Thanksgiving tomorrow! Are you done yet? I had to sit down myself. I make the cranberry sauce (according to the
package. Mom always did and it turned out great), prepped the stuffing (rice this year, with seasonal mixed veg) and
baked the cornbread (Grandma Mimi’s gluten & sugar-free variety – historic and OMG, good!).

This is to UPDATE you on some things as well as to

*** INVITE YOU TO MY THANKSGIVING PARTY   ***

on “Black Friday”. (to skip to the no-registration necessary Party Invitation details, scroll halfway down)

My hubby and his brother who’s visiting, have gone to Drake’s Beach in Inverness, California to run with the seagulls and have microbrew & oysters in the Point Reyes Station Cafe.

I opted to stay home and get an end run around the load of cooking we traditionally do on the last Thursday in November. Thank goodness this year it’s *not* “turducken”.

Happy, Glorious, Grateful Thanksgiving!

Do you know what I’m grateful for this year in addition to all the usual?

The fact that I’m doing in life all the things that give me the greatest joy. One of those things is to create the simplest, easiest transformation experiences and opportunities for personal and planetary evolution possible.

After this last year’s creative hiatus…

it became crystal clear…

that my core mission in life is to uncreate, dissolve and release problems, issues and pain to release and amplify Consciousness worldwide.

And more important on a personal level…

to Create, empower and amplify a daily experience of JOY in your life.

In addition to the Pain Body…did you know we all have a JOY BODY? Which most of us don’t even know about.

(yep)

I am celebrating the remainder of this year – 37 days  from Thanksgiving to New Year’s with YOU in the creation, empowerment and amplification of YOUR Joy Body .

So much has happened in the last month and few months that this post is more in the way of a documentary of the evolution the world, ideas and my further research into dealing with the Painbody. There are good lessons all around for those who are interested in cultivating greater Consciousness, sustainable living, international fellowship and personal evolution. This first one is potentially going to be painful for some of us. But don’t worry, there’s energy coaching to help us all deal. Deep breath…here goes…

“…..Freedom!”

Remember in the movie Braveheart, William Wallace’s final word “…Freedom!” as he was being executed? That word echoed in my ears as aghast, I watched along with the rest of the world, the horrific scenes coming out of Iran in the past month. It was chilling to see people who were peacably and simply demanding their right to free speech, be stoned, shot at, beaten and killed.

Forty years ago though, the same thing happened here, in America.

Are you old enough to remember the May 4th, 1970 Kent State Massacre? I was ten. It shocked, grieved and scared the hell out of me and everyone I knew. Even my parents and teachers went numb and wept openly. The National Guard had attacked our own people. Shot and killed four college students peacefully protesting injustices of the Vietnam War: Allison Krause, William Schroeder, Jeffrey Miller and Sandra Scheuer. Paralyzed another student, and wounded eight others.

As in Iran, some of those killed were not even involved in the protest. The National Guard, like the Iranian Basij, fired randomly into a peacefully demonstrating crowd, releasing 67 rounds over 13 seconds. Four dead in Ohio. As a result, students nationwide, eight million strong, went on strike, closing high schools, colleges and universities. How could this happen here, in America, the land that was supposed to be the best in the world?

Now when I see the footage coming out of Iran and recall the beautiful, creative young life and horrendous death on a city street that was Neda Agha-Soltan’s (1) Neil Young’s “Ohio” lyric automatically rolls:

“What if you knew her and

found her dead on the ground…

how can you run when you know?”

If like me, this brings tears to your eyes even as you read, remember that awful and heavy as this is, when it happens, you are plugging into a heavy, and seductively attractive Painbody. Remind yourself that your tears do no one any good, your Consciousness is NEEDED in the world, and you can just as easily choose to unplug.

Stop. Focus. Breathe.

Recognize the Painbody rising to feed upon your tears and grief.

Deny it firmly. With your breath, return to Consciousness & center.

Tap vigorously on your collarbone points, thymus or

under-eye points to aid your return to balance.

When asked about releasing the song “Ohio”, Graham Nash responded:

“Four young men and women had their lives taken from them while lawfully protesting this outrageous government action. We are going back to keep awareness alive in the minds of all students, not only in America, but worldwide…to be vigilant and ready to stand and be counted… and to make sure that the powers of the politicians do not take precedent over the right of lawful protest.”(2)

Amen, amen, amen.

I have a very long history with Iran. I am not Iranian but while an honors English student in high school, taught Iranian students English as a Second Language (ESL) in the late 1970’s to help overburdened staff. I continued teaching ESL in college, learned Farsi to a first-grade level, and made many Iranian friends.

Despite the negative perceptions of western media on this country, I have found Iranians to be the same mixed bag as any culture, though predominantly hospitable, highly intelligent and kind. Plus which, ethnic Persian food rocks. Who doesn’t like kebab, rice, fresh veggies & yogurt dip?  In addition to Farsi, I learned Persian cuisine, and make a ghormeh sabzi wicked enough to make your Persian granny cry.  (Really.)

Recently I became involved in the struggle for civil rights in Iran through the horrific events surrounding its stolen election. This too happened here – remember our little “hanging chad” issue of  2000? Though there was an outcry, in America, people said “that’s terrible and I’m pissed about it but ultimately…whatever”. Our election too, was stolen. But what exemplary milquetoasts we were in response. Our new national motto might well have been “que sera, sera”. As for our middle eastern cousins, their slogan might well be -

Cry “Havoc!”, and let slip the dogs of war…

I can think of no more fitting phrase to sum up what happened in Iran than this famous line from Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar – followed appropriately as it is by Antony’s plaint:

That this foul deed shall smell above the earth
With carrion men, groaning for burial.

Indeed. In Iran, people took to the streets and died in the still-ongoing fight to secure basic civil liberties most Americans take for granted. As far as I can see, agree with them or not, the people of Iran have solid stone cojones. Furthermore, as in the People’s Revolution thirty years ago, it’s the women who are leading the way. Here’s an amazing historical video from the 1979 Iranian revolution in which American feminist  Kate Millet laments that it would take years to organize the kind of protests in the USA that in Iran were convened, successfully, in less than hours. A little over eleven minutes and well worth the viewing:

The Liberation Movement of Iranian Women – Year Zero

And in strong support of this thirty-year-old historical view, is Golbarg Bashi’s interview of Zillah Eisenstein, leading feminist theorist and professor of politics at Ithaca College, NY on the topic of:

Feminism in 2009 Iran

For those of you who might be interested in one of the most feminist of Muslim countries, a timeline:

Chronology of Events Regarding Women in Iran from 1979 To Present

But back to the present. Ahmadinejad is elected, and Iran erupts into civil unrest, governmental violence and murder the like of which has not been seen since the Shah was deposed in 1979.

I thought this insupportable. So, on day two of Iran’s post-election carnage, like many other concerned people worldwide, I provided access to my computer’s IP tunnel (address) to Iranian bloggers and Tweeters whose freedom of speech was otherwise blocked by those in power.

My tunnel lasted almost 72 hours (a minor miracle I’m told) before the IP was blocked by the Iranian government. No matter, hundreds of others provided still more access and the IP numbers were passed around in an endless loop for the use of eyewitness reporters from the front in Tehran, Shiraz, Abadan, Qom, Esfahan and other Iranian hotspots.

@powerwriter on Twitter tweeted: “Iran is symptomatic of complete shift in consciousness being demanded of all of us.”

Spurred by the death of Neda Agha-Soltan and other protestors, plus Iranian eyewitnesses whose desperate cries for help we heard before internet and cellphone access was cut off, I tweeted and re-tweeted open IP access tunnels, first aid information, my own advice on how to avoid post traumatic stress syndrome and other useful items, for four days straight, barely sleeping. I attended Iran Azad (Freedom In Iran) rallies in Palo Alto and San Francisco and several dialogues in my attempt not only to understand what was at stake, but also why I personally was there.

It was about freedom…but it was also about something else.

I went to study an active cultural painbody (or “supermind”) at work & to trial methods of surmounting its influence. What a rich experience it was.

There were ample lessons for a consciousness researcher, some of which I invite you to partake of here:

Spiritual Lessons from the Resistance

And if you’re interested, here are more of my short videos of the rally:

Freedom In Iran – Palo Alto, CA protest & rally

I believe heartily in freedom of speech, and when I learned people were being shot in the streets for demanding civil liberties, I felt a passionate need to get involved. Maybe you did too. But even if not, the cause of Freedom is universal, and the struggle in Iran is ongoing. Repression is becoming harsher, governmental murder sanctioned and citizens have no rights.

This is also symptomatic of the struggle between Consciousness and the active, cultural Painbody. Consciousness is winning the struggle, planet-wide. We are witnessing the birth-throes of what Eckhart Tolle calls the “New Earth”. Iran’s struggle is a very visible symptom of this upwelling and transformation of the planet.

My .02 – and to speak for those who cannot:

CONSCIOUSNESS IN IRAN

And, insha’Allah (God willing) worldwide.

For those of us who want to help and aren’t there, what can we do? Stay conscious. Stay awake. Listen with awakened ears. Bear witness, bear witness, bear witness.

To bring it back down to brass tacks, a word on maintaining ongoing consciousness. Again another quote from the Neil Young blog ThrashersWheat.org:

“Neil Young’s other anti-war anthem came with his group Buffalo Springfield. ‘For What It’s Worth’ co-written by Stephen Stills in 1966. The lines:

“Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away”

speak of the control that the government had over the people of the United States, and how those people were feeling at the time. The chorus:

“I think it’s time we stop, children,
what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down”

speaks to the listeners and tells them to evaluate the war effort in Vietnam, and how futile it is.”

Or indeed, the “war effort” or effort to create war in America, Iran, anywhere. A futile waste of time, life and our young. Beware fear, for it is Unconsciousness made manifest. Paranoia is fear personified and given power over you, to keep you unconscious.

Stop, pay attention, don’t go to sleep again!

We truly cannot afford the luxury of unconscious living any more.

Wake up,

Breathe -

Live.

Remember: Any time you get caught up in shouting slogans with real fervor and deep feeling – you’re deep in the clutches of the Painbody. Any time you get involved in weeping for the state of things, of lost lives, of the injustice of it all, (or in your own life) you’re in the grip of Painbody.

To remain Conscious and in the place of limitless options, simply be aware of these things:

• Who’s Running You (you, your Painbody, or someone else?)
• What You’re Feeling
• Why You’re Feeling what You’re Feeling  (genuine grief
  over an immediate loss, or Painbody?)

Once you ask yourself why, you have a choice in whether or not to feed into Painbody. If you choose to feed it, you will go unconscious and be acting from an unconscious place. If you choose to breathe, come back to your center and break away from the Painbody, the reward is Consciousness.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~

There is much, much more to share with you but this post is long enough. In posts to come, I’ll tell you about

• a new Consciousness Blocking Syndrome I’ve been researching
• a perspective on the swine flu you haven’t heard
• sex, money, the housing market and what they have in common
• plus new info on dealing with fears of all types that will keep you conscious

Wait for it…

See you soon!

On another post in the archives, a commenter by the name of Ted got a little upset at my repost of an Yahoo.com article on “Top 10 Stress-less Careers”.  I thought Ted’s comment was provocative enough to post (yes I approve vitriolic comments if they provide value) and also to answer. Here’s that thread, for the possible enlightenment it might provide:

Ted:
“This article is utter bull shit. Every one of those jobs is full of stress. They are either very stressful, too low paying to create financial stress (Maryam note: I think he means “too low paying SO they create financial stress”), or both. Try being an accountant. Every calculation you make must be accurate! And tax season is the worst.

Even being a masseuse causes your own muscles to tighten up. Who massages you? And a teacher? Try making ends meet on a teachers salary when you’ve baby sat a bunch of adolescents all day. You do no one any favors by propogating this drivel. It’s obviously written by someone who’s sitting at home, drinking tea and out of touch with the real world. Why? Because she’s figured out a way to make a stress free living by working 3 hours a day by writing useless garbage. I’d bet she’s living on a farm raising toddlers and chickens.”

(~*~*~*~*~ pause for interlude music ~*~*~*~*~ )

Hi Ted,
Can I recommend you take a chill pill? The vitriol here only indicates that YOU are stressed.  Your outlook effects your experience of life a great deal. My accountant is happy as a lark right now. It’s his outlook. He enjoys tax season and revels in the work it brings. If you’re an accountant and you don’t enjoy it, then you’re in the wrong job. Change your job to reduce  stress. It’s entirely doable, no matter how closed all avenues might seem. (see the end of this article)

You’re also making a lot of judgements that may or many not have any basis in reality. And your experience may be atypical. So…why “propagate such drivel” yourself?

To answer a few of your rants: who massages you? Your buddies – as a massage therapist, you develop cooperative relationships with other massage therapists. Been there, done that.  Teacher? Been there too – high school English. Most teachers who are in it as a career are doing it for love of the job..and don’t view it as “baby sitting”  – you demean teachers by this suggestion. The fact that you can read and write you owe to a teacher. Don’t disrespect them by suggesting their jobs amount to babysitting.

But before you jump on your keys to write a retort, I must correct the worst misperceptions you list: the job of “mom to toddlers” and also that of raising farm animals are two of the most time-consuming and stressful on the planet. Both require early hours until way late at night and in the middle of the night when a child or animal is ill or a large animal is giving birth. (woman and farmer? Resources here) There’s no calling in a workmate to handle your load when you “don’t feel like” going in to work or are sick yourself.

Moms and stock farmers work through it all – no exceptions.  Respect.

The next time you eat a steak, chop or chicken breast think about that. The next time you take a breath or do anything with your mind or body, you can thank your mother for that. Like her or not, you wouldn’t be here without her and whomever raised you to adulthood. If you were as angry then as you exhibit here…it probably wasn’t a 100% pleasant job.

Finally, the article didn’t say zero stress, just less stress. Perhaps I should adjust the title (already done)…but really, is all the venom-spouting necessary? If destressing is important to you then I recommend:

http://maryamwebster.com/stressrelief

or your favorite aerobic exercise.

Also, know that you can step away from this and into your own Unlimited Self, where the problems, stress and upset don’t exist.  You started out in life Unlimited, able to make your life anything you choose. You still have that power and that choice, no matter what your station in life or how crappy your job or living situation. Ask yourself  – “Would an Unlimited being choose to remain this angry, upset and stressed-out?” More here:

http://ethosmethod.ning.com

Have a good one Ted – Be Good to You!

.

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

From Yahoo HotJobs, by Chloe Dowley

Job stress is one of the most common complaints among Americans, and research indicates that it has become a more widespread problem in recent years. In 1992, the United Nations named job stress “The 20th Century Disease,” and the World Health Organization has called it a “World Wide Epidemic.” Also, studies have shown that too much negative stress can contribute to health problems ranging from migraine headaches and depression to life-threatening illnesses such as heart attacks. Is that pension plan really worth it if you won’t be alive to cash it in?

Turn Off the Career Pressure-Cooker

What’s an overworked guy or gal to do? Though it may seem out of the question after a 60+ hour workweek, redirecting some of your energy toward identifying and training for a new career may be the best investment you can make. The careers listed below are not anxiety-free (every job by nature has some elements of positive and negative stress), but they do offer a combination of freedom, creativity, and personal satisfaction that can help keep your pulse rate normal.

Check out the list of The 10 Least Stressful jobs, and full article at Yahoo News here.

Hi folks, in case you’re not getting my newsletter*, here’s an important update:

I’m giving a FREE ETHOS Method teleclass this coming Tuesday at 6pm Pacific. The theme of this class is “ETHOS for Radiant Resolve” and will focus on teaching how ETHOS can be used for a variety of issues, and also addressing those New Year’s resolutions that never seem to go further than the end of February. Find out about this great new way to transform your life, heal yourself and even make money if you want to. Plus, heal the world and yourself, while you’re at it. Many more details plus:

Register free here

* What? you don’t have your Blisskit yet? Pop your details into the form at left of this page and you’ll get that, plus all the upcoming news on The Energy Coach Institute, Everyday Bliss and ETHOS Communities and happy thoughts and articles on energy coaching, positive psychology & world transformation.

In surveying holistic health blogs, I often meet really cool people. One I had the good fortune to meet this week is a Kripalu Yoga teacher and registered nurse, Judi England. She blogs over at TimesUnion, and I want to bring your attention to a great post she made on a five-step relaxation process.

Here’s the meat of the method, though you really should get over to her blog and read it all (the post itself is on cultivating Presence) and check her archives as well as DO this wonderful relaxation method. It can only take a few minutes to go from stressed to blissed.

The more relaxed you are, the more Conscious you are. And I love how this BRFWA process brings great consciousness to the entire system.

From: http://blogs.timesunion.com/holistichealth/?p=306

…Known as BRFWA (pronounced,” brifwah”) – the acronym stands for a five-step process - BREATHE, RELAX, FEEL, WATCH, ALLOW.   Alternatively known as “The Practice of Being Present”,  BRFWA can help me make a shift from tension back to relative ease, from the worries of “what if?” to the management of “what is.”

Here’s how to move through the steps:

1. BREATHE-  Most of our worries link us to the past or the future.  The breath happens minute by minute, entirely in the present.  At the first experience of strong sensations, thoughts or emotions most people find that their breath gets shallow – or even stops temporarily. It’s a common reaction.  To notice when that happens, and reestablishing a steady rhythm of breath can  bring us back into the solid ground of the body and the moment.
2. RELAX – Regular abdominal or diaphragmatic breathing  instantly begins to reverse the stress response.  It’s simply the way we humans are wired.  When stress begins to diminish we can read a current situation and it’s reality more clearly.
3. FEEL – With body calmer and mind less clouded with tension we can begin to  feel what’s really going on.  We can begin to response to actual events rather than react to our fears and imaginings.
4. WATCH- Nothing in life is permanent. Sensations get weaker, stronger, move, or dissolve.  So do emotions. Thoughts are our own creations and can bear little connection to reality.  We love to believe our thoughts and sometimes nothing is more misleading. With the first three steps in place, we can “Watch” the process of impermanence and choose actions that fit each situation as it comes up.
5. ALLOW – Without self-criticism, self-judgment, or creating a”story” about why things are the way they are – we just let everything exist – good bad or indifferent.  We stay right here, in the present.  We know that we don’t have to handle everything at once – just the next thing.

A simple practice – absolutely. An easy practice – not always.  But, like any other behavior we want to include in our life, the more we use it, the better we get at it.

My suggestion is to try it first when stress is mild-moderate.  Don’t wait till red-alert sets in. ( Just like preparation for childbirth – you don’t start when the contractions do!) Try it at home. Teach it to your kids.  Share it with your friends.  Do it at work and make your co-workers wonder what you’re up to.

Try it and make your own personal contribution to world peace – or at least peace in your own corner of the world.

Judi England, RN, LMT, Kripalu Yoga Instructor – yogajudi@aol.com – 10/12/2008

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

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!