We were doing firewood this morning starting about 6:30am. It's not something you want to forget to do during the summer months because looking for firewood in -30 with 3 feet of snow isn't much fun! It is exciting watching the trees fall...'timber'...and then buck them up, split them and stack them. It's not a super precise process which is unlike making kitchen cabinets out of wood. There is some heavy duty measuring and understanding how each piece will fit together...measure twice,...
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There are videos galore about animals seeing themselves in a mirror. They hiss and arch their back; try pawing at this 'enemy' in an attempt to make it retreat. I've noticed humans kinda do the same. I've seen clients look away in disgust and refuse to look back; sometimes they start talking or thinking the most vile ugly words to themselves. What is it about looking into our own eyes and saying 'I love you' that brings such fear and anger?

It's not even so much our body image. It's like...
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Not for a paycheque; I work for a cause!

Do you know how many times you have been judged? Or done the judging? Everyday of our lives we are told in some way, shape or form that we are under par; no good; deficient in some way. We believed it eventually even though we didn’t come out of the womb thinking there’s something wrong with us. Even with my own kids, I noticed signs of an ‘IDS’ internal deficiency syndrome by very young.  Was it me that gave them that thought? I am sure I...

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She said exactly what I thought she would say. Having arrived at our 8:45am meeting about 9:12am, she was clearly late. Having called the office, her staff had let me know she was running late. When she arrived, the first words she says? "I'm sorry!" I knew she would. Canadians are world famous for our insistence in saying sorry - and saying it often. As the joke goes, if you want to find a Canadian in the crowd, start stepping on toes. Its the Canadian that will say sorry!

While it see...

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What is belief? For some people, it is something that they have come to think of as true – a religious doctrine even. But belief is actually something much simpler than that. When people ask me what a belief is, I tend to respond with an answer like this:

A belief is a thought you keep thinking. That thought leads to words and feelings, which make you act a certain way, causing a cer...

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Focus:  Living a Full Life (versus a busy life) This section is focused on 1 tip you can implement in daily conversation in order to reset your mindset & speak with power. "You're always so BUSY!" "I'm always so BUSY!!!" "What do you do to keep BUSY?" Sound familiar? I hear this being said across the board, ...

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The lunch bell had gone and I showed up in her classroom door. As soon as my daughter saw me, she hung her head. What a sweet soul, I thought as I walked over to her. Only 7 years old when her great-grandmother passed away and moving through the midst of her father’s and my divorce, she was looking stressed earlier in the day when I had let her know she had the morning of her school day to decide if she was going to the funeral. Now it was lunch time and I needed to know what her decision w...

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Wandering absent-mindedly into my office, my daughter asked me a most curious question. It started out simple enough and then turned into quite the discussion of values and beliefs. She had noticed the posters for a workshop I am hosting on my desk and asked me why I was charging people for the workshop. I answered with something like “because this is my business” and figured the subject was closed. The subject was apparently not closed for her and the next statement she said is unfortuna...

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Twisting the door stoppers and giving the handle a tug, a rush of warm, moist air reaches my nose. The smell of warm dirt and growing seedlings takes me back to earlier greenhouses of my youth. Some plants are already 5 inches tall, others just showing themselves above the dirt. Water lines showing on the inside of the greenhouse plastic evidence of the moisture, warmth and sun. Fans humming and soft music the gardener has chosen for their time of planting and caring. It is common knowledge w...

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The concept of a partnership between two whole people was not foreign to me. When I saw this book on the rack the first time, I was hoping the subject matter was about what I thought it was. Gary Zukav did not disappoint. The path to authentic power rather than the external power we've all previously pursued is well underway and gaining momentum. As a life coach dealing with relationship issues, I see the range of beliefs people carry relating to marriage and relationships that are not servin...
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  You are enough the way you are. It isn't everyone's path to do something big for the world, all is important.

Most of us have the feeling that we are here to accomplish something big in our lives, and if we haven't done something that fits the bill we may feel as if we are waiting. We may feel incomplete, or empty, as if our lives don't yet make sense to us, because they don't line up with our idea of major accomplishment. In some cases, this may be because we really are meant to do somethi...
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For the last year, I've sat as the devoted mother to a son learning martial arts. We live too far from the do chang for me to drive home during the hour of his class so I stayed during the winter to watch or study. On nicer days in the spring and summer I took my mp3 player for a walk around the closest park.

I have learned several very interesting life lessons during the time I watched.  The most significant is the break falls. They learn to fall in such a way as to not hurt themselves. Rolli...

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from Neale Donald Walsch's Little Book of Life, p 50-51

"When I talk about transparency in relationships, I often think of telling the truth, which is what transparency really is all about. And I've been made aware that there are really five levels of truth telling.

The first level of truth telling is when you tell the truth to yourself about yourself. That was an enormous challenge for me, because I had been lying to myself for many, many years. It's hard to think of a person literally lying t...
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The Value & Power of Affirmations Think of your mind as a computer. Reprogram it with the latest and greatest software, so that it overrides the negative and mindless programs previously running. Once your new program is fully installed, results are revealed on your computer screen, the window of your living experience. Yes, it is that simple, but remember as with any new program, it takes PRACTICE to become familiar with how it works so that you can maximize the benefits to your adv...

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Our society is filled with verbal and emotional abuse, from radio and TV commentators and presidential candidates, to parents, educators, employers and managers. As Patricia Evans states in "The Verbally Abusive Relationship", the old adage, "Sticks and stones can break my bones but words will never hurt me," is not at all true. Just as physical abuse is wounding to the body, verbal abuse is deeply wounding to the soul.
 
If you grew up in a verbally and/or emotionally abusive family, you might...
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