Subconscious Re-soul-utions

I hear it more often than not...."I don't do resolutions for New Years....they last about a month and then things fall right back into the way they've always been."

I can understand that. That's why a few years ago I tried Subconscious Re-soul-utions.

At the end of the year...I make a very pretty, artsy list of all the things, situations, dreams, etc. I would like to have manifest in the upcoming year. I seal it in an envelope and put it somewhere where I can find it on December 31 of the upcoming year. Then I go about my year and forget what I put on the list.

The coolest thing is to open the envelope on December 31 to see what actually manifested on its own, what didn't manifest, and what morphed into something better.

After a few years of trying Subconsious Re-soul-utions on my own, I've started doing this ritual with a coach friend to see if it works for her as well...and now I'm offering this concept to everyone I know. The results have been fascinating. Sometimes we are so hard on ourselves we don't even realize we are working on manifesting something we really love and desire because we don't see the results soon enough. But this list is proof that in little increments we really do make dreams and resolutions come true.

If you do try Subconscious Re-soul-tions...let me know next year by posting on this blog what your results are.

Inject Passion Instead of Botox

Note added Nov 17:
(Unfortunately, this video was removed from the You Tube site. The short replacement video just doesn't measure up to the touching one that was removed. People have their reasons for doing such things...so, hopefully the documentary will come out soon. "Dancing Under the Gallows." It is so inspiring to see this woman who will be 107 this November 26th and her beautiful attitude about life despite what she survived during the Holocaust.)



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I knew I'd love this woman....just look at the shoes she chooses to wear!!! (See previous blog entry.) She is living proof that passion is a very powerful way to live life! This looks like an upcoming documentary that will stay with us long after the movie is over.

Lifestyles

I have this philosophy about shoes. Shoes are a choice. I have been observing peoples' shoe choice for most of my life. Our shoe choice reveals a lot about our personality....even if we wear shoes someone else chose for us. That can reveal something too.

All the shoes in this sketch are from different parts of my life. They all hold strong memories.

I notice that I attract friends who wear either very unusual...or else earth-toned shoes. The trend in the area I live in has been white running shoes for the last 20 years. I'm a closet white running shoe wearer, only wearing them when I work out. The dirt attraction factor keeps me from wearing them out in the world. (Yowza! What message does that reveal?)

I have watched my shoe style choices change drastically along with my careers and phases of life. It's quite fascinating to spend some time observing the shoes we all choose to wear. How interesting when you date or meet someone for the first time to see if their shoes tell you things that their words may or may not. Or if you're at a lecture...what are the lecturer's shoes telling you? 

I hope you try out this shoe-cological shoe-losophy and see what it tells you.

 What types of shoes do the people in your life wear? What kind of shoes do you choose to wear?

Choosing a More Exciting Perspective

As an artist and a coach I enjoy seeing life from different perspectives. It keeps things fresh in all we do. I didn't realize the Sears Tower had been sold and renamed the Willis Tower. I also didn't know that you can go up to the top of the Willis Tower and there are several glass rooms where you can experience viewing gorgeous Chicago. You can't help, but get a tug in your stomach walking in these glass rooms. I've heard people say these rooms are dangerous, as nobody knows for sure if the glass will be effected by weather one day and one day a visitor may get a scary surprise. My scary surprise was when the parking garage bill was twice the Tower viewing fee...but still, viewing life from a glass room was an experience of a lifetime that I'm glad I can share with you in a photo. Lesson: Life can be exhilirating when you choose to view it from a crazy, new perspective.

Nature Makes its Statement

Too early one morning, I woke up with a startled and

strange feeling of dread! Because I just had a webinar the night before with Rick Jarow about paying attention to how emotion expresses in our body feelings, I noticed my usual body expression of fear goes from the stomach down. This body feeling was from the stomach to my upper body. More of a fear of outside influence. Not understanding this feeling of fear, I decided to get out of bed and do something kind of mundane to try and fall asleep. While I sorted a chaotic mess of seed beads by color, I heard a loud bump outside the house. I looked out the window and there was this bear rummaging around, clawing at rocks searching for something. I'm not the most knowledgable about what to do when crossing paths with bears, but I knew I wasn't going to shoot him with anything but a camera. It also took much more courage to mow the lawn or even walk to the car after that.
Life is always full of unexpected surprises. That seems to be the message of the month for me. We make plans and have this picture in our mind's eye what the outcome of our plans will look like, then life comes along and adds its brush strokes to the picture. Another message from this....sometimes things look so cuddly...but get too close and watch out!

A Comedic Truth

 Anyone who has been to a therapist can relate to this MAD TV skit that still sticks in my memory from a few years ago.
 A big phrase repeated in one coaching school I attended was, "Don't be stuck in your story."  I don't exactly coach with that philosophy of making story wrong. Story is important. It's the "stuck" part of that sentence that I would focus on more.
It's hard to keep intellectualizing and trying to figure out why things happened to us....or how we can heal a past wound. Sometimes we can intellectualize a situation so often that we begin to feel like we're in a Woody Allen movie .
Wouldn't it be nice if we could just detach and "stop it?" Wouldn't it be nice if therapy cost $5 and lasted 5 minutes? That skit was ahead of its time.
It's those little things called feelings that make letting go difficult....especially when a current situation pours salt on a past wound.
So far, with a lifetime of experimenting with how to "stop it," I find Eckhart Tolle's philosophy of living in the now to come the closest to detaching, letting go and keeping on the path. But, as the skit says between the lines...it's simple, but not always easy.

Taking a huge risk

On a recent trip to NYC, while peering out my hotel window, my heart lept into my throat! I saw this man washing windows with no protective safety gear! I just had to capture that Kodak Moment. I thought, "Is he fearless, confident, or ignorant?"


This sure is a perfect metphor for how we can feel when we face change or start a new venture. And don't we have that same feeling in the back of our mind when we are brand new at something? "Can I be fearless doing this foreign new action? Can I trust it will succeed? Or am I just being ignorant?"

I see that this window washer felt very used to standing out on a ledge. So maybe facing change is just about getting used to doing that uncomfortable or scary thing with lots of practice. I know he is very focused on his task at hand and nothing else. There's a lot to be said for keeping our eyes on the prize no matter what potential dangers lurk below.