The Renaissance grew out of those desperate times. It was an awakening as new social, cultural and economic thought was necessary to reach beyond those times of despair. To succeed in that mission, there was a shift in how people thought and behaved. There was a drive toward gaining control over nature to make it “useful” and “productive”, and a need for control over people in order to survive and thrive. This led to the growth of trade and prosperity, lifting people from despair to salvation. But, it also created a mindset of lack, a fear of scarcity, an overall sense of insecurity.


Which of these ideas do you yourself have?
“I have to work hard to succeed”
“Money doesn’t fall from the trees”
“I need to start from the bottom and make my way up slowly”
“I need to have a college degree to make it”
“Having a job at a big company gives me stability and security”
“Nothing is that easy”
“If I don’t produce I am not worthy”
“I have to deserve to get what I want”
“If someone else got the award and not me, I probably don’t deserve it”
Sound familiar?
Our beliefs about control, innovation, productivity and the balance in our bank accounts are born from centuries-old fears that were necessary beliefs at the time. We allowed those fears to persist and become our truth. This is not serving us well.

Ask yourself
Who your limiting beliefs belong to? Are they yours?
Do they reflect your reality? Or were they carried over from your parents, grandparents and ancient history?
Are these beliefs serving you to achieve your goals? Or are they keeping you from living an authentic life?
Do you find it hard to break out of limiting habits and self sabotage behaviour patterns?

You may be aware that reflecting on these questions is creating a shift in your thoughts and your emotions. Questioning our old ways of living is the foundation for opening our creativity to new and better ways.
By understanding the origin of our limiting beliefs and accepting them, that acceptance, will lead us to a better set of circumstances and beliefs in the future.
A paradigm shift is taking place in the world. We may feel torn apart, as if we’re in the middle of an inner war between old beliefs and new ones. We may feel caught between “should” and what the heart wants, between old habits that die hard and new ones struggling to serve us better. But don’t panic and don’t give up.
The new beliefs are based on happiness, joy and inner truth rather than need, fear and control.
Instead of control we seek for personal responsibility.
Instead if fear we find love.
Choose positive, happier thoughts and join the shift.

The urge and ability to produce is part of who we are as humans; it is what makes us unique. We don’t want to change this amazing quality. Instead, we are called to change its meaning, our own perception to our need to be productive.
It is the way we take care of our lives what gives productivity its meaning and not productivity what gives meaning to our lives.

We are awakening…

“Hard work is not the path to wellbeing. Feeling good is the path to Well-Being. You don’t create through action; you create through vibration. And then, your vibration calls action from you.” Abraham Hicks

So, how are you all doing with those New Year’s resolutions you made?
So many of us put pressure on ourselves at the beginning of the year to work through our resolutions but what happens when we’re focused on what we want to fix is that we end up placing our attention on what’s wrong. This is a risky way to start the New Year because from the beginning it places the emphasis on the unwanted, placing us in a state of need. Why do so many of us fail at our resolutions? Because our dominant thoughts are on what needs to be fixed causing us to actually attract more of that. Resolutions are doomed to fail for that reason.

All our thoughts are vibrations. For example, thoughts of joy, peace, and love are of the highest vibration while thoughts of neediness, fear, jealousy and anger are of the lowest vibration. If you want something badly enough then thinking positive isn’t enough to attract that very thing you want. You have to feel it.

The past few years have taken a toll on many of us. Who amongst us has not suffered job upheavals, have had to weather economic storms or have had to climb above one crisis or another? This has been a year of awakening and breakthrough for many people who have had to overcome some major obstacles.

First things first. How can you attract more of what you want?

Steps 1: take a retrospective look at 2011

Take a mental inventory of your 2011. Make a list of the events and experiences that touched you. Ask yourself what you learned about life, your relationships and your own self. What did you struggle with? What did you accomplish? What were your breakthroughs?
What did you achieve in every area of your life, personal and spiritual, family, relationships, work and career, leisure and fun? We learn best from assessing our experiences.

Step 2: Accept, embrace, cherish and celebrate

Now here’s the hard part I’m going to ask you to do: Accept. Accept yourself, your body, your relationships, your place, your career. As Eckhart Tolle says, “Acknowledging the good that you already have in your life is the foundation for all abundance.”
Celebrate your breakthroughs and achievements while also embracing and cherishing your struggles. They are as much a part of your personal evolution as your achievements and breakthroughs.

When we accept our now circumstances we make room for improved circumstances in the future.

Step 3: set up your goals and resolutions for 2012

After completing step 1 and step 2 you are ready to look at your goals and resolutions for 2012. Make a realistic action plan, break it into baby steps and celebrate each milestone. Yes! Celebrate the milestones and don’t belittle your achievements. If you feel resistance then continue working on your blockages. If you can’t or don’t know how to clear the blockages on your own coaching can help.
And while you’re looking at first things first, know that each step you take toward a desired result, you are actually closer to closing in on those resolutions of yours.

Have a wonderful journey!

It’s easy to feel gratitude when life is good but how can we hang onto gratitude when the unexpected happens, or when we feel pain?
I recently read a parable about a beggar which is a perfect lesson about gratitude:

There is a beggar sitting on a box on the corner of a sidewalk. He has his hands out, asking for money. A man walks by and says, “I have nothing to give today but I see you’re sitting on a box. What’s inside the box you’re sitting on?”

“I’m sure there’s nothing inside. I’m just using it as a seat.” the beggar said.

“Well,” the man asked, “did you ever check to see what’s inside?”

And of course, the beggar had considered the box with only one frame of reference; to have something to sit on and so no, it hadn’t occurred to him to look inside.

Just like the beggar, too many of us are hard-wired to seek abundance in hard to reach or distant places when all we really need to do is pay more attention to what we already have. To stay where we are, do what we enjoy doing and stick to what we know best.

The law of attraction works quite simply; show appreciation for what we have and the universe gives us more.

To be grateful is to appreciate what we have in the present moment. We have to appreciate what we have to attract more of the blessings life has to offer. By finding appreciation for even the smallest of blessings the pathway to obtaining more objects of our gratitude opens.
When we accept and our set of circumstances today that acceptance will lead us to a better set of circumstances in the future.

Action Steps:

1. Begin a “Gratitude List” For example, mine includes such items as I am grateful for my car because it takes to me all the places I need and want to go and I am grateful for the mortgage I pay as it means I have a place to call home
2. Keep the list next to your bed, read it before going to sleep and each day add one thing to the list that you are grateful for; something you embrace that happened, a special moment with someone, a special talk, something you learned…
3. Repeat, “I have abundance in my life” everyday, especially when you’re having negative thoughts of scarcity
4. Be consistent and persistent. Express genuine attitudes of gratitude and in time the floodgates of abundance will open for you

When you examine aspects of your adult life in the reflection of your parents’ what do you see? Do you find similar patterns of behaviour and beliefs? Studies show that while your adult story, packaging and life circumstances are different you are likely to find consistencies in the struggles and challenges that you face.

So, I ask; are you living your parents’ story?

Here’s a short story to illustrate the point I’m making. The issue is one man’s relationship to wealth. The name is fictionalized, the story is not.

John’s father was born into a wealthy family and his mother came from a poor family. John grew up rich. He was afforded every comfort and lacked for nothing. His mother, who grew up in near poverty raised John to see the bigger picture; that there is a world of people out there who do not live in such opulent comfort, families who worry about food and shelter from day to day.

She took him to a poor neighbourhood to see what it looks and feels like to be less fortunate. She relentlessly preached appreciation to the point where John suffered pangs of guilt just for being born into a wealthy family.
And then, when John was a teen, the most formative years of his life, the family lost everything and he watched as his parents struggled to rebuild. He heard “no we can’t afford it,” to his every request.

John moved out, went to university and got married. He married a wealthy girl. They bought a condo and enjoyed a comfortable life. They were both professionals, they had a combined income that allowed them to enjoy the good life and save for the future, worry-free.

As time went by, John pursued his dream of starting a business. He made one bad investment and lost everything. With a big family and growing debt, he and his wife went back to their former careers that provided security and monthly salaries but they still struggled with expenses.

John started coaching sessions with me. He mentioned having abundance blockages. When I asked him, what do you want me to help you with, what’s your goal? He answered “I want financial freedom.”

So I asked, “What would make you feel you have financial freedom? What has to manifest? ”
His list included:

• Twice annual family vacations
• Owning a house
• A once weekly date night with wife and babysitter for the kids

And so on…

We went on an “abundance journey process” together.

Some of his childhood memories revealed a distorted perception that rich people are unappreciative and poor people are nice people who we should feel sorry for. Because of his mother’s influence, instead of feeling blessed about his abundance and empowered to help the less fortunate, he felt guilty and greedy.

Through the process of uncovering stored memories and releasing the emotional trauma trapped within, he forgave his parents and forgave himself for perceiving abundance as “negative, shameful.” He came to understand that he adopted these beliefs from his mom and carried this “abundance complex” into his adult life. Through coaching sessions John began to see inside that his inner truth, the real him didn’t believe that wealthy people, that he shouldn’t feel guilty for what they have and what they earn.

Through the guided journey process, he was able to thank his parents for the lessons they taught him and then he simply let go; he cut the financial connection that was the obstacle to “create my own story.” Now open to receive abundance, every item on his abundance list has begun to manifest.

Are you being held back by living your parents’ story?

Action steps:

1. What areas of your life could use some shaping up?
2. Scan this area/issue from past to present.
3. How did this area manifest in your parent’s life?
4. How did it manifest in your life through the years?
5. Are you living their story? Did you borrow that story from them?

 
Perhaps you would like to let go of their story and re-write your own so you can live your personal truth. Individual or group coaching can assist you in moving forward and experiencing your story more fully.

For example; there’s a history of heart disease in the family so every year you donate to the Heart and Lung Association. That’s an emotional decision. Meanwhile your brain asks the hard questions; is it the right charity choice for you? What amount should you give? Should you raise or lower your donation amount this year? The brain has access to all the data from our personal life experiences and filters everything to see if the idea is logical.

Many of us are raised to think things through, weigh the pros and cons, to talk to ourselves making it hard to trust our gut feelings. While the brain can manage all the critical thinking that needs to go into making decisions the heart can be an accurate predictor and a deciding influence on making choices that fit.

Together, they actually make a great team but first and foremost, one must allow the heart to lead and then delegate the logistics to the mind. It is this combined intelligence of the heart and the head that strengthens us. When we have control over our minds we are happy and at peace.

Action steps to listening to your inner truth:

1. Sit comfortably
2. Breathe in and out, at least five times, relaxing completely
3. Tune into yourself; your entire body should be completely relaxed
4. Ask your question
5. Observe your body. Does it contract? Is there a heaviness or pain in the chest, pressure or back pain when you ask the question?
6. If your body contracts the answer to your question is NO, an indication you should not do what you are asking for. If your body relaxes then that is a sign that the answer is YES.

For example: You’re buying a new house and you narrow it down to two choices. You still can’t decide. Using the above exercise, ask: “Should I buy house A?” If your body contracts the answer is no, if it relaxes the answer is YES. You can do the exercise again with choice B. Have fun with it and you will make wiser choices through this technique.

I am the master of my fate: I am the captain of my soul. ~ Nelson Mandela

Alchemy is the science of trying to convert one form of matter into another using fire, potions, spells, and all kinds of other tricks. In medieval times it was a means of transmuting base metals into gold. People can use the same alchemic process. No fire, potions, or spells needed in this exercise; just the simple desire to rid oneself of a painful, inhibiting past.

I will use the fictional John Doe’s story to illustrate how personal alchemy can work. John Doe has been feeling trapped in a retail job for 20 years. Working long days, weekends and holidays are starting to take a toll on him. Sales quotas are going up, salary has remained the same for the past 5 years and the cost of living has risen. All of this is leaving John Doe feeling stuck; hopeless and desperate about the future.

Aware that he can either continue on this path to stress-filled dead ends or he can find a way to make a change. He chooses the latter and decides to see a coach. In their sessions together they discuss why he doesn’t attempt to find a different job.

Through the process of uncovering the past that he is able to break free and change the future.

John Doe grew up in a house with an often unemployed Dad who could seldom make the house payments. Collectors rang the bell, phone lines were cut and he was embarrassed to bring friends over. Yet none of those feelings were ever expressed. They were locked up inside of him and grew into memories that kept storing themselves in every cell of his being. As a consequence, he has been attracting situations that make him feel hopeless and incompetent manifesting itself in feeling paralyzed by his circumstances.

Through a guided forgiving process, it is possible to unlock memories and pain; to free the emotional system and release the negative emotions. As a result we don’t manifest them in our present life.

If any of this sounds familiar to you I urge you take the journey and bring the shadows of your past into the light of today… become an alchemist!

So, why tell this story? Because, people become imprisoned by limiting belief systems that keep them locked in the cage holding the banana. If we could discover what we’re clinging to we’d be able to condition ourselves to change the action that is holding us prisoner and keeping us from moving forward.

What are you clinging on?
Actions? Achievements? Results? How you should feel?

We could drop the banana (let go of beliefs) by shedding the should haves, could haves and would haves that no longer serve us.

Our freedom relies on letting go and letting the grace of the universe surprise us with its gifts, with a better way for us, the right way for us.

Sometimes what ends up being right is not what we expected; it’s not what we thought we should have, could have or would have done and yet, when we open ourselves to other possibilities we are able to connect the dots back and say “oh yes that was for the best.” The realization may come a day, a week or even years after but none of that matters. All that matters is your ability to see what comes to your life as a gift.

Drop the chains of the past, stop judging and change perspective.
Action steps
Think R-O-A-R;
R: relax O: open A: ask R: receive

Next:

1. Close your eyes
2. Breathe in and out at least five times to relax
3. Open your heart & mind like a child with no expectations
4. Ask your questions (what do you want, how do you want to feel).  Ask for answers.
5. Release the clinging and allow the thinking and the answers to come

Are the pages frayed and the spine weakened from having been handled often? How many pages are stamped with visits to other countries? Our life experience is like a passport and the memories of past events become pages in our life story.

People travel for a whole host of reasons; we plan vacations to relax, we travel for business, we visit distant friends and relatives to celebrate milestone moments such as births, birthdays, weddings, anniversaries and funerals. Some people leave their home countries to study, to do missionary work, to start a new life. Whenever we cross international lines, our passports are marked. And, as we live through those experiences we too become marked by them.

Imagine you are a passport booklet. What does it say about you and what stories and memories are held within the pages of your life? Which would you rather be? The one stamped with many marks on the pages or the one with blank pages?

Holding onto only the happy memories while running away from feelings and events that help shape us interferes with the development of our full potential. When we hide our negative experiences we’re not allowing the gifts of our well worn, oft-stamped passports to be revealed. Happiness is a state of being that we can create for ourselves.

Beauty lies in how we remember what happened in the past; in how we perceive these events. Those beliefs affect how we experience life in the present time and that is how we evolve and grow as human beings; that is the path to personal growth. We learn from experiences, not from books.

Action steps:

• Revisit the parts of your past that unsettle you
• Make a list of all your thoughts and feelings surrounding those events and then ask and answer the following:
  • How did you perceive it when it happened in the past?
  • How do you perceive it now in the present?
  • What is different today in what have you learned about yourself through that experience?
• Thank the people involved in this experience for playing part in your personal growth process
• Thank the universe/God whatever you believe is out there for having the opportunity to learn what you have learned.