Who could imagine finding a hotel with such a plethora of hotels in NYC would be nearly impossible!  Hours were spent searching for an available room and I ended up getting booked at the Hotel Pennsylvania, it was not inexpensive by any means.  I am thinking of the amazing places I have stayed on the ocean and spa retreats for the same price.  I arrived to huge lines of people waiting to check in at 11 pm at night… it looked like tour buses had just descended from the twilight zone.  I waited for what felt like forever for my room.  The hotel was huge and old and dingy, I would go so far as to even say decrepit.  Walking down the long bleak hallway to my room I felt like I was trapped in a surreal maze. Entering my tiny room and instead of finding nice art on the walls they were filled with black marks and small holes.  OMG, was I really going to stay in this room that looked more like a haunt for drug addicts?  Now nearly midnight I checked to see if I could just change to a more decent room for the night. That room was at least painted but also small and dingy and stunk of cigarette smoke, so back to my original room.

Three people back in California plus myself in NYC were looking for another hotel.  I called a number I found on line and was told there was a huge convention of TV and movie people in NYC pitching their shows and idea.  Could there really be THAT many people in this line of work? I later found out that college graduations were also taking place.  I was told that nearly every hotel was fully booked this week.  There was a room for one night for $1100 and going up from there.  This all started to feel rather insane and like I was caught in some weird movie.

Erin and her fiance Travis found me an awesome hotel for Tuesday and Wednesday night for about the same price I was paying.  I said YES book it, with the few minutes it took to do so the Wednesday night was no longer available!  Another person had given me a number to call for a room that was available for Wednesday night at the on-line bargain price of $470!  When I called I was told they were closed for the evening and had to call back at 8am.  When I did they needed the on-line website link or the room was close to $600, for a chain hotel and a tiny petite room.  No, this was insane, I refused to do it out of some sort of principle.  I would either crash on my son’s sofa where there is an unwritten rule that parents stay in hotels with the possibility of damaging our relationship and that of his roommates or sleep in the airport. Neither were really very good possibilities.  I even looked to find a red eye back to California after the film premier but again there was nothing.

Feeling desperate and knowing that feeling would only attract more of that same energy to me I made a decision to expect and start looking for the miracle of a place to stay Wednesday night unfolding with ease and grace.  I checked out of the Hotel Pennsylvania asking how many rooms in the hotel, I think it was 1700!  That’s slightly more than a quarter of the population of Nevada City.

I arrived at my next hotel which was newly built, modern and trendy. A sigh of relief to have something clean with an attention to detail,  As I was checking in I asked if they just might have a room for the next night that had come available.  The young man helping me, Tyrome, was so kind with a beautiful presence. I told him I had been praying for a miracle.  He smiled and said no they didn’t have a private room, but they did have some rooms that were like hostels with a room share. I told him he was my miracle!  The next morning I moved into my hostel room and that evening when I arrived back at the hotel I was delighted to find I had the room to my self!  I had been given $20 off the price by Tyrome so I ended up paying $129.  I didn’t have to  sleep at the airport or worse yet have to go back to Hotel Pennsylvania!  I am in at the Out Hotel with beautiful white sheets and duvets, exquisite face wash and shampoos and lotions, wifi.!! Thank you for the miracle of being in at the Out Hotel NYC!

This week we are doing a special giveaway! One lucky winner is going to receive a copy of Guiding Signs 101: Guidance for a Smooth Ride on Your life’s Journey. To enter, just fill in the Rafflecopter form below. This giveaway will end on June 5th and is open to the US only. The winner will be notified via email and will have 48 hours to reply.

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How we survived growing up in a world from the old paradigm of fear is not the same way we need to flourish and flower now.  Being incredibly strong and having a huge will allowed me to survive a violent insane childhood of physical, verbal and sexual abuse.  My strong will is also the very thing that can get in my way now.   Our greatest gifts can also be our greatest challenges!

My will gets in my way sometimes now when I forget and believe there is an “I” that must make things happen.  I see when I get into that place of my will it is like a direct line to my thinking mind.  And when those two are operating what takes place is separation and things being difficult and putting my nose to the grindstone.

What takes place is magic and joy when I ask and state to a higher source that I allow all I need to be provided for me.  The things that take place in that realm of trust and of my heart are so effortless.  Erin and I used this whole way of “allowing” to create the Guiding Signs 101 cards.  But I really see it isn’t how I operate in every area of my life.

I need to just keep remembering whenever I forget; not to judge myself or be critical but loving and accepting.

I had a huge aha this morning when I was meditating and tuned in to my third chakra of the solar plexus, the place of our power and will.  I also saw the totem for that chakra which is the hummingbird, they symbol of joy. I realized that being in our deepest power can unfold from a place of joy with ease and grace not with force!  There is nothing I need to do.  I simply need to show up and be centered in my heart in a place of love and really ask what it is I most desire.  What do I want?  What do I desire?  Not what should I want.  Or what is “important”.  What do I really really most want and desire in this moment.

For me right now in this moment my desire was to take my computer outside to the screened in porch off of the kitchen to write.  I most wanted to see the beauty of the trees and flowers outside and to hear the songs of the birds.  The bird’s songs have been so alive to me.  To hear their song fills my heart up with immense gratitude and love and pure happiness.

I let go of all those places left within my limiting belief system that there is something “I” must do.  I allow all that I need is being provided for me by simply showing up to what is true in each moment, what do I truly desire, what do I truly want.  And then unlike Hansel and Gretel following the bread crumbs which can be blown away or eaten by animals I follow the threads of my hearts desire.  I simply need to show up and pay attention and listen, open to receive and then be in a state of gratitude.  Allow, what joy!

I know there are so many traps that we can fall into living in this world.  There are traps of money, fame, power, accomplishment, importance, busyness, overachieving, striving, glamour, prestige, perfectionism, numbing ourselves, seduction, being a victim, needing to control, just to mention some of the common ones. I know for me important is one of mine.

Several months ago I was given the opportunity to host a subscription channel on the internet for women.  There were other hosts, well known and famous women that I admired.  I felt honored to be asked to be included and said yes.

I bought a rather expensive small video camera with a separate awesome mike for recording and doing interviews.  I dragged it with me to Guatemala on the Women’s Journey I was leading.  I filmed all kinds of things there and spent hours going through and editing but never able to come up with the finished product.  Erin and I did a whole class on authenticity that was videotaped but I didn’t like it after it was finished.  Then once again, I dragged my video camera and accessories to the PeaceJam event I was  recently attending in Michigan.  I filmed parts of that.  I filmed Nobel Peace Laureate Rigoberta Menchu Tum.  Dawn Engle, co-founder of PeaceJam, and I were having a meeting with her in regards to the Mayan Reinassance Film I had been involved in with Dawn as the film was just now completed.  I then took my video camera to Chicago to the International Peace Summit.  This time I left it in the safe in my hotel room, I was tired of lugging it around.

Now back home, it was time to get my site up and running on the network.  I was dragging my feet.  My mind would tell me this was a great opportunity and important and a great way to get my message out to touch and inspire women.  But my body and desire were MIA.  Finally in deep meditation and really listening and tuning in I finally got it, I didn’t have the thread of desire for this.  My passion was not there.  Passion and desire and listening to our heart was the message I wanted to get out to women…. Find your gifts and talents, follow that thread of desire and passion.  Here I was trying to make this happen from my mind and not my heart.  What a huge relief to finally see this.  To realize what is perfect for one person is not for another.  And for whatever reason this truly was not a fit for me.  It was not calling me.

I wrote an email of my realization, the truth of where I was and my regrets to those I was involved with on the network.  I called my professional videographer I had been working with.  I felt bad he might be disappointed we wouldn’t be doing this work together.  He told me what a relief it was.  It hadn’t resonated with him from the beginning!

I am now waking up in the mornings remembering to ask … how can I serve, who can I love today.  Remembering that what is truly important can’t be quantified or measured as there is no big or small love only love!!  I choose love.

Questions to uncovering roadblocks:

Do you find yourself separating play and work?

Or you’re making only infrequent times for play- under special circumstances?

Do you only let yourself become playful when children are around?

Do you believe that play is counterproductive or would get in the way of your goals?

Where in your life are you experiencing avoidance? Putting things off?

How could you make these things more enjoyable?

Play Meditation

This meditation is from the Power of Play session, one of six sessions from our Authentic You in 2012 Tele-Series. If you’d like to join us for the next session on Intuition and Synchronicity, learn more and sign up here:

Thanks for joining us!

First let’s have a look at what has us take life too seriously. We often have ridged ideas of when play can happen that is limiting. Many of us are waiting or holding off having fun for that special event, being with that person who makes us laugh, when we get home, that ski trip or summer vacation. We have separated play and work so much that even considering combining the two would just feel like more work. If you look up play in the Thesaurus, it’s no surprise to find play’s Antonym: work.  Let me emphasize that this is NOT another thing you have to fit into your day.

Let’s make play and work a Synonym. Realize that it all starts with you. Play is a way of being; it strikes you in the moment and can be unleashed at any time. It’s self-generated. As I write this, finding the next words to express, I’m humming to myself. Not as a distraction, many of us think play is counterproductive to work or the task at hand. It’s a quality of being that can blend itself into anything you are doing.

Let’s journey back into childhood and see how being conditioned away from our natural playful nature paved the way to our seriousness.

We learned early on that playing could result in being irresponsible or even get us hurt. Mimi Doe, author of 10 Principles for Spiritual Parenting explains one study, ‘…the average child hears the word no or don’t over 148,000 times while growing up, compared with just a few thousand yes messages.’

Hearing the words “no” or “don’t! You’ll hurt yourself,” we become ingrained that something bad could happen. It’s better to follow the rules and play it safe. “Stop acting like a child.” “Grow up.” “Start acting your age.” In seeking our parent’s approval,  little by little we trained our self into how we’re “supposed” to act. What becomes important is our validation from others. In seeking approval we focus on what other people think of us, worried about rejection. As adults this later translates to the need to have it figured out or appearing to have it figured out, or to not make a mistake and screw up.

As we graduate to the next level in grade school, and our classrooms have less colored paper, glue sticks and crayons, our focus now requires due-diligence, working hard to succeed and to please. We begin to separate play and joy from our work. A well-spoken quote from Leo F. Buscaglia reminds us, “It is paradoxical that many educators and parents still differentiate between a time for learning and a time for play without seeing the vital connection between them.” We falsely learn that play has no place in the world of our success. We must work hard in a “no-pain, no-gain” paradigm that you must put your nose to the grindstone to succeed. Play becomes one less important thing to fit into your day that you’ll likely not get around to.

Hit the refresh button in your mind, color outside the lines, and bring some freshness into your relationship to life.

What are some of the qualities that play can give us?

When you play you are bringing newness to what are doing.  It gives energy and vibrancy to the moment.  It’s a full moment like taking a breath of fresh air. Play nurtures that lighthearted sense of the world’s ironies and our own personal one’s. It gently lets us look at our own quirks and idiosyncrasies. It also brings flexibility to our thinking, creates spaciousness and engages our imagination. When you play you are saying “I trust.” We must be trusting to be creative. Play allows us see our world in new ways, giving us resiliency where we can bounce back and say “ahhh, I’m OK!”  Play encourages us to ask, what if? I wonder? Wouldn’t it be fun if?

To be truly playful, you may not always fit in and appear normal but you’ll certainly be having more fun!  And if the people in your life are suddenly saying “What’s gotten into you?” well then, you’re on the right track and doing great!!! It’s a choice and you’re in the driver’s seat, so go on take the playful road!

Power of Play: Recording Available April 24^th

Weave play into your everyday life to enhance your creativity, imagination, and feelings of fun! Discover when you are naturally your playful self. Create a sense of curiosity and magic for life like you did when you were a child. Let go of the old “no-pain, no-gain” paradigm that you must put your nose to the grindstone to succeed. Doors will open where there were walls before. The right people show up at the right time. “Ease and grace” are your new key words. Let’s Play!

Discover more with tips, insights and a guided visualization on play in our recorded session from the 6 part Authenticity Tele-Series. Sign up to receive the Free recording- available through May, 2012.

We also are in a time of awakening to Springs energies.  We are resurrecting once again.  New life calls within ourselves.  As we move more and more into 2012 and the changing of what the Mayan’s describe as a 26,000 year cycle we feel something new emerging and being birthed within ourselves.  A new template, blueprint is forming and we are part of it.  We may start noticing the feeling that the energies this year are different than before.  It isn’t just another Spring, but a whole NEW spring.  This is not just a higher turn of the spiral but we may begin to feel and notice we are in a whole new spiral.  Life is the same in many ways but feels different.  You may notice that you can feel like two different people.  I find myself feeling absolute unconditional love and being able to receive the most amazing gifts of love that are being bestowed upon me.  And then there are the moments of some shadow part of myself that shows up and I feel doubt, doubting myself and not trusting.  The swings feel more extreme than I have ever felt in my life.  I feel I am usually a very even happy good-natured person.

We are in uncharted territory.  Adventurous pioneers and explorers.  The rules we have lived with in the past do not work anymore.  What I am finding is that it is no longer about being able to will things into being or control them.  It is about being transparent, open, surrendered, clear for the higher divine energies to be able to flow through us with ease and grace.  Letting go of the little “s” in self to the larger “S” in Self that is united with Source. Remember the power of asking for guidance, asking for all the resources, tools, people and guides to show up and help you as we make this huge transition of the ages. I surrender to a greater Divine intelligence that flows through me.  I choose the highest good.  I trust the highest good.  I of myself can do nothing.  All is well.

~Cathy Morancy

I am just back from nearly a week of helping my mom after her back operation.  I was not able to go out right away as I was just getting a cast off of my right arm and had doctor’s appointments and needed to work on my own healing.

My mom lives in Salt Lake City, Utah and is 83 years old.  She has always  been a vibrant, healthy, energetic and very social person.  She has had osteoporosis but that has never slowed her down.  About 18 months ago she started getting severe pains in her back and right leg.  Her walking went from brisk to  extremely slow as every step caused immense pain.  We tried healers and acupuncture and chiropractors but nothing worked.  She finally had a major back operation.  Luckily, the operation was a success and the pain is no longer there.  Now she needs to do exercises three times a day. A physical therapist comes to her home to work with her a few times a week.  The goal is to get her off the walker and cane and back to being able to walk on her own again.

My mom really wanted to see me and I wanted to be there to support her.  She is a woman of immense courage and determination and commitment and does a beautiful job taking care of herself and being independent.  She creates such beauty in her home and gardens and being a Virgo she is incredibly organized.

I showed up at her house with some very clear intentions I had set.  First and foremost was to be an Ambassador of Love.  To love my mom in fun and playful ways that she really felt seen and heard, valued and loved.  Before going to see her I would think of fun things I could do with her.  I decided to bring one of my favorite books to read out loud to her:  Martin Prechtel’s “Daughter of the Disobedient Sun”.  It is a Mayan tale with so many layers of meaning.  I also brought “The Way of Mastery” which is about living in our hearts and love – to read to her each night before we would fall to sleep.  My friend Michelle lent me gold and silver sparkly nail polish when I told her I wanted to give her a fun out of the box pedicure!  I brought scrabble and watercolors although we never got to those two things.

Mostly I just wanted to be a vessel of love- for my mom to know that she is deeply valued and loved.  This I must say was the best visit I have ever had with my mother.  I think the change was with me and my intentions.  I wanted nothing from my mother. I only wanted love for her.  I use to feel like going home meant falling through a black hole and I could go from a full functioning adult back to feeling those horrible feelings of being an eight year old child.  Suddenly I would find myself back into that old energy field.

This time it didn’t mean that nothing came up that could have triggered any of my old buttons.  Oh yes, those things did occur.  My mom gave me a ticket to a play she wasn’t able to see and I had on some nice jeans with boots and a pretty top.  Mom didn’t want me to leave the house with jeans on.  From my heart I told her this was a pattern from childhood, she wants me to dress and look a certain way that is more about her needs than mine.  I told her I would change but wanted her to be aware of this pattern because it didn’t feel good.  There was another time that she had made an assumption without communicating the change she had made.  Or sometimes having a disapproving tone when I asked a question.  I made a request that there were no stupid questions and all to be answered with respect.

What changed was that I didn’t feel triggered by any of the above situations.  Each time I took responsibility for my feelings and for communicating from a place of truth and love and from my heart.The day I left we were both so sad.  We had gotten closer in those six days than many many years.  We have always loved and respected each other but this time we were able to move into a deeper love.  A love of surrendering, opening, accepting and both of us really having our hearts open to receiving each others immense love. Before I left mom said she hated to see me go.  I brought out Kahil Gibran’s poem about mothers and children and reminded her what a beautiful bow she was that allowed my arrow to soar.

This was also the poem I gave to my son as he graduated from high school….

On Children
Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

 

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

 

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

• Fear of what others think of us.
• Over-giving – leading to resentment.
• The need for approval – to be accepted.
• Fear of feeling:  feeling pain if our heart gets broken, so not having an open heart.
• Forgetting what you really love and what   makes you most happy.
• Not scheduling in time to do the things you most love and for play.
• Fear of the unknown. Wanting safety and comfort.

Now we get to remember! Remember that we already are whole, complete, and that our heart knows the way. This meditation reminds us that we have the wisdom and answers within by creating stillness and spaciousness within ourselves and connect to our heart.

If you are interested in going deeper into heart and meaning in your life and looking at the roadblocks that are preventing you from fully living in your heart, join me in this meditation. During this meditation you will be able to explore these questions. How aren’t you living a life from heart and meaning? Or living from that place of duty and should? How are you living a life of heart and meaning? In what ways are you or would like to follow your Joy and bliss? Take time to write what came through you after the meditation on a piece of paper.

I invite you to SHARE with us your insights and join us on our next Tele-Series call, April 24th. on intuition and synchronicity. This meditation is from the previous Tele-Series class.

Listen Now

Kathleen’s 4 Keys to Unlimited Self of heart and meaning: Four keys to successfully moving into your UNLIMITED self of your heart so you can SOAR……

Surrender-Letting go of limiting beliefs – using EFT, Byron Katie “The Work”- releasing projections and forgiveness- Helps to move out of the traps of the mind and ego and into the heart.  What masks are you wearing; can you let go of your masks?

Open- Open to what wants to come through you.  Listen.  Sit in silent meditation for 15 minutes with the question you are holding of:  what is my next step?  Use walking meditation – go for a walk in nature and ask – What most wants to come through me?  Then go home and write for at least 20 minutes without stopping.

(Accept, Allow, Action):

Accept:  Accept and love yourself for exactly how you are now.  Accept and love others in your life for how they are right now in this moment.  Paradox of transformation is that you must fully start with acceptance for exactly how something is for transformation to occur.

Allow: Let go of striving and trying to force and control things.  Allow things to occur.

Action: What are the actions you can begin to take for the things that have been revealed to you?  You can create a visioning board – You must be able to SEE it to believe it.  You can set your intentions.  What are some baby steps you can take so the Universe and Source can meet you to start opening doors?

Receive: We live in a world where giving is valued.  We have not really learned the value of receiving, which is a feminine characteristic.  Remember the saying that it is better to give than receive!! It is important to have both in balance.  By allowing ourselves to fully receive we fill up our well.  We have more to authentically give.  The universe has given us so much but often times we create dams that block ourselves from letting it come in.  We do this because we don’t feel worthy to receive these magnificent gifts there for us.  Tool; when someone gives you something PAUSE, really allow to FEEL the gift.  Set an intention to open to receiving all the gifts there are for you.  Look for them by saying “I wonder how many amazing and miraculous things are going to happen before I go to bed tonight?”

Now we get to remember! Remember that we already are whole and complete. That we have the wisdom and answers within us. We get to remember our heart knows the way and start to create stillness and spaciousness within ourselves and connect to our heart.

Do you remember watching the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy wants to find her way home and finally is going to meet the Wizard. It turns out he is just a little man with lots of expertise in theatrics but no real power. He can’t get her home. And yet all along Dorothy has exactly what she needs to get home… the red slippers and her intention saying over and over “there is no place like home”.

“Home” is our deepest heart place, that which we most love. Following our bliss is being connected to that deepest place within our heart – what we love. “Following” our bliss to me is the masculine part – the place of taking action. Following, doing. Joseph Campbell said “when you follow your bliss the universe will open doors where there were only walls and unseen forces of power rearrange things because of your step of faith”.

Are you living a life of duty, a life of shoulds and caring what others think? Are you feeling resentment or are you feeling joy and following your bliss?

Free Tele Class: Tuesday March 24th from 6:00- 7:00pm PDT

Heart and Meaning

If you are interested in going deeper into heart and meaning in your life and looking at the roadblocks that are preventing you from fully living in your heart as well as the three keys to successfully moving into your UNLIMITED self please sign up and join us!