Tibetan Bowls

Last Friday night I participated in a group session using ancient Tibetan bowls.  Bill Cael, the bowl master, comes to Whitefish a couple of times a year with his bowls and holds these amazing healing sessions.  In preparation for the bowls, we were asked to set our intentions.  We were asked to let go of something, and to set the intention for what we want to allow and create.  We shared these with the group, and then laid down to open to the bowls.

The first session was a little over an hour long, with all of the bowls playing at different times, sending out deep, old vibrations to open and realign us.  I paid attention and followed the pace of the bowls for a while, and as my body felt liquefied and non existent, my mind held on as long as it could, my ego striving to keep me present in the room and not surrendering to the bowls.  Then Bill played this ancient 15 inch bowl and the resonance from that bowl hit my cheek bones and the vibration lifted top of my head off and I was gone, completely surrendered to the cosmos and all that was possible.

When he completed this first part of the evening, it took our group a long time to re-gather ourselves back into our bodies and become aware of the room and those around us.  We all agreed that something really deep took place in the room with these new bowls.  Next, we each had an opportunity to lie down and do an individual healing with two large bowls on either side of our heads and one on a chakra that presented itself for the work.  For me, it was my second chakra, where my hips have been tight and I have felt restricted in aligning my body with my intention to move forward.

At the end of the evening we were asked to be gentle with our bodies and limit our access to technology and music with lyrics, and film…all those components that have influence over us.  It was necessary to honor the process of the bowls and allow integration to take place.  I was told it could take a couple of days because of the power of the two large bowls.  Good advice, necessary advice…. and for me, by Saturday morning it was apparent that I needed more time to integrate and it was important to get out in nature and separate myself from the hum and buzz of our busy mountain town in full tourist season!

Ted and I loaded up the truck and took off to Little Terriault, a high mountain lake up north only 30 miles from the Canadian border.  We spent two peaceful nights camping at the edge of a shallow clear lake under the tall evergreens, protected by a magnificent rock formation on the side of the mountain peak, basking in the almost full moon of Saturday and Sunday nights.  Between the sacred geometry and balanced encoding of nature, and the moon rays of the evenings, I aligned back into my body. 

Now, almost five days since the bowl healing, I am re-gathering still, yet in new form, knowing the old me, and this new me is here, scrubbed clean and ready to move forward.

The bowls were a magnificent gift, delivered to all of us up here in Northwest Montana during the time of the Grand Trine and the Full Moon.  I can only hope each of you has an opportunity to work with the bowls at some time in your life….they are life changing and bring the soul to the surface so beautifully. 

Peace to all.

Denise

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Looking Up

Ever since I was in college I have been dabbling with astrology, not seriously, just as entertainment.  I understood most of the sun signs and what they stood for, and it has always been fun to match people with their signs.

This all changed when I landed in Whitefish and started getting to know a few real students of the soul.  This small mountain town has some of the wisest people I have encountered in my life; running shops, building houses, running farms, and doing life on many different dimensions.  With this group of friends and colleagues, I have learned the beauty of astrology and developed the curiosity to know more.  It has not been easy, for I am not a scientist by nature, nor a mathematician (if you were to ask my dad or my 9^th grade teacher!).  Yet the more I learn about the planets and what energies they hold, and how they influence the other planets and the earth, the more I see the connections.

I am a scanner by nature and a collector of pieces of wisdom… I am sort of the packrat of bizarre information.   I entertain myself with putting odd pieces together and pulling information from them.  Astrology fits right in there.   I watch the Sol Lunar tables for the best times to fish, the tides and the moon cycles.  I play attention to Facebook and what my friends are experiencing, and what is posted.  I watch people in the grocery store and notice who is smiling, who is in pain, who has joy, and what they have in their grocery baskets.  I pay attention to the news.  And then I read the astrological insights for each week and I see the patterns.  I see the influences at work and I put them together with the outer actions of the world around me.  Most times I feel the connection of all things, and yet sometimes I feel like the crazy woman seeing the undercurrents when no one else seems to see them. 

As a coach, gently, I put these connections out there to start building awareness.  I post some stuff on Facebook.  I bring the weekly influences into my sessions and bring to awareness how they might be influencing the situation we are discussing, and I try to introduce the concept that there are influences in our world, our lives, our energies, that are bigger than we know and truly understand.  We have information presenting itself to us each day in the sky, by the layout of the planets and alignments, by the squares and trines, and there is information there that can make life so much easier and more fun. 

Richard Tarnas say that the heavenly bodies show us the big picture but don’t cause it.  I would add that once we can open our curiosity to this kind of big picture, there is all sorts of information there to guide us.  All we need to do is look up. 

Enjoy the stars, the planets, and the beautiful Full Moon this Sunday!

Peace exists there.

Denise

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Coaching into Consciousness

It is my opinion that working with a coach requires vulnerability… a deep, self exposing vulnerability.  For it is in the acknowledgement that we have tried all sorts of different approaches to solving a problem, or making a change, and we can reach out for someone else’s support and clarity to move forward.  This takes courage, to admit we are stuck, we do not know how to proceed, and courage to try something new. 

                              

As a coach, it is such an honor to work with a person when they are open and vulnerable.  It is such an honor to walk with them for a while, and hold the space for them to uncover what is wanting to emerge, and to ask the deep questions that bring forth the path.  It is an honor to witness someone uncovering themselves and discovering their truth. 

The challenge is in developing the skills for this vulnerability to stay open over extended periods of time.  When we are truly open and vulnerable, our presence is awakened and our ability to create change and see a new direction is possible.  As a coach who works primarily with this awakening process, it is amazing seeing the glimmers appear more and more often, and the skills deepen in lengthening this experience. 

Then the real magic happens.  Once we are in that awakened place, there is consciousness.  From consciousness, the ability to address relationships, parenting, work issues, money, and all of our challenges in our lives, are simplified.  They become opportunities and possibilities, instead of obstacles.  Life becomes a playground with constant amazing discoveries and adventures.

For me, there is nothing I would rather do than co-create levels of consciousness with another person and experience their clarity on what they want for themselves.  It is a gift guide the soul into presence, coaching into consciousness and creating magic from that place.  For life around us is only a mirror to what we experience from within, and bridging the gap between our soul and our lives is essential and fun to do once we become motivated and curious to go there.

Celebrate vulnerability, courage, and consciousness…. May they be your guides ever present guides!

Peace.

Denise

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Follow the Energy

Follow the Energy.  This is a line I learned from Alan Seale, a magnificent coach out on the East Coast.  Over the last few weeks, I have found it most useful when I am working with clients looking at deep change. 

Yesterday I worked with a brilliant college graduate who has phenomenal academic skills and is flustered about how to get out there and start working.  We talked about the pressure to get a real, full time job and start the process of building a “grown up” life… making the money for a nice place to live, starting to accumulate furniture and building a home, and having money for clothes and entertainment.  So alluring after four years as a struggling college student!

Yet there is the reality that we have many, many years of work and home building ahead of us and often the urge to anchor and settle is premature.  It is my opinion that the 20’s are a time of exploration and mistakes, lessons, and experiences.  All meant to practice skills discovered or transferred from other areas.  For this student, it was important to look at transferring the strong skills in academics and performance into building skills in independence and deeper self awareness.

It was a beautiful process to capture on paper all the existing skills, passions, and challenges that came to mind during our call and then look at where the energy exists.  The words sort of jump out in order when asked to present themselves…what is here, what wants more attention?   Identifying the next skills to build became easy and then it turned into fun, as we talked about challenging the universe to unfold a path towards those skills.  “Put it out there” was my advice, make some calls, post on Facebook, explore the internet and look for the energy.  Where there is immediate response, step in and follow it.  Allow the emerging energy to take you to a place you could not have dreamed of yourself.  Allow yourself to be surprised, and then the most important part:  Step into it!  Let the energy guide you.

This is a practice.  Opening up and asking for the next step, then paying attention with every fiber of your being and listening to the whispers, see the cues, and feel the coincidences.  Feel the presence of joy.  Follow the energy.  Let it take you into the change you desire. 

Life is an adventure, allow the adventure to happen.

Denise

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Little Kids Within

Last weekend Ted and I camped out at the end of an old logging road, on the shores of a little mountain lake.  We explored the lake in my kayak, fished a little, and watched the sunset.  We cooked over the fire and enjoyed the mesmerizing flames deep into the night.  In the morning we played in the lake and laid in the sun to dry.  We picked dandelions to make tea, watched butterflies, and we lazed late into the afternoon before returning home.  Time disappeared and we both felt the magical peace of the lake and the sun.

My favorite line from the trip came from Ted at breakfast.  He sipped his tea and leaned back in his chair, and said as he smiled from ear to ear “this is amazing, I feel like I am eight years old! The coolest part is, I can drive and I have money!”

When the two of us are out on our weekend adventures we are both eight year olds.  He is solidly in his little boy energy and I am solidly in my little tom girl energy, by design.  We left our adult selves at home and took off, taking our two inner kids on an adventure.  It is in the recognition of the kids within us that we match our energy and we are at our best. 

Both Ted and I have enjoyed discovering these balanced happy little kids within.  As our relationship has developed, we have done the work on identifying what persona’s we take on when we are out of balance, and when we are in balance.  And we have learned tools to keep ourselves in balance as much as possible.

Let me explain.  For me, when I am in my head, trying to do a lot of things, make a lot of things happen, and trying to control more and more, I hold the energy of an out of balance adult male.  My energy is focused on pushing, accomplishing, and efforting.  These are old behaviors of mine and as I recognize them, I have the choice of shifting into seeing the world through the eyes of a child, the eyes of a little girl.  When I am there I soften, and become more inclined to watch and see what happens.  I become more curious.  I allow life so much more.  And I am more playful.

There is a way to decipher what kind of persona we take on when we are in and out of balance.  We can choose to be an adult, a parent, or a child, male or female.  Each has their own ways of acting out and seeing things.  Exploring this is a great tool for catching ourselves and redirecting ourselves back into balance.  Sharing this information with the ones you love provides a playful way of meeting in our balanced states of being and creating more joy in our relationships. 

For Ted and I, we know when Teddy and Niecie get together, we are kind and patient with each other, and there is going to be fun and adventure!

Life is an ongoing adventure!

Enjoy it!

Denise

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The Power of Leisure

    

With all the enormous energies colliding over this last week, the full Sagittarius moon, a lunar eclipse, and several severe solar flares predicted, it made sense to seek the peace and quiet of the mountains in Montana.  There, up in Polebridge, nestled along the North Fork River and the magnificence of the Glacier Park mountains, we spent an extended holiday weekend inviting leisure in. 

We placed our little trailer under a grove of Aspens so we could hear and feel the presence of nature.  We listened to the rushing flow of the spring run off in the river, and we let the birds tell us the time of day.  We slept till we were rested.  We read and played dice inside when it rained.  We hiked along a pristine lake.  We sat in front of the local mercantile and sipped tea and dabbled in pastries, and allow our bodies tell us what was necessary.  We invited leisure to guide us.

There is magic in unplugging from our daily schedules and letting nature recalibrate us.  The sacred geometry of the leaves, the trees, the clouds, and all that was surrounding us was there to hold us and help us shift into ourselves, a form of surrender.  And what glorious surrender this last weekend was for us!  On Saturday evening the little restaurant and bar had eight musicians blending their gifted skills out on the front porch, sending soft vibrations of beautiful notes out into the ethers, and they played tirelessly for hours.  There were people gathered all around on picnic tables, sitting on the rail fences.  Children and dogs wandered around, moving with the music.  The light of the waning day brightened up the scene and the colors of the sunset showed on the faces of the musicians.   The feeling present was that of complete contentment.

Whether we do this form of surrender at home or escape to a place where nature is fully present, it is a gift to our souls to honor what is needed….what is necessary…to give ourselves the space and time to uncoil the overlays of our outer lives and let our souls breathe for a while.  Let our souls breathe long enough to feel natural and free again.  Then we can take that rebalanced presence back into our daily world and use it to anchor us into being.

As we enter this summer, let leisure guide you, inform you.  Let leisure in nature recalibrate you.  It is powerful.   

Peace.

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Co-Dependence and Abundance

After reading several wonderful weekly and monthly reports about what is going on energetically this month, I am aware that with Pluto and Uranus pulling at us, we are all still being asked to dig deep and take a look at some of those stubborn old wounds or sticky patterns of ours that are refusing to coming loose very easily.  As a woman who coaches the soul into deeper awareness, I feel it in my clients.  I hear about it from my tribe of other coaches working in the realms of intuition and soul awareness.  We are all observing how these old pieces deep within each of us are begging for attention and causing all sorts of complications and physical pains present in their lives.  Mine included.

Finally, it was time to sit myself down and open to these powerful planets and see what might want to surface within me… Do some self discovery on what was within me that may desire some attention.  Low and behold, the first feeling that came up was my pervasive worrying about money and lack of feeling connected to abundance, especially financial abundance.   Just below these feelings was the word co-dependent.   These two seemingly separate concepts have presented themselves in different forms to me for years and seeing them together was a bit overwhelming at first, yet, as I invited them to talk to me, this beautiful, neutral, compassionate story unfolded.

I am a wise, strong, and courageous woman, and I can be full of bravado at times.  A great deal  of that external blasting of energy is aimed at covering up the consistent feelings of not knowing myself, seeing myself clearly, or seeing my worth.  Underneath my exterior, I struggle to know or trust who I am.  Instead, I like to be in relationships with people who see me, and then, through their eyes, I have glimpses of who I am. 

I surround myself with men and women who shine me back at me, so I can feel connected to myself.  This externalization of self has been present in me all this lifetime and the pattern is as old as my soul (taken directly from the Osho Moon card).  Perhaps the dependence on seeing ourselves through another’s eyes is something that many of us experience?  As an externally driven culture here in the states, it takes quite a bit of self knowledge and practice to ignore the constant mirrors around us and trust ourselves.

The experiences of these first months of 2013 have pointed out to us this dependence on the exterior world, on others, and what is asked us to gather back into ourselves …. Hence the invitations to take a deep look at where co-dependence comes from.

How are co-dependence and abundance connected?  If my version of self is compiled of what I see in others, and I enjoy seeing these parts of me that I cannot see within myself, doesn’t it make sense to want to keep those “others” close by?  Right next to me where I can feel connected to self, worthy, and I have meaning?  These “others” have been the men I have loved, my children, my close friends, and even co-workers.   They have been the other souls chosen to walk this life with me.  If I am dependent on what is shown to me externally, then it makes sense that do as much as I can to keep those eyes, those mirrors, shining on me as much as possible.  So I design a life around how often I get to see those mirrors.  I plan my work around people that see this in me.  I choose men who see the beauty in me and I step in, sharing their view, seeing my own beauty.  I choose friends who provide deep conversation, real relationship, and within all of this, I know who I am. 

With an attachment to the mirrors showing me myself, I am aware that I then limit how far I am willing to stray from these mirrors, these “others”.  I limit how much time I will really advocate for myself and risk separation.  I limit my creativity and imagination.  I limit my free time and create elaborate schedules of time with my “others” so I can feel connected to myself.  I limit my ability for independence, emotionally and financially.  I live within the means of those I surround myself with, because I am seen.  I LIMIT what I am able to create.  And, I limit how I allow my life to expand and be abundant.  I limit abundance in so many forms, especially financially.

Knowing this gives me great comfort.  It is not good or bad, or healthy or unhealthy.  It is what is, and now that I able to know on a deeper level what has driven me all these years to stay close to “others” and limit myself.  I understand how and why I have chosen relationships over myself. 

Now I can softly and compassionately lead myself into a place of self understanding, self awareness, and appreciation of self.  These are some steps I know to take towards breaking the patterns.   I can pay attention to what brings up the doubt within me.  I can use tools of breath and grounding to check in.   I can create feedback mechanisms to notice when I am choosing the company of others and what my motivations might be.  I can use my morning meditation and journaling practice to pay attention to what wants to happen, what wants to expand and emerge.  And I can begin saying YES to these ideas and possibilities more often and feel how it feels to live in abundance.

I have a path ahead allowing me to see me, and loving all the wonderful “others” for who they are, instead of what I need from them.  The practice of freeing up the strings of attachment and dependence opens me up to further discover who I am here to be. 

Thank you for reading my first blog!