Vision Board for 2014

Looking Through Old Journals

What is in your old journals?

Once I was a diamond in the rough
Life was hard and life felt tough
Times I felt fragmented, times I felt shattered
Ultimately I found out what really mattered

Cutting away what was simply not sublime
Polishing my edges, simply tailing the time
Like a precision jeweler, chipping away the past
Revealing the heart of the jewel that really does last

My burdens, my woes, all of my stressors
Let this lump of coal do good under pressure
I have many facets and each of them shines
I own all my flaws, they are uniquely mine

Sometimes cold, sometimes hard, always brilliant
My jeweled tones have become more resilient
Times I am humble, times quite ferocious
I know now that I am always precious

I am sparkly and glittery, something quite rare
It took years and years of work to get me there
What was once simply a part of the earth
Now knows her true self her diamond self worth

Everyday I can take care of body and soul
Exercise my mind and exercise my health
In looking through my old journals what I discover:
I have always been engaged with my self.

Secrets to Success

“The most important promises are the ones I make to myself.”

- Maryanne Radmacher

• I use tarot and astrology as a daily meditation tool, to focus on my career, my relationships, and my creativity. They serve as moment in my journey where I look at the map of my life and decide which direction to take. But I don’t just stay stuck looking at the map - journaling is one of the steps I take to put into action what I have been contemplating.

• You can have many different kinds of journals, that you write in at different times of your life. Just as your checkbook is a record of your spending habits, journals can reflect your patterns and serve as a reminder of the positive “emotional deposits” of life.

• Kinds of journals: Business notes, daily affirmations, dreams (night and day), poetry, sketches, coloring books, blank books or notebook paper put into a binder, a photo album or scrap books, engagement calenders.

• Who is your audience? Well, you, of course, but it also could be your children, your spouse or lover, your business colleagues, your therapist, your best friend.

• Privacy: there is so much temptation to read someone else’s journal. When my lover read mine, I stopped writing for 5 or 6 years. When getting divorced, I read my spouses' journal and found out things I really didn’t want to know. Talk about Pandora’s box.

• There is a lot of power in writing in your journal (or on loose leaf paper) all your thoughts and feelings, and then burning or otherwise destroying them. Recently I drew a horrible picture of myself being controlled by my last lover - it was quite a relief to destroy it.

• Time: even just five minutes a day can grow into a disciplined practice (like flossing your teeth or exercise). This is time for YOU, time to focus on achieving something you desire. keeping a little notebook in your bag is helpful for those odd moments of standing in the bank line. Putting the TV on mute and jotting down thoughts during commercials can reactivate your brain waves.

• Your other favorite tool is your PEN: do you like blue or black ink? Pencil? Colored pencils? Markers? Paints? I highly recommend crayons...

• To quote from the 5 of Wands card - Keep your expression flowing. Stop editing yourself and let go of concern about what comes out. Be playful. The openness of play allows for inventiveness and newness in a way that high expectations do not. (from The Tarot of Transformation by Willow Arlenea & Jasmin Lee Cori)

• You are writing your story and you can change your story - one exercise I did was to divide the page into columns and in the first write a sentence that begins “I wish...” the second column is the same sentence that starts with “I will”. This takes you out of wishful thinking into your will power, because it pushes you to the next step of figuring out HOW to achieve your goal. Examples:

I wish I had more money to I WILL have more money

I wish I was friends with my ex to I WILL be friends with my ex

I wish I had more tome to write in my journal to I WILL have more time to write in my journal

• Other exercises:

- Goals in the next month, year, five years

- List what you are afraid of. Burn it.

- List what makes you happy. Keep it.

- Pull a tarot card, medicine (animal) card, or angel card. Sketch it.

- Cartoons of you

- Songs, poems, quotes by others that inspire you

- Same as above, go from “I fear...” to “I wonder...”

- Pure color (finger painting)

- Create a couples journal, or a friendship journal

- That letter you would never send

- Who am I?

- Love letters to yourself

• Some book recommendations:

Earth Art Critters coloring books by Sue Coccia

The Coloring Book for Big Girls by Sudie Rukusin

When Your Heart Speaks, Take Good Notes: The Healing Power of Writing by Susan Borkin

The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity -- by Julia Cameron

The Creative Journal by Lucia Capacchione

“Turn your wish bone, daughter, into a back bone”

- author unknown

The Power of Affirmations

Focused Intentions
When a client comes for a session, the first step is to identify their goals and desired outcome. During hypnosis in particular, the client can imagine a new way of being and can take the steps to have it happen, as well as tap into their motivation as a program to success. During trance, the client is given suggestions to support their solutions. For example, I am relaxed and centered, and every moment counts. Affirmations are used in transpersonal psychology, but are also cross cultural. Prayers, mantras, chants, and blessings affirm one's place in the universe. Even something as little as saying bless you or Gesundheit after a sneeze is that affirmation of May you be blessed with health. We are also familiar with the expressions Bon Appetit or One day at a time.

Positive Thinking Works
Affirmations can be found everywhere: fortune cookies, horoscopes, angel cards, bumper stickers, quotes, and even lines from your favorite songs. I recently read that Melissa Ethridge kept a scrap of paper on which her surgeon had scribbled "You will be fine" next to her bed during her treatment for breast cancer, and how important it was for her to repeat those words as part of her healing process.  

Power of Suggestion
 The suggestions used are affirmations, a positive way to reinforce the client process. Affirmations work both during trance and as an anchor in daily life to continue to activate the subconscious mind and create constructive associations. As seen the documentary, What the Bleep Do We Know? it is in this way you can create new neural pathways to release different neuro chemicals then the ones you could be addicted to out of past programming.  

Gentle Reminders
Affirmations can be placed anywhere: in your bathroom, on mirrors, in your car, your fridge, your wallet, your computer screen saver. In my car I have a little dashboard compartment that when I flip up reveals the quote, "She Who Laughs, Lasts."
Affirmations are especially effective when put into the third person, and when put into the past tense. They change wishful thinking into willful thinking. Notice the difference in the saying "I wish I didn't have a broken heart"to "I will heal my broken heart" to "You have healed your heart."

Power of Affirmations
  From the dictionary - To affirm: to state or assert positively; to maintain as true; to confirm. Quite simply to make firm - to use as a foundation or basis for one's beliefs. Affirmations offer comfort, support and motivation.One of favorites, "...you are a child of the universe no less than the trees or stars, and whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should... -From 'Desiderata' by Max Ehrmann

Emotional Deposits
When we compliment another person, we are affirming their reality, we build their bank of self esteem by giving them an emotional deposit. Affirmations repeated for yourself add to your own bank of self-esteem for a feelings of confidence and personal success. Practice saying, I am a co-creator of my reality. I am now creating my life exactly as I want it.  

Engage Your Senses
Affirmations are especially effective when used with other modalities, for example using a hand mudra or other physical cue, or associating it with a scent. One client had a fear of flying, but through hypnosis she associated the smell of lavender with being relaxed, and before each flight would breathe in a sachet of lavender to feel calm and at ease.
  Change is Our Friend

When you stop seeing your affirmation, it's often because you have incorporated that message, or that message no longer serves you. Change your affirmations as you evolve into who you want to become. As my friend Laurie Biggers says, "Embrace Change as a doorway to a more peaceful existence."