Once Upon a Time

Once upon a time there was a lovely girl who loved to write. She wrote on napkins. She wrote on the back of envelopes. She wrote in journals. She wrote stories that made her happy and brought smiles to the faces of those who read her stories. Writing brought her such joy that she lived happily ever after. And so it is!

I don’t know about you but when I hear the words “Once upon a time…” my stress goes away and I instantly go to that delightful place of childhood memories where magical stories come to life.

Because everything is vibration and that vibration of “anything is possible” is what I feel when hearing “Once upon a time….” I decided to keep a Once Upon a Time journal to reinforce that those things I envisioned for my life could really come true.

Every day when I woke up I wrote in the journal a story of what I expected for my day. And in the middle of the day if something ticked me off I immediately created a Once Upon a Time story of how I wished the situation would be.

For example, if it was a day that I had to take my mother to the doctor, instead of dreading it because she’s always so negative and rebellious I would write something like this:

Once upon a time there was a lovely girl named Barbara. She had a very loving mother who smiled all the time. Barbara loved to spend time with her mom and was so happy she could help take care of her mom. Every time Barbara and her mom got together their hearts opened. They spread joy to those around them. These times were so wonderful that Barbara lived happily ever after. And so it is!!!

I would love to write you a little Once Upon a Time story. If you’d like that send me an email stating ONE thing that’s bugging you and I will write you a Once Upon a Time story.

OR, write your own story and post it as a comment below. 🙂

Can a Meltdown Be A Good Thing?

It seems that when I’m going through alot of personal processing I become like a caterpillar in a cocoon, preparing to transform. Why would this be of any interest to you? Well, would you like me to pass on to you the insights and knowledge I gained that will help you with your own transformation?

For example, at one point, some moths ago I exclaimed “I’m having a meltdown!” And then instantly I thought of the caterpillar. Did you know that when a caterpillar goes into it’s cocoon, it totally melts down into a liquid goo before it becomes the butterfly? So now, when I think of having a meltdown I get excited. That meltdown say “you’re transforming into something better!” Isn’t that a great realization? So the next time you’re having a crisis/meltdown you can get excited too, knowing that you’re becoming more amazing!

If I can do it you can do it!

It’s not January 1st but it is New Beginning time for me. I’m in a new phase with a deeper and clearer connection to my life’s purpose. On some level I’ve been doing it but it was only recently that I found accurate words to describe it. “I do high performance transformational training.” Looking for those words was like looking for a dress for a certain occasion, not knowing what I was looking for but knowing it was exactly what I was looking for when I found it.

You know how you feel on a bad hair day or when you’re wearing something that just doesn’t feel right or you’re driving a car that doesn’t reflect how incredible you are? It can throw you off balance or make you feel less confident. But when your hair is great and you’re wearing that outfit that makes you feel like a million dollars and you’re driving a smokin’ hot car you feel like there is nothing that can shake you.

When you are not clear on the specifics of your life’s purpose the same thing can happen. I thought I was clear after attending a Life Directions workshop a few years ago and got that my life’s mission is to brighten and amplify people’s self delight so they can rock their life. That still holds true but it doesn’t say how I’ll be doing that. I thought the energy healing and training I was doing was the vehicle to serve that mission but a couple months ago several people told me I didn’t know how powerful I was. I said to them “yes I do!” And they said “nope, you don’t.”

I began a “find the connection to my power” project. I worked on myself and with my friends who are healers and life coaches. I felt like I was digging a tunnel and there was no end in sight. I even resigned myself to the notion that digging that tunnel in the dark was how I was going to spend the rest of my life. The light at the end would only be that light at death, the one people having near death experiences talk about… there is still a little drama in me, eh?

Then one day, after doing some energy optimizations on myself I became aware and very excited that I could see some light at the end of my tunnel. Within a few days I was on a group call where the facilitator spontaneously introduced me to the group saying I do high performance transformation work. I about fell off my chair when I heard those words. It was the “dress” I had been looking for.

Since then other things have fallen into place and I even got to encourage someone who had been very discouraged in his own multi year tunnel. So, let me say to you – if I can do it you can do it! Hang on to your dream and keep taking inspired action to get there.

I’m a Chick that Wants Out!

Unexpected Events

Have you ever looked forward to a day and it finally arrives only to turn out very different than you expected?

You’re thinking about a day that sucked aren’t you? To be honest with you that’s what I thought was going to happen to me the other day. But not getting what I expected lead to something even better happening. Would you like to hear what happened?…

Great! Here’s my story…

For the past 8 months I’ve been letting my hair grow after receiving such a bad haircut I seriously thought about shaving my head.

Bad Haircut ---------- Good Haircut

I had been looking for a new stylist here in my hometown. Continuing to take a 4 hour plane ride to get my hair cut in California was not my first choice. I had been going to an out of state stylist because it takes someone very special to cut curly hair so it naturally looks and behaves amazingly.

So, one of my haircut conditions is that it gets cut dry. I found a salon and a stylist who I thought would do an excellent job. Today was my appointment with him. I drove an hour to get to the salon to meet him. He was wonderful. He totally understood what I was looking for so I was really looking forward to this haircut. Then he dropped the bombshell. The receptionist had given me incorrect information. He doesn’t cut hair dry. We both had to agree he was not the right person for me.

I left the salon despondent. The mucked up scrambled thought processes I had been feeling in my brain because of the bad haircut was still there. So on my drive home I decided that since getting to have pretty hair was no longer on today’s agenda I would go to an upscale shopping mall and look at pretty things there.

While walking around I passed a jewelry store with a large window poster for some lovely crystal rings or bracelets.. I couldn’t tell which.. and decided to go into the store to check them out.

Cutting to the chase, when I put the ring on my finger I felt so amazingly good inside I literally began to cry. All the mucked up feeling in my brain from the bad haircut completely disappeared. I had my superpowers back!

The very thing I wanted to accomplish by getting my haircut I got by wearing this ring. I looked at the price tag of the ring. It was about the same amount that my haircut and tip would have cost. So I bought the ring and I’m calling it “My New Haircut.”

Yes I’m still looking for a local stylist who is perfect for me but until then I’ve got my superpower ring to carry me through and remind me that sometimes the solution I’m looking for will come in an unexpected way.

2012 Road Trip Checkup – Again

 Have you been getting tired more easily? Do you feel like you have two speeds – 180 mph and Zero mph? That’s how I’ve been feeling. Then it came to my mind to run the replay of the 2012 Roadtrip Checkup. That was a moving and powerful hour long group session we held last year.  Immediately after running the session replay I felt calmer and all the gunk cleaned out so I’m working half as hard and accomplishing twice as much.

Read the original post about the 2012 Road Trip Checkup

Enjoy the trip for the first time or as a review now through July 17, 2012. ($20)

After experiencing the Road Trip my friend Andrew reported “It feels like an energy waterfall flushing out fear, apprehension. I feel it fine tuning my chakras to accept new energy. A blue shield around my aura shields out negativity.”

When to Leave a Rolex at Home

This article is about when to leave a Rolex at home but first, let me set the context.

A few months ago my friend Libbe HaLevy, the host and producer of Nuclear Hotseat, wrote a thought  provoking article entitled “The Last Jew Out of Germany…? A Nuclear Dilemma.” She compared the sometimes loud hints given the Jews of Germany to get out before the Nazi’s took over to the hints of radiation from Fukushima hitting the California coast, where she lives. What to do – move or stay?

Besides giving me a deeper understanding of the dilemma the Jews of Germany faced it reminded me of my brother’s experience keeping his Rolex watch safe.

Winning the very expensive watch in a prestegous sales contest, gave my brother an ongoing reminder of recognition for a job well done. One evening, after work, he was going to take the subway from his suburban home to an event downtown. He first dropped off the Rolex at home so it would be safe, as returning home late at night on the subway, wearing a Rolex, did not seem to be wise.

After the event on his late night walk home from the subway he noticed his street was blocked off, flooded with water. He assumed a water main had broken. However, as he approached his 4 story 21 unit building his eyes deceived him when it appeared the building had disappeared. In the first stage of shock he walked closer and closer but his vision stayed the same. The building had burned down while he was out for the evening.

The fire had been so devastating that there was nothing left – no refrigerators, no furniture, no Rolex watch – everything had melted and burned in the fire.

Libbe visited me last month in Chicago as part of her consideration to move from California back to her midwest family roots. I told her my brother’s Rolex story in hopes it would ease any pressure she might be feeling to “get out of Dodge” fast. Like me, you’ve probably heard stories of people who move from a high crime area to a secure town so the children would be safe. And then, in unfortunate circumstances in this supposed haven of security, one of the children dies in an accident.

What I suggested to Libbe is to follow her heart, not her head. Wherever that leads her will be the right place for her to be. That way, whatever happens, seemingly good or seemingly bad, she won’t look back wondering if she made the right decision.

While you might not have a Rolex watch, which is considered “timeless luxury.” I see you as a living Rolex. You are precious. Perhaps the next time you are deciding where to put yourself weigh in on both your heart and your head, with no agenda, and see which way each is directing you. If you are getting two different answers revisit your thought another day. The time inbetween will allow you to find clarity.

Life Unstuck

I recently had an inspiring conversation with my dear friend Libbe HaLevy about feeling stuck and how a Dr Seuss story is a profound metaphor that we are always growing–even when it seems like we’re not! Luckily we taped our conversation. Here’s the audio so you can listen in.

If You Want to Change the World

DEAR BEAUTIFUL MEN

♥ ♥ by Lisa Citore

If you want to change the world…

Love a woman – really Love her. Find the one who calls to your soul, who doesn’t make sense.

Throw away your checklist and put your ear to her heart and listen. Hear the names, the prayers, the songs of every living thing-every winged one, every furry and scaled one, every underground and underwater one, every green and flowering one, every not yet born and dying one…

Hear their melancholy praises back to the One who gave them life. If you haven’t heard your own name yet, you haven’t listened long enough.

If your eyes aren’t filled with tears, if you aren’t bowing at her feet, you haven’t ever grieved having almost lost her. If you want to change the world…

Love a woman – one woman beyond yourself, beyond desire and reason, beyond your male preferences for youth, beauty and variety and all your superficial concepts of freedom.

We have given ourselves so many choices we have forgotten that true liberation comes from standing in the middle of the soul’s fire and burning through our resistance to Love.

There is one Goddess in every woman. Look into Her eyes and see-really see if she is the one to bring the axe to your head. If not, walk away. Right now. Don’t waste time “trying.”

Know that your decision has nothing to do with her because ultimately it’s not with who, but when we choose to surrender.

If you want to change the world…

Love a woman. Love her for life – beyond your fear of death, beyond your fear of being manipulated by the Mother inside your head.

Don’t tell her you’re willing to die for her. Say you’re willing to LIVE with her, plant trees with her and watch them grow.

Be her hero by telling her how beautiful she is in her vulnerable majesty, by helping her to remember every day that she IS Goddess through your adoration and devotion.

If you want to change the world…

Love a woman in all her faces, through all her seasons and she will heal you of your schizophrenia-your double-mindedness and half-heartedness which keeps your Spirit and body separate-which keeps you alone and always looking outside your Self for something to make your life worth living.

There will always be another woman. Soon the new shiny one will become the old dull one and you’ll grow restless again, trading in women like cars, trading in the Goddess for the latest object of your desire.

Man doesn’t need any more choices. What man needs is a Woman, the Way of the Feminine, of Patience and Compassion, non-seeking, non-doing, of breathing in one place and sinking deep intertwining roots strong enough to hold the Earth together while she shakes off the cement and steel from her skin.

If you want to change the world…

Love a woman, just one woman. Love and protect her as if she is the last holy vessel.

Love her through her fear of abandonment, which she has been holding for all of humanity.

No, the wound is not hers to heal alone. No, she is not weak in her co-dependence. If you want to change the world…

Love a woman all the way through until she believes you, until her instincts, her visions, her voice, her art, her passion, her wildness have returned to her …

… until she is a force of Love more powerful than all the political media demons who seek to devalue and destroy her.

If you want to change the world…

Lay down your causes, your guns and protest signs.

Lay down your inner war, righteous anger and Love a woman…beyond all of your striving for greatness, beyond your tenacious quest for enlightenment.

The holy grail stands before you if you would only take her in your arms and let go of searching for something beyond this intimacy.

What if peace is a dream, which can only be re-membered through the heart of the feminine, in man or woman?

What if a man’s Love for Woman, the Way of the Feminine is the key to opening Her (and His) heart?

If you want to change the world…

Love a woman to the depths of your shadow, to the highest reaches of your Being, back to the Garden where you first met her, to the gateway of the rainbow realm where you walk through together as Light as One, to the point of no return, to the ends and the beginning of a new Earth…”

To be a man and love a woman like this, she must be the kind of woman that *could* be loved like this.

♥ A woman leading her body, her life with trust, compassion and willingness. A woman that values, honors and allows her vulnerability to be witnessed, plunged into, ravished … A woman who communicates, stands in her center and opens herself wider, and wider … and wider, again. She sings her song and dances her dance in full confident feminine expression – And she honors him, his dance, his direction – yet ONLY because she honors her feminine and His masculine purpose NATURALLY fulfills her… “Here” – she knows she is home…

Thanks to Martin Hahn of www.settingheartsfree.com for sending me this post.

I Am – the Film

“We started by asking what’s wrong with the world.
We ended up by discovering what’s right with it.”

From the director BRUCE ALMIGHTY, THE NUTTY PROFESSOR AND ACE VENTURA: PET DETECTIVE comes a surprisingly powerful and inspirational film.