Everyday Bliss For Women In Leadership

I can’t tell you how cool my friend Mary Sise is. I first met her when we were board members together in the Association of Comprehensive Energy Psychology and Mary was president. An inspiring president she was too, full of fire and vision and with a personal style all her own that left no room for anything but the greatest of good cheer, faith and confidence. What a gal! Mary and another great therapist, Sheila Sidney Bender, have written an inspiring work that you really need to own. But why waste words here when a movie will do? Check it out:

Can’t see the video? Then check it out here: http://snipurl.com/marysvideo

Below is a post I made to a high-level email list of advanced energy coaches and therapists. It answered a colleague’s question regarding Emotional Freedom Technique:  "What is the intention of the tapping? To reduce SUDs, eliminate distress, or enhance mindfulness?"

But back to  SUDS, distress and mindfulness.

Hello my friend, thank you for asking. 

Intention is one of the main reasons I’ve found in my research, why certain methods don’t work well upon occasion, or don’t work 100% all of the time. (yes, even those ones many of us hold near and dear to our hearts).

What is our intention as practitioners? As petitioners at the gate of forever?

In not choosing, we choose. In choosing not to make intentions, we make intentions. I believe knowledge of some of the inner workings of the universe and how we affect it all the time by our thoughts, beliefs and intentions, is crucially important to knowing how to work any method.

Intention is a natural clockwise/counterclockwise conjugate spiral energy flow that as far as I know, runs much of our experience if not all of it.

Think of a Moebius strip with positive energy running down one surface and negative energy running up the opposite surface. You try to connect the two ends. Attraction/repulsion factors of the differing valences cause the strip to twist and bend into the familiar infinite loop. Bent back upon itself, the ends meeting where like attracts like, it is possible to fasten such a strip.

Such is consciousness, for it folds and bends back on itself as well, seeking the familiar, repulsed by the unfamiliar.We often get lost in those folds and end up snoozing down at the bottom of one of those bends in the strip of consciousness. That’s how routines get started and encoded into imperatives. Mindfulness and intention are sovereign remedies, plus the knowledge that we are truly, without Limits. And can have an infinite variety of things that we desire, including elevated levels of Presence, abundance and joy.

This all may be a crock of manure and not true of course but…it appears to be working for me…I’ll bet it works the same way for a whole lot of us here.   

And Mindfulness = Presence = The Ultimate Resource State from which all magical things might be accomplished. And become quite mundane.

That being said, as myself and a small but devoted band of colleagues developing the new ETHOS Method, (about which you’ll hear in the August 18th ACEP teleclass <hint: I’m giving the class>) have found that the Ultimate Resource State is what I/we call the Unlimited Self. I pondered very deeply *why* certain personal development methods didn’t work well sometimes. One of the reasons that I found is that many of them come from the point of view of us needing to be fixed and of healing. Not that these aren’t perfectly valid occupations, but fixing and healing are like slapping a bandage on the problem and never getting to the real issue from which said "problem" distracts.

We only have one Problem at the root of it all. That problem is, that we are endorsing the absence of awareness of our Unlimited Self. And the more we endorse or give energy to something, the more of that thing we get. Conversely if you desire the polar opposite of a bad situation, that too will manifest. Basic energetic dynamics.

But we most certainly are not in need of being fixed. We are already standing blindingly close to that perfect self - our Unlimited Self.

Most humans stand a bit outside to far outside awareness of this template of their Unlimited Self, unlike animals who live so much more honestly than we. You look at a dog or a cat and it fully embodies the joy of being fully Present, fully alive.

A cat is guaranteed never to give thought to its grocery list: "three mice, one pitcher of cream, four scoops kibble, two bags litter - check, check, check and check. Now…where on earth do you suppose they keep the herring?" A dog or cat will never go so fully out of consciousness as this - and as humans do on a consistent basis. I advise my students to study animals for pointers on their spiritual growth. They’re much wiser than we in such matters.

So in short, in creating ETHOS, we are predicating an energy transformation method on the premise that self is already perfect and not in need of help or fixing. This predicate and our main goal to re-embody and live life through our Unlimited Self, has been of phenomenal use in increasing effectiveness and reducing recidivism in clients who may in time come to take back their problems - a common difficulty in all therapies (energy therapies included).

And yes, this is an intention, but also a realization, and active participation in reality as each of us chooses to fashion it.

More on this shortly. And if you’d like to be kept aware of the news, changes or want to be involved, check out our very new (and still being populated - be an early adopter!) ETHOS website: http://ethosmethod.com

The Association for Comprehensive Energy Psychology held their 10th annual International Convention in Albuquerque, New Mexico May 15 - 18th. I stayed most of the week and had a lot of fun. This is me at the right delivering my lecture and yes, I wear glasses when I multitask between computer, audience and screen several feet away. This is not the most flattering picture of me with eyes closed and mouth open (thank goodness, no flies landed), but here I am in mid-lecture on the whys and wherefores of Energy Coaching. Dr. Michael Galvin was kind enough to snap this and pop it through email to me. I stuck in the slide in the background as it was out of the frame on the original. 

*f0t05h0p r00lz* (ask any fifteen year old)

Saw all my friends and met some more. So wonderful to be in glorious Gloria Arenson’s presence, and had memorable meetings with Grant Connolly and Dr. John Hartung, Gary Craig, Dr. David Gruder and Dorothea Hover-Kramer. Grant had just minted his "9 Minutes to Bliss" CD (you can get it here: http://zpointforpeace.com) and I was honored to receive a copy of it. A must-listen!

Fred Gallo gave a truly rousing keynote and it was so wonderful to see the old board members I served with again.  Also the new - CEC grad student Betsy Muller has taken over my old job as Director of Communications. It was wonderful to connect with her and she looked so very well, fit and perky.

Had the pleasure of being seated between David Gruder and Gary Craig at an author’s signing table that also included Dorothea and keynote speaker, Anodea Judith. Turns out Anodea and I know a lot of the same people from the goddess community in the Bay Area.

Author table was fun and we all got a chance to kick our shoes off, rest a bit, catch up on chat amongst ourselves, and meet folks. I signed books for some really nice women and got to know some folks I’d never met before who’d been following my work for years. That’s quite something to hear, that someone has been following what you’re doing over a long period of time.

Takes you up a peg. Makes you straighten your collar, adjust your stance and pay more attention to the needs of those you’re in service to. Mom would have been proud of me for getting this. It truly is all about service. 

Also met someone who’s been a great customer of mine and been on my newsletter list for many years, all the way from Nigeria - Chief Iwowarri Berrian James. Iwowarri has an energy psychology center in Lagos and is doing many fine things with people there who have suffered much trauma. It was amazing to meet him and reflect that the work ACEP is doing is so important that Iwowarri came not just this year but last year as well to our conference. I’m so grateful to people like this. They are the true heroes. Iwowarri attended my lecture and took notes with an intensity that made me hope I’d communicated well to him and all the rest in attendance.

Makes you sit straighter and try real hard to give the most value you can.

Nilhan from Turkey was there and we met for the first time. Such a beautiful energy she has! Joseph Guan, our man in Singapore, was not here this year, and we also missed Hartmut (Teddy) Gerber, our dear friend from Stuttgart. Suprisingly Teddy was awarded the honors for the person who had done the most during the year to spread information about energy psychology. He’s been tireless in bringing the benefits of energy therapy to Germany and western Europe. Ted’s been a bit under the weather and couldn’t make the conference, but hopes to visit the San Francisco area in September with a short junket to Esalen. Woohoo! It will be so much fun to see him again.

Conferences - one of the best reasons to do them is to see folks you don’t get to see any other time of the year!

My lecture went well, I filled the time and could well have gone on for another hour or two - anyone who’s seen me lecture knows that. (my poor Advanced Energy Coaching students are in for somewhat of a "stuffed" time with me this coming June!) It went very well and the demo client, Michael, who stepped forward to work on the Waking the Avatar working was absolutely the right person and a joy to work with.

As a very sweet end to the proceedings, a lovely lady gave me a small purple silk bag after the lecture was over, which contained a handmade booklet, a process and instructions on how to use the process. This is an item she was selling and I found myself inordinately touched that she should gift me with one. So much so that I forgot my laptop cable and spent a frantic hour or two running around the hotel the next morning before I found it - the crew had stuffed it in a niche behind the podium. Thank goodness, it was still there.

The book went down well and if the little party in my room was anything to go by, more and more people want to know how to write a book and get it published! The folks at the bookstore could not have been more helpful. They put out my books, sold thirty odd (over 3,000 sold in these first few weeks the book has been out, btw) and Blair was kind enough to clue me in on a lot of backroom bookseller workings. Every author should know this stuff.

So much happened and I could go on for pages and pages, but will end here as it is now time for other things. Thanks Anodea, Gloria, Nilhan, Michael, John, Betsy, Iwowarri, Joe, Ted, Dorothea, Gary, and everyone else - this year was beautiful!