TED: Ideas worth spreading

Do you know about TED?  Check out ted.com for awesome, inspirational, creative, educational, enlightening videos.  Why watch a sitcom, when you could listen to someone who moves you?  


"TED is a small nonprofit devoted to Ideas Worth Spreading. It started out (in 1984) as a conference bringing together people from three worlds: Technology, Entertainment, Design. "


The internet isn't just for porn anymore.  It is about collaborating for the greater good.


Here's the latest one I've watched.  Drew Dudley on "Leading with Lollipops."

Happy exploring!

Intention and Ingestion

I find that I hold many beliefs about what I ingest.  My Darling caught me in a negative one this morning:  sugar suppresses my immune system.  I caught the other negative one:  pills make me sick.

I am sick at the moment.  I've been sick for about 3 weeks now with a sinus infection.  The symptoms kept changing, I kept treating them and they'd get better.  Only to have another symptom appear.  So finally I went to the doctor (which was a tangle of interesting coincidences) and they gave me an antibiotic.

And the antibiotic makes me sick.  As I sit here, nauseous and green, I started reading about the side effects of doxycycline, the main one is nausea.  I learned that for this pill, I drank the wrong liquid, with the wrong food, and my stomach doesn't like it.  Crap.

My first reaction was resentful resistance.  No WAY I'm taking this pill if it's going to make me sick and I don't want to get a new drug and pay more money for it.  Grrrrrr.....

Then I caught myself.  I am a powerful creator.  I am allowed to feel well.  I can use my intention to allow the antibiotic to work without harm to my stomach or the rest of my body.  Time to get out of the way.

I got still and started asking my body what it needed to feel better.  I started by drinking some water because water would dilute the drug in my stomach.  Though I wasn't hungry, my body said that more food would help to minimize the irritation.  Thinking of what would be absorbent and quick to fix, I muscle tested and came up with oatmeal as the best food to make me feel better.

No time for my fancy oatmeal, so I threw in things that didn't need to be chopped and I nuked it.  Instead of the butter, I grabbed coconut oil, some cinnamon, a few craisins, and all the honey I could get out of the jar.  I could've added brown sugar instead, I could've skipped the sweetness all together, but I was determined that I needed honey, though we're almost out.

I was telling him about my choices, quite proud of making healthy choices that would heal me.  And he points out, "If you think so."  And he's right, of course.

If I believe my oatmeal is medicinal and will make me feel better, then it will.

He tends to be of the belief that a person could eat nothing but Twinkies and thrive, if they believed that these magic Twinkies gave their body everything it needed.  (The magic must be in the rocks! lol )

Whereas, my belief is that Twinkies are full of "bad stuff" (HFCS, saturated fats, preservatives, and food colorings) that will make, me, the eater of this pseudofood suffer at some point.

We have an opinion about everything that we put into our bodies, our food, drugs, vitamins, smoke, alcohol.  And when we ingest things that we have a negative opinion about, we believe it affects us adversely.  Which is why it would be wisest to ingest with positive intention every single time AND do regular maintenance of my shields because I don't need anyone else's negative opinions either.

I'm forgiving myself for sabotaging my healing a bit and moving forward.  I'll be meditating on this, getting my head right about my treatment with antibiotics.  Treating my body kindly, doing a bit of yoga to get some energy flowing, and tapping to remove & replace some beliefs that aren't serving me.

I'm intending and appreciating my return to optimal health and functioning.

And I seriously doubt that I will be eating any Twinkies!

Blessing my home

I am doing a massive decluttering of my home to create some new energy and in the process I am blessing my home.  It's so much easier to help someone else de-clutter their space, this is my stuff and there's all sorts of emotion tied to it.

It's interesting the emotions that are coming up for me....I've had some fear, some anger, some sadness.  I just keep tapping it off and allowing the energy to flow through me.  And I'm using that energy to get through it.

I've caught myself multiple times resorting to my old negative ways of thinking.  Too frequently, I decide that I need a break, or that I deserve another cookie.  As I get more of the clutter handled, and more issues resolved, I'm feeling less anxious and my appetite is coming back a bit.  Which is good and bad.

It's interesting, as I confront things in the process of cleaning up, I find I am definitely resorting to my old habit of comfort eating.  I know for sure that once this project is complete, I'll be doing an aversion to soft-top lemon cookies.  :)  They call my name when I'm at my weakest.  So that has to be fixed!

But for right now, I'm simply acknowledging that I'm judging myself and then I practice a little self-forgiveness.  It's a chance to accept myself exactly as I am.  When I start feeling uncomfortable and find myself craving a cookie or wanting a break, it's time to be aware of what my body needs and notice what's upsetting me instead of beating myself up for it.

Tapping is really helping me to eliminate the negative thoughts I have about cleaning.  When I feel stressed or overwhelmed by it all, I tap off the bad stuff, and the job gets a whole lot easier.  Sometimes I really DO need a break and a drink of water and sometimes I need to quit whining and take 5 minutes more to finish the job.  

Blogging break is over :)  back to work for me!

Creating my ideal body - connecting through yoga

I had first learned yoga as a little kid when my mom and grandparents started practicing it, but I hadn't been doing it as a workout for years and years.  I tried using the cardio equipment and walking, but my shoes made my feet hurt.  I tried swimming, but I'm an indifferent swimmer and never really felt like I worked hard.

So I went back to a beginner's yoga class.  Feeling really fat in my tight yoga clothes.  Feeling really unsure of my balance, my flexibility, my knowledge.   I was really uncomfortable going to class in general.  My practice had come from TV, videos, and books.  I had never taken a class.

But soon, I was reminded what an individual practice yoga is.  I tapped off my uncomfortableness and I started feeling more connected to my breath and I got stronger and more flexible.  Because I felt so much better and I could feel the progress it made it easier to continue.   

Yoga is very much a journey and the only competition is with yourself.  And yet, this class was in an aerobics atmosphere.  It was quite difficult to not look around the room and contrast and compare.  I found that the times when I hurt myself, it was because I was trying to prove how good I was.  Trying to do better than someone else, or trying to keep up.

Ego can definitely cause pain when practicing yoga.  I learned the hard way several times that it's better to move slowly, breathe, and accept exactly where I was rather than push too hard and force it.

Others have already written extensively about the benefits of yoga, if you haven't heard me rave about yoga over and over already, go read all about it.   lol  I'll just say that yoga is some of the best exercise that ANYONE can do, regardless of age, ability, flexibility, or strength.  If you can breathe, you can do yoga.  All you need is some basic information and instruction and you can do it easily.

My yoga practice continues to shape and sculpt my body.  In August, when I started practicing yoga nearly every day, I was wearing a size 24.  Now I wear a 14.  I am stronger and more flexible than I have ever been and so much more comfortable in my own skin.  

In the beginning, it took effort to go to class.  I think it was about January that I experienced a shift and feel motivated to practice yoga.  It's no longer about willpower.  I never think, "Oh god, I have to go exercise again!"  I tend to think, "Oh goody!  I get to go do yoga!  I'll feel so much better when I'm done."  

And I'm honestly excited about the next time I get to practice and work my body hard.

Creating my ideal body - the first steps

Last August, 2009, I made a decision that I was going to feel better about my body.

In the process of having two babies, I had gained a lot of weight on my already less-than-in-shape body.  It was depressing to get dressed, my feet hurt so bad I could barely walk barefoot, and my blood pressure was high.  And my babies weren't babies any longer.  I was wearing a size 24, and even some of those were getting tight.

Because of my history of dieting, and low self-esteem in general, I was completely unwilling to go on a diet and restrict my calories, or, god forbid, keep a food journal, or do weekly weigh-ins.  lol  I have done all those things in the past, and I hated it.

It didn't matter how much I knew that to lose weight I had to diet and exercise.  I was NOT going to do it that way ever again.

In determining the path I was going to take, I tapped and meditated.  What I learned was that what I really wanted was to feel comfortable and happy in my own skin.  My number that came up on the scale really didn't matter.  What mattered to me was:

• that I felt good in my clothes
• that I was able to shop in "normal" sizes instead of specialty plus sizes
• that my feet didn't hurt
• that the doctor and dentist weren't bugging me about my blood pressure
• that my husband thought I was sexy
• that I stayed alive to raise my kids

The first thing I did was to get rid of all my clothes that made me feel frumpy and fat.  It was easy to pick out the couple of items that I wore and felt pretty good in.  The clothes that fit, didn't have holes or stains,  and made me feel good were few....it left me with about 3 outfits.  Everything else got bagged up and I drove it to the donation box.

When you have nothing to wear and your closet is literally empty, there's some strong motivation to get some new clothes.  We were a single income family at the time, and we didn't have ANY budget for new clothes, so I went to the thrift store.  For about $60 I bought myself a slightly used wardrobe that made me feel comfortable AND beautiful.

Mostly I found long skirts and dresses, this was a fall wardrobe, nothing tight around my stomach, and long enough that I could wear socks instead of hose.  I shunned all the jeans and most of the pants in general.  My husband had admitted to me that he thought I looked better in skirts and besides, my jeans were the first thing to squeeze me and make me feel fat.  Basically, my wardrobe went from frumpy stay-at-home mom to business casual.

The energy shift was amazing!   Suddenly, people were complimenting me everywhere I went.  Suddenly, I didn't feel the stress of getting dressed in the morning. People wondered why I was dressed up all the time.  

The next step was to go back to practicing yoga.  

Reclaiming Your Energy: transforming a negative relationship

We all have those people in our lives that we'd rather NOT deal with.  The ones who make you grit your teeth every time you have to deal with them.  This may be an ex-partner, co-worker, boss, family member, teacher, classmate, or neighbor.  This is a person who causes you pain, anger, frustration, and outright disbelief that they behave so badly.

Unfortunately, for many of us they just keep coming back to create chaos and disarray in your life.

Would you like it to be over?  No, I'm NOT talking about dropping them in a big hole or hiring someone to "take care of matters" or sticking pins in a voodoo doll.  I'm talking about a way that's legal, that doesn't lead to pain, suffering, or loss for ANY of the involved parties.

With a couple of exercises, that you do to align your energy, you can affect how others interact with you.  The results often appear magical!

I've used these exercises frequently in my own life and taught many of my friends.  Without saying a word to the person who is causing you distress, either they simply disappear or can't come near you.  OR they have a shift in their behavior, and suddenly start showing empathy and kindness in dealings with you to create an equitable end to the relationship.

Are you willing to try something different and achieve something you thought was "impossible"?

In this sixty minute workshop, you'll learn 2 energy exercises to change your co-creation with someone who is creating chaos and pain in your life.  We'll also discuss ways to cope and heal from abusive or traumatic situations and allow a new creation into your life.

Joy in Small Creations

It's the small stuff that really makes me smile!

There are small signs of when your energy is flowing, and learning to pay attention to them is so beneficial.

For instance, I've been creating abundant prosperity and I'm finding coins everywhere.  It's not the large sums of money that I am ultimately creating, but I'm taking it as a sign that the trickling has begun.  I tapped on prosperity the other day and was feeling really good, and five minutes later, found $101 in the craft cupboard.  I must've slipped some money in there at some point, but I don't remember doing it.  The important part was that I found it!

It's encouraging to see some changes in your own energy and as you allow these small creations, they clear the way for the bigger creations to manifest.

For years now, I've worked on small creations in traffic situations.  Usually, these creations manifest as  hitting all the green lights, considerate drivers in general, a lack of traffic, a bubble of space between me and the other drivers.  Then there's the "parking fairy" (gosh I wish I could draw my mental picture!)  The parking fairy and I are friends, and he always makes sure I have a good spot.  It's a bit of silliness, and it works like magic when you allow it.

My best small creation has been pleasing me to no end on a daily basis:  the simple act of finding things.  My own habit has been to misplace things, and then get all upset and usually late.  And that's been changing.  Literally, I have been able to stop myself, breathe, and allow the lost item to be found.   It feels effortless and almost as if it's NOT a big deal, except that I still remember how I used to do it, and I acknowledge that it's a HUGE deal to do it differently.

Life is made up of a lot small creations.  And it's fun to learn to gain some control over them and celebrate the times you're doing it right.

In this sixty minute workshop, I will teach you some simple exercises to allow you to clear your energy and find your groove as you move through your daily life.