Why the Feather?

Why the Feather?

by | Dec 10, 2024 | Purpose

I’m frequently asked why I chose a feather as my logo. I’d like to take this opportunity to share my rationale with you.

In ancient traditions, feathers generally represent freedom from mental and physical concerns, spiritual connection, ascension, balance, and harmony. Depending on the culture, they can also symbolize power, wisdom, truth, and transformation. These are all objectives that my clients generally strive for.

Thriving in modern life requires some degree of “feathering.” When you work with me, we detox your body (physical), cleanse you of restrictive thought forms and limiting beliefs (mental), and uncover your truth (spiritual) so you can go on to create the life that you want. In other words, I “feather” you. Hence, my logo. 

I’ve mentioned before that our systems (i.e. political, economic, medical, educational, etc.) are in a process of redefining themselves. Everyone, regardless of age, is likely feeling this influence as well. This undertaking challenges you to ask questions of yourself — who do you want to be? — how do you want to live?

Answering these questions can require you to make refinements to long-held behaviors, beliefs, and values. The work that you do is a gift that you give yourself (or someone you cherish). It’s not easy. The help of an intuitive life coach supports these efforts in a targeted way.

If you would like to elevate your holistic health (or help a loved one do so), please feel free to contact me to schedule a session designed to support you (them) at this phase of your (their) journey.

We each contribute to changing the world. Be the change you want to see. 😉

My personal note for 2022 and an exciting announcement

My personal note for 2022 and an exciting announcement

by | Jan 10, 2022 | Personal Growth, Purpose

Happy 2022!
 
Thank you for allowing me to support your holistic wellness goals last year.
 
We’re living in a time of great transformation. The systems in our society are changing, and as a result we are being asked to reshape ourselves and the way we live. This means that self-care is no longer a luxury — it’s a necessity. 
 
Holistic wellness requires a full integration of mental, physical, and emotional wellbeing. At this time, it’s critical that you take care of the mental, physical, and emotional bodies that comprise your physical form. Each one affects the state of your overall health.
 
My holistic coaching system, Integrative Solutions for Modern Life, is designed to help you to develop the balance you need to release any blocks that are holding you back. As a result, you will feel more attuned to your authentic self, healthier, and empowered.
  
Change isn’t easy. It takes us out of our comfort zone. I’ve been through it myself when I decided to step away from my successful banking career and launch my coaching practice. Developing a new career as a wellness expert required me to hone new skills and become comfortable moving through the discomfort of new experiences. 
 
But guess what? I learned that discomfort is the only zone from which we grow. And I’m not done growing.
 
That’s why I’m thrilled to announce that I’ve joined MammaWellbeing, a one-stop global wellbeing discovery and booking platform based in London. This platform offers on-line and in-person therapies, events, retreats, and courses with a wide range of carefully curated holistic practitioners like myself. I invite you to check out the many offerings like astrology, family constellations, yoga, and retreats (among many others) easily accessible by you through this global platform.
 
I’m honored that MammaWellbeing chose me to be one of their founding members. I presently work with off-shore clients in Tulum (Mexico), Mykonos (Greece), and Ibiza (Spain). My alliance with MammaWellbeing will give me the opportunity to help more people globally to experience a greater level of wellbeing. Including you.
  
Will you step out of your comfort zone in 2022? Have you considered enhancing your mindfulness, health, home, mindset, finances, or career & purpose? Would you like to release fear so that you can raise your vibration?
 
My intuition tells me that we are going to experience another unique year. In order to best support yourself, your loved ones, and your community, you need to be in your optimal holistic form.
 
Please contact me if you would like to identify where your energetic blocks lie and neutralize, or balance, them so you can thrive.
 
Be ready for the adventure of 2022! 😉

Memento Mori — An Ancient Practice for Living

Memento Mori — An Ancient Practice for Living

by | May 27, 2021 | Mindfulness, Purpose

Happy Birthday to me! I’m grateful to have celebrated another trip around the sun last month.
 
My birthday always makes me feel sentimental about the time that has passed. This year, my musings took me back to a concept I first learned about in middle school when my seventh grade English teacher referred to “Memento Mori.” This Latin phrase, unknown to me at that time, translates into “Remember, you must die.”
 
Memento Mori is an ancient practice of facing our mortality as a vehicle to lead us to create a meaningful life. This practice has a long history that extends over many cultures, religions, and philosophies. It has inspired the philosophers of ancient Greece, Roman generals, and continues to inform the likes of Buddhist monks and Islamic Sufis to this day.
 
As a seventh grader excited by the idea of blooming into adulthood, considering my mortality seemed depressing. But as an adult faced with the reality of life’s impermanence, I now appreciate its meaning. Remembering that I will die one day is a powerful catalyst for living. This practice has motivated me to do many things. If I must die, then heck I had better live now, let me do what I want to do!
 
If you think back to your school years, you will discover that you all had a dream in your hearts. Sometimes, those dreams were best articulated by the lyrics to your favorite song at that time. Those dreams and those songs, seemingly forgotten, remain within us. We tend to dismiss the idea of going after our dreams because we’ve been conditioned with fear. Our socialization teaches us to fear the unknown, judgment, and failure. We’re encouraged to live safely. We know what we have, but don’t know what we will get if we release what we have now. What if we wind up with…dare I say…less?
 
My work with clients centers on presence, self-empowerment and taking personal responsibility. When you activate these energies, you could never wind up in a state of less.
 
It’s easy to get stuck in a safety zone that seems practical rather than chase an elusive dream. In our linear society, practicality often dominates. The result is that a lot of time is wasted on insignificant things and people. We wind up focusing our energy in places that don’t support our ability to thrive.
 
On this birthday, traveling back to seventh grade was a jarring reminder of the swift passage of time. This experience made it crystal clear that the concept of Memento Mori isn’t about death. It’s about embracing life. Facing the reality of our death creates a sense of urgency, a hyper-awareness that our time here is finite.
 
Your most valuable asset is your time.
 
Don’t waste this lifetime. Live with purpose. Utilize your power of intention to manifest the experience you want. Take ownership of your health. Dare to introduce yourself to that person you’re feeling drawn to, end that relationship that no longer serves you, tell that person you love that you love them and the one that hurt you how much they did so, take the trip you’re saving for “later,” move to the place that’s been calling you, and pursue that career change you’re dreaming of. The only thing standing between you and these things is your own fear, and fear is not real because it only exists in your head.
 
If you’re waiting for “one day,” please know that one day means no day.
 
What will you do with the remainder of your life?
 
Contact me to book a private session guaranteed to refine your focus.
 
Memento Mori. 😉

A Life You Don’t Need To Escape

A Life You Don’t Need To Escape

by | Jul 31, 2019 | Corporate Wellness, Integrative Life Coach, Purpose

“Instead of wondering when your next vacation is, maybe you should set up a life you don’t need to escape from.” – Seth Godin

“Where are you traveling to this summer?” 

There was nothing unusual about my friend Michael’s question. All who know me are well aware of my passion for global travel. When I was in college, a semester studying in France ignited my lifelong wanderlust. Ever since then, I planned getaways whenever I could: at first, I traveled in Europe, but then to North Africa, the Middle East and most recently to South America.

During the decades when I was working as a private banker, I anxiously waited for these escapes from my routine life so that I could have an adventure. Each year, I had my travel plans nailed down well in advance. 

Michael’s question startled me. Suddenly, I realized that it was already June, and I hadn’t even thought about a trip. I’d been so engaged in my life that the idea of a vacation didn’t even cross my mind! This had never happened before. 

It was yet another example of what I’ve come to think of as my “delayering.” By this, I mean the process of stripping away the patterns of my life ever since I resigned from my banking position a little over a year ago. 

It has been a year of dramatic change and sometimes difficult uncertainty. My days have been occupied with meeting new people, helping clients, giving presentations about my work, researching, writing, and learning the many new skills required to start my own business. I have been deeply engaged.

Because I control my own schedule, I have the freedom to sit outside and relish an espresso on a beautiful day, or squeeze in a midday yoga class, or stay up way too late when I want. All of this contributes to making my new career feel like more of a dream than work.

So in that moment, it hit me:

I’m living a life I don’t feel any need to take a vacation from.

Wow! Whenever I (rarely) heard someone say this in the past, I never would have believed it. And yet, for me, it is true. At least in my first year, I can say that I have created a life I don’t need to escape. 

When I was in it, I thought I loved my former life. I didn’t realize how much better things could get until I deconditioned myself. 

Finding A Moment To Pause

Somehow, I changed. My body began to cringe when someone at the office greeted me with “TGIF!” or reminded me that it was “Hump Day.” 

Was I going to spend the remainder of my adult life counting the days until I could escape on an exotic vacation that might last a few weeks out of the entire year? 

Ditto when well-intentioned people recommended that I “treat myself” to retail therapy, spas, alcohol, sweets, and various other perceived pamperings as coping mechanisms for a stressful life. Yes, these indulgences can add pleasure to life. But they are often being used to either escape from or numb it. Wouldn’t it make more sense to align my lifestyle with my long-term objectives for well-being?

Having already lost two friends to cancer, I realized that I didn’t want to wait until “later” to enjoy daily life.

Deconditioning Yourself

As a first-born child of two refugees, stepping away from a prestigious six-figure position and eventually deciding to launch my own coaching business required a great deal of soul searching. I had to honestly look at my past accomplishments, assess my unactualized potential, break through my conditioning for safety, defer my immediate desires, sacrifice for a future vision, let go of structures and people that I love, disappoint clients, live without a concrete plan for the first time in my adult life, and no longer use my busy life as a justification to procrastinate.

Whew…that was a lot!

By allowing for the unknown, I was able to ultimately remove myself from being one of the eternally busy and to no longer ignore my intuition, limit myself by my fears, or walk through life surviving by looking forward to my vacations.

It’s one thing to enjoy your vacations, and it’s an entirely different thing to feel like you need a vacation in order to feel alive. We should strive to make our lives the ones we want to be living every day.

This isn’t easy to do. But I have done it. I love every day and don’t count the days until Friday. When someone sends a “TGIF” or reminds me that “Wednesday is Hump Day,” I recognize that they are playing out their conditioning while I now enjoy Monday as much as the weekend.

I learned that it’s far better to choose the life that feels good because it is richer than the life that looks good. And that we tend to be too “fixed” in how we approach our lives: what feels good is subject to change over time.

Three Elements of a Life You Don’t Need To Escape

Based on my experience, being fully engaged and present in life requires three primary elements:

1. A sense of purpose and meaning that causes you to wake up inspired each morning. Feeling that your life is meaningful is proven to be a key ingredient towards feeling fulfilled.

2. The ability to do some things that you love to do. Using your character strengths, the positive qualities that come naturally to you, is demonstrated to provide you with a greater sense of well-being

3. Enough challenges to keep you stimulated, yet comfortable enough so that you are not constantly stressed out.

In order to identify what a life you don’t need a vacation from would look like for you, you will need to determine what you need to feel fulfilled and what your values, or ideals, are. Your work will need to express those objectives. Because our intentions can sometimes be tough to define, many of my clients come to me to gain insight in this area. After our work together, they can identify what makes them happy and go on to make empowered choices that will help them create the life they want.

And so what about that vacation?

My traveling days aren’t over, but for now I’m enjoying the experience of being a tourist in my daily life. It both reenergizes me and makes me feel alive.

I wish the same for you. 😉

To book a private session with me in order to explore the three elements of a life you won’t need to escape, please go to Contact Me! on right sidebar or below (depending on device).