It was fun. It was interesting. It was a little mind-blowing. That’s what it was for me. Perhaps it was that way for you, as well.

Did You Miss It?

Aw shucks. Well, you can hear the audio here, today.

How Audio Goes

It’s hard to devote 90 minutes to somebody talking. I know that to be true.
So I’ve created a short outline for you.

Business Intuition in a Nutshell

a. Intuition is a very good tool. It is getting information in a non-linear way.
b. Your business is separate from you, but it’s something you embody with your energy and power.
c. Intuition happens when we get our mind, body and spirit to work together. The big brain takes a back seat.
d. When we acknowledge difficult emotions, we can make a space for our intuition to come in. We let our brain and emotions work together, and voila! it happens.
e. Each part of our body corresponds with a part of our business.
f. We can create imaginative spaces that allow us to explore specific issues in an intuitive way.

Listen Here

Here’s the recording: Tune Into Your Business. Right click and save for a PC, and if you have a mac, hit control + Click and then save target as.

An announcement is coming forthwith.

Having a dedicated dreaming and planning and doing space helps me focus my efforts on my work, my goals, my destiny.

I have a print in my office by Leah Piken Kolidas. It reminds me of the deep intelligence that resides within me (and also, of course, you). It’s called “Listening”.

Listening by Leah Piken Kolidas

I asked Leah to share some thoughts with us about sanctuary and purpose. She stopped by the bar at the edge of the universe to tell us about how caring for herself includes creating a sanctuary for daydreaming (which in turn, helps with that whole purpose-finding thing).

Here’s Leah’s guest post:

When I was in my mid-twenties, I was obsessed with finding my purpose. I read loads of books on the topic, took many classes, and wrote endlessly in my journal. I was learning a lot about myself in the process, but I still felt very confused about what I truly wanted, which made it difficult to discover my purpose.

Through the soul-searching, I realized that I’d grown up in an environment where it was safer to suppress my own wants and needs in order to maintain peace. I was all about going with the flow. And while this can be a great skill to have in some situations, it can also be limiting when done to a fault. Re-learning how to identify what you truly want in your life can be challenging, but it’s doable. A great way to begin is to take time to get quiet, listen in, ask questions, and then practice taking small steps forward.

A beautiful way to practice and get clarity on what you love is to create a sanctuary in your home. You don’t need much physical space to create it; it could be as simple as a table in the corner or a window seat. Or if you have the space, it could be a whole room! When creating your own sanctuary, think about making it a place you’ll love to be in. Fill it with colors, scents, objects, and textures that bring you delight.

In one apartment I lived in, I had just enough space for a small end table to be my sanctuary. I filled with a few family photos, a bowl filled with stones and shells, a few objects from places I’d traveled to, a place to store wishes, and a candle. It made me happy to create this altar-like set up, which I occasionally changed up or re-arranged to please my eye.

In my current home, I’m working on a creative dreaming nook in my studio. (You can see a picture of it in progress above, after I painted the wall.) Picking out the color for the wall, choosing artwork to hang there, and selecting the cozy bench to sit on, was good practice in caring for myself and in better understanding my own wants and needs.

Simple Steps for Creating your own Sanctuary:

• Choose a spot: Find a space that you can carve out for yourself. It could be a cozy chair, a table, a shelf, a window seat, or a room. This is a space just for you.
• Ask: Get quiet and still, close your eyes, take a breath, and ask yourself, “What do I want my sanctuary to be? How do I want to feel when I’m there? What can I bring to this space to make that happen?” Take some time to write down whatever comes up.
• Visioning: Create a vision board for your space. Cut out magazine images and/or words that express how you’d like your space to look or how you’d like it to make you feel. Then collage them onto a piece of poster board or into a journal. Take some time to look at the images and words you’ve selected and reflect on what it says about the kind of space that you desire.
• Delight Your Senses: Bring into your space things that bring you joy. Think about what colors, smells, textures, and sounds you would like. You might cover a table with a favorite scarf, light vanilla-scented candles, or have a water fountain. Or perhaps you’d like wind-chimes, glass mosaics, and statue of Buddha. Ignore any ideas of what you think this space “should” look like and move towards what will delight you.
• Invest in Yourself: Don’t be afraid to invest in a few things while creating your sanctuary. Although it can be challenging for some folks (like myself) to spend money on themselves, it’s important to take care exquisite care of you. You and those in your life will benefit from you taking good care of yourself. You might invest in a can of paint, a piece of art, or a few good-smelling candles. You are totally worth it.
• Purpose: Your sanctuary is a great place to display vision boards you’ve created about your dreams and goals. In the past I’ve hung images of my theme word for the year in my sanctuary to help remind me of what I’m moving towards. As you discover your purpose, it’s helpful to have a place you can go to help remind you in a beautiful way.
• Enjoy it: Spend some time with your space, enjoying it, reflecting on it, noticing what comes up. Journal about how it makes you feel to have this place of your own. Continue to play with what you’d like your space to be and adjust over time.

As you practice listening to your wants and needs and finding ways to fulfill them, it becomes easier to get clear about what your purpose is. Creating a space that delights you can have a profound impact on your life. And as you take better care of yourself, you’ll be better able to express your purpose in the world.

About Leah

Leah Piken Kolidas is a mixed-media artist living near Boston, MA with her husband and their four fuzzy kitties. She blogs and acts as a Creativity Guide at Creative Every Day (http://www.CreativeEveryDay.com) and she sells her artwork in her online shop, Blue Tree Art Gallery (http://www.BlueTreeArtGallery.com). The painting is at the top of the post is titled, Listening and can be found here (http://www.bluetreeartgallery.com/listening.php).

We once spent most of a day replacing key words in famous poems with the word “taco”.

This flies completely the face of the fact that she is a terrific shiatsu practitioner and also a brilliant writer.  I asked if she’d write about being present in the body, and she gave us this gem:

Anywhere But Here

Yeah, I’m a bodyworker. Shiatsu to be exact. So, theoretically I should know a thing or two about being present in the body.

But I’m learning all the time what this really means.

For example, I recently taught a class to couples on Valentine’s Day on how to give each other a basic whole body shiatsu treatment. Seemed straighforward enough, until I started contemplating the all different types of touch there are and the multitide of intentions behind them.

And how I learned in shiatsu school the seemingly obvious fact that we develop our first relationship with touch while being in the womb, surrounded by the constant pressure of amniotic fluid. I was taught that bodywork can be reminiscent of this primal touch, and how intrinsically it’s tied in with the experience of having our needs met.

Not to mention that our first experiences as newborns and being physically handled – gingerly, confidently, lovingly, resentfully, sparsely – determines not only how we relate to touch, but how we relate to others, and how we accept our OWN bodies.

Some informal studying of the chakra system has also shown me that the development of our first and second chakras occurs from the womb to two years of age. Our sense of groundedness, safety, security, self-worthiness and capacity for self-nurturance are formed during this time.

Depending on how we are treated – how our bodies are treated – this will determine how safe we feel in our own skin.

Unfortunately for many of us, our early childhood experiences can be likened to a war, or at least a battle of wills, between well-meaning adults and tiny vulnerable beings with needs.

And too many of us, as a result, found greater safety in our minds than in our bodies.

From arbitrary feeding schedules, to being left to cry ourselves to sleep, to substituting machinery for loving arms, to expressions of disgust toward our bodily functions, and even, tragically, to outright phsycial abuse, we learn that our own feelings and bodily sensations are not to be trusted, instead retreating into the comfort of imagination and logic.

If our own parents couldn’t love and respect our physical beings, then surely there must be something wrong with them.

The War Wages On

The war wages on throughout childhood: “Sit still. Stand up straight. Don’t touch yourself. Stop crying. You don’t mean that! Eat this. Don’t eat that. You’re eating what? Stop crying. Suck it up. Where are you? Daydreaming again? PAY ATTENTION!!”

Even into adulthood: “You’re supposed to look/feel/think like this. You’re too emotional. Your pain is all in your head. How can you think your illness is emotionally related? You’re not qualified! Here take this pill….”

Okay, rant over.

But the point is, the dissection of mind and heart and soul from body begins very early on. Being fully present with deep connection to sensations of feelings moving through us becomes too much to bear, too deeply asociated with discomfort, disapproval, disgust and fear.

Bridget wrote a lovely post on my blog about starting with self-touch as a simple affirmation of self-approval, self-acceptace and self-love.

Our bodies really ARE amazing! They house us, they carry our souls around. They communicate so beautifully with other bodies in ways that our minds never could. They take on all of our emotional garbage until we screw up the courage to process it, or until they simply cannot take anymore. They speak to us continuously about what they need.

And they never EVER lie to us.

Coming Home

It can be terrifying to move back in and listen to the stories. But it’s where we belong. To inhabit only the attic while the rest of the house lays in vacant silence is to live half a life.

It’s time to come home. Loving touch is a good place to start.

Gina Loree Marks is a shiatsu practitioner in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Having started her own parenting career with a copy of Jean Liedloff’s, “The Continuum Concept” in hand, she’s had 20 years to develop some strong ideas about the necessity of continuous loving touch in every human’s life. Which is why she makes a point of hugging everyone when appropriate.

She can be found at http://EmbodyGrace.com, and on twitter: @gloreebe88.

(Nude Painting courtesy of Harold Olson, via creative commons).

Square-Peg Karen

You can find her here: Square Peg Reflections. But don’t click that now, read her post about what to do when you are getting knocked around by life.  And then come back and click, okay?

When I read Bridget’s recent post, Eff You Law of Attraction, I was nodding my head so much that I got a neck ache.

In that effing post (grin), Bridget talked about: “…the downfall of the Law of Attraction.” She explained: We are not rats in a maze with a food button, and if we just push the food button, we get the kibble…

This is to say that we are working in a place with many moving parts…What we desire can sometimes be at odds with what we need, with what we’re here to do.” And noted: “The Law of Attractionists would say, Well, of course, if you feel that, then you get that. Isn’t that convenient?”

To which I respond (head still nodding vigorously): Yes, it is mighty convenient. And awfully easy to grab onto - way easier than real life.

Real life is slippery – messy and beautiful, glorious and mundane, difficult and easy. It’s not one-sided. Not always Winter, not always Spring (unless you live in the tropics, or on the equator – or… Note to self: forget weather metaphor).

Life has its rose moments (oh gag, another metaphor), but it also has manure moments (which roses actually need). Ups and downs, roses and manure – real life contains it all.

In real life sometimes we’re dancing with a friend who just bought the house of their dreams and sometimes we’re holding someone who’s ranting because their awesome-wonderful house burned down.

Sometimes we’re saving a horse from going to slaughter and sometimes that horse turns out to be schizophrenic (see Bridget’s aforementioned post). And sometimes that being – the one who’s dealing with schizophrenia – is your horse, sometimes it’s your kid – or you.

When the hard stuff (manure) comes – when we hurt or get knocked around by life (which will happen once we’re over say, four years old – and for many of us even before that) – we often reach for something: an absolute – a rule – an explanation. We grab hold of thoughts (ideals) that we think will keep us safe, or bring safety back.

We lose mindfulness and openness.

Thoughts and feelings that are safer, or easier, than real life have a definite attraction – no question. They can help us believe we don’t need to feel things – like uncertainty. They allow us not to question, allow us to ignore and/or judge others (and ourselves). They can allow us the luxury of thinking we’re safe because we follow the rules. Then we wind up distancing ourselves from people who are experiencing both the joys and heartbreaks of life.

And that’s not real life – or at least not real helpful. For anybody.

I’d like to propose something a little different. Do I have some kind of plan – a rule maybe? Something reliable? Nah, that’d just be another thing to hang on to – to grab. Another attempt to wrap things up in an uncomplicated and clean way – but real life isn’t clean or uncomplicated.

I’m suggesting something I always often infrequently remember to do (ok, the thing is – I forget this all the time, so I’m hoping we can remind each other). What if – next time we feel pulled to grab on to a rule or belief that explains it all – we just embrace whatever’s happening instead? What if we go all mindful on life’s ass?

Maybe – instead of looking for the fix (or the rule or belief) – we can throw some Square-Peg curiosity – some openness – into the equation?

Real life is big – there’s a lot of mystery. What if we check those absolutes at the door?

“To expound and propogate concepts is simple, to drop all concepts is difficult and rare.”
Nisargadatta Maharaj

Karen Caterson (aka @SquarePegKaren), Recovering Psychotherapist, Square-Peg Advocate and Writer would love for you to stop in for a visit at Square-Peg Reflections (http://squarepegpeople.typepad.com/).

She’ll be the one with the “huh?” look on her face — wandering around wondering, weaving life-stories, swearing, and relishing the company of other Square-Pegs (but not necessarily in that order).

I asked her to write a guest blog about the creative process. And she did.

This is Amy Crook:

And here are her words:

My name is Amy Crook, and I sometimes draw cartoons for a living. Sometimes I make websites, or paint pictures, or create useful forms. I’m a graphic designer and fine artist, and I’ve been doing design since 1996; art is a lifelong passion of mine.

Recently I got a chance to work with Bridget on bringing out her inner self in a completely different way than she offers her own clients — I made her into a cartoon. We started with a photo and some simple choices, but it didn’t end there. When I’m working on a creative project for a client, there’s more to it than whether to use blue or green, or whether they want a skinny style or a weeble style body.

The secret is in the questions.

In order to travel from the nebulous idea of “wanting something that really represents them visually” to a finished product, we have to travel through a lot of twisty passages. In Bridget’s case, for instance, while she wasn’t too picky about the clothes, we spent several emails talking about and picking out her eventual final choice of her magical color-change Christian Louboutin boots. The dress didn’t matter as much as the confidence that came with knowing she was wearing, at least on the inside, some really kick-ass boots. And, of course, she had to be carrying her very own fireball.

After I’ve talked to a client about what they want, there’s always more questions, but it’s also important for me to take some time to think about what they’ve really said. Questions don’t do any good if you don’t also pay attention to the answers, not only what people say but what they omit.

Part of my creative process is taking all those admissions and omissions and letting them burble in the back of my brain. This is the mysterious bit that’s hard to explain, where information and intuition come together to deliver inspiration. It can take a few hours or a few weeks, usually depending on the size of the project, though not always. I have to sift through all the little breadcrumbs the client has left me in our conversations, and put together something that will look and feel right to them, while still fulfilling an objective in most cases.

Interestingly, it’s a process that can’t be rushed too much. I’ve lately noticed that when I try to forge on ahead despite not quite having let things properly gel, my results are never quite what I’m hoping for, either.

The other part is an openness to changing — I sent Bridget a couple of versions of her sketch before she was happy, and most websites go through a lot more than two revisions before they’re ready to move from design to execution. This requires just as much listening — and questioning — as the beginning, because people don’t always know how to express what isn’t working for them in a piece of art or a design. I have to be part explorer and part guide, to get from an uncertain beginning to a solid final product.

In the end, it’s very satisfying to go from a blank page or screen to a finished drawing, painting or marketing piece that both the client and I can be proud of. It’s a process that’s part magic and part skill, and a whole lot of learning to listen to the things people tell me in all the ways that they can.

Amy Crook does graphic design as Not Dead Yet Studios, and sells her art at Antemortem Arts and her Etsy shop. She’s not really as morbid as her business names apply, and thinks turning people into cartoons is the best thing ever. Visit her on Twitter as @amysnotdeadyet.

I like the work he does, and I’m fascinated about using sound to shift energy.

Fabeku Fatumise

So, we thought we’d get together and talk about intuition and confidence and energetic shifts and empowering your clients and then you know, polar bears.

I found this 50-minute chat interesting.  I hope you do too.

Interview with Fabeku

Click the little link  above to hear  us talk  shop.

You can find Fabeku at http://www.sankofasong.com .