Adding Value and Giving Thanks

(This is a re-post from another blog I had. I share it with you today as I scurry off to the mountains and cold of Colorado to spend Thanksgiving with dear friends. May you have a marvelously abundant and joyful Thanksgiving holiday! Thanks for being a reader. )

Lately I have been pondering, and sitting with, the question of “How can I add value to your life?”. Your being the collective your; all those around me, all those I touch, have contact with, and intersect with in various ways.

As we approach the Thanksgiving holiday, a time when we naturally take stock of all the things we have to be joyfully grateful for, it’s a bit of an interesting twist. As I list my mountains of abundance that I am so thankful for, I also get to consider all the ways that I might be able to positively impact another’s life.

How can I add value to your life? Depending on who I ask will certainly influence the answer. Actually, it is not even imperative that I really ask the other person, it is a question I can ask of myself about another person. “How can I add value to so&so’s life?”.

It occurs to me, that unless those I am asking really know who I am, they may not be aware of how I may add value to their life. If, for instance, the person I asked did not know that I am a Life Coach, they wouldn’t know that I might support them in gaining clarity or in creating balance in their lives. If they know I am a Life Coach, they may not understand that my focus is on Whole Health and Wellness, especially within relationships, and that my passion is in helping others to gain a sense of complete healthiness in all aspects of their life. If they are needing respite and renewal, and didn’t know I facilitate custom designed retreats for individuals and groups, they wouldn’t know I could help them step out of their usual lives and into a safe place of stillness where their authentic voice could really be heard. Likewise, if one was unaware of my community building experience, or organizational skills, networking prowess, or love for collaborative ventures, how would they know to ask?

As we consider the possibility of adding value to lives of others, in ways that they will be thankful for, while we count our own blessings, it seems important that we let others know who we are!!

But first, we must ask ourselves…how do I value myself? In what ways can I add value to my own life? What aspects of myself do I believe adds value to the lives of others? Believing in ourselves and trusting that we have something of value to contribute to the world at large, and knowing what that is, is as important as wanting to make a positive impact.

Sometimes we are not always able to connect to our intrinsic value and positive contribution to the world. Hopefully, this is when our friends and loved ones take notice, and ask us how they can add value to our lives! And then, we get to count our blessings and have give thanks and the circle continues.

Today, I am grateful for many, many things, and I ask: how can I add value to your life?

The Red Tent Temple Movement

Awhile back a Facebook friend, and fellow Womyn’s Circle facilitator that I originally met back East in what now seems like life times ago, posted a link to a movement that she is starting, called the Red Tent Temple Movement. ALisha Starkweather is well known as an extraordinary and skilled facilitator for personal and global transformation and is the founder of the Women’s Belly and Womb Conference and Daughters of the Earth Gatherings; a Women’s Tribal Event, and her Priestess Path Apprenticeship.

ALisa says, ”

“The Red Tent Temple Movement is a way for women to gather our inner momentum, that feeling like the time is now, and to authentically come forward with everything we are as women. It gives us a place to incubate, dream, slow down, without an agenda or plan. It is a woman space where we can share stories, laughter, songs, food and honor our unique feminine cycles that we experience each month, whether we are in our bleeding time or going through peri-menopause and menopause. The Temple provides a way that is more consistent with our actual rhythms, cycles and ways of being in relationship to each other that support, foster and give us strength and courage.

It is time. The women are ready to co-create a vision in the societies we live in and make a place among us where women are honored by honoring our own unique journeys of womanhood. Join us in a revolutionary act. It is more than a woman’s circle. It is a deep learning process of unlearning the busy and finding the moment.

Inside the Red Tents we give ourselves time to remember who we are at our very core, while honoring that to remember we must turn from our identities and roles towards the innermost temple of our own hearts. Come into the Red Tent and stop. In the quiet and sometimes celebratory company of wonderful women, feel. In what you feel, there is much that is waiting for you.”

I am pleased, and happy, about bringing a Red Tent Temple to my local community of Bisbee, AZ. It’s important. It’s time. Womyn need a place to come together, to gather, to reconnect. We live in such crazy times, and our ancient ways of womynhood and divine feminine experiences are getting lost. As we struggle to fit into the boxes of societies demands and our various roles, the essence of our authentic spirit cries out to be heard and attended to. Come to the Temple. Relax. Unwind. Be nurtured by other womyn. Share stories and wisdom. This is how we create, design, and maintain sustainable relationships in our lives. Reconnect to your spirit, your story, your dreams, your purpose. Laugh, Dance and Play. The time is now.

My heart sings in the anticipation of being in your presence inside The BisbeeRed Tent and/or of visiting your Tent wherever you are. Join the movement. Erect a Red Tent in your community.

(The Red Tent of Bisbee, AZ will be starting Dec 15th. Connect with Coach Margie for more information)

The Power of Hugging

Who knew the power of hugging? Well, quite honestly, I’ve always been a huge hugger. I hug people when I first see them, when I say goodbye,even if I just saw them yesterday and will see them in a couple hours. In my mind, I imagine there is the slight possibility that I may not see them again and I don’t want to regret that I didn’t hug them with all my love, affection, admiration and respect that one last time. I’ve learned to open my arms with an invitation of a hug, rather than assume everyone wants to hug just because I do. After awhile, you just know who the fellow huge huggers are, and who tends to shy away from hugging. Respecting everyone where they are, you jump into the arms of those who love to hug and you hug the others in your mind and heart. This is all the practice of engaging bliss into your life-loving others as they are, and being all of who you are without quieting that which deeply moves you.

In my community there is one burly, gregarious, happy hugger of a man, who every time I see him my body goes into a little happy dance, because it knows we’re going to get not only a fabulous hug, but a very sweet little spinal adjustment as well. It’s marvelous, and limits my need to visit the chiropractor, thereby keeping precious dollars in my pocket (always a plus these days!) So, when I saw him last week my receptivity to his hug invitation was no different. Unfortunately, his hug was! Somehow, someway, something went very wrong, and in the process of our hugging one of my ribs got cracked!! As I said, who knew the power of hugging. Ouch!

One thing I have definitely been continuously reminded of this Summer, is that pain brings awareness. Suddenly, in the days that followed, I was so focused on my core-how I moved it, the ways I stretch it, where it’s weak, and how much I depend on it. This was the power of the hug-bringing me back to my core, to my center, and into the awareness of her necessary healing, and I don’t just mean on a physical level. Wow!

In no way will this experience stop me from hugging! For me hugging is a simple, easy, harmless (well, most of the time!) way of counteracting the touch deprivation so prevalent in our culture these days. Touch is healing. Touch connects us. Hugging let’s us know we are loved.

How do you hug? Are you a tent hugger, keeping the lower half of your body extended away from the other person? A one sided hugger, where your hips are touching rather than a full frontal connection? A one arm hugger, never fully committing to the hug? A back slapping hugger? Do you relax into the hug, or stiffen and feel tense? Do you hug with clean, clear intent, or attempt to cop a feel? Is there a hidden agenda, or just the desire to embrace this being before you with love and yummy-ness?

Check out this great video, if you haven’t seen it yet, about how one man took to the streets with a “free hug” campaign. It’s a great example of how hugging can change the world. (Watch for all different types of hugs!)

I invite you to explore the power of hugging. To begin opening up to the receiving of magnificent hugs from others, and engaging in the practice of inviting others to be hugged. See where your edges are. Observe how you hug. Explore yourself and your thoughts about hugging. Most of all, don’t forget to hug yourself-lovingly, gently, and often! Drop into the bliss of it all.

Then go out and start your own Free Hugs campaign and see how your world changes.

Loving What Is In the Lessons of Love

The Summer of 1967 was known as “The Summer of Love”. I was only 6 yrs old, and undoubtedly already learning some lessons of love, or the lack thereof, within the strange realms of an alcoholic household.

42 years later, as yet another Summer season draws to a close, I wouldn’t exactly put this years Summer experience in the high love category. However, as I navigate the tumultuous waters of lost love (do we ever really lose love? I mean, how can we? Love resides within us, not outside of us…) and “divorce”, I certainly have learned a lot about love.

I’ve also been reading, and working with, Bryon Katie’s fascinating ideas about “Loving What Is”, which is also the title of her new book. With the basic premise that the root cause of suffering is the identification with our thoughts and the stories that we have continuously running through our minds, Katie offers a process of 4 questions that can turn around our thoughts and give a new perspective, allowing us to stop fighting reality and accepting what is (http://thework.com). Exploring The Work has allowed me to look deep within myself and discover the stories I have been operating under as I struggle to make a transition that I didn’t ask for, or want.

When your life is made up of certain ideas about the future, commitments, and partnerships, a sudden change, even with all the pre-warning signs, can be traumatic. I have cycled through so many levels of grief, anger, sadness, righteousness, blame, acceptance, and letting go, and am certain there are many more to come. I’ve spent moments hiding under the covers, other moments strongly empowered. I’ve supported clients in their love relationships, witness to the magical unfolding of their journey, a fellow traveler on the path.

Rumi says, “Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.” I know this, yet, I do grieve. I have to. I can’t help it. Moving through the grief allows me to accept, to let go, to dive deep into the wells of all the love that I am, that I have given to others, and that I yearn to share again. It reminds me that I am alive, that I am feeling, and as I give permission to myself to feel, to grieve, to rage, to just be in what is, I learn the largest lesson of all about love: that ultimately we must love ourselves unconditionally, in the weakest, darkest, I’m-so-small-and-lost moments, if we ever hope to fully open our hearts to love again.

“Better to have loved and lost, than to never have loved at all.” Hemingway

What’s happening in your life with love and relationships? Join me for a 6 week teleclass series “Loving Ourselves While Loving Others” starting in mid-Oct, where we will explore belief patterns and habits that keep us stuck in unfulfilling relationships, identify sabotaging behaviors, and learn specific techniques for embracing a new way of being in healthy, authentic, co-creative relationships. . If you would like to go a little deeper, plan on participating in the 6 month relationship support group where you can take advantage of personalized coaching for half the cost. Details coming soon.

The Roller Coaster of Love

The human heart is such a complex thing. It takes us on a wild roller coaster ride that even the most die hard amusement park ride lovers have trouble coping with. Navigating the wild twists and turns, and stomach curling ups and downs,  of love can make the best of us green, yet we jump on willingly, even when we know what the ride will be like.

Why do we choose to get on these rides? As a young girl I actually hated the roller coaster. I went on it once and that was enough for me. Give me the gentle ferris wheel any day. When it comes to love, however, I seem to be willing to jump on time and time again, forgetting what it felt like the last time when it all went seriously wrong.

I’m still moving through this thing called divorce. The guy that used to be my partner, my lover, my companion is in the process of packing up all his stuff and “getting the hell outta here’, as he so emphatically stated once. He arrived back home from CA, and from the arms of other womyn, last week. Each day I watch as the places where he used to be, become empty. His half of the closet. The garage (well, at least I can walk through it now!). His office. My heart.

When your heart is aching and bleeding all over the floor, how do you see the gifts of the amazing moment you are in? How do you climb in for the ride and arrive at the end hottin’ and hollerin’, climbing out of that little roller coaster car with a smile on your face and a sense of some sort of accomplishment that you survived?

It’s not easy. But survive we do, and eventually we even get back on again for the ride. What I have discovered in this delirious journey is that as my heart expands and contracts, grieves and mourns, rages and releases, I am being birthed into a new self. What better gift could I ask for? She is resilient and strong, empowered and powerful, broken open and freed. The fog has lifted and the clarity is informing and revealing. Suddenly, my stride has become more purposeful and my vision more clear. I detach from that which has not served me, fed my soul, or honored the magnificence of my feminine self. I feel my feelings with a fierce sense of devotion to the ride and a willingness to see myself through it all.

Currently, I am coaching a couple and am leading a group of womyn in a 6 week adventure of healing our relationships with, and beliefs about, men. Realizing that my personal experience provides a rich foundation for the work I do, and allows me to become a masterful coach in the game of relationships, helps me to enjoy the roller coaster just a little bit more. If my journey can make someone else’s easier, then it’s all worth it.

Even so, I’m thinking it’s going to be along time before I decide to ride this roller coaster again!

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