After I pulled out the peas I had diligently planted and tended because their season was over, a lone sunflower remained. I smiled at it, wondering how it got there. Perhaps a bird or a squirrel or even the wind left a single seed to grow sheltered and nourished by the peas. It smiled back [...]
Words and actions have lasting effects… In 1969, having been in California for a year and moved from one job to another, I ended up working as a bookkeeper at Capitol Records in Beverly Hills. It was the place everyone in the industry came to get records, and celebrities often dropped by. One time I [...]
Is Your Twig Too Big To Fit In The Hole? This might help… A movement caught my eye. A flutter up. A flutter down. It was a wren with a long slender twig trying to get it into the small opening of the birdhouse. Up-down, up-down. Holding a stick in its beak wider than the [...]
This might help— I don’t think I want to meet the person who knows all the answers. I believe I would be suspicious. How could they be so sure? Did they cause the problem? Are they trying to ruin people’s lives? Do they know all the facts? Our brains are designed to filter out what [...]
I opened the drawer where I keep candles and flashlights and realized that I still had two beautiful scented candles waiting for me to use them. It reminded me of my mother’s candle drawer. Actually, not just one drawer, two big ones stuffed with candles of all sizes and shapes. She never lights them. Even [...]
Habits are wonderful. Except when they aren’t. The habits I like are the ones that keep me in line, moving down the road towards where I want to go. Habits I don’t like are like ruts in that road. Ruts can be challenging to get out of, especially when we do the exact opposite of [...]
Last summer, I watched wren families move into a nesting box. First, they took out what was already in the box. They were so industrious. For hours the wren would pop in and then pop out with old nesting material in her beak. She’d toss her head to throw it and then pop back in [...]
Why want what we already have? What a glorious year we have had. All of us. Yes, glorious if we choose to look at it that way. The glorious part? For the first time in our memory, the world has shared an experience that affected us equally. But the living of it and its aftermath [...]
Fixing broken things is not an activity that most of us enjoy. The plastic knob on my mixer broke off, and I didn’t celebrate that I would need glue, a clamp, and time to fix it. What I said to myself was, “I can live with it. Who needs a knob anyway?” But the shower [...]
On the way to yoga, I saw a man walking down the street proudly displaying his political affiliation. It was not mine. So for a split second, I judged him. And then I judged myself for judging him. A few blocks away, I stopped judging us both and thought about perception. Yes, my favorite topic. [...]
While the Soleis traveled as slowly as possible, the Eos was moving as quickly as it could. So fast sometimes, Meg wished that it would slow down. Like Stryker, she didn’t like ships either, and for many of the same reasons. Mostly, she hated the rocking and rolling. No matter what she did, she constantly [...]
Shifting Stories: Sampling Books, One (or 2) Chapters at a time. Your imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions. —Albert Einstein Now that you have the basic tools, are you ready to get started? Each week has a different focus, but the imagination exercises each day will remain mostly the same. [...]
The answer is yes; you’re probably doing everything backwards. Which makes life much harder than it needs to be. It’s time to stop working against ourselves. The way to do that is to be flexible before strong. I mean this both literally and figuratively. I’m serious. Being a business and life coach for almost thirty [...]
An evil tyrant. A rebellious uprising. Will her destiny prevent total destruction… or send everyone to their doom? Her gift of shapeshifting may have disappeared, but Meg Porta won’t let her new home perish. Clinging to a slender thread of hope, she’s forced to fulfill her mysterious part in an ancient prophecy. But when the [...]
Shifting Stories: Sampling Books, One (or 2) Chapters at a time. I choose, therefore I am. —Amit Goswami, The Self-Aware Universe I wanted to change the world. But I found that the only thing one can be sure of changing is oneself. —Aldous Huxley We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go [...]
A Metaphysical, visionary, fantasy, adventure: “Open up, Hannah,” Beru urged me as we ran. “Accept the help that is being offered to you. Breathe it in.” I was panting so hard I had no breath to ask her what she meant by help. I was nearing my last ounce of energy, and neither Beru nor [...]
Shifting Stories: Sampling Books, One (or 2) Chapters at a time. Imagination should be used, not to escape reality, but to create it. —Colin Wilson Shall we begin? Let’s create a new reality together. But first, let’s talk about a few of the essential tools that you will be using in this course. There are [...]
A Metaphysical, visionary, fantasy, adventure: Ruta moved through the woods faster than I thought possible. Beru was even quicker. She kept circling back behind me and then running ahead of Ruta, and then coming back to me. I was running faster than I had ever run before, so how she was doing that was a [...]
Shifting Stories: Sampling Books, One (or 2) Chapters at a time. The man who has no imagination has no wings. —Muhammad Ali Here is the question you might, and probably should be, asking yourself. Why bother with learning how to be an Imagination Master? What practical use could being a master of imagination be in [...]
A Metaphysical, visionary, fantasy, adventure: Still holding my head, I started to follow the bird that looked like Lady into the forest until I realized what I was doing. I was following something into somewhere without questioning what was happening. It was like getting into a strange car with an unknown person. Would I ever [...]
Shifting Stories: Sampling Books, One (or 2) Chapters at a time. End Imposter Syndrome, Overthinking and Perfectionism and Do What YOU Want Do you worry that you are not as good as everyone else? Have past experiences led you to doubt your abilities? Do you try too hard and obsess over details in case you [...]
Once upon a time, a coach I was working with told me I could be another Tony Robbins. I said, no. I had no desire to be the person who I would have to become to do that. He didn’t understand, and not long after that told me he couldn’t work with me anymore. Well, [...]
A Metaphysical, visionary, fantasy, adventure: It was as terrifying as standing at the open door of an airplane getting ready to jump. Or at least I imagined it would feel the same way even though I had never experienced that myself. Leaning forward and seeing the ground thousands of feet away, not knowing where the [...]
Shifting Stories: Sampling Books, One (or 2) Chapters at a time. I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.—Rabindranath Tagore She was always-on-call. I wanted to be like her, but I had no idea how I could handle what she [...]
Once upon a time, there lived a husband and wife who were very good friends. Their names were Agatha and Winston. Agatha was a small, very round, gray bear who loved to amble through flower gardens smelling the flowers and petting the bees. Winston was a tall rather saggy and unstuffed brown bear. This unstuffedness [...]