My Final Posting

It is here - this is the last day of my sabbatical! I deeply appreciate the opportunity to take in this year of reflection and growth. I have traveled many paths, and through it all I was committed to following my intuition. I promised to keep this blog through my sabbatical, and I am proud to say that I kept that commitment.

So the natural question is: What has changed? And more importantly, what's next?

• I certainly feel much more grounded and present in each and every moment. Now I read "A New Earth" and other similar works with much more insight and experience. I have also gotten a better sense of my ego, and as always this is a work in progress. I am working more from desire and less from proving myself. I am much more aware of my emotions and thinking, and how I feel in my body.
  
• I have improved many relationships, especially with my loving husband! I feel more in love with him than the day we married, and we both look forward to even more. Yay!
• I learned to play! I spent many hours swimming and floating in the ocean and riding my bike for hours. I felt free in my body for the first time in years.
  
• I have definitely done some inner healing work, with the support of others as well as a fair amount of self healing. I no longer feel like "swiss cheese" in my body, my energy and my emotions. My friend Pat Chapman did a lot of healing work with me especially in the first six months, using King Solomon healing techniques that have been handed down over the last 3000 years. She is a powerful healer and a very good friend, and has been very supportive in my journey. Thank you Pat! I also had some sessions with Joy Adler, another powerful healer that held a special place for my healing. Thanks Joy!
• I also had many in depth conversations with close friends - especially Gail, Chris, Pam, Jennifer, Brian, Leigh, Bobbi, Sue, and Kathy - and was contacted by many more that reached out to me with emails, phone calls, on the blog and through Facebook. Your love, support and encouragement sustained me and encouraged me to keep writing and sharing, to practice vulnerability in a way that honored me and others.
  
• I have committed myself to a healer's path for at least the next four years. As I was following my intuition, I started picking up books on energy and healing. I became a certified Quantum Touch practitioner, I received my Reiki Level II atunement, and I became an adept initiate in the Modern Mystery School (Pat initiated me). I have been volunteering at the local hospice organization and running energy with terminal patients. I have also been teaching "energy workshops" in my home for several months. I started the Barbara Brennan Healing Science program last week and already this is opening up the next level of growth for me. I am excited and energized with what continued expansion will bring into my life as well as deepen my ability to support others on their journey.
  
• I have also been integrating the healing work with my coaching practice. As I deepen my skills, I am discovering that other coaches are honing their intuition and insight with their clients. Healing work teaches me to focus my consciousness, hone my intention, tune into myself and the other person, and manage my energy in a very precise way to open the field for change to occur on many levels. Coaching is very similar, and uses conversation as the primary tool for shifting awareness along with awareness, intuition and intention. Being a healer will help me be a better coach. Being a coach helps me be a better healer.
• Prior to the sabbatical, I had taken several Global Relationship Center workshops, learning tools of self awareness and inner development. They taught me many tools that I used to deepen my development throughout my sabbatical. And, by following my intuition, many books crossed my path about energy, consciousness, quantum physics, spirituality, intuition, intention, purpose, and guidance. As it turns out, I will be learning about these topics in depth in the Barbara Brennan program. The last four years have been full of synchronicity!
  
• There were many other topic areas that I explored - adult development theory, shamanism, traditional spiritual disciplines, hypnotherapy and more. I "gave" myself permission to go anywhere my intention directed me. I traveled far and wide, and out of this exploration I could see a pattern very clearly emerging. There is a knowledge, a truth that is at the heart of all of these things. We are One. Love, Joy and Appreciation are the most powerful emotions we can experience, and all emotions are wonderful barometers for our awareness. We are happiest when we listen to the inner longing and stay present to our purpose in each thought, word and deed. This is the source of our power of creation. We are not alone - we have help available and it is up to us to use our free will to invite guidance in. To do this, we need to clear and connect, ask and allow.

So the question is - what is next? During this sabbatical, I asked that question every day and I intend to continue asking that question. I will keep listening to that deep inner longing and following this path. I do want to start coaching more clients and will focus my intention there.

We can support others, but ultimately we have to do our own "inner work". Originally, I opened my experience during my sabbatical because I wanted to encourage others to do their own inner work. I simply wanted to show others what that could look like. I hope you have enjoyed the ride! Thank you for following me over the last 12 months.

With much love and gratitude, Mj XOXO

PS - I will keep blogging from time to time, at www.heart-warrior.blogspot.com.

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Aimee Mullins: How My Legs Give Me Super Powers

This is a great example of raising the level of intention and being able to see beyond to infinite possibilities. Through her playful attitude, Aimee shows us how "disabled" is not even part of her life. She has elevated her prosthetics to an art form. She is a great example of "asking and allowing" many gifts to flow into her life. As the song says, "if you want to change your life, change your mind".

Enjoy!

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Four Steps to Living With Purpose

In October of 2008, I started a one year sabbatical. I knew that it was something I needed to do, and yet, wasn't sure how to explain why. Here is what I wrote at the time:

1. My life "wasn't working any more", in that I was not able to sustain the same pace, interest, drive and wisdom that I enjoyed in the past; and
2. I am not precisely sure "what" it is that I am looking for. On a grand scale, I am looking for peace and serenity, a centered existence where I work from a new personal power that is true to myself. I am in transition to stretch to a new level of maturity that doesn't require me to do more, but rather be more."

I was committed to follow my intuition throughout this 12 month period, and I knew in my bones that this was an important step in my purpose. Throughout my sabbatical, I followed four steps to keep me on purpose and increase my commitment: Clear and Connect, Ask and Allow

Clear and Connect - We talk about four levels of energy: mental, emotional, physical and spiritual. We are born into this world in a pure state, and as we learn and grow, we experience life and record those experiences in our memories and our bodies. In many of these experiences, we make emotional decisions - we label as "limiting beliefs" - of how the world operates. We carry the emotional memory in our body. "Because of the human tendency to perpetuate old emotion, almost everyone carries in his or her energy field an accumulation of old emotional pain, which I call 'the pain body'." (Eckert Tolle, A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose pg 135).

Connecting simply means connecting to three things: yourself, others, and your greater purpose (which may include connecting to God), and is described as a "heart connection". The more that we are connected to our purpose, our real identity without the constraints of societal and cultural expectations, and connected on a heart level with others, the happier we are. The clearer our mental, emotional and physical bodies are, the easier it is to have access to these experiences. Not impossible, just easier. It means staying present in every moment. In many challenging situations, I ask myself, "who am I and what do I want to create right now?" Connecting to myself, others and my highest intention has provided me great wisdom and appreciation.

Ask and Allow - Bruce Wilkerson in his book "The Dream Giver" asks us to look in the corner of our heart where we keep our dreams. We often tuck away our dreams, which are really our purpose for being here. Many times our ego tricks us into sabotaging our dreams - "Do I even have a dream?" "Is mine good enough?" Sometimes, once we clear and connect, a funny thing happens. We find ourselves in a very empty space. We are so used to filling every moment with something that it can be very uncomfortable to be in this space. This is a good sign! We are letting go of the ego-driven "shoulds" that dictate our lives, and clearing a space to allow our dreams to find a place in our awareness.

At this point, we are open to tap into many wonderful, creative forces in our own life. I personally believe that there are many forces and resources that are available to us beyond what we can see, touch and feel. The more that we clear and connect, the more we can ask and allow this to flow into our life.

Because our senses are sharpened, we can ask to tap into vast energy sources that are within us and all around us. How many times have you walked into a room and the "room was alive" or "it felt heavy"? You are likely feeling the energy of the people in the room. Every culture talks about unseen, external sources are available to us. We call them God, spirit guides, guardian angels, ancestors, "Source", Mother Earth - the list is endless. These are all ways that we represent what we feel but do not know directly through our traditional five senses.

Presence, meditation and visualization are powerful ways to tap into these sources because they create alpha and theta brainwaves versus beta ("high" beta is associated with intense stress). This state is sometimes described as "synchronicity" and "flow" where your life just seems to "work". I recommend a book called "The Power of Flow: Practical Ways to Transform Your Life with Meaningful Coincidence" by Charlene Belitz and Meg Lundstrom. It describes in depth many of the principles and ways to create "flow" and synchronicity in your life.

The final step - allowing - requires faith and commitment. The outcome of asking and allowing is known as the Law of Attraction and requires that we are 100% responsible for what we ask for. Ideally our requests are in alignment with our purpose, and keeps us connected to ourselves and others (in other words, does not bring harm). However, we must also be ready to accept and allow the answers, and not be attached to the outcome. There is a requirement of faith that what you have received in response to your request is in your highest good. It requires a commitment to shift your view from challenges and hurdles to a mindset of opportunities for growth and maturity.

I have lived in synchronicity and with this assumption of faith all of my life. In truth, I don't know how else to be. Throughout my life, things have not worked out the way that I wanted, and in hindsight I could always see how it worked out for the better. There were times that I was thankful I didn't get what I wanted! You could say that I color my perception in this, and you could be correct. And, my life is far happier because of this belief, especially after this sabbatical. The sabbatical was one giant step into the abyss, and for that I am deeply appreciative. That "personal power that is true to myself" that I mentioned earlier is part of my purpose. I know that I help people change their life every day. I am most successful when I consciously choose who I want to be in each and every moment.

With much love and gratitude, Mj XOXO

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