My Journey of Gratitude - Day 28

Some days I just have to laugh at what a slow learner I can be.  Today is one of those days!  I began my usual process of stepping into gratitude, especially giving thanks for these past 30 days, which are quickly coming to an end. 

As I was expressing my gratitude for an experience yesterday that I would preferred to not have had, I realized that being in a state of gratitude does not keep me from feeling old worries and fears, nor does it protect me from the challenges in life.  I find that I still worry and fret over what isn't going well in my life and at times old beliefs still pop up and get in my way.  It's part of the human experience I suppose; just not the most pleasant part.

The state of gratitude does not guarantee me sunshine and rainbows every day. 
What it does do is give me an essential tool to quickly shift my perspective and my experience.

Remember that gratitude is also a choice. I can take the time, even in the midst of anger or worry, to choose to feel gratitude for something.  I may not enter the state of gratitude, but I can certainly shift my mood with the feeling of gratitude.  To say to myself "I choose this instead of that."

With that understanding came an image of how I've been practicing gratitude up to this point.  Practicing it--not being it.  It is a journey after all, not a destination, so learning wisdom along the way is a good thing.

The image I saw was of me carrying a huge, heavy rock.  This rock was so big that it blocked my view of where I was heading.  I had to crane my neck to see around it, but right in front of me--just a big ole piece of impenetrable rock. 

Now the interesting thing is that I've carried this 2 ton piece of earth with me for so long that it became part of me--who knew! 

I saw that during this journey of stepping into gratitude, I would unconsciously put the rock down, step into gratitude and have my beautiful experience--and then pick up that darn rock again and continue on my not-so-merry way.  No wonder I often feel exhausted and can't always 'see' where I'm headed!

Because change is a choice, gratitude is a choice--I made a choice to let go of the rock and try something new.  I didn't need nor did I want that rock any longer, and I no longer wanted my journey of gratitude to be separate from who I am, what I do and where I'm headed. 

At first the rock turned into a pile of gifts--gifts that I can offer to others, but they were still heavy and still blocked my vision.  Not yet matching my vision.

So I sat there as gratitude came to me--that was a new experience.  Gratitude stepping into me rather than vice versa.  As I allowed myself to be bathed in and invigorated by this state of gratitude, the gifts disappeared completely and there was only me standing there with no obstacles to block my vision.

Me. My knowledge, skills, talents and personality are the gifts I bring to my life and to my clients.  Who I am-exactly as I am--is the gift I bring.

Who you are, exactly as you are-that is the gift you bring to the world.

And that knowing my friends is worth this entire journey!  For this I am most grateful.

What are your stories, your questions, your opinions?  I am grateful for you in my life and would love to hear from you.

In gratitude,
Bonnie

My Journey of Gratitude - Day 27

These past 27 days have been rich with learning, understanding and healing. The more I learn, the more I realize how much more there is to learn. I settled into my 10 minutes of gratitude this morning curious what I would experience. Expecting the usual learning and understanding, I felt a different energy begin to flow in.
 

Receiving--the energy of receiving began flowing strongly through me. Then I realized that my focus had been on what I could learn about myself on this journey, that it had not dawned on me that I could simply receive gratitude.

 

Gratitude is more than being thankful, more than expressing gratefulness; it is also receiving gratitude as well as expressing it.

 

So I relaxed even more into this state and felt myself being divinely loved. I felt for the very first time the Divine Intelligence expressing gratitude for my existence. I felt the gratitude of others grateful for me.

 

Talk about a big turn-around in understanding! I have been so busy practicing the state of gratitude that I had forgotten that others are grateful for my existence as much as I am grateful for theirs.

 

I sat with my heart melting open and tears of joy welling up in my eyes as I understood a simple yet profound truth--the divine creator of life cherishes my existence...is grateful for me being here now, being me.

 

This state of gratitude is a full body-mind-spirit experience of giving-receiving-blessings. Being in a state of gratitude allows my Soul to be a full participant in my life. Being in a state of gratitude allows YOUR Soul to be a full participant in your life--if you allow it.

   

"I am the master of my fate. I am the captain of my soul." And my existence is made sacred and holy through this state of gratitude.

 

When I am in gratitude I feel the entire universe open to me and for me.  And that is a most delicious feeling.

I welcome your thoughts and your stories.

In gratitude,

Bonnie

The remains of yesterday's turkey simmering on the stove on its way to becoming tomorrow's soup, I allowed that delicious aroma to take me deeper into my state of gratitude this morning. Thoughts of yesterday's time with family floated across my mind until I had given thanks for each person, each bite of food and each memory.

Then a deep sense of inner peace flowed through me, and there I stayed, floating in peace and feeling at one with the world.

When I finally opened my eyes, 20 minutes had flown by! I realized that while life has its ups and downs, it also has its times of peaceful plateaus.

Today I am grateful for my plateau where I can simply relax in peace and love for the day.

All is well--and for that I am most grateful.

Please feel free to share your experiences! I welcome knowing how you experience gratitude and all that you are grateful for in your life.

In gratitude,
Bonnie

My Journey of Gratitude - Day 21

This morning's journey began with frustration.  Frustration because some things I'm working towards are not happening, or at least not happening at the speed I want.  So my meditation began with a bit of cursing the challenges I face.  Why me?  Why not me? What good is it to be grateful for my troubles and challenges?  That just smacks of my old religious upbringing to be grateful for what little God gives me!

So there I sat with my questions and gave thanks for them.  Even if I couldn't feel grateful for the challenges, I was at least grateful for the questions.  It didn't take long for the answers to move through me.

Gratitude must come from the inside.  When I look outside of myself to what I do or do not have, it is easy to lose that sense of gratitude because gratitude will never come from outside of myself.  It is an 'inside job' and that's where the powerful of gratitude lies--within each of us.  Not out in the world we experience, but within each one of us is the seed of gratitude.

'Challenges, problems, troubles, difficulties, not-enoughness'--are words we have assigned a negative meaning to and they come with energy that contracts us rather than expands us. 

What if I shifted my perspective and thought of them as 'opportunities'?  After all, isn't that what they really are--opportunities to take action, make a new decision, re-evaluate, let go, embrace, to say yes please or no thank you to situations in our lives.  How would that change my feelings about what happens around me?

An instant internal shift happened and I again slipped into that gentle warmth of gratitude.  Thankful for a new understanding; thankful that I asked a better question and received a better answer.  Thankful that by simply changing my perception of words I shifted from contraction into the expansive energy of gratitude.

So now I understand that the situations I face are opportunities for me to re-think and re-choose the direction I want to move on this journey that is my life.

That is a powerful understanding to receive!

And it makes all the difference in the world to me.  Instead of contracting into frustration and old patterns, gratitude expanded me into new ways of thinking about my reality.  How 'real' do I want this situation to be--and what do I want to be real for me instead?  Again--a better question yields a better answer.

I am grateful for the opportunities to succeed that are now open before me. I have some re-thinking and re-choosing to do today!

In gratitude,
Bonnie

My Journey of Gratitude - Day 16

I want to first thank a good friend of mine for helping me yesterday to clear some of the old stuff that has arisen during this journey of mine.  Whenever you make a shift of any kind your frequency changes and whatever you've been holding that no longer resonates with that new 'you' shakes loose and needs to be released.  That is what healing is all about--letting go of what no longer fits.  So yesterday my friend Sue helped me let go of all that had shaken loose and I feel so much more freedom.  For that I am grateful.

So this morning, feeling more freedom within and without, I sat down to practice my 10 minutes of gratitude.  It was easier to get into that state of gratitude this morning because most of the chatter that I normally have to move through was gone.  A big WooHoo! on that score!

What is left behind is a deeper warmth, like glowing embers after the logs have burned themselves down.  A calm, steady warmth that spread through me, deep into my bones.

Not the high that I've always felt before; you know that mountain top experience we often get. But with every high must come a leveling out because we are not called to live at the top of the mountain all the time--or at least I'm not.  I am called to live amongst people and be of service from within the community, not separate from them.

And so a new sense of gratitude was born within me today.  It feels like I found myself again and, even better, I fell in love with myself all over again.

Today I am grateful for the slow, steady glow of gratitude that warms me and tells me that I am 'home' at last.

In gratitude,

Bonnie

My Journey of Gratitude - Day 14

"People are about as happy as they make up their minds to be."  Abraham Lincoln

That quotes floats through my mind as I begin my time with gratitude.  How happy am I allowing myself to be and what stops me from being happy all the time? Interesting thought to ponder and it opens many doors hidden away in my mind.

As I continue spending time in the state of gratitude I find that all that is not gratitude--all that cannot exist in this energy--is free to roll on up and out of me.  My initial reaction is to stop and ponder each thought and each feeling; wanting to understand and solve.  That's part of our human nature and the function of our conscious mind, that desire to know the 'why' of every situation. 

But asking 'why' will only give you the story surrounding the situation; it will never give you the truth that lies within.  For that you must sit within the middle of it all, giving thanks for whatever is.  As a teacher of mine often says "Understanding is just the booby prize."  Consciously choosing what you want instead of what you currently have--there is the power and the freedom to create change.

To be stand in the middle of your life situation and say "No matter what has happened to me in the past--this is what I choose today.  This is how I choose to live today."  That is true self-empowerment.

Gratitude comes in many forms and some days are easier than others to feel thankful.  Today gratitude showed up as patience and trust.

Patience that saying 'thank you' in the face of doubt is enough, and trust that all is well regardless of what I see happening--or not happening--around me.

So today I am grateful for my doubts, my faith and my journey, bumps and all.

In gratitude,

Bonnie

My Journey of Gratitude - Day 10

Ten days into my 10 minutes of gratitude and my mind is telling me how bored it is already. Because of my commitment to these 30 days, I decide to sit in gratitude for the boredom--and so I do.  I'm just so grateful to be alive that 10 minutes of boredom doesn't seem so bad.  And I was curious as to why today my mind was bored.  Why not yesterday or why not next week.  What was it about today in particular that I was bored.

Wasn't very long before I had the answer.  My mind began running funny images through my mind to distract me from thinking.  Images of the Stay Puff marshmallow man from the movie Ghostbuster, images from other funny movies that I love, and then drifting into childhood memories of fun and playfulness.  Playing 'kick the can' with all the neighborhood kids in the summer just as the sun was going down.  Softball in our backyard, catching minnows in the creek that ran behind our property--many times of laughter and fun. 

I realized my mind was showing me that there is more to Life than just sitting in my head--that living in gratitude means LIVING--as in being outside of myself and actually living in the world, not just my head.  So as each image, each memory flashed through my vision I felt something heal within me and replaced with something new and fresh within.  It was like each happy thought opened a door to more freedom and my desire to allow my inner life and outer life to be the same increased.

For those of you who know me, you know that I tend to be on the serious side and don't 'let my hair down' very often.  Not that I'm a stick-in-the-mud or anything, but I guess I had separated parts of my life from other parts and kept the playfulness and fun for only certain times.  That all changed as I saw the dam that separated my inner and outer worlds burst open and, once again, my Inner Chicken surfed the waves with the theme song to Hawaii 5-0 blaring in my head. 

The only appropriate response was to laugh out loud and be thankful for my life because--really--how many of you have an Inner Chicken?

So today my Inner Chicken and I are grateful for Life.  And I think we just might spend the day surfing the waves of gratitude and seeing where it takes us.

In gratitude,  Bonnie

My Journey of Gratitude - Day 8

My mind gets so impatient when it feels I'm not moving forward fast enough.  It is always wanting more, more, more and faster.  This impatience stems from an old belief that there is not enough, so better get it right now.  And that was my experience this morning.

Impatience when nothing 'grand' seemed to be happening.  I love those mountain top experiences.  You know the ones where you feel on top of the world and everything is laid at your feet.  Your energy is high and you are in the zone.  I love that and truth is that there are many other ways to experience transformation as well.

Those gentle moments of gratitude are just as powerful--when I am open to noticing them.  Like a warm gentle breeze blowing freshness into my home, so is that gentle, easy flow of gratitude bringing freshness into my life--and I am transforming.

This journey with gratitude is building a new foundation from which to live my life.  My old foundation which was based on past pain was like a huge dam filled with thousands of leaks and threatening to overwhelm me should I not contain it all.  What an exhausting way to live!

Today I have a new image.  The dam has broken and I'm riding the waves using the energy released to fuel my new foundation, my new way of living in this world.

No longer afraid of being overwhelmed, I am now free to build anew.  And I hear myself on that surfboard yelling "Ride the waves baby.  Ride the waves."

Gratitude Experiment--Day 5

Resistance--what a great teacher!  It was inevitable this resistance.  The conscious mind doesn't think much of change after all and loves the status quo.  To spend time in the state of gratitude--and gratitude IS a state of being--opens you up to change.  And resistance arises, like an old pair of slippers.

I embraced my resistance and expressed gratitude for it.  'Thank you resistance!  How wonderful to see you again old friend.  I acknowledge and honor you as being part of who I am.  Welcome.'  It seemed insane at first to embrace my resistance because, after all, we resist feeling it don't we?  But what we resist persists.  And so we sat together--my resistance and me.  Just sat in gratitude that I actually had resistance--realizing that resistance has a positive intention, which is to keep my safe.

And in that moment of safety I felt the shift.  How precious is life!  My life, regardless of what I do or don't have, despite the situations I find myself in--my life IS precious.  Your life is precious.  The very act of living is precious.

Last night my husband & I attended a charity gala.  I got all 'gussied up' as my mother called it and Jim wore his tux.  We've always had a great time before at this annual gala, but this year was a very different experience.  The room was noisy & chaotic and several of the people at our table spent the evening drinking and texting rather than talking. 

So we left early and came home.  I quickly shed the fancy clothes and slipped into my favorite pair of flannel pajamas.  Just the man I love and myself--together and grateful. 

That experience last night showed me what I value most--a life of simplicity with people I love and who love me right back.  Being myself in every moment.  Being grateful for all my experiences--whether I like them or not.

So there I sat in my flannel pajamas filled with happy smiling frogs. Nothing to prove, nothing to do, nothing to be--just me in the moment.  Content, happy and grateful for everything.

Enjoying the essence of my life now.

In gratitude,
Bonnie




 

Gratitude Experiment--Day 4

Here's what I experienced from my 10 minutes in gratitude this morning.

Being grateful for your life in this moment, no matter what your current circumstances, does not mean that you are content or ok with where you are.  By saying thank you for what is now is not the same as being satisfied for what is.  You are not saying "I'm grateful for this debt.  I'm grateful for this illness."  Or whatever is happening in your life now.  That is a common misunderstanding--or fear we often have about saying thank you for what is.

By saying thank you for the money that I DO have expands you beyond the fear of not enough.  Thank you for the love I DO have in my life opens you to even more.

Everything is energy.  What you think, feel and do is energy.  And energy either expands or contracts. Gratitude is an expansive energy and when you take the time to be grateful for even one thing in your life--your energy expands and flows in ways you may not notice.  But it does.

Gratitude is more than a feeling.  It is a state of being.  The more time you spend in this state of being, the more it becomes part of your true nature.
Gratitude is the energy of 'even more'.  And you can certainly add that in your thank yous.

Thank you for the business I DO have.  I am so grateful.  And I open to having even more.  Thank you.

Break your trance of scarcity and breathe again

Break Your Trance of Scarcity First in a series of Brave Woman teleseminars  October 22nd 9:00 am PDT $29

“If struggling was the way to get there, we'd be there by now." Victoria Castle There is no question that scarcity exists.  It is also true that abundance exists as a reality as well.  So the question is – which reality are you currently living?  Are you satisfied with your life or is there something greater that you want to experience? Living in scarcity is living in a trance that squeezes the joy of life right out of you. It eclipses your greatness and stops you short of achieving your heart’s desire. It is a very real experience—and it is easily broken!  Like any trance state you can wake up from it.  All you need are a few simple tools -- which you get in this teleseminar. When you hold a belief in ‘not-enoughness’ you are stuck in patterns of thoughts, feelings and behaviors that run counter to what you really want in life. We all live in a trance of our own creation.  Old habits and automatic reactions become hard-wired into your neurology and then you find yourself caught in a web of what you don’t want but not sure how to break free. There IS Life on the other side of the trance.  A life filled with love, abundance, great health, fulfillment, joy and success.  But first you must wake up from your current trance. This teleseminar show you exactly HOW to wake up and stay awake! Sign me up!   Your Trance of Scarcity is a story you learned to tell yourself at a young age about the reality of life. “I’m not enough. There is never enough. It’s too hard. Nobody cares.  Settle for less. I’m not worthy, deserving, valuable.”  It becomes your way of living, your day-to-day reality, directing your actions according to unconscious programming.  What you expect to show up in your life—does.  Beliefs of lack, struggle, and separation begin to define your reality and you forget to question what is true. But—and here is the key to waking from your trance—when you feel stuck in a never ending cycle of lack or trapped with nowhere to turn questioning your personal reality is a good thing! Being fully present in your life breaks the trance and opens you to new choices and new experiences.  Breaking the trance of scarcity wakes you up—and keeps you awake. In this teleseminar you learn to:  Break your trance of scarcity Be fully present in your life Clear blocks that keep you trapped Quickly transform your life with simple tools Embody a state of abundance To embody abundance means to live in a state of fullness and flow, being open to receiving and having different than you have now. You do all that and much more in this Brave Woman teleseminar: Break Your Trance of Scarcity Break free of the fears, dead-ends and frustrations of your life now! October 22nd 9:00 am PDT $29 Register Now! Take this Journey of Courage with other women wanting what you want—to live an Authentic Life as the Brave Woman that you are.    As always, this teleseminar includes intensive belief work along with a special meditation to enhance and integrate your healing. Upon registration you will receive a handout with a brief exercise.  Completing this exercise before the teleseminar will greatly enhance your healing experience. Can’t attend live? No worries!  This teleseminar will be recorded and the free replay made available to you the next day. We are excited to see you there! Bonnie & Katie

My mother, my Self

I was watching a tv show earlier today and heard something that struck me as really profound—at least for me and my relationship with my mother.

Mothers are responsible for us being here.  Like a bus they get us here.  The problem we run into is that we often spend our life trying to get back on the bus rather than living our own lives.

Now this comment was made talking about all of us—men & women alike.  But it got me to thinking about women and the relationship we’ve had with our mothers.  How in my life was I trying to ‘get back on the bus’, meaning living either my mother’s life or the life my mother trained me to have?

It didn’t take long to uncover that parts of me were still trying to live my mother’s expectations of what a ‘good’ wife, mother and woman is.  Growing up in the 50s & 60s with a mother who gave up all of who she was & was seriously depressed most of my life and a father who took a dim view on any female being an independent thinker, I learned that to be considered

‘good & proper’ as my mother put it, I must always put myself last no matter what I had to give up or how miserable I was.

I learned that ‘good’ women didn’t work, stayed emotionally & financially dependent upon the man, and that doing anything else was ‘bad’ and bad things happened to ‘bad’ women.  Because I grew up with an Italian father it was called the Madonna/Whore thing.  If you conformed to what a good woman was then you were a Madonna—pure, but helpless with no thought for yourself.  Anything else left you with just being the Whore…and we all know what society thinks of whores.  To this day I still cringe when I see or hear that word, but words have no more power to harm than we give them.  So I take back the power to live my own life on my own terms--and still be loved, accepted and successful as my Self.

Interesting dilemma that has put me in over my adult years.  And I was surprised to find that still part of my core identity even with all the healing work I’ve done over the years.  Yet, there it was—staring me right in the face and asking me what I was going to do about it.  Keep it and continue on the path I’m on or stand up as the Brave Woman that I know I am and say

No Way!  That is NOT me!

So I took some time to figure out what I wanted to believe about myself as a woman and about my life and commanded the changes.  That old feeling of conflict within no longer holds the power over my life.  Yes, I still feel some charge around that—and why wouldn’t I?  It was my early training and became an unconscious part of my identity as a woman.  So, yes, there is still

more healing work to do around it.  But the important part is that—now I see it and have looked that lie straight in the face and said—THIS is who I really am and THIS is how I live my life now.  I again awaken the Brave Woman that lies within and invite her to step forth and be engaged in my life.

So—how are you still trying to get back on that ‘bus’?

How are you living from an old, out-dated belief system that has never really been you?

And what do you want instead?

I witness your courage and your Brave Woman Within,

Bonnie

Breathing into your Brave Woman soul

To awaken and nurture that Brave Woman that lies within you, spend a few moments every day just being with her as you would your best friend.

As you invite her to be more active in your life, you will be amazed at the changes you notice within yourself and within others around you.

So your Brave Woman mantra for today is:

Breathe and be Whole in the joy of being You.

Five minutes to relax into your Brave Woman self

Take 5 minutes to sit back, leave the outer world behind and step into the
sacred space of your inner self.  Getting out of your ordinary reality and your
conscious mind for even a few minutes allows that Brave Woman who lives
within you to come forth and move you through the day.

Enjoy, relax and walk softly upon the earth today.

Beautiful Earth

www.youtube.com

Reversing the Flow

When you are stepping into your own courage – you’ll find sometimes that all the junk – all that isn’t your courage, will pop-up and get in your face. I suppose that this doesn’t happen to everyone – but it has certainly happened to me, it has happened to my best friends and colleagues – and it has happened to almost everyone I know.

But wait – there is good news, it’s not a bad idea to let stuff come up, look at it, learn to laugh at it, and let it go for good. You may know that besides Ho’ponopono and all the other skills and disciplines I have learned around the world over the decades, what I use as my Core skill is The One Command.

So my words (after going to the theta brainwave) I don’t know how I release all emotionally fearful thoughts, I only know I do now and I am fulfilled.  Or, I don’t know how I embrace my courageous self, I only know I do now and I am fulfilled, are what help me more than anything to change my DNA.

Because I love the study of quantum physics I have finally reached a point in life where all I have learned has gone from a huge portfolio of great techniques and ideas, to being able to make the stuff work and reverse the flow!

So what works for you? What have you learned (at whatever point you are in your life), that finally makes it all work and finally helps you Witness your own Master?

Hugs, Katie

The Race

It's not that you fall, because you will.  It is that you get up again and keep on going.

A true story about a Brave Woman--her fall, her striving and her triumph.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM5A1K6TxxM&feature=youtu.be

It's not your beginnings that matter most!

I was drawn to see the movie Kung Fu Panda 2 today and I was curious what message it might have for me.  Anytime I’m drawn to a movie it’s because there is something for me to pay attention to in it.  And there was!

The movie was fun to watch, but here is the ‘gem’ I walked away with—and in a kid’s movie too.

Even though your beginnings weren’t happy, it doesn’t matter.  It isn’t your beginnings that make you who you are.  What matters is who you choose to be now.  And it is who you choose to be that makes you who you are now.

I felt much of what has been bothering me recently dissolve and resolve itself.  TODAY is what matters.  Who I choose to be TODAY is what’s important.  How I choose to feel TODAY; how I choose to behave TODAY—that is what makes me who I am.

Regardless of your beginnings, you have a choice to be or not to be, to change or stay the same, to heal or not, to use your voice or to remain silent, to stand in your courage or continue to be afraid.  There is great power in that message—It is who you choose to be that makes you who you are.

Today I choose to be a Brave Woman walking my Journey of Courage, using my voice for

healing and standing in my own truth.

Who do you choose to be today?

The Brave Woman and The One Command

The Brave Woman -     
Women Stepping Into Their Courage

Our tribe – those woman that have taken our workshops and seminars, have told us that a Big thing in their lives is finding the courage to be all that they know they are meant to be.

Every woman knows that there is a Brave Woman within her, and You know that you have always known she is within you as well. From our own experiences and from everything we have heard from friends, relatives, clients and colleagues, this is the time of the woman, of the feminine spirit, of grace and ease and peace in our lives.

When you are in your personal Alignment to Your Own Greatness, that does not mean it is exclusive of men, but rather it is inclusive of men and honoring the different spirits of us all. We can know how to be in integrity with who we are without a power struggle, we can be in integrity with who we are and live a life of love, caring, expansion and abundance.

It is important to know that you have the capacity to reshape your life, to be that person who has literally been struggling to get out since you can remember. You can reignite your dreams, or if they have been buried or barren, give them life!

You can bring forth your Brave Woman - the Woman in you that Walks in Strength, Self-love, Strong-Relationships and Grace.

As a Brave Woman you have Your Voice, you can say 'no' with confidence, you are able to Set boundaries and stand your ground with ease and grace, you can says 'yes' to yourself, be in Alignment with your own Greatness, and know how to reshape your Life in the ways that mean the most to you.

If you don’t know how – Bonnie and I are teaching woman how to be a Brave Woman in September 2011.

We love you and we Witness Your Mastery.

Love, Dr. Katie and Bonnie, M.I.