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Over the past few months I’ve lost 24lbs and I’m still going strong. I didn’t use a special diet, weight-loss program or any other such thing that is easy available to us that guarantees our weight-loss success…or not, as many of us who have tried these methods can attest.

I used something that is often ignored. I used my mind/body connection to create this change. Wanna know how I did it? Well, I’ll tell you.

It Starts with Self Acceptance and Love

At the time that I began this experiment, I thought I looked really good. Yes, I was overweight but I was very happy with me. I saw someone I really liked looking back at me in the mirror. I wasn’t thinking, gosh your ass is getting pretty big…you better do something about that, as I had done when spurred toward weight-loss in the past.

Not even once did this kind of inner dialog occur. I only saw my strengths reflected back to me, honestly I wasn’t even really aware that I was overweight. At the time I was really focused on growing my intuitive abilities to a level I’d never reached before and a big part of that work involved being open to the messages that are communicated through the body. One day I received a communication that would change things for me.

Symptoms or Messages?

My feet started to hurt. My feet hurt frequently so I went into meditation, dropped down into my body and asked my feet what they wanted me to do. They said to take off some of the pounds. I exited the mediation and got on my scale. I was so surprised at the number that displayed before me. I had never in my life been this heavy outside of pregnancy.

I marched back into meditation again and said, o.k. feet, I see your point, so how do I accomplish this. Their reply, cleanse…

The Big Cleanse

So I flushed my system with lots of herbal teas, primarily lavender and chamomile and I fasted for 2 days before beginning my new style of eating. O.k., so now some of you are perhaps imagining that I live alone…so easy for me to fast, right?

Well in fact, it was easy…but not because I live alone. I do not. I have two small children and a husband that all expect me to feed them. So how did I accomplish this? With two things…a mindset and a plan.

The mindset was, because I love you (speaking to the body) I am going to allow you the opportunity to heal from all the toxic stuff I have been putting into you lately. The plan was to drop into my body, identify what it wanted to eat and prepare for my family the exact opposite.

O.k., now you are thinking that I fed them garbage. No, not exactly…they got normal dinners they were quite happy with, but because it wasn’t what my body wanted or needed at the time, it was actually repulsive to me and made it quite easy for me to stick with my fast…and besides, it was only for two days! Sometimes you have to get creative!!!

The purpose of the big cleanse is to detox the system…but hidden within that detox is a subtle shift of awareness. This awareness is the real prize and reason for the detox. After the cleanse you can actually hear what your body wants again.

You can tell the difference between when the body wants to eat something and when the mind wants to. You feel hungry and get reacquainted with what that is like…so this is wonderful because it creates that connection with the body and its sense of what it needs out of food. You begin to eat based on how what you eat makes you feel.

Life After the Cleanse

After the initial cleanse, I went on a lot of mini-day fasts…taking careful notes of all the wonderful impulses my body was sending me about foods and then I would put together the most thoughtful dinners I’d ever created around those foods. I joyed in eating because I had waited most of the day, I was surprised at how little food I actually needed verses the amount I previously consumed and every little bite was a joy chorus being sung from my cells to the very core of my being.

I also asked my body what kind of exercise to do and it led me to hiking and treadmill routines. This is where I cleaned out my energy and drew in the new. I started adding chakra meditations to the workouts and I would come out feeling so refreshed!

Everything that I did, I did because it made me feel good…and all of these good feelings resulted in the pounds flying off without me really having to think about it. I developed a new relationship with my body…one in which I view it as my best friend. It has instant information about things my mind can not sense…and I rely upon it heavily everyday.

So if you’re interested in experiencing food joy instead of guilt this holiday season, feel free to take the Thanksgiving Day Gratitude Challenge!

The Thanksgiving Day Gratitude Challenge

Sometime today start a fast in which you flush your system with a constant flow of water. This time of year hot water is great and with all the wonderful herbal teas out there you can keep yourself busy for awhile.

Drop into your body and ask it how to fast. For you this may mean water only intake, or perhaps clear fluid only, or maybe your body will say any fluid is o.k. Go with whatever it tells you and make sure you drink constantly as this will prevent any hunger discomfort.

Continue your fast until Thanksgiving Dinner and when you sit down at the table direct your consciousness into your stomach and feel, like a compass what it tells you to eat.

Fill your plate according to its communications, eat slowly, enjoying each bite and see how good it feels to truly be grateful for and connected to food! Enjoy yourself…the company and blessings on the table…

I’ll be doing the same and thinking of you

Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Today is the one year anniversary of this blog and to celebrate I decided to write a post of appreciation to all of my furry four-legged friends. I am especially indebted to my dog…as she (among many other beings) has provided me with a huge platform for my growth.

So with that in mind, I’d like to start with a concept that takes the basic differences between the personalities of cats and dogs and applies them to people.

The Difference Between Cats & Dogs: An Analogy of Personality Types

I saw a presentation that really made me smile of cat and dog personalities presented by Michael Grinder. It went something like this…

The difference between a cat and a dog is in accommodation. A cat personality is not very accommodating while a dog personality is very accommodating. So when I feed my dog, she comes in, looks at the food and water, and her inner dialog goes something like this, “Wow, I’ve got food…I’ve got water…this is so great! You must be a GOD!” Dog owners love having dogs because they make them feel great, hence the bumper sticker…I hope to one day become the person my dogs thinks I am.

A cat on the other hand when presented with its food and water has an entirely different perspective of the feeding routine. They come in, sit down and their inner dialog goes something like, “You know, I always have food and I always have water. But something I’ve noticed is that I can fit through that little flappy door and you can’t. Hey, I MUST be a GOD!” Hence cats are not very friendly toward following…they must be enticed to come along.

So when you take this analogy into the world of people it gives you some new insight into behavior. I’ll admit I’ve spent time being both a dog and a cat. I was most cat as a teenager…most dog when I got married and now I oscillate between the two. But what is really interesting is thinking about this theory while actually spending time with your dog…and that brings me around to rapport.

What is Rapport?

Rapport is a term that is used to describe a state of having behaviors in common, or of being “in sync” with another person but I am going to stretch this out a bit and use the term “another being”. Rapport describes the behavior dance that occurs when we are making a connection with another living thing.

In people this manifests in the wording we use, how we hold our bodies, the tonality of our voices, our facial expressions, etc. When people have great rapport you will see a kind of dance occur…they stand or sit the same, they match each others breathing and verbal ways of expression. Their gestures, facial expressions and tones of voice all go back in forth in this unconscious exchange where the lead slowly shifts back and forth between the people experiencing this connection.

Doggy Rapport

But is it possible to have rapport with your dog? After an experiment I performed quite accidentally I say yes…in fact, I now believe that ALL relationship relies on this foundation, animal or otherwise. Let me explain.

We’ve been struggling with our dogs behavior. She is a year old German Shepherd that is very strong and gets very agitated within the presence of certain people and dogs.

As busy as we are, we try to train with her as often as we can. We never understood how at times she seemed to get it, and at others she seemed to forget everything she’s learned.

How do we create the consistency? We wondered. Perhaps it’s her age and attention span…we’ve read a lot to support that. Perhaps we haven’t been consistent enough in our training methods, or she needs more time or motivation. We went round and round…until I finally understood one day when I took her for a walk.

I’m not sure how it happened on this particular walk because it really was the same as any other. I ventured out toward the trail head as I usually did. Somewhere along the trail I started to notice a groove. We had this energy field developing between us.

My dog would float to my side, slightly behind me or slightly in front. I held her leash with only about a 2.5 foot lead so we were very close. This energy field or state of oneness continued until she stopped to sniff something or saw something ahead that she wanted to chase.

Maintaining the State

Then the state would be broken and we would have to start over. So I began to really tune into her, as I would someone I am coaching. I payed close attention to her muscles, her facial expression, the way she held her body and if I saw or felt the slightest change I would very gently use the leash to pull her back into rapport with me.

It happened so naturally and was so subtle that it did not break the state for either of us and soon I could simply make a shushing sound and she would immediately correct herself. The longer we maintained this walking rapport, the less work it was to get her to respond to any command I issued to her. Her consistency was dependent on how long we maintained the state.

When I was in the state with her I could speak commands gently, use hand motions and she would immediately perform them. If I was out of rapport with her, she did not seem to remember her commands.

The Connection Revelation

I began to realize that how much we enjoy her and how easy it is for us to live with her was completely dependent on this shared state. It wasn’t that she is stubborn, hard headed, a teen-aged dog, from a German line or just plain dumb as we had often assumed…it was a simple matter of shared connection.

After spending time with my dog in this way I realize she is a vastly intelligent life form with a very special function in this world…as are all the living creatures of the earth both big and small, simple and complex. It really changed how I view relationship and the role I play in establishing connection with the world around me.

As this blog is all about connection…the lessons I learned from my dog about rapport, seemed appropriate material with which to celebrate its one year anniversary!

Plans for the Coming Year!

As a little segue for all of the spiritual adventurers out there who love stories in which animals play a significant role in a humans development, I am currently working on my book, Animal Magick: An Empathic Journey of Spirit, that is due out in 2008.

This is a true story about wild transformations, a cynical teen’s quest for the perfect pet and a crazy adventure that will make you both laugh and cry, as she unwittingly lands herself a new dad, a move to Alaska and spiritual gifts that will change her life.

All with the help of one very special, furry friend! It’s a tale about coming of age, looking for something more in life and observing the world around you for answers.

So I invite you to join me for another amazing year as I roll out the site changes, audio and books!

Thank you for reading and for sharing your travels with me as we all make this pilgrimage toward spirit, called life. You are unique and special to this world and I value you all!

Love,

PK

San Francisco

I’m back in San Francisco in an NLP Practitioner training. I am still amazed and somewhat surprised at how the universe opened up and manifested the way for me to be here. This course is broken out over several months, one intense weekend each month. Our day starts on Friday afternoon and pretty much ends on Sunday evening. For me it has been a reunion of friends as several people I knew from my coaching course are here. It is a large group that is very enjoyable.

The Assignment

Yesterday, we worked on a process called Change Personal History. In this process you are to find an unresourceful state, trace it back to your earliest memory of experiencing it, determine what resource would have been needed to turn it into a resourceful state and then jump back through your memories, pulling the resource up through time noticing and experiencing how differently you behave.

Confusion

I’ve challenged myself to really get out of my comfort zone during this training. Part of that is to work on areas that really are soft spots for me, the other part is to be more of an experiencer than an observer.

So I was the first to be guided through the process. I chose the subject of confusion because I have often experienced what seems like an over reaction to it, something inside of me yelling out that it is not o.k. to be confused and demanding that I resolve the situation immediately. Realizing not everyone has this same experience, I decided to explore this phenomena and see what was really going on.

The Memories

The memories that I traveled through were varied. The most recent in history being when I decided to step away from the music industry (promoting the voice of others) and move toward discovering my own voice…who I am and why I’m here in this life.

The next memory was when I was fourteen, a freshman in high school. A new town, new school and new chapter of life was upon me and I was absolutely clueless on how to integrate all of these changes.

The third memory was perhaps the most powerful and was what I would soon discover to be the root of my reaction toward confusion. I was about seven years old. I saw myself awaken in a car parked in a busy shopping mall lot. I had fallen asleep and was left there by myself as no one had wanted to wake me up. I awoke on my own in a panic, all alone.

I could not decide what to do. I was very confused. Part of me wanted to stay in the car, the other part shouted at me to go find my family. I couldn’t move. I was paralyzed with fear. Tears streamed down my face as the internal war raged on. Before I got the chance to make a decision, my family returned.

The memory caused me to distrust myself when feeling confused and that the experience of it was not safe. These reactions and feelings had become the meaning of confusion for me…henceforth my automatic response to it was to become extremely uncomfortable and to panic.

Pulling in the Resource

I chose a few resources to give to my seven-year old self. The first was patience, the second was love, and the third was safety. Accessing them all within myself I showered her with them, sending them all out of myself with a great intensity that flowed out of me like a wave. Stepping into her, I received them and experienced the situation very differently.

I awoke within the car to discover that I had a cord of light running from my body down deep into the surface of the earth. I knew in that moment I was connected with all of the nurturing forces of the universe, a mother of great power.

Energy washed over me, I was embraced by it. I felt calm, at peace, safe, loved and knew that I only had to sit and wait. My family would be back soon, I had nothing to worry about. I saw the seven-year old me relax, enjoying this connection, knowing that no matter what, she was never alone.

I pulled this connection up through all the other memories as well, and paced it out into the future circumstances in which I might experience confusion. Confusion for me now has a different image attached to it…that of a peaceful, grounded little girl, bathing in the light of the nurturing forces of the love

Smelly Energy

Energy imbalance happens. For me, it started a few weeks ago after my husband issued me a growth challenge. You know, the kind that once it’s been uttered makes a part of you cringe in the corner and whimper…it had to be that one, didn’t it?

I knew the time was right to face this particular challenge however and I did my part, I got in there and I met it head on. This did not occur without creating an imbalance though. I was so focused on the challenge that I did not pay as close attention to all the signs and signals I usually monitor in the world around me that help to keep me aligned.

So I didn’t pay attention. I just kept on going. I knew that my energy was off, but I just kept focused thinking it would balance out soon.

Getting My Attention

It didn’t though. A message was trying to come through…something was out to get my attention and it appeared that it would do whatever was necessary. So, as these things will commonly manifest, my son came home from school with a cold so nasty it halted family productivity for a week. Every single one of us got it.

Sick, sniffling, barely able to talk I asked myself why I had gone along with being sick. The usual, perhaps you wanted to get out of doing certain things, answer came up but it was hollow. There was some truth to that but it didn’t stick. It took several more days and feelings unwarranted of by my life situation before I was ready to find out.

The Sticking Place

I called my friend Raj to say that something deeply unconscious was trying to make it’s way up to the surface. I wanted his help in speaking with it. He asked if I had checked to see if anything was in my energy space. I hadn’t done this, so he quickly told me what to do, I thanked him for his help and we agreed to talk again later on in the week.

When I entered into my energy something was there. It was a great big ape-like creature hunkering in the darkness. On its head was a single horn. He had such a look of disheartened sadness upon his face that I felt it burrow into my chest. Silently the eyes probed me. What they were searching for I felt more than understood. My heart went out to this creature and I asked it, “Who are you? Why are you here?”

“I am your strength.” he said, “I can not leave.” I stared at him uncomprehending and bewildered. Why on earth is my strength in this condition? Why is it outside of me? What is this energy surrounding it…like a bird with broken wings??? It seems like he should fly I thought, and the thought gave him a pair of wings that began to flap in a wild attempt to lift him from the ground and that was when I became aware of the chain. I ordered the wings to stop and my right arm became an extension of light that took on the hardness and edge of a sword. With my light saber arm, I easily cut the bonds of his restraints and the creature became surrounded by light that emanated from its horn…it was metamorphosing.

I came out of the meditation with two things; the first was the release of the energy imbalance and illness I had been experiencing for the past few weeks and second was an understanding that I had just encountered a teaching. Somehow, I had chained, shackled and locked up my strength and power. Like the cocooned butterfly, the bird that takes to wing and the flower that bursts forth to bloom one can only stay in their place of protection for so long before they outgrow it, and they simply must enter the world in their new form or they will whither to a spark or fragment of what they could have experienced.

The important thing in life is this; to be willing at any moment to sacrifice who we are, for what we could become ~ Charles Du Bois

I don’t know the limits of what I can become…but I am willing to find out

The Map is Not the Territory

Thinking is the way we make an internal representation to ourselves of the world we live in. We take our experiences and our sensory input and with it we create a map of the world in which we live. This map comes equipped with a navigational system whose primary function is to sort our experiences into two categories: the kind we’d like to have or the kind we’d like to avoid.

We use this navigational system like a compass, in conjunction with the map to get where we want to go. Some areas of the map are new territory for us…others have been lived in for so long that we are no longer consciously aware of them…like a hardwired program running in the background of our lives.

This way of internally representing our world is a big piece of how we learn to survive. Developing hardwired programs is an efficient method of providing ourselves with a source of nourishment and sustenance. These survival strategies help us hold and maintain a place in our families, our communities and beyond.

Most of us experience this system unconsciously, in the form of behavior patterns (knee-jerk reactions to certain stimulus or situations we encounter in life). Sometimes we become aware of ourselves executing a behavior that is less than flattering and we beat up on ourselves over it. Thinking about it like this is not helpful to our overall goal of change. We need to know why the behavior is in place and what purpose it serves in order for us to be able to make a different choice. Trying to accomplish this level of change without understanding how the behavior is of service to us…is very difficult.

So what happens when we can consciously observe our patterns, understand how they benefit us and choose a new more life complimentary behavior to meet our needs? What happens when we decide to change the map?

Discovering the Positive Intent

Whenever we are experiencing something like a disorder, disease, anxiety or other physical symptom that arises within our world, it is helpful to take the point of view of wondering how this symptom is actually of benefit to us.

The on the surface, mind generated response is always that it doesn’t serve us at all…but we wouldn’t have it in our lives if it was absolutely of no use to us…so when we are completely honest and dig deep into our unconscious minds we will often discover something entirely different.

That is why whenever we are sick or experiencing some other signal from our bodies, we can get to the bottom of things much more quickly if we look upon the experience like a kind of message from another part of us.

Unlocking and decoding those messages can change the course of our experience. When we understand how something that is not our ideal circumstance serves us…we can find another way to fill that need and let go of the less healthy behavior.

Coaching a Reading Disorder

Not too long ago I coached a woman who had developed a reading disorder in the second grade. She did not feel it was possible for her to read and came to me to try to understand why this disorder appeared in her life at the time that it did.

A child born into abuse will create what they need in order to survive their family situation. When we explored her reading disorder we discovered that it was helpful to her in many ways…

It discounted her ability to be fully responsible for all of what she did as a child. Coming from a family of seven kids who had to endure evening watches all alone with their alcoholic father, this became more than a coping strategy…it was survival. If she wasn’t as noticeable, if she was discountable and not easily seen, then she might avoid being yelled at, beat or some other form of punishment…providing her with a chance to experience some form of happiness at home.

On another level, it garnered her a great deal of consideration from her mother, who spent a lot of time trying to teach her to read well enough to pass her classes. In a family system this large, there is stiff competition for a working mother’s love and attention. The reading disorder ensured that she received more of this attention than she would have otherwise. It also provided her with the opportunity to bond with her mother and please her by reading the words she was taught correctly.

In the end, my client realized that the disorder had been extremely useful to her during her childhood, and that it had, in actuality, been the avenue that she used to acquire what little happiness was available to her within her family.

Now, 47 years later, the disorder had long outlived it’s purpose and she realized she had many other paths to happiness and fulfillment. She was able to honor the needs of the child and of the grown woman by choosing a new way to nurture herself.

The Dream

A few days after our coaching session she called me with an absolute beam in her voice to say that she had experienced a significant dream. She saw herself in an office setting, where people were coming to her with memos and documents. For the first time in her life, she had the experience of looking over papers and reading them with ease before handing them back to her dream employees with written instructions attached.

As we talked she said, “I don’t see myself as someone who can’t read anymore…I see myself as someone who is learning how.”

At 55 years of age she has entered a new place in life… she has reinvented her identity as a woman who can read, and life looks quite a bit different from the vantage point of this new, previously unexplored and inaccessible territory of her map