Everyday Bliss

One of the things that I’ve truly “gotten” on my hiatus is that I have not allowed myself enough down-time and really need some quality unplugging. No computer, no tv, getting back to a spare, but rich, non-tech lifestyle. Accordingly, for the entire month of April, but for the master class in ETHOS I’m doing for Adela Rubio:

http://selfcaremastery.com/maryam

and a radio interview I’m doing for Connecting Women, I will be completely offline AND off email – our offices, help desk and all connection outlets will be closed.

I’d like to share a lesson from this that I have learned as it will be beneficial for anyone to think about. That is, we have many yardsticks in our lives – many ways of measuring the shoulds and musts. And though we may have come to the point of removing the words “should” and “must” from our vocabulary, those very ideas exist in our molecular structure as strong encodings.

In my case, the coding was around “I *should* be able to rest from a week of work in the two days of the weekend and be okay” and “I *should* be able to  work during the day from 9-5 as others do”.

But my system is not set up that way – it never has  been. I’m an owl, not a lark. A small percentage of the extremely creative (some call them “renaissance people”) have biorhythms that predispose them to work at their best, and to high proficiency on a variety of topics, later in the day. Voltaire, DaVinci, Michelangelo, Tesla and Bill Clinton are among those whose bodies also favored a night-owl lifestyle. I work best in the late afternoon and evening, sleep around 6 – 7 hours at most (7 is almost too much and 8 is definitely oversleeping) and usually work on several projects at once by preference. And I need more than two days to be “off” on the weekend.

My long-suffering workhorse parents despaired of me ever being respectable in the sleep department. I happily created in the wee hours, even as a child. Well-meaning though it was, they used every moral imperative to suggest that I was not a righteous person for being a night-owl and if I kept up “these shenanigans” I would not mature into a good upstanding citizen. Mother consulted Reverend Pegues when I was seven over this perceived fault, with the result that I was awakened every morning at 6am without fail to pray and read the Bible before school in the hopes of rehabilitating my wayward biorhythms.

It didn’t work. I slept through third period in school, refusing to be rousted, and stayed up at night until my body told me it was time to sleep. It exasperated Mother no end, but she finally gave up and when she saw that I was doing cool things – nature photography and essays in philosophy at that point.  She even briefly catered to my 10pm dinner habit  and harbored hopes that I might turn into Imogen Cunningham. No such luck though.

In the intervening years, I’ve found it’s always best to do what my body tells me it needs. When I do that, I am never sick or tired, and am always at my best and sharpest.

Late last year however,  though it was a relatively minor thing, I fell prey again to the moralizing of others around my natural biorhythms and tried to be early-to-bed-early-to-rise to join with a group of yoga friends who were all early risers and determined to make me one as well. And I mean, sunrise type early, greeting the day with Surya Namaskar as the sun crested the local Diablo hills.

The result was that I became out of sorts and was tired quite a lot which is very unusual for me. And even though I love writing more than life itself sometimes, computers, Twitter and email began to irritate me severely. These were cardinal signs to me that I was not honoring my body’s needs and was one of the ingredients in my decision to take a hiatus from business in January.

I naievely thought that my break would begin in January, but no, tying up ends so I actually could take a break took well into February. Then a conference came in March with heavy email, Twitter involvement and text messaging before and after, pushing things even further out.

So drop-dead earnest here, April is my month off. Completely away from the computer. Even cellphone. Don’t send me an EM, IM, DM, TxT or Skypee because I’m nailing the keyboard to the desk upside down and locking the mouse in a drawer. Not kidding.

I’m taking this unplugged break both for my own self-care and health, as well as research for an interesting article, or it might even be a book that I am writing. It keeps extending itself so it could well be the next book. <grin> More much later about that though.

The Moral of the Story Is… that there is no moral imperative around what the body needs. Each of us is wonderfully diverse in our unique makeup.  We all have slightly to profoundly different needs for food, water, sunshine or darkness, sleep or waking, downtime,  romance-time, exercise and alone-time.

That old biblical verse about the plank in your own eye comes to bear here. If someone in your life isn’t configured the same way you are don’t bring your judgements against them. Take care of your own needs and support each other to extreme and joyous acts of self-care, no matter what the hands on the clock say, no matter how different you might be to each others.

Diversity is what makes the world go ’round, be interesting and create genius.

Meanwhile, have a *beautiful* and *joyous* spring!

With Love,
Maryam

Breast cancer survivor Kris Hart, right, vice president of global brand management at (casino operator) Harrah’s Entertainment, was still breastfeeding when she found out she had breast cancer. In this month’s Pink Magazine email, Taylor Mallory interviews Kris. Here are a couple of relevant highlights:

Hart’s Advice for Breast Cancer Newbies

1. DO take a breath and come up with a plan. The cancer has probably been in you for years, so you can wait a week.

2. DON’T make emotional decisions about your care. Get all the info you can before you make a decision.

3. DO surround yourself with people who don’t make you feel like a victim.

4. DON’T be afraid to ask for support. Your friends and family want to help.

Hart also adds her greatest challenge dealing with chemo:

"I have always had an innate sense of organization in my head. Since the chemo, and even now as it’s still in my system, I’m fuzzy. I can’t retain things, and I’m not as quick as I used to be. I can’t remember names as readily as I could. That’s really frustrating."

Maryam’s Note: Kris Hart, if you’re out there reading this, please check out the energy therapies (no drugs, no needles, no hassle, easy to learn and practice) like ETHOS, EFT and ZPoint to help "get your brain back". This involves the energy in your body, not in a box or machine. You’re using the natural energy an acupuncturist manipulates by putting needles in the body, only with the new energy therapies, you only tap on the acupoints, hold them gently and breathe, or use the energy solely in your mind. No gadgets or drugs needed!

Anyone dealing with fuzziness like this can regains clarity by practicing a couple of simple exercises to synch the hemispheres of your brain back up. Go to my page on that here:

http://maryamwebster.com/stressrelief

Do every exercise on the page, especially the Cross Crawl. This highlights part of the Bliss Coaching Process that is laid out in full in my book, Everyday Bliss For Busy Women.

PINK asks: How can colleagues help when a co-worker has cancer?

Kris Hart: "Be specific about how you want to help. Everyone says, "I’m here for you." But very few people will ever take you up on that. So say, "I’d like to bring dinner for you on Wednesday." Also recognize it’s not only the physical victim but the whole family that needs support. Someone called my husband to go have drinks. He was thrilled to get away too."

Maryam’s Note: I’ll second the "be specific" part. When Mom was diagnosed with breast cancer in the 90’s she deteriorated rapidly, and the community troups were marshalled to provide friendly visits for she and Dad. The best visit they had was after dinner one Tuesday evening from Bill Hall, a buddy of Dad’s from Rotary Club. Though Bill offered, Mom refused to let him go into the kitchen and get her usual offering of lemonade and cookies – it was important for HER to "do for" visitors as long as she was able.

Bill visited with the family for awhile, drank his lemonade and nibbled his cookies, chatting easily on a variety of topics. The ease with which he carried on conversation soon put Mom and Dad at ease. They reported during this time feeling pressed to entertain people and alleviate their discomfort with Mom’s cancering*, which only caused them to feel more stressed and tense after friendly visits than not. Bill’s visit was a welcome exception, doubly so because of what he did next.

After a polite amount of time had passed, Bill said to Dad: "Charlie, get your coat. You’re coming out bowling with me and the boys, and I won’t take no for an answer." Dad didn’t bowl, but he was too much of a gentleman to refuse such a public invitation. He went, had an excellent time, and Bill managed to wheedle him into coming to the "boys night out" from then on. It got him out of the house, Mom had a peaceful evening once a week to do as she liked, and Dad had a place to blow off steam and "be a regular fellow" as he put it. That’s important, and it was the best present a friend could have given him at this sensitive and crucial point in his life.

It doesn’t have to be a whole-hog fancy evening, any level of attention and caring is good. Just be there.

You can find out more and subscribe to Pink Magazine for Women Professionals here: http://www.pinkmagazine.com/index.html

Pink is about women having money and worldly power too – what activist and author Naomi Wolf calls "the last taboo". Canted towards C-level professional and executive women, Pink provides gathering opportunities at locations around America to help women network and excel in business.

* Cancering - Using the word "Cancering" creates a gerund, or non-finite verb form out of the noun, cancer. When you add the "-ing" to a word that is so definite, so negatively final, it transforms the disease into a process which can have a positive end – the disease process ends, but you go on. This is a form that I take from the teachings of Master NLP Health Coach, Suzi Smith, who reports that this simple linguistic change brings empowerment back into the equation for those living with this disease process.

For Breast Health Awareness Month and also each month out of the year – do you know how to do your monthly breast self-exam?

Review the self-check procedure and what to look for here:

http://snipurl.com/breastexam

When I spoke of this to a group of women in business at a recent talk I gave, it was pointed out by one of the ladies present:  "The body is a temple, sure, but not every woman wants to feel up her own breasts! I’m religious and I don’t think that’s "nice" for a woman to do."

And now for a reality check….would whatever god you worship want you to be neglectful of this temple that is your body? Or to suffer a disease you may not have if you check yourself and catch changes early? Average of nine months earlier than doctor exams, by the way.

YOU are your own best breast health advocate!

And to go along with your implication of immorality – no, this is not sexually oriented "feeling up".

While you can certainly enjoy the process yourself or even involve your partner for extra fun (why not? if it makes sure you get the job done, go ahead!) a monthly breast self-exam is a purposed, focused fact finding mission.

So please, religious ladies of all sects and everyone else, click the link above and learn how to give yourself a proper breast self-exam.

Once a month. It’s What Nice Girls Do.

Below is a post I wrote in one of my women’s networking forums for a business owner who wrote in wondering about how to deal with stress. As it’s pertinent, I’m reposting here:

M— wrote:
The psychological manifestations of stress are sleeplessness, nausea and fear. Work-related stress can be responsible for numerous physical conditions, including raised blood pressure, headaches, indigestion and increased heart rate, but the emotional toll is often the thing that is most difficult for women to handle.

Thank you for surfacing the issue of constant stress, M—. Overwhelming stress is the primary thing I work on with my female executive clients, and I have some suggestions I’d like to share.

Upsetting data about women and stress caused me to write my last book: “Everyday Bliss For Busy Women” (www.everydaybliss.org). Specifically, the finding in 2006, that working women in America today for the first time in history, have rates of serious stress-related disease and fatality from those diseases (heart attack, stroke, cancer, digestive disorders and mental illness) that exceed those of working men. And not by just a little bit, but a lot. What a shocker!

The good news is that we can ameliorate these effects and disease processes by focusing on eliminating the EMOTIONS of stress…which as women we’re very good at feeling and being able to manipulate. Keep reading for how…

M— wrote:
Is dealing with stress about setting boundaries? Understanding your role between being a worker, lover or parent? Or is part of our genetic make-up to feel stressed out?

Genetically speaking it is not our make-up to constantly feel stressed out. An organism can’t survive long in such a state. However, we live in a greatly artificial world. We wake and go to bed when we please by electric light, not the natural light of the sun that does the regulating of the hormones in our bodies, in part. Without this natural regulation, stress hormones can creep up, and the happy hormones that make us feel good can be decimated. The result is a body and emotional rollercoaster that can’t ever catch up.

~*~*~*~*~ Stress-Busting Bliss Tip: Night light ~*~*~*~*~

Avoid bright lights after 9pm and keep the windows of your bedroom blacked out as much as possible while you sleep. This allows one of our “mellow out” hormones, melatonin, to rebuild in the body. If you sleep with a night light or flip the light in your bathroom on when you get up at night, the whole melatonin rebuilding cycle (along with others in the body) crashes just like a computer and you have to start from scratch when you go back to sleep again. This is assuming you sleep in near-total darkness. You need a good six to seven hours of near-total darkness (not just thin, grey twilight kind of dark you get with sheer curtains or streetlights outside on all night) to rebuild this hormone and re-establish its regular cycle. Substitute a blue or green bulb if you must have a nightlight, cover the faces of bright electric clocks and hang heavy curtains. Give it a month and see how much better you sleep and how much calmer through the day you are.

Moms who leave a night light on with baby – try this with them too. It cuts down daytime tantrums, colic and a host of other baby and toddler related unhappiness!

~*~*~*~*~ Stress-Busting Bliss Tip: Boundaries ~*~*~*~*~

Dealing with stress can be about a lot of things because it is unique in profile to the individual. If you put others needs above your own consistently, you definitely need to set better boundaries. A great book for this is “Where You End and I Begin” by Anne Katherine (Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/Boundaries-Where-You-End-Begin/dp/1567312365).

A really good tip for dealing with others is to LOSE the automatic “Yes, sure I’ll do it// I’ll help/ you can count on me” that most of us have been taught is the polite response to requests for our time. It’s perfectly okay to insert a pause to think followed by “I’ll get back to you on that”. If someone won’t stop or wait for you to give your schedule a consult or wants you to make a decision RIGHT NOW…it’s never going to be a good decision, and certainly not the best for your stress levels. Being polite often gets you walked on. Re-evaluate your priorities if you feel you must say yes to everything. Choose three things to accomplish in any given day and if others requests or even other items on your own list don’t match up to those three things, they don’t get done.

Boundaries are important to protect you from yourself sometimes too.

~*~*~*~*~ Stress-Busting Bliss Tip: ETHOS ~*~*~*~*~

These are just a few things you can do to make your life a lot more sane and stress-free and I hope they help.

I also spent the last few years developing a new self-help method as a humanitarian gift to the world, that I’d like to share with you. The emphasis is on personal transformation but the “side effect” we notice is deep healing on personal issues. The technique falls into the area of energy therapy, somewhat similar to EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) but completely different, much simpler, and was created to be “culture-free”. The gist is for people all over the world to be able to use ETHOS and benefit from it. – no beliefs are required, and no terms are used that cannot easily cross international barriers. Well, only the word “yes” which we’ve found to be positive cross-culturally.

ETHOS by the way stands for “Energy Transformation and Healing Open Source” Method. So while I developed it, its ongoing development is now in the hands of a dedicated group of coaches and therapists in an open source consortium. You can download the whole thing, listen to me delivering a class on ETHOS and join in our community discussions here:

http://ethosmethod.com (click on “Learning Community”)

It’s all free, you don’t owe me a thing but to use it, get out of the stress that you feel and share it with everyone you know.

Warmly,
Maryam

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

Inspiration is flowing from so many sources that I want to share, yet have had little time to write about. I’m finding wonderful online resources just falling into my lap though. Here’s one that will point the way from the Institute of Noetic Sciences.

IONS is a place you really want to check out: http://www.noetic.org and is one of my primary professional associations. I highly recommend it to those who are attracted to my writings and personal transformation in general. IONS sponsors a series of videos at  http://oneminuteshift.com entitled: "Snapshots of Awakening" that the below is an example of.  Very satisfying and brief Bliss Niblets.

Here, the spiritual teacher Adyashanti speaks about Awakening.

And nope, you really *don’t* need to have all your stuff together to be Awakened.

It can happen any time, any day, any minute, any second. Now, if you prefer.

If you’d like to help De-Stress The World and Get Bliss "Out There", you can grab the code for BlissWidget 1.0 down below, just hit the "Share" button underneath the widget, copy and paste to your blog.

Be sure and hit all the buttons! There are "easter eggs" galore and some nifty stuff you won’t see unless you go through the several pages of this widget. As I update the BlissWidget, you’ll see the changes instantaneously to the widget on your webpage or blog. Keep abreast of all the news from EverydayBliss.org and MaryamWebster.com with the BlissWidget!

Huzzah! The book has arrived. The real book, not just the jpg, which was all I had of the cover photo. And here is me with book, very late at night after being out all day and coming home to the box on my doorstep. Weary, and without makeup, but the grin is 100% gen-u-wine.

Mitties Anoushka and Tashi-Claire immediately sat in the box and pawed its contents but unlike swift friend Andy, who caught his sitting in the book box, I was not fast enough to get a photo. 

The illustrations reproduced beautifully and friends have praised the self-coaching system as clear and concise. Reviewer’s copies are now being shipped (stay tuned for acid-test thoughts on Everyday Bliss from the most provocative minds in America and Europe!).

As an author, one comes to look at their book in terms of a series of chapters, or this or that section. It’s nice to finally see it all hang together. For a gift book, it certainly is wide – the spine is about an inch wide. Too much goodness to contain in just one place. I can’t wait for it to be on shelves all over so I can share this information with you, too.   

More soon on how to purchase, and get in on our super-special Publication-Day Special "Energy of Everyday Bliss – Spring Training" Telesummit…here’s a preview:  

The biggest of these "Reader’s Circle" bonuses however, is a cutting-ege NEW:

This groundbreaking free event May 5 – 7 is being held ONLY for those who buy the book at Amazon.com on May 1st.

(Can’t make it? Purchase and come back to the everydaybliss.org website on May 1st anyway – We have webcasts and replays and bonus gifts for you – you can attend ANYWHERE in the world!)

I’m bringing together the best presenters from the international conferences of the two professional groups I belong to: The Association of Comprehensive Energy Psychology (ACEP) and the Institute for the Advanced Study of Health (IASH) plus experts and professionals I have worked for years in wellness, performance enhancement, parenting, personal development and leadership coaching.

We are all coming together to bring YOU the most exciting teaching event and community kick-off ever, to help you realize and actualize a Deep and Lasting Field of Bliss in your life and the lives of those you influence.

If this thought intrigues you, buy the Everyday Bliss book at Amazon.com on May 1st and get in on this amazing "Spring Training" Telesummit.

It’s the only place you’ll find all these amazing teachers, therapists, spiritual masters and creators of the New Earth, to quote Eckhart Tolle, all in one place – all free to you, just for the price of "Everyday Bliss For Busy Women" – and Amazon, as you know, does give a discount which makes it even less expensive and more value-packed!

Support your growth into Everyday Bliss by registering now for free, over at EverydayBliss.org. You can’t get into the Reader’s Circle until May 1st, but you’ll have a jump on the process when the day comes.

See you there!

Forwarded from powerful beauty, and ace girlfriend, Jasmine White (right) is this "friendly chain mail".  Send it to all the Beautiful Women in your life!  

Did you know that it’s Beautiful Women Month? Well it is, and that means you! I’m supposed to send this to FIVE BEAUTIFUL WOMEN, and if you’re a woman reading this, YOU are one of them!!!  

Below is a wonderful poem Audrey Hepburn wrote  when asked to share her "beauty tips." It was read at her funeral years later:

For attractive lips, speak words of kindness…

For lovely eyes, seek out the good in people

For a slim figure, share your food with the hungry.

For beautiful hair, let a child run his/her fingers through it once a day. (or your mother, sibling or lover  ~ Maryam)

For poise, walk with the knowledge that you never walk alone…

People, even more than things, have to be restored, renewed, revived, reclaimed, and redeemed;

Never throw out anyone.

Remember,
if you ever need a helping hand,
you will find one at the end of each of your arms.

As you grow older, you will discover that you have two hands;
one for helping yourself and the other for helping others.

If you share this with another woman,
something good will happen.
You will boost another woman’s self esteem,
and she will know that you care about her.

It’s
BEAUTIFUL Women Month
TAG
YOU’RE IT!