On The Art of Receiving

Most religious traditions emphasize the selfless act of giving. Around the holidays, we often give more than we can afford. Our parents instilled the spirit of giving early on. Even scientists have studied the positive effects on the brain when we give.

Shall we reverse the thinking for a moment? What if your greatest gift was your willingness to receive fully and freely?

Many of us can receive only when there is no other choice. In 1976, I had an assignment to the Philippines as a health and nutrition consultant. Various mishaps landed me in the Manila airport in the middle of the night with little money and no place to go. My seatmates, a Pilipino man and his daughter, offered me a bed that I shared with his sister-in-law in a tiny hovel of a home and a ride to the airport the next day as I was traveling south to my assignment. Just last winter I was very sick and living alone. Not used to asking for help, days passed before I reached out. My friends were mad at me, but came forth with generosity I felt I did not deserve.

These personal stories hold some key lessons in our reluctance to receive. Not surprisingly, learning to receive unconditionally is a major challenge for many of my clients. I have their stories to back up my theory that we HAVE ISSUES WITH RECEIVING FULLY AND FREELY. There is a power dynamic and the pressure of cultural expectation in the act of giving. Feelings of shame and guilt are evident in our reluctance to receive. This piece I am writing is a tribute to my clients (and me) who have made progress in the ability to receive and is inspired by an article about receiving ~ Open Hands, Open Heart ~ in the December 2008 Issue of Ode Magazine (see resources), one of my favorite publications.

Take your receiving temperature. Spend a few moments answering these few questions and try these tips on for size during this Holiday Season.

Gauging your ability to receive:

1. Premise: Receiving empowers the giver

How does it feel to do something for someone, to give something special to someone? Pretty good, right?

How easily and gracefully do you accept a compliment?

How good are you at asking for help?

How open are you to allowing someone to do for or give to you even if it is not exactly the way you would do it or what you wanted?

Tips:

Next time someone gives you a compliment. Simply say thank you.

Next time someone offers you help, let them know it's appreciated and say yes, only if you really need it. Saying no sometimes works just fine. But you have to know the difference between feelings of not deserving the help and feelings of gratitude for the generous offer when the timing is right.

Encourage your children to give to you and to others. This is not an expensive proposition. A homemade gift or discarded toy is the best. At the same time, teach them how to receive unconditionally.

2. Premise: Receiving is an intimate act

Can you imagine perfect reciprocity?

Do you dream of the day when you will find the perfect partner who can give you everything you secretly desire?

Is this picture your silver screen version of life ~ as long as it is removed enough you have permission to imagine?

Tip:

Trust is the second most common issue I encounter with my clients. Saying yes to a partner, surrendering our control can be a frightening proposition, especially if our relationship track record is not all that rosy. This is a chicken or egg deal. You know that.

We give and give and give which often translates to control, control, control in order to avoid risking rejection and naked vulnerability. And the opposite is true. There are those of us who take and take and take to fill the void and to control control control. The reasons and the results are about the same. Not the best formulas for a healthy give and receive relationship.

You are not going to get anywhere until you intimately engage in receiving and surrendering. This takes practice and willingness to feel the fear of rejection and just keep on asking, saying yes. Pretend you are in school and these are your required courses for a more meaningful connection to partner, life and spirit.

3. Premise: The Winter Season is a perfect time to learn about receiving

You give every day by doing. How good are you at being?
How easy is it to surrender to the dark, the silence, the not-knowing what is going to happen when you stop?

I live in Vermont now. For the first time in 20 years, I am experiencing the endless nights, adjusting to the struggle between the daylight of doing and the void of darkness and cold. Do I turn on the TV, read and read, and find other distractions or can I write poetry, face my shadow, face my fears, remain in silent isolation for a short time? Can I surrender to the smallness of me? In inching toward this, I find a bigger spirit and grander meaning. Now it is your turn. Ask yourself these same questions.

In Winter ~ a time of hibernation ~ we need to honor and value our receptivity to the dark, the unknown and the unexplored parts of us in relationship to something greater than us. Starting on December 22nd, the light begins to return. So be grateful for this short time and practice being, just a little!

Sobonfu Some, a teacher from the Dagara Tribe of Burkina Faso , believes that we receive from an abundant source that can offer us whatever we need. To repeat her wisdom, ~ when we receive deeply we are receiving not just from an individual but from spirit ~.

Paying it forward and random acts of kindness are essential in our quest to be human and connected. The value of giving is taught to many of us early on and infused in who we are as humans when we are at our best. The art of receiving may be the hardest class here at Earth University, but perhaps the most important one.

May this season offer you many lessons in giving and receiving.

Chop Wood Carry Water
Acts of Mindfulness on your path to purpose

"On the way to Enlightenment chop wood carry water.
After Enlightenment chop wood carry water." ~ Zen saying

I cannot drive through a tunnel without losing the present moment. Upon entering, a sign says “Turn on your lights”. O.K. This time I am going to stay so in the moment, experiencing my ride through the tunnel that 2 minutes on the other side, I will remember to turn off my lights! What happens? My mind goes to my next chore or flashes on a new idea for a presentation or is worrying about what I said in that meeting …you name it my chatter box of a mind takes over and the lights remain on until I turn off my car.

Chop wood carry water. I am looking for tunnels to go through these days to prove that I can be mindful, in the moment, experiencing the present. And, I am getting good at it.

I use the image of chopping wood and carrying water with many of my clients who are struggling to be in the present, to celebrate the good stuff in the moment, to be aware of what they need right then so that they can be in their body, in their mind and in their heart fully and in balance.

When we open awareness to the tasks in our lives they become lighter. When we are able to be in the moment, we have a greater opportunity to discover the tools for living a life of meaning and abundance.

Everywhere I drive these days, I see piles of chopped wood ready to offer warmth on those long frigid nights of Winter ahead. In the past 2 weeks, I have seen full- cheeked chipmunks scurrying into their burrows, stocking up. I imagine the wood chopper as a Zen practitioner where the chore is not about worrying about what is coming but savoring the solid, steady motion of the ax, mindfully creating a perfect pile of wood. And the chipmunk is not conscious of her long months of hibernation to survive, she just acts in the moment, with focus and determination.

What is your bugaboo, your challenge to stay in the moment?
• Out of your Body?
Too many injuries, sick too often, no time, always late?
• Out of your Heart?
Shut down or emotions out of control, broken hearted?
• Out of your Mind?
Indecisive, in doubt, confused, in analysis paralysis or
too critical of self or others?

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• Out of your Body? Too many injuries, sick too often, no time, always late?
Tips to connect to your body:
If you are injury prone or always running out of time, this is a classic out of body reality. A disconnection with your body from being too busy, too in your head.
1. Next time you are cutting vegetables in the kitchen, notice the knife and its relationship to the vegetable, your hand holding it, the board that stops the motion. This is mindfulness. Can you just be there, noticing and savoring the connections?
2. Walk around in a wide circle in your living room or outside and after each completion, slow your pace until you are barely moving. It gets harder doesn’t it? Where are you feeling unbalanced, unsure? Keep doing this and you will find ways to rebalance how you move through the world. Of course, an appointment with a yoga teacher, massage therapist, chiropractor, energy healer does not hurt!
3. Time is on your side – yes it is. Are you always out of time, late? Too much to do too little time. This is a myth – you have all the time and space that you need. You get to choose your relationship to time. On your calendar for 3 days in a row, write in 15 minute spaces between your chores, work duties next appointment. Claim them as you would an appointment entry. Savor them as if they are a gift of abundance.

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• Out of your Heart? Shut down or emotions out of control, broken hearted?
Tips to connect to your heart. The heart line is often the most damaged line on the hand. Not surprising given how hard it is to have healthy, authentic, trusting relationships.
1. Do you dare to take enough time and/or to find the support to really claim how you are feeling and what you need at the core of your heart and soul? Name the feeling. Spend 5 minutes declaring simply how you feel about someone in your life that is causing you heart ache or an event that was challenging. Are you angry, sad, fearful, glad? Keep it simple and definable.
2. There are lots of books on emotional healing – get some recommendations from someone you trust.
3. Read A Good Relationship is Hard to Find! True or False? for more tips.

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• Out of your Mind? Indecisive, in doubt, confused, in analysis paralysis or too critical of self or others?
Tips to rewire your thinking. Too much thinking can get you in trouble…heart and body trouble as noted above.
1. First of all, my prescription for analysis paralysis and doubt is to go have fun, unhook, play laugh. This can clear up a lot. Just stop thinking for awhile. Not possible?
2. Keep a diary of what you say to yourself. Negative, critical, defeating? For each entry, try to reframe your self-talk. "I can’t do this, I do not know how?" Instead put it this way, "I want to try, I am curious about what I need to succeed". The same goes for your judgment of others. Are you actually judging yourself? Good judgment is a gift, so becoming a discerning, objective observer of others is the goal.
3. Can’t make a decision…take one small action in any direction. Clean out a cluttered drawer (may be symbolic of a cluttered mind), rearrange some files so that they work better; make one call you have been putting off, just one.

~ ~ ~ ~~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Autumn is the time when the dark overtakes the light. Turn your lights on and go find your tunnel to practice mindfulness. Savor every movement, every feeling and every thought right now. No backward, No forward. Autumn is the time for harvesting the gifts of Summer. Mindfulness will help you reap soul food for more meaning and abundance.

Happy Autumn!

The Fool

Soul Contracts 101 (1C School of Wisdom):
Meaning at Your Fingertips
Fulfilling your Soul Contract - written in your fingerprints - frees you to identify, track and live your life authentically with joy and purpose.

Are you a perfectionist, procrastinator, commitment phobic, the Know-It-All or "Don't Know-It-All" and need just one more course or to read one more book and THEN you'll be ready? It all comes down to the same thing, You are anxious about putting yourself at stake, exposing what you know to the world. This is the underbelly of the School of Wisdom. The good news is that you are on the path to Joy. Yes, you heard it, J.O. Y.! Joy in knowledge. Joy in understanding and being understood. Joy when you step out and put all of your evaluation into action. This is one of the Schools of Courage - the courage of your convictions. If you have 2 fingerprints - on any finger - that look something like this, then you are in the School of Wisdom.

If you identify with the above - here are three ways to get you to the pot of gold - Joy.

1. Make the "2 foot drop" - from your head - serious business, thinking, thinking, thinking; analysis paralysis - to the heart. What do you want? What makes you excited. What opens your heart to find the courage to stay true to what you know and what you feel.
2. Track how you make excuses for not taking action - be curious. What am I afraid of? What's the worst thing that could happen. And then reframe it to get you moving in the direction you want.
3. Laugh at yourself today. You may take life entirely too seriously - after all wisdom is serious business, right? Not so, making mistakes, willingness to risk looking foolish at times begins the journey to a courageous life of wise knowing. Read up on the Fool Archetype. I think his image and meaning capture some of the essence of the School of Wisdom. What do you think?
   

What school are you in? What skill set is required of your Soul Journey so that your Life Purpose can take flight? To find out more, contact me, order a LifePrints Report or go for the whole Soul Mapping experience, an Initial Life Purpose Consultation.

Soul Contracts 101 (1B School of Love):
Meaning at Your Fingertips
Fulfilling your Soul Contract - written in your fingerprints - frees you to identify, track and live your life authentically with joy and purpose.

I am frequently asked to do a presentation called "You Are The One You Are Looking For" - all about finding healthy relationships and repairing holes in exisiting ones. Relationship questions are at the top of the list for most of my clients - women and men! Not surprising when you think about it...we are social, procreative and at times lusty creatures. More importantly though many of us look for filling the holes with in ourselves with another. "If I could just find the love of my life, everything will be O.K." I think not. I encourage you to read
a 2007 blog entry I wrote, A Good Relationship is Hard to Find. True or False? You might be surprised about my premise and recommendations.

So on to the School of Love:

The last entry we explored the School of Service - the path to Freedom, free of burdensome obigation so that you serve in the way your darn well please! Self care and helping others in balance.


The School of Love is the path to Trust. This is about learning the art of appropriate surrender and appropriate control in relationships. It is the journey of the heart to know what you want/desire/need while being empathetic to others; to express your feelings with the right intensity in the moment vs stuffing them so that you feel you will explode unless you go numb or spewing them like a fire hose out of
control. And finally the mastery of releasing old emotions so that you can make room for healthy, supportive relationships.

Hold onto your heart! The path of the emotional master is to experience heart challenges so that you become so internally heart strong (not heart hardened) you become a model of self love, trust and compassion.


“Someday, after mastering winds, waves, tides and gravity, we shall harness the energy of love, and for the second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”
~ Teilhard de Chardin

What school are you in? What skill set is required of your Soul Journey so that your Life Purpose can take flight? To find out more, contact me, order a LifePrints Report or go for the whole Soul Mapping experience, an Initial Life Purpose Consultation.

Soul Contracts 101 (1A School of Service):
Meaning at Your Fingertips
Fulfilling your Soul Contract - written in your fingerprints - frees you to identify, track and live your life authentically with joy and purpose.

Fingerprints, indelibly imprinted 5 months before you were born, are energy signatures (I like to call them your Cosmic Signature !) that outline your unique soul path. We're talking Contracts here...there are no guarantees that this higher consciousness will be expressed clearly in this lifetime unless the contract is honored. And, of course, this path is frought with many tests and distractions...it takes commitment and belief in yourself at a the deepest level.

Contracts 101 (1A) - Let's start with our Life School - Service, Love, Wisdom or Peace. Which is yours? In my blog post last June - Just Say No!,I was outlining the main skill set required of the School of Service. You are here to learn the difference between a life of burdensome obligation/servitude vs the ability to say no enough, ask for help enough so that you are free to make a difference in your unique calling.

The Three Legged Stool:
This is about self care (one leg) and other care (second leg) in balance. This is about Service to the greater environment (third leg) with fine tuned sensitivity to the impact of your actions and the actions of others. Are your legs of equal length? Or are you giving yourself away too much or being too selfish/self-indulgent or ignoring the impact of your actions on the environment - family, work, the earth?

• Want to know more? The next 3 posts will be about The Schools in our Soul Contract - School of Love, School of Wisdom and School of Peace. So stay tuned.
• Want to know your School and receive a special gift? Order a Fingerprint Analysis. This will give you the full declaration of the 3 parts to your Soul Contract - Your Life School, Life Purpose and Life Lesson.
• Want to learn how to decipher fingerprints? Apply to take the Fall Hand Analysis Intensive. Your path to purpose.
  

Just Say NO!

What if I told you that your Life Purpose - your highest meaning point, the area of greatest success - was to learn to say NO with grace, kindness and ease?

[For those who wonder where we as Hand Analysts find Life Purpose possibilities - you can pinpoint your Life Purpose in your Finger Prints.]

Really? One Life Purpose possibility is to Just Say No enough? Yes, so that you can be free to joyfully and selflessly serve yourself and others equally. Wait a minute. Serve yourself selflessly. This doesn't make sense does it? If your Soul Agenda is to learn to serve without resentment, obligation, guilt, burnout, anger, codependence .... you get the idea .... then serving yourself/selfcare is a healthy, giving and essential act. Otherwise, you will being saying NO in black letters on an angry hand!

Client story: I have a client whose Life Purpose is to say NO and a subcategory of this is to say no so she can be free to serve and make a difference as a communicator in the spotlight. After 3 sessions with me, she was blocked about "just what is Life Purpose; it seems so foggy to me. I am writer and have some reknown, I know that, but it seems as if something is missing". She admits she if burned out and over obligated and can't say NO enough. (If you look at the list above, she was feeling ALL of it! )
We focused the whole session on how it feels to say no to loved ones and family members especially. She gave me a fabulous story: While on vacation, she was in her doing too much - no time for selfcare and rest dance. Finally, she said no to a close family member who really wanted her to go to an event she had been in charge of organizing. My client said no and stayed in bed with a book. She admitted that she leaped up 2 or 3 times (out of guilt) to dress to go anyway. But she resisted and said it was the best thing she had done for herself in a long time. When the relative returned, the evening was filled excitement; she was thrilled to regale my client with all the stories and my client received them with pleasure vs resentment and obligation.

I said that it is easy as that. If you say NO enough, the rest of your journey will be paved with possibilities and with clarity.

Life Purpose is a conscious awareness. A journey from the unconscious to the conscious. Noticing, asking why and how, wondering, being curious. This is the only way to feed your higher path. If you would like to move to the next level, a good start is knowing what you fingerprints tell you. Visit my website for more on the story.
Consider ordering a LifePrints Report - a 15 - 20 page report on your Soul Agenda including your Life Purpose.

You say you want to know the future? Tell me more......

To know whether you should by a lottery ticket? To prepare for your perfect mate? To grieve and worry now? To sell or buy a stock? To make the most out your now confirmed short life? What would be your reason?

As a Hand Analyst, I do not predict your future. Disappointed? Read on. Although there are past event markers in your hands, I do not need to know your history. As to the future, I help you grow possibilities by planting you firmly in the present in YOU, in self acceptance, in the best soil for your soul and your nature.

As a diagnostician and storyteller, it is my job to help you access what is already inside you. Using your fingerprints and your hands, I give you an accurate map to discover your Life Purpose at the soul level along with key factors that keep you from living it. There is no specific goal other than a life lived more authentically. This involves preliminary identification, tracking to increase awareness and consistent support/guidance as needed to assist you to live a more conscious and fulfilling life through your unique soul’s expression.

Predictive Palmists and Psychics CAN tell your future. Our investigation shows that accuracy stands at about 40%. Do you want those odds? These intuitive practitioners use hands as well as etheric elements to see into the future and if they are right, then enjoy the ride to this future.

Are you giving your power away by asking for a peek into the future? Why not take the reins and do what it takes to identify, track and live YOU fully in the present - you will be prepared for anything in the future.