, then we can finally find and celebrate our wholeness/health/holiness.

The Wise Woman Tradition empowers women by reminding us that we are sacred, that our bodies are sacred. As women, we are the earth. Each one of us lives in the body of the earth. Each one of us comes from this sacred ground of being. And not only are we empowered to honor ourselves, we are empowered to demand that respect from all others.

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When women accept orthodoxy’s image of them as constantly in need of help, they accept a powerless position. When women accept the Wise Woman Tradition’s assertion that they are already perfect, already vibrantly healthy, even when they have problems, they assume a position of power. When women create their own healthy norms, they create a place of power in which they can stand, no matter how fast and furious the changes.

When women believe that their natural cycles and changes (puberty, menses, pregnancy, menopause) are somehow sick or wrong, they open themselves to medical experiments.

When women learn that the Wise Woman Tradition honors these states above all others, they find a source of deep wisdom and great power flowing into their lives.

When women define themselves from a male-centered viewpoint, they always lose. When they define themselves from a woman-centered viewpoint, they always win. The Wise Woman Tradition offers this power to women, from the Ancient Grandmother’s heart to yours.

Susun Weed is an internationally renowned herbalist, author, and director of the Wise Woman Center in New York. She is a revered voice of the Wise Woman Tradition, where women’s bodies and women’s emotions are valued. Susun is a founding grandmother of the herbal renaissance and the originator of the concept of complementary medicine. www.SusunWeed.com

“ Love is the ab willingness to ility and all that you care fo ow those r they choose fo to be what r th without any in emselves sistence that they satisfy yo u. ” Wayne Dy er

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RELATIONSHIPS

“Love is the ability and

willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy you.”

Read Online!

Wayne Dyer

Love Asks For Nothing Margaret Paul, Ph. D.

By learning how to fill yourself with love, how to overflow with love like a glass of water so filled to the brim that it is overflowing. This will never happen from trying to get love from another.

You have to start with yourself, since it is only when you are filled with love that you have love to offer another. When you deeply desire to learn to be loving to yourself, your heart will open and you will start to receive love and wisdom from your Higher Self. You will be taught what loving yourself means, what thoughts to think and actions to take that are loving to you.

When you learn to love yourself and fill yourself with love, you will discover the great joy and fulfillment in giving love – giving with no agenda attached.

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A New Way of Looking at Love that

Changes Everything

BY Marci Shimoff

W

hat do you think of when you hear the word, “love”? Lovers entwined in a passionate embrace? The joy and fulfillment of finding your soul mate? Or perhaps you recall the feelings you have for your children, your parents, or your friends.

All of these experiences of love have one thing in common: they’re dependent on another person. Don’t get me wrong, loving relationships are great, but we all know

that relationships change and basing our happiness and love on other people isn’t the wisest choice. But what if you could experience a love that didn’t depend on anything outside you?

What if you could love for no reason at all?

That was the question I set out to answer when I started writing my most recent book, Love for No Reason. What I found in my research is that though we talk about love

The following diagram illustrates the complete spectrum of love:

The Love Continuum

Love for Bad Reason

No Love

Hate, Fear, Resistance

Using Others to Fill a Void Inside

CONDITIONAL 62

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Love for Good Reason

Healthy, Mutually Beneficial Relationships

Love for No Reason

An Inner of Pure, Unconditional Love

UNCONDITIONAL

No Love In this state our hearts are shut down; we’re in pain or feel angry or sad or may experience profound exhaustion. Feelings of fear and anxiety, which are hallmarks of No Love, often trigger the fight-or-flight response in us.

The state of No Love is devoid of everything that makes life worth living.

LOve for Good Reason This is what most people understand as love. It’s when you deeply appreciate or feel connected to certain people, situations, or even material objects. You feel inspired to contribute to others and are able to both give and receive.

This type of love is healthy and strengthens you, but it does have some limitations. The main one is that it’s linked to reasons— and if those reasons change, your love usually changes too. When you love for good reason, you may also feel attached, jealous, afraid of losing the object of your love, or you may feel satisfied but still sense there’s something missing. Love for Good Reason can come and go. Fortunately, there’s another level of love beyond this.

Love for Bad Reason This type of love isn’t actually love at all.

It’s really just No Love on painkillers. Love for Bad Reason is primarily concerned with “being loved” to fill a void inside ourselves.

It isn’t about appreciation or true caring; it’s about trying to escape or ease our emptiness. Codependency falls into this category. People who are co-dependent get swallowed up in the lives of others in an effort to fill the vacuum inside themselves.

They want to please the other person…in order to get love back.

Love for No ReasoN This is Higher Love, an inner state of pure love that doesn’t depend on other people, external conditions, or circumstances. It’s a love we experience from the inside out.

My guess is that you’ve had glimpses of this state—I call them “peak love experiences”— when your heart was open and flowing, when you didn’t need anyone or anything to be different, when you felt a strong sense of well-being and that all was well.

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in so many ways—I love my family. I love my pets. I love to shop. I love to eat. I love to help others. I love to watch television or read a book—all of our experiences of love fall into one of four distinct categories along what I call the Love Continuum.

To experience how Love for No Reason differs from Love for Good Reason, try this simple exercise: 1

Close your eyes and think of someone or something you love. It can be a person, a pet, a place, or an experience.

2

What do you love about him, her, or it? Appreciate all of the wonderful qualities you love about that person or thing. Let yourself savor the object of your love.

3

Ask yourself an unusual question, one that most people never consider: Where does this love come from? What’s causing me to have this wonderful experience? The vast majority of people will answer that the love they feel is directly caused by the object of love they’re thinking about. This is the experience of Love for Good Reason.

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4

Now try something different. Switch your focus from the beloved to the experience of love itself. Put your attention on your heart and feel your appreciation independent of your thoughts about the object of your love. Instead of thinking of the qualities of the person or thing, let yourself really feel the love you have inside for whatever it is that you chose.

5

Be with that inner experience of love.

You may feel warmth in the center of your chest and/or find yourself smiling.

The difference between these two experiences of love is that the second one doesn’t depend on the object of your love.

It may be hard to grasp that love can be a stand-alone experience. We think “it takes two to tango.” We love something; we don’t just love. But when you love for no reason, you can fill your own love tank. Then you bring love to your outer experiences, rather than try to extract love from them—which I guarantee makes tangoing a whole lot more fun and fulfilling!

By Marci Shimoff. Adapted from Love for No Reason: 7 Steps to Creating a Life of Unconditional Love (Free Press, December 2010).

Marci Shimoff is a #1 NY Times bestselling author, a celebrated transformational leader, and one of the nation’s leading experts on happiness, success, and unconditional love. She is the author of the runaway bestsellers Love for No Reason and Happy for No Reason, which offer revolutionary approaches to experiencing deep and lasting love and happiness. Order Love for No Reason now and receive the Love for No Reason Bonus Package free at www.TheLoveBook.com

Are You Being a Good Friend…

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relationships

To Yourself?

3 Questions and Daring Acts for Making Sure You Receive the Love you Need from Yourself

e kind to others. Show up and be supportive. Be there unconditionally and without judgment when your friends are having a hard time. Tell your friend the truth, even when it’s hard. Remember to celebrate you friends. Cheerlead for them, inspire them to go for their dreams. Respect you friends, honor them, appreciate them, be compassionate – in other words love them.

by Christine Arylo doing a good thing, being a good person.

Because you believe that giving love to others is a good thing.

But take that love and friendship and apply it to yourself and something different happens.

These are the rules of being a good friend.

And while you may not be perfect at always showing up as a good friend for others, you know how to love others well. And when you do show up as a good friend, you feel good about yourself.

Proud. Like you are

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Suddenly you feel guilty for taking care of yourself, selfish for choosing yourself first, and shy about tooting your own horn. Giving love to yourself in the forms you need it most – compassion, appreciation, nurturing, pleasure, etc. – feels wrong, weird and uncomfortable. In situations where you’d have no problem telling a friend to take a break, stop working, leave a relationship, or go for her dreams, you just cannot seem to give yourself permission to do what you really need. Until now.

Take a stand for the most important relationship in your life – the one with yourself – by saying YES! to becoming a really good friend – maybe even a best friend – to yourself, and start making sure you receive love you need, no matter what.

There’s nothing selfish about that. For the better friend you are to yourself, the more you fill yourself up with love, the more you will be able to give to others. You will be both a giver and receiver of love!

3 Simple but Mighty Self-Love Practices for Being Your Own B.F.F. One of the biggest reasons we fail to be good friends to ourselves is because we don’t know how to give ourselves permission to take the actions we know would be best for us. Ask yourself these simple questions on a regular basis, or whenever you feel overwhelmed, lonely or out of sorts. Be honest. And if the answer to the question is “No” take the self-love prescription and

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Daring Act of Love listed to get yourself the love you need in the form you need it most.

These Daring Acts of Love were taken from the self-love guidebook, Madly in Love with ME, the Daring Adventure to Becoming Your Own Best Friend.

Am I happy?

If the answer is no, you are likely starving for joy. You need self-pleasure. Take this Daring Act of Love: Make a JOY Portrait.

Take a piece of paper and write “JOY” in the middle of it. Then fill up the entire sheet of paper with all the things that make you happy – big and small. Challenge yourself to fill the entire page. Then choose three of these joy generators and turn then into “acts of joy” – actions you can take to create joy for yourself. Enjoy them within 24 hours, no matter what you have going on.

Am I taking care of myself, as well as everything and everyone else?

If the answer is no, your energy tank is likely depleted. You need self-care. Take this Daring Act of Love: Ask yourself what you need and then give it yourself, pronto. Close your eyes, put your hand on your heart,

Am I willing to disappoint another in order to not disappoint myself?

If the answer to this is no, you are putting others needs in front of your own, to the determinant to yourself. You need selfhonor. Take this Daring Act of Love: Loveline a friend, and ask them to give you permission to do what’s best for you.

Explain the situation, what you really want to do, and ask them to just tell you, “You have totally have permission to…” If you are really stubborn and still can’t take the self-loving action, ask your friend to tell you why it’s okay to give yourself permission to disappoint another not to disappoint yourself. And then repeat back what they say. Often, when we can’t be a good friend to ourselves, we need to elicit the help of others who can be a good friend. This is how we learn to be better friends to ourselves.

Imagine what your life would be like from this day forward if in the moments when your inner critic wanted to tear you down, in the times you got scared to go for your dreams, or in the instances when you felt

relationships

take a deep breath, and ask yourself, just like a best friend would, “What do I need right now to take care of me?” Then be quiet and see what your Inner Wisdom says. Whatever guidance you receive, do that one thing, no matter what. Even if you don’t think you have the time, follow through on giving yourself what you need.

exhausted and needed a rest, you were able to wrap your arms around yourself, and give yourself permission to do exactly what you needed – without guilt, fear or judgment.

This is what is possible when you make the choice to love yourself unconditionally and as a result choose to show up as a best friend, no matter what. A daring adventure indeed, but the only way really to live – in love, with yourself.

DOUBLE LOVE DARE: Take a SelfLove Promise this February 13th, on the international day of self-love.

Every year on February 13th, in honor of the international day of self-love, people from around the world gather to make a “selflove promise” with themselves for the year that keeps them anchored to their commitment to

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having the best relationship of their lives, with themselves. People throw parties in their homes, attend Madly in Love with ME events or have their own private party for one to identify which one of the ten branches of self-love most needs their love in the coming year. They then take a promise related to that branch that serves as an anchor to keep that promise all year long.

What is a self love promise?

A self love promise is a sacred contract between you and you, made from love. It acts as a binding agreement that compels you to choose loving actions for yourself, no matter what. When life gets hard, and loving yourself seems like a million miles away, the vow you make to yourself will pull you through to the other side, to love. Taking the Self-love promise empowers you to choose the path of love even when fear, shame

or obligation demands that you choose it instead. Last year people in 31 countries threw self-love events and took self-love promises, such as:

Self-trust

“ I promise to always trust ME (on the deepest level in my heart) totally and completely.”

Self-expression

“I promise to value myself and my selfexpression no matter what!”

Self-pleasure

“I promise to make sure I am having fun in my life, no matter how busy I am or how much work there is to do.”

Aspire Magazine is proud to sponsor for the third year Christine Arylo’s Madly in Love with Me global events. To get a FREE COPY of the self-love kit, including an introduction to the 10 branches of self-love and a self-love meditation to help you choose your branch, go to www.MadlyinLovewithMe.com. To join others on February 13th, attend the Self-Love Concert and Extravaganza being videocast around the world. Register for free at www.

SelfLoveConcert.com.

Popular author of the new best-selling book Madly in Love with ME, the Daring Adventure to Becoming Your Own Best Friend, and Choosing ME before WE, Every Woman’s Guide to Life and Love Christine Arylo, m.b.a., writer and transformational speaker teaches people how to put their most important partnership first, the one with themselves, so that they can create the love and life their hearts and souls crave. Arylo created the international selflove movement with a mission to make self-love a tangible reality for people everywhere, and with a vision to create a world in which every child born, is born connected to love and stays connected to love, starting of course with the child inside of each of us. Learn more at www.MadlyinLovewithMe.com.

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FREE

Bring Your Book to Life www.LisaTener.com

with National Book Writing Coach Lisa Tener

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Women Starting Six Ways to Step into

I

was invited to lunch at a friend’s house. This was no ordinary lunch venue. The setting was her perennial garden next to a 40-acre bog, lovingly grown with hoards of bee balm, Shasta daisies, and bundles of lazy clematis climbing up trellises nearby. Not to be outdone by the foliage, the butterfly kingdom made a colorful appearance, as if it had been ordered with the

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entrée. It was an unfettered canvas of summer painted on a perfect Michigan afternoon, complete with Pimm’s, good wine and 15 creative and insightful women who were as empowered as they come.

As easily as the Pinot, stories poured forth about triumph from experiencing family life in wartorn Europe, metaphors on life from a penguin’s point of view, and how to survive the current real estate market.

www.AspireMAG.net | February/March 2013

These women, ages 40 to 75, were a powerful bunch. Many had started new careers. One woman worked for a government agency focused on providing energy alternatives to increase women’s productivity and survival in struggling world economies. Others left the corporate environment to become yoga instructors, manufacture luggage tags, or start home-based businesses.

Over:

Rev. Dr. Charlene M. Proctor

What makes women like this succeed in the second half of their lives? By watching

empowered women in my own community, I’ve learned something about staying on purpose and having the courage to define your own life, especially after the age of 40.

Here are six ways to “stay on purpose” and step into a greater vision of who you are:

1. Manage work and life like a powerful

woman.

Drop your meek little girl voice and open that throat chakra to showcase your wisdom and intelligence. Use your intuition regularly in your decision-making. Don’t let anyone convince you that right-brained activity is without merit. See the value in being female! If you’ve been the head of human resources in a Fortune 500 company and want to knit for a living, then do it. If shifting tracks pours your joy into what you love, feel good about it and make no apologies.

2. Be a strategic philanthropist.

Do something for yourself and for women everywhere. Involve community service in your idea. Spend some time leading from the heart, not just your head. Break away from those command and control or patriarchal-dominated work cultures.

If you’ve been operating in the shadow of

male-oriented work values, create a new work environment that is refreshing and female oriented. Be firmly seated in female values. You’ll be glad you did.

3. Shed the Old Story.

Many of us picked our careers to please Dad and the men in our life. The New Story: after 40, we finally embrace our unique capabilities. We’re wiser and figure out where our talents are best served. Don’t be afraid to go for it!

4. Have courage to shift gears but stay in

balance.

Everyone will tell you you’re nuts to leave a sure thing for the unknown. Follow your intuition—it’s what women do best—but channel an equal amount of mental energy and be mindful of balance. When in doubt, surrender to the unknown and don’t push too hard to find an answer in 20 minutes or less. You’ll eventually have a soft landing as long as you have faith.

5.

Make space for new opportunity by moving forward mentally and emotionally.

Personal growth happens when we make space for new opportunities. Let go of the

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a New Vision of Who You Are

past. Stop making wallpaper out of rejection letters and turndowns. Make peace with everyone and stop allowing old, negative programs to dictate your current reality.

Have a positive vision of who you are and affirm it regularly!

6. Define a higher purpose and stick to it.

Changing the world takes time, but develop the discipline to do it. Get up every day and allow your inner light to blast forth, whether it is in front of a yoga class full of children or through written articles about how we are more like nature than we think. The energy of purpose is like a garden— it grows within us but we must give it direction and attention.

It’s a gift given to us before we even get here.

It’s our own special rendition of an individual spark of divine power. Empowered people have passion. Getting there takes having confidence to embrace what we know... and making a conscious choice to enlighten others with our experience, knowledge, and observations. We reach inner peace when we understand that we help everyone consciously evolve by embracing our own perspective. Our purpose, when we’re comfortable with its simplicity, is to inspire others to step into a better rendition of life. A vision that cultivates our own wonderful and unique purpose in the process.

Fill yourself with purpose today, and remember you can enrich your own experience and change the world, too.

Today in your own life, celebrate your talents.

Allow more mental and emotional space to express your purpose, power, and peace that come from accumulated wisdom. When you allow these ideas to drive your life, you will expand your own vision of what you can become. Be of purpose. Remember: believe in who you are and what you can do!

Rev. Dr. Charlene M. Proctor is the founder of The Goddess Network and author of the bestselling books Let Your Goddess Grow! and The Women’s Book of Empowerment. Charlene is a subject matter expert for Self Growth.com and Beliefnet.com, the world’s largest personal growth websites. Her affirmations, lectures, and electronic programs reach a worldwide audience daily. She is a frequent media guest and among the Top 100 Thought Leaders of 2007. (The Warren Bennis Leadership Magazine). Her newest title The Oneness Gospel: Birthing the Christ Consciousness and Divine Human in You merges Eastern and Western viewpoints on spiritual development. By revisiting the basics in the New Testament gospels and the Oneness teachings from India, she shows that your life can become a process of deepening your relationship to the whole, no matter your wisdom tradition. Learn more at www.

CharleneProctor.com

“ Love is what we are born w ith.

Fear is what w e learn. The sp iritual journey is the unlearning of fear and prejudices and the acceptance of love back in ou r hearts.”

Marianne Williamson

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Wabi Sabi Love:

By Arielle Ford

Wabi Sabi is an ancient Japanese art form that honors all things old, worn, weathered, imperfect, and impermanent. In fact, it seeks to find “beauty and perfection in the imperfections.

Wabi Sabi Love shows you exactly how to see your partner in a whole new light, so you begin to appreciate, even celebrate your partner’s imperfections.- Arielle Ford” Joan and Gordon were recently married and madly in love when they decided to visit the Oaxaca Coast in Mexico. Both highly educated and accomplished, these two baby boomers shared many of the same intellectual and spiritual pursuits. However, when it came to food, they couldn’t have been more different.

Joan doesn’t care much about food other than as a means to fuel her body, while Gordon loves everything about shop- ping, preparing, and eating food. Joan can be happy with a slice of melted cheese on a piece of pita. Gordon wants freshly baked multigrain baguettes with freshly picked and diced heirloom tomatoes drizzled with the finest extra virgin olive oil.

However, when Joan does get hungry and her blood sugar drops, she has to eat immediately. Instantly. Pronto. RIGHT NOW.

So, there they were in the lovely coastal town of Huatulco. They took a taxi from their hotel to a restaurant on the water that they believed would provide a delicious meal. The sun was just beginning to set as the taxi dropped them off; they walked down the stairs to the beach to find the restaurant...which was closed... because it was Sun- day. They walked back up the stairs in the dimming twilight, and, of course, the taxi was long gone and the street was deserted.

Joan’s blood sugar had suddenly dropped, and she needed to eat immediately so they went to the first restaurant they found, which was very fancy. Gordon was not impressed and didn’t want to eat there. He wanted to walk one more block to find another place. But Joan was insistent that she had to eat RIGHT NOW because she was about to pass out. They entered the fancy place, sat down, and, sure enough, had a very expensive, lousy meal.

When they left the restaurant, they discovered a darling pizzeria they could have eaten at and enjoyed so much more for a lot less money right around the corner.

The next morning Gordon was still steaming about the Previous night. While he and Joan had breakfast, he told her that he wished he could have just ignored her and walked one

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A Tale of Learning to Trust

more block to find a more suitable place to eat. Grateful that at least she didn’t have to walk far for her breakfast, Joan cast him a look as if to say, “This is a physiological issue I have dealt with all my life. Get used to it.”

“Are you familiar with the mythological Greek Poet?

Orpheus?” he asked her.

“Who?” she said, stuffing a large piece of bread into her mouth.

Gordon began to tell her the story.

Back in olden times, Orpheus was in love and married to a beautiful nymph named Eurydice. Eurydice ran into a nest of snakes, one of which bit her fatally on her heel.

Distraught at the death of his love, Orpheus sang so mournfully that all the nymphs and gods wept. On their advice, Orpheus traveled to the underworld to bring Eurydice back to life. Through his music, he softened the hearts of Hades and Persephone (he was the only person ever to do so), who agreed to allow Eurydice to return with him to earth, but on one condition: he must walk in front of her and not

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look back until they both had reached the upper world.

He was instructed that no matter how much she cried or protested, Orpheus must not look at her or pay Heed to her or he would lose her forever.

They began up the stairway to the upper world. Eurydice asked him to turn around and give her one kiss, but Orpheus knew that he shouldn’t listen to her. He knew best. She continued to plead and beg for him to turn around and look at her. Eventually, against his better judgment, he turned around to her most plaintive plea only to catch a glimpse of her disappearing forever.

As Gordon finished his story, he looked across the breakfast table at his beloved Joan.

“Having heard that story, how does that make you feel?”

He asked her.

“It makes me feel like punching you in the face,” Joan said, swallowing the last of her delicious breakfast.

Gordon leaned back in his chair, laughing hysterically, and then Joan—in concert— began to laugh as well.

They now refer to this as their Huánuco Moment. After all

www.AspireMAG.net | February/March 2013

these years, it still generates a good laugh between them.

Gordon has since truly recognized Joan’s need to eat frequently and now insists that Joan never leave home without a PowerBar in her pocketbook.

As this story illustrates, Gordon was able to transform his annoyance (and a potentially lifelong grievance) by utilizing his knowledge of a classic myth to express his love and support to Joan. I love this story because he was saying, “I will go to hell and back for you, but if you want to share this life together, you have to trust me to guide you.” Wow! Now, that is a man who knows how to put his sword in the ground and stake his claim.

Bravo.

©2013. Excerpt from Wabi Sabi Love: The Ancient Art of Finding Perfect Love in Imperfect Relationships. Arielle Ford.

Reprinted with permission. Harper One Publishing.

A leader in personal growth and contemporary spirituality, Love Expert Arielle Ford has spent 25 years raising consciousness. Her new book, Wabi Sabi Love: The Ancient Art of Finding Perfect Love In Imperfect Relationships, shows couples how to create deeper, more loving and more fulfilling relationships.

Learn more at www.WabiSabiLove.com.

oes your love life feel like it is on ice?

Do you sense a greater disconnection from your partner? Are you looking to reignite the passion you once had in your relationship?

The higher levels of stress we experience in our lives as a result of the increased pressures of day to day living have a serious impact our health, happiness, and relationships. We have more responsibilities at work, ever increasing household tasks, less time, less money, and not enough help to handle it all. Unfortunately, we also have a tendency to vent our frustrations toward the person who matters most to us – our significant other, which compounds our lack of love problem further.

You might be thinking, Who has time for romance, when there is so much to do? You arrive home at 5, 6, or 7 PM - have to finish a project for work, help the kids with their homework, cart them around to games, fix dinner, clean the house, pay the bills, pack lunches, and 15 other things before flopping into bed at midnight exhausted and weary. There’s not even time or energy for sex, much less an occasional dinner at a nice restaurant.

We all have the same 168 hours in a week, including the President of the United States, your kid’s bus driver, and you. What matters is how you choose to spend that time. You make time for things that matter to you. Are your actions in line with your priorities? Take a look at your schedule.

By Stacy Corrigan

Relationships

D

Rekindle the flame of your LOVE

Maybe it’s time to make some changes.

1

Make a list of what you would spend your time doing if you knew you had only a limited amount of time left to live. I heard an excellent quote on the show Biggest Loser this week by Dr. Huizenga, “If you just discovered you had lymphoma, you would spend the 2 hours a week to receive chemotherapy treatments wouldn’t you?” Why are you unwilling to invest time into the most significant relationship in your world?

Evaluate your life. Most people value health first, and the people they love second - yet their schedules don’t align with their values. Commit to placing yourself first, the ones you love second, and see if everything else in your life doesn’t naturally fall into place. What you place your attention on expands, and if you neglect the relationship you have with yourself or your significant other, you won’t have either for long.

Your body and your relationship can only tolerate a certain amount of neglect. Make the decision today that you’ll take better care of both.

2 Delegate more.

Assess what household tasks someone else could do. Believe it or not, you do not have to do it all. It doesn’t even matter if the jobs don’t get done as well as you would do them.

You didn’t have to do it, and your time is

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freed up for more important things you want to focus on.

In my house, when I cook, Mario does the dishes.

I imposed that rule when we first met. He doesn’t clean the counters afterward, but I was happy that the dishes were done and I didn’t have to do them, so I just wipe off the counters when he’s finished.

You may want to consider hiring a housekeeper once or twice a month to minimize the work you need to do. A friend of mine used to have her housekeeper come twice a week, and she would also make an oversized dinner, and they had four meals covered for the week since each meal served as two with left overs.

3 Be Kind to yourself and your loved ones.

Have you heard the expression, “You get what you give?” Why would you expect your spouse or your kids to respond in a loving way if you order them around like the Commandant on Hogan’s Heroes? Not to mention, what types of words do you use to describe yourself when something doesn’t go as planned.

I always describes things I wish I would do differently as silly instead of dumb because I know I’m not stupid, but if I keep affirming I am, I’ll continue to do stupid things. Instead, the word silly implies you had a momentary lapse, instead of a permanent condition. It is a gentler, kinder way to treat yourself.

Choose the words and tone you use to share information or make requests of your spouse and children much more carefully. We don’t realize how powerful our words are. Notice the difference between how the following two statements feel:

“Honey, would you mind taking the trash out for me?”

VS.

“You forgot to take the trash out again.

Can’t you remember to do anything?”

Take time to formulate your requests and see if you don’t notice receiving a much more loving response in return.

4 Express your appreciation more. When Mario

and I first started dating, I thanked him for every little thing he did for me. He wasn’t used to it and asked me to stop. I didn’t stop though, because I know the value that expressing appreciation has on how people feel about themselves and how it affects their behavior.

Unfortunately, we often stop expressing our appreciation and end up taking the ones we love for granted. Pay attention for just one week to all the things your spouse does for you, even if the tasks are expected of him, and thank him for it. They are two small, yet very powerful words.

Bring appreciation and gratitude back into your relationship and watch the love flow.

I know these tips are small, subtle and seemingly unromantic. However, I promise that as you implement them consistently, you will see a shift in how your man responds to you. It’s the little things that add up to big changes over time. Adjust your everyday actions and observe as they gently fan the flame and rekindle your relationship.

Stacy Corrigan empowers you to escalate your self-esteem, embrace self-love, and radiate self-confidence so you become a magnet for the quality of man you deserve. In her loving, gentle, and captivating style, Stacy teaches you to love yourself first, realize your magnificence, and ultimately prepares you to Manifest Your Man®. Learn more at www.

ManifestYourMan.net.

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CAREER/ BUSINESS

“Love is the ability and

willingness to allow those that you care for to be what they choose for themselves without any insistence that they satisfy you.”

7 TIPS FOR DEVELOPING

Wayne Dyer

Read Online!

A Practice of Gratitude IN BUSINESS

By Joanna Brandi

What could gratitude and happiness possibly have to do with success on the job? Everything.

There’s plenty of proof that there are health benefits to feeling grateful and happy; such feelings can reduce stress, boost your immune system, open your mind to new possibilities and make it easier to be kind and creative. There’s also evidence that feeling good can be ‘contagious,’ and positively impact those around you.

Developing a “practice” of gratitude and happiness can create positive changes personally that can lead to positive changes all throughout a business.

THANK YOU

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INSPIRED To

Write?

Writing Is it Time to Share Your Gifts

I

t’s always exciting when a former client writes to me to tell me how much their business has grown or how they’re being paid to travel to exotic destinations to teach courses or they quit their day job or just got a new, amazing, much better paying day job— all because of the opportunities that came out of writing and publishing their book.

But it’s even more exciting when they tell me about the people who write to them and tell them:

“Your book has given me back my life.”

“My family finally understands me after reading your book.”

“I tried your system and it saved my marriage.

“I keep your book next to my bed on the night table.”

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• You have something special inside that people need to hear.

with the World in a Big Way?

BY Lisa Tener

There’s a rumor on the internet that something like 80% of Americans want to write a book. Even if that number is a bit of an exaggeration, I know that many people out there feel a calling but shut it down.

Often when people hear what I do as a book coach, they confide that they’ve “always wanted to write a book but could never…”

You see, some elementary school teacher gave them C’s in English and that was it. Or Mom and Dad taught them hide in the background—maybe that’s the only place it felt safe to be. Or there’s some other bogeyman hiding in the closet.

The truth is, everyone has some fear about being seen in a big way. And writing a book will always bring that fear up. But we live in a time when people are stepping into their light, love and dreams rapidly and it may be time to give up those old beliefs and open your heart to some new beliefs that completely change your paradigm.

What if: • You are a writer, in addition to anything else that you are…mom, sister, daughter, business owner, partner, wife, healer, coach, teacher, mentor...

• You can learn to write well in a few easy steps and hire an editor or take a class to learn the rest.

• Your message is urgently needed right now.

• By not sharing your writing, someone is losing out.

Maybe you’re holding something back from the world by not at least giving it a try.

I know that may sound scary. Where do you begin after all?

Ask yourself these questions for starters:

• Do I have the time to set aside to be writing my book consistently (at least a couple hours a week if not more)?

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Magic:

• You have a way of saying it that’s going to speak to particular people. They need to hear it your way.

• Am I willing to put aside other projects and make this a priority?

• Can I get support to break through any blocks that come up?

• Are there people in my life who might support me in this endeavor, help me gain confidence and hold me accountable?

• What dreams of mine might the book help me fulfill?

• What dreams may this book help my readers fulfill (or what might they get from it)?

• What’s the price of not writing this book?

• What do I need to overcome to write it?

If you answer those questions honestly, you’ll have a better idea whether you have the resources and the motivation to write your book.

Then, it’s time to clarify what the book would be. Examining your vision and goals will help you get started. If your book is a

at you th k o o b a ’s e “ If ther but it hasn’t , d a e r to t n wa t, then you e y n te it r w n bee .” must write it rison Toni Mor

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memoir, you’ll need to clarify the theme (it should have one overarching theme) and the period of your life you’re writing about (shorter is usually best). If you’re writing fiction, it’s a whole other ballgame—you need to think about character, scene, plot, story arc. For any book—from self-help to textbook—you must get clear on who your readers are and what will motivate them to read your book.

Okay, if that voice in your head is saying, “Yeah, why on earth would anyone read my book?” you’re in good company. However, this is a voice you’re going to need to learn to say, “Thanks, but no thanks” to. It will come up from time to time and you’ll need some strategies to turn it off—go for a walk in nature, talk to a supportive friend. Re-read a complimentary letter or e-mail. Or just put your tootsie in the chair and write anyway.

You can also start with shorter pieces—write an article, a blog post, start your own blog…you don’t have to start with a book. Get your feet wet. But take action. To paraphrase Marianne Williamson, who are you to hide your light?

Let it shine: write, write, write…and share.

An award-winning authority on writing and publishing books, Lisa Tener guides you to joyfully express yourself in writing. She blogs for the Huffington Post, serves on the faculty of Harvard Medical School’s publishing course, and teaches her own Award Winning Book Writing Courses in person and by interactive teleseminar. Download your free Author Tool Kit at www.LisaTener.com

JOB

Vs.

CALLING

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ne of the most positive transitions you can make is from viewing your work as a job to viewing it as a calling. A job is an exchange of energy in which you do a material task and someone provides money in exchange. A calling, however, is an organic field of energy that emerges from the deepest aspects of who you are. It is the fulfillment of what God has created you to be and do. Approaching your work as a job versus approaching it as a calling makes all the difference in whether or not you dwell in the miraculous universe. You have a calling simply because you are alive. You have a calling because you are a child of God. You have a calling because you are on this earth with a divine purpose: to rise to the level of your highest creative possibility, expressing all that you are intellectually, emotionally, psychologically, and physically in order to make the universe a more beautiful place.

As you do this, your entire life becomes your ministry — a way to serve God and to serve the World.

BY Marianne Williamson

thought forms surrounding money. We are heir to the laws that rule the world we identify with. If you identify only with the material plane, you place yourself at the effect of pretty severe economic realities of scarcity and lack. If you identify with the spiritual plane, you are under no laws but God’s.

“I’m looking for a job,” “I’m trying to figure out what I should do”, and “I don’t know how I am going to make ends meet” are sentences that confuse the universe.

A child of God doesn’t have to “look for a job”; a child of God doesn’t have to “figure out what to do”; a child of God doesn’t have to worry about “how ends will meet”. A child of God is simply a magnet for all things good.

The you who thinks of life as a struggle, or a place where you’re on your own, is not the real you. The real you already has a God-given function, and the universe is set up to support it.

“The best way to summon your true calling is to put yourself in service to God.” If you’re thinking of money only as something you get in exchange for doing a job, then you’ll never be free of limited

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The best way to summon your true calling is to put your true self in service to God. The following daily prayer is from A Course in Miracles: “Where would you have me go?

What would you have me do? What would you have me say, and to whom?”

While a job is separate from the rest of our lives, a calling is a fulfillment of the rest of our lives. By striving to be the best that we can be, we create the internal blueprint by which we do the best we can do. On a soul level, we want to work, we want to create, we want to be productive and serve others and share our gifts to the world. Often it is not external forms of obstruction that hold us back, but rather internal ones. And nothing releases us internally more than the desire and the willingness to serve.

The world can give you a job, and a job can be taken away. But a true calling puts you in a career zone that cannot be taken away. It reflects your willingness to do what you feel inwardly led to do in order to help heal the world. The universe then registers your true substance, your true seriousness, and your true purpose. Some things you do will bring forth worldly wealth; other things you do will not directly bring forth wealth at all, but— being the right things to do—will summon wealth miraculously from the other sources.

Losing a job does not mean losing your calling, because as a personal ambassador of God, you have been given a permanent assignment. You are here to represent Him who sent you, and He does not change His mind about you. You are never unemployed

by God. And that’s true not just about

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you; it’s true about all of us. Anything that appears to separate us from each other is not the deepest level of our identity. We all have different jobs, but the same ministry.

Some of us are technicians, some of us are mathematicians, some of us are writers and artists, some of us are salespeople, some of us don’t even work as work is defined by the world—but our value, individually, is determined not by what we do but, by the consciousness with which we do it. We’re all here to be available channels for the love that heals all things. A job takes a form, but our ministry is content. Even if you lose your job you still have your ministry, because it is a part of who you are. Your life has no less value if you’re not employed as the world defines it. If you’re kind to people, if you’re compassionate, if you pour your excellence into whatever you’re doing, then you’re doing the job God sent you to do.

From that will emerge the next form that’s needed to host the energies you’re bringing forth. Does that mean that you don’t have to “look for a job”as the world defines it? Of course you do! But you do it with a different consciousness. You don’t show up for a job interview thinking, “How do I impress them?

I really need this job.” Rather, your process goes more like this:

1| You place your need for work in God’s hands.

2| While alert to every opportunity

that presents itself, you put enthusiastic energy into brainstorming and creating new possibilities.

3| You pray and meditate asking for

4| You realize that you can’t know

what or where your next job should be.

5| Before you go to a job interview,

audition, or meeting, you blast every person you’re going to be with —and the situation itself—with light and love.

Your goal becomes simply giving and receiving love — which is another way of saying, “May God’s will be done.” You see every interaction as a holy encounter.

You intend for this and every situation to be one in which you express your truest, most brilliant, most loving self—and what happens beyond that, you leave to the intelligence of the universe. You’re not going to the interview to try to get a job; you’re going there to do your job!

Those five steps might seem as if they are just little things—hardly the operating principles that move the universe. Yet that is exactly what they are. On the spiritual plane, you have no competitors. There is no competition for your position, as you are a unique expression of the Mind of God. You not only have a place in the universe; you

In the words of Confucius, “Choose

a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

Excerpted from THE LAW OF DIVINE COMPENSATION: On Work, Money, and Miracles by Marianne Williamson. Copyright 2012. Reprinted with permission by HarperOne, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

Marianne Williamson is an internationally acclaimed spiritual teacher. Six of her ten published books have been New York Times Best Sellers. Four of these have been #1 New York Times Best Sellers. A Return to Love is considered a must-read of The New Spirituality. Her newest book, THE LAW OF DIVINE COMPENSATION: On Work, Money, and Miracles, was published in November 2012

by Harper Collins. For more information on Marianne, please visit www.marianne.com

“ Success

means we go to sleep at night kno wing that o ur talents and ablitie s were use d in a way that served others.”

Marian ne William son

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internal guidance as to whom to call, what to do, and so forth.

have an essential function in the universe.

Only you can do the job of being you, and the universe itself is left incomplete without you. It is not arrogant but humble to realize this, as you place yourself in service to the greatest drama there is: the actualization of your own potential.

THE #1 MOST Blown-Off Success Principle Ever!

BY Christine Kane

O

ver the course of a month, my husband and I found 16 four-leaf clovers between us. Some of them were huge.

We’re talking NUCLEAR huge. Some of them were small.

They seem to be throwing themselves in our path.

I remember the sacred feeling of finding four-leaf clovers when I was little. It was like God was speaking directly to me. No words needed. I would silently pick it and feel a Moment of Special.

I still feel that way. However, last week, as we were getting in bed, I asked my husband: “Do you think the planet is going through some chemical adjustment – and there’s just a lot more four-leaf clovers out there?” My husband gave me one of his looks.

Then he said, “I think the more interesting question is why you’re trying to figure out a way to dismiss something that’s really fun and meaningful to you by wondering if there’s a problem on the planet.”

It made me think of something I said to a client recently.

She was receiving rave reviews for something she created.

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People were falling all over themselves praising her work. And yet, she kept on talking as if she hadn’t even heard. She couldn’t take it in.

She could not let herself receive. The gist of what I then told her – and what I had to remind myself the other night – is this: Receiving is crucial in order for us to thrive.

When we can’t receive, we can’t succeed.

As women, we give life. We create. We birth.

We ROCK at care-giving.

That being said, it is imperative that we learn to inhale deeply, to allow praise, to be special, to nourish ourselves, to feed ourselves, to absorb the abundance of love that is out there for the taking.

Often we are so busy giving and coaching and befriending and serving – that we lose sight of the simple truth that energy is meant to flow.

Here are simple ways to practice receiving and succeeding:

• When someone compliments you, stop and say, ‘THANK YOU.’ (Don’t explain why you don’t deserve their praise.)

• When you eat a meal, sit down at the table. (Don’t shove the food in your face at the refrigerator – or worse, while checking email.)

• When your partner or friend hugs you, let yourself pause for a moment and take it in. (Don’t brush it off as “too uncomfortable.”)

• Learn to inhale deeply and stop at various moments in the day to feel your breath moving deep into your being.

• When you see material things that you love (but perhaps are out of your price range), say, “That’s for me!” (Don’t block your connection to it by judging it as unreachable.)

• Treat yourself to a massage. Massage therapists talk about touch in terms of “receiving.” It’s a beautiful concept.

• Read books that are fun. Go to movies and take in the scenes. Experience art and let the colors splash all over you.

Christine Kane is the Mentor to People Who are Changing the World. She helps women and men Uplevel their lives, their businesses and their success. Her weekly Uplevel You eZine goes out to over 20,000 subscribers. If you are ready to take your life and your world to the next level, visit www.ChristineKane.com to claim your FREE download of The Complete Guide to Vision Boards.

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When I stopped her and asked her to really listen to what these women were saying, she burst into tears. Like me looking for a planetary chemical problem, she was finding a million things to say to block out the sound of their praise.

If you can’t stop and receive, then you stop the flow. You break the laws of nature. And you will never truly experience success.

8 Ways You Can

Sabotage Your Search For Life

S

o many people in the world are living lives of quiet desperation.

Are you one of them?

You get up, go to a job you don’t like, come home and watch a few hours of TV, go to bed, and do it all over again the next day. That’s not a life. Or at least it’s not really living.

Your particular life may be less desperate than this, but do you still feel empty and unhappy more than you’d like? There may be some bright moments of happiness and fun, but far too often you find yourself thinking about the life you wish you were living -- even though you’re not quite sure what that would look like.

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When you look around, you see other people who are so darned excited about their lives. You can feel it just being in their presence – they have a passion. Seeing them, you know a better life is possible. The only problem is getting there.

What does it really mean to have a life passion, and how do you take this concept and transform it into something real and tangible in your own life?

When I talk about finding and living your life passion, I mean far more than finding a career you love or a hobby that’s entertaining or volunteer work that is fulfilling. I’m talking about an entire lifestyle imbued with passion and powered

www.AspireMAG.net | February/March 2013

Passion

By Barrie Davenport

by a passion source.

That passion source can manifest in a career or avocation or something else entirely. But whatever it is, it colors the entirety of your life for the better.

When I talk about life passion, I’m talking about something big. Something bold. A total mind shift that changes the way you think about yourself and how you operate in the world.

Does that mean you have to give up your job or start over? Not necessarily. But maybe. It depends on you, your priorities, and what in your current life is worth sacrificing or pursuing based on who you are and what you want. Are you confused?

Let’s make it simple. You must first decide you want a passionate life because you believe it’s a goal worth pursuing. Once you decide to pursue it, the details are manageable.

Or they don’t see passion as a goal worth pursuing because they aren’t clear on the result. They can’t envision what a passionate life looks like. It differs for everyone depending on one’s desires, but there are some general qualities of a passionate life.

It looks like this:

• You have a general sense of enthusiasm and purpose.

• You feel deeply engaged in your passionate pursuit.

• That engagement and the joy it brings spills over into other areas of your life.

• You are forced to simplify your life because you want to spend more time doing what you love.

• Problems and life difficulties diminish because you are happier and have fewer complications.

• You have better relationships because you are more attractive, positive, and interesting.

• You frequently experience the sense of being “in the flow.”

• Even when you aren’t proficient at your passion pursuit, you enjoy the practice of it and the process of learning.

So many people never find their life passion because they sabotage their search before they really get started. Here are some of the most common ways people undermine the most important pursuit they could ever undertake.

1|

They don’t believe It’s possible

Sometimes people begin the process with serious doubts about finding their passion.

They just fundamentally believe that life is meant to be difficult and that happiness and fulfillment are out of their control. Or they believe the myths about finding their passion they may have heard or read.

2|

They think life passion is silly, unrealistic, or too idealistic

There are those who believe the entire notion of having a life passion is indulgent at best and a waste of time at worst. Some people are not comfortable creating their life around happiness and purpose. Perhaps they are motivated by money, power, a sense of responsibility, or a general seriousness about life.

3| they don’t give themselves the time

The journey of finding your life passion takes some time. It involves self-discovery work, research, trial and error, and experimentation. This requires carving an

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But most people don’t get that far. They don’t move past the first gate on the path to life passion because they begin to ponder what it might take to get there. Then they turn around and scurry back to the status quo. It feels too overwhelming.

Think about people you know who live passionate lives. If you can’t think of anyone, take a look at Oprah Winfrey, Steve Jobs or Tony Robbins. Is it worth pursuing a life passion? Only if you want a passionate life — like these people.

hour or two out of your week to work on it. But many people aren’t proactive about this. They just hope that a life passion will magically appear.

4|

They are overwhelmed

Their lives are so complicated, busy, cluttered, and over-scheduled that the idea of adding one more thing — even if it could create balance, order, and happiness — is too overwhelming. They put a passion search at the bottom of the priority list.

5|

They aren’t emotionally healthy

People who are living with depression, anxiety, anger, and other debilitating emotions don’t have the energy to devote to finding their passion. They might try, but they will quickly lose enthusiasm and interest. The emotions must be treated and the root cause addressed before beginning a passion search.

6|

They are stuck in their thoughts

Thought without action will get you nowhere.

You need to think through your options and the possible pros and cons. But eventually, you must take action. People who are stuck in their thoughts are too afraid to do anything for fear it’s the wrong decision. But a wrong decision is better than no decision, and often the wrong decision leads to something better than expected.

7|

They underestimate themselves

Some people just don’t believe they are capable of doing what needs to be done to create their lives around passion. They don’t

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believe they are smart enough, creative enough, deserving enough or good enough.

They assume that their perceived limitations will get in the way of living their passion even if they find it.

8|

They give up too quickly

Finding a life passion involves trial and error, practice, and patience. Many people view the process of finding a passion to be confusing and arduous so they give up when the going gets hard. But it doesn’t have to be hard. If you view the process the way you would perceive an interesting mystery, it can be fun and engaging. Most of the learning and growth happens in the process of the search.

Are sabotaging your ability to find your life passion? Perhaps you’ve gotten overwhelmed and distracted with the demands and responsibilities of your life.

Perhaps you’ve bought into the notion that a passion-filled life isn’t really possible. But remember, people who are living passionate lives were once where you are right now.

They were once at the point of either turning away or moving forward toward a new life. I invite you to take the first step on your path to a passionate new life. It all begins with the simple belief that you can make it happen one small step at a time.

Barrie Davenport is a life passion coach, founder of Barrie Davenport.com (a site devoted to helping people uncover and live their life passions), and author of The 52-Week Life Passion Project. You can download her free guide, The Passion Myths: 6 Lies Keeping You From Uncovering Your Life Passion. Visit Barrie at www.BarrieDavenport.com

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