On Friday I attended a writer’s retreat and I am still floating. Because I am a writer. It’s my life purpose, the way I fulfill my divine contract. When I returned, I was quite surprised to find the pain from a recent horrible relationship blowup had all but disappeared. This was a situation where for two weeks I was so preoccupied that I kept forgetting things and taking wrong turns while driving.

It reminded me how powerfully healing it is to do what you were born to do, to step into your divine purpose, even just for a few hours.

Many artists, healers, and creatives spend a great deal of time and money fixing their problems. While this process has merit, we also can get WAY too distracted by it! I have seen great healers obsessed with pathology instead of asking how to move beyond it. I have seen them with their backs to the future, toiling over clearing their past, like Sisyphus rolling the rock to the top of the hill only to have it roll down again, or worse, like Prometheus getting his liver eaten out every morning.

You can spend a lifetime clearing the ants from an anthill by stepping on them as they emerge. Or YOU can help yourself step beyond the anthill.

Your choice.

When you are in your purpose, time disappears, your heart sings, and you create so much nurturing and healing energy that you can help clear a LOT of those problems you thought you had. Imagine what it would be like to make your living expressing your creativity! Let the fantasy roll. Think up your next project.

Healing comes from connections that nurture, and the most powerful kinds include connecting to your divine purpose, your natural gifts, your creativity, and who you really are when you are in that groove.

Over and over, my highly gifted creative clients are unhappy and stuck because they are not devoting enough time to doing their creative thing. (The second most common absence is not getting out in nature enough–another source of powerful healing!) It’s time to give yourself permission to be happy and to heal.

Stop peeling the onion. Put it down and be done with it. Go do your creative thang.

When I write, my cup runneth over. So may it be for you.

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas

When you have a fight or other painful event in a relationship, how do you get back on track?

Many folks would say forgiveness.

I agree — that is a great place to start! However, I’m going to step out on a limb here so you can give your forgiveness practice more power. Forgiveness is not, as many believe, the entire healing process. It is the first step.

But it is an extremely important first step that allows the rest of healing to happen.

This came up for me recently, a little too close to home, when someone I love took dramatic offense and hurt at something I said with all good intentions. They were done with me; I was devastated. Several days later, a friend brilliantly and lovingly asked me, “What else do you need from this situation in order to heal?”

Great question! You can’t go anywhere if you don’t know where you want to go! It’s so easy to get stuck in the emotions of a crisis without looking for the healing solution.

I went within. I… I wanted to be forgiven. Even though I had technically done nothing wrong, they were genuinely hurting. I wanted this person to say, “That’s OK dear, I understand, things like this happen sometimes, I’ll get over it, I forgive you.”

The Power of Forgiveness Is Disconnection

When we are stressed by a negative event, our energy and consciousness freezes. It locks us into the event(s), which is now in the past. Even today, many of us are locked to painful events from earlier in your life. (Some vividly, as if it happened yesterday. Is there anything left from your upbringing that can rile you up upon thinking of it?)

When you maintain connections to the past, you must power those connections with your energy and consciousness. They are distractions and energy drains. You struggle where there could be ease. You feel adrift, confused, or vaguely dissatisfied with life when you tend these old wounds. It is as if you are carrying them around in a massive backpack, bending under their weight.

This I know: the heart of healing is connection. It is connection to that which sustains and nourishes, and disconnection from that which drains and demoralizes.

Forgiveness is a letting go, a healthy disconnection of your energy and consciousness from the painful experience. It is a release of blame and the need to receive anything back. Forgiveness turns you around, from being stuck in the past, attached to what happened, to facing forward again, being present in today, and moving forward into healing.

Sometimes, it’s easy to get over an offense. Hey, things happen and we can move on. But in situations where stress, outrage, shock, hurt, and other emotions have firmly attached us to that original fight or event, forgiveness is golden. It initiates the healing process.

But What If They Won’t Forgive You?

What do you do when you are the transgressor — intentional and repenting, or unintentional — and the person you hurt will not forgive you? What do you when the other person is refusing to reconcile?

You heal. You step beyond this situation, by disconnecting yourself. And the #1 rule about healing is this: you have all the resources you need at all times.

The way energy works, the only way you can experience or perceive someone not forgiving you is if, in some way, you have not fully forgiven yourself. This you must do. As soon and as much as you can.

Surprisingly, and wonderfully, when you forgive yourself — when you disconnect from that event and the pain around it — you make it much easier for the person you hurt to do so, too.

Now THAT is healing. (You healer, you!)

You are not dependent on other things or people for your happiness and spiritual journey. Any thought that says otherwise is Resistance. You can find everything in the world within you, including forgiveness.

I know this spiritual principle, but I’m human and I had gotten caught up in my emotions and forgotten. When I remembered that no forgiveness on the outside means no forgiveness on the inside, I knew it was 100% right. I was devastated and shocked, and had not forgiven myself in the uproar.

Forgive Yourself and Free Yourself to Heal

After a nice meditation of self-forgiveness (“I choose to forgive myself, I choose to let this go, I hand this situation over to God for resolution, I choose to forgive them for not forgiving me,” etc etc), I felt less upset. You may choose to take a physical action of forgiveness, too, like a donation to a relevant charity or sharing your newfound wisdom with someone.

I will repeat this meditation a few times. Connections of energy and consciousness are a bit insidious. Once built, they tend to resonate with similar connections and entwine themselves where they don’t  belong. To truly forgive and fully let go, it helps to repeat your forgiveness exercises and touch on the situation from a variety of angles. You might want to get help from a healer or counselor.

Once you have forgiven yourself, you will be able to freely look at the situation and see what you reacted emotionally to and do some healing (eliminating or rewriting patterns) around those issues. Sometimes this stage is so easy, once we let go/forgive, that we assume forgiveness was all that was necessary. Hallelujah!

When I am done with my self-forgiveness, I will no longer need forgiveness from the other person. I have not abandoned them or the situation, but I will have completely let go of the source of the painful rift between us. It will be water under the bridge. And I will rest in that wonderful place of genuine spiritual independence, where others truly have no power over my happiness.

I pray for them to find this inner release, too.

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas

Have you struggled to forgive yourself? Do you have advice or a different perspective? Please share it in the comments below!

Is there some area of your life where you know you need to make a change, but you just… haven’t… done it yet?

Maybe you’ve been intending to lose that extra 10 pounds, start a newsletter for your business, finish your book, or do that scrapbook.

I bet you give yourself grief for not taking those steps. (You do, don’t you?) You might feel bad, criticize yourself (even in front of others), punish yourself subtly, or worse.

Stop it.

Right now.

Your intentions to change are actually great news, even without the action step! Congratulations, you!

Here is why. When we make change, we generally move through three phases. Wanting to change while not taking action is the second step. And any progress beyond the first phase should be applauded!

The three phases of change look like this:

Beginning Phase: Nothing is wrong with me. I don’t need to change. What are you staring at?

Middle Phase: Uh oh, I noticed something I would like to change in my life. Ugh. Wow. How long has this been here? Why didn’t someone tell me? Oh, you did? Ack, just how pervasive is it? Oh, wow. Let me soak this in and get used to the idea. Let me look at it from all angles. I really want to change this, but I’m not sure what I want instead.

Final Phase: I am ready to do something about this issue. In fact I am doing something! I am really excited to start a program this afternoon. I already have done the first three exercises in the workbook. I looked at a lot of options, and I do believe this is the one for me. I am committed to this change, and have created a reward system for myself. I am doing this for me, and will enjoy the outcome.

Tips for Surviving the Middle Phase of Change

Yes, it’s GREAT to want to change, even if you are not yet ready to do so. Here are five ways to make it easier to survive–and graduate from this phase.

1. Celebrate. If you know you want to make a change, but you aren’t doing anything, you are in the middle phase. It’s OK, in fact, it’s great! Congratulations! You made it out of being stuck! Pat yourself on the back. Celebrate your moving forward! And let go of all that guilt. Just because you had the idea does not mean you are ready to live it… yet.

2. Get Clarity. Discover exactly what you DO want to change. Often, it’s not what you think at first, when you first move into the Middle Phase. This phase is about clarification. You see what you want to fix or eliminate, but what do you want to replace it with?

Sometimes, your original goal (eg. lose 20 pounds) is just a hint at what you really want, and your real goal (love myself enough to find a romantic partner) is something different. Dig deep. Go on retreats, consult with proven intuitives, ponder and dig around until you identify the real dream at the core of your desire to change. Keep moving forward.

3. Look At Your Options. Look around for solutions, but don’t buy anything yet. Especially don’t buy something just because it came along–it might have come along as a form of resistance, not a godsend solution. Take a good look at its merits and costs. Try programs out first–almost everyone gives away a free recording or exercise or something to try. Are you ready to stick to a schedule and do the work?

4. Give Yourself Time. Right now, you are analyzing the situation–and it’s never as cut-and-dried as it seems. You need some time. Allow yourself to have it.

If you get antsy, set a date to decide what you will do about your desire to change. If you don’t have the information or if you are not fully connected to creating a solution, set another date and some things to do or learn before that date.

5. Get Help If You Get Stuck. Yes, it is possible to get stuck in the Middle Phase, stuck in your resistance and fears and doubts, not moving forward when you want to. Get help, bounce your fears off others, and while you are exploring your resistance, be kind to yourself.

We do not punish second graders for not knowing high school math. Second grade is a phase, a stepping stone. Enjoy it. What right do you have to be mean to any of God’s children, yourself included?

When you let go of the guilt, self-criticism, angst, and self-sabotage you are raining down upon yourself, you open up a lot of energy to constructive uses, including healing. You can progress more quickly through the Middle Phase of Change and reach your end goal. Then you can celebrate once again!

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas

Have you ever thought of change this way before? Share your thoughts with us in the comment section below!

It is the worst feeling in the world when you unintentionally cause someone else pain. You wish you could rewind, unsay, and erase, erase, erase.

It is like lightning striking your relationship, too. It hurts both sides.

I’m at a loss to understand or amend what happened between me and a very important person in my life. This morning, my emotions are crippling my ability to think straight, so I’m doing what any writer might do to pull myself out of it. WRITING.

Sadly, the situation keeps making me think of a dramatic story I read in one of those emailed-to-everyone-and-their-brother chain emails. With the email long gone, I’ll retell it here (and please let me know if it comes from a book with copyrights, thx).

Once upon a time, there was a boy and his dad, some arrows and a fence. The boy opens the story by picking on another kid with his friends, as kids do. He badly hurts someone’s feelings without, like most kids, fully understanding what he has done.

So the father asks the boy to shoot a few arrows into the fence, and the kid does. The father explains that the arrows are like the insults he lobbed at the other kid. The arrows damaged the fence, and those comments hurt the kid, too.

Light bulb starts to go on in the son’s head. He wants to run apologize to the other kid right away.

But first the father asks him to pull the arrows out of the fence. They leave gaping holes and splintered wood. “Can you fix the fence?” asks the dad. Horrified, the kid realizes no. Even if you fill the holes with putty, they are still there. The fence is permanently damaged.

Lesson: When you hurt someone, you have created a wound that, even though you smooth it over later, is still there in some form. Permanent damage. Therefore, do everything you can to never hurt someone on purpose. Bite your tongue. Go for a walk. Let the vitriol cool off. Get some healing. Make the better choice, and love your neighbor.

But what about healing?

It will never, ever get better? Omg, what a depressing story! But so is my personal situation, in its recent rawness. It feels irreversible. I feel like our relationship will never be the same because this horrible, awful misunderstanding happened. There will be holes in the fence. We will always remember this.

Wait.

Sure, the dad’s demonstration helped the kid better understand THAT he hurt someone. But is it really true? Do hearts and humans, like wooden fences, never heal?

Is this an outdated, incorrect story? Is this one of the common cultural myths we are learning to heal beyond?

Do you think it is possible, with forgiveness and genuine healing (not repairing), to fill those holes and restore the relationship? Do you think the dad is teaching his kid the wrong principle, which, in reverse is this: when you get hurt you will never be able to repair yourself?

I myself believe that this story is old thinking. After 15 years as a healer, I know it is.

I know that genuinely healing a harmful relationship event (not fixing, not undoing) can transform the relationship by taking it to a new place of understanding, deepened love, and appreciation. It’s not quite “learning the lesson” in the event — it is transcending it to a place where it does not matter any more.

It’s easier to understand this by thinking of little things that are easy to forgive and forget, like a toddler wobbling and spilling your coffee on your lap. Unintentional, easy to let go of (maybe after you change and mop up). So can the BIG rifts in life be, with healing, true healing. To begin, you just have to ask how you can get to that bright and healed place.

Thanks for the reminder. Thanks for helping me pull out of my old attitude.

I am feeling better already.

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas

Just who was it that said, “insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result”?

According to wikiquote, this quip is most often misattributed to:

• Benjamin Franklin (perhaps because he was insane for flying a metallicized kite in a lightning storm),

• Albert Einstein (because the internet believes Al was a Law of Attraction guru who said everything that’s cool), and

• Mark Twain (maybe because he had the same hairdresser as Einstein and we get the men mixed up).

But no, sorry, none of those wise men said it.

Don’t Seek and You Won’t Find

Seriously, according to wikiquote, the earliest occurrence of this quote is a 1981 Narcotics Anonymous booklet, and might have come from Alcoholics Anonymous. Next, it can be found in the writing of Rita Mae Brown, but to be polite we will not ask her where she got it.

This quote works when we are in denial or stuck in a negative loop, doing the same thing over and over, wishing our problem would magically go away. In this case, it is time for new tactics.

We could rewrite the quote in a catchy new phrase: “When your steps go round and round, another option must be found.”

Or make a great T-shirt out of: “Wishing is for fairy godmothers. Move your a$$.

A New Meaning

But hang on. Is it in fact nuts to keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?

Maybe not. Not always, anyway.

In fact, I find we often need more of this kind of persistence-against-all-odds in our lives. Instead sapping our mental health, doing the same thing over and over while hoping for a new result can be an expression of our highest goals: healing, trust, and faith.

To attain healing, for example, you must think beyond the current situation and the results you expect to get. You must leap beyond them and expect, even if you don’t know what it looks like, a very different result — something new.

We celebrate the fact that Mark Twain, after receiving tons of rejections, sent out even more letters trying to publish his writing, expecting a different result from those same tactics.  Today, over 100 years after his death, his books are still required reading in high schools and sell like ice cream on a hot summer’s day.

Hooray for Einstein persisting in sharing his inside-out ideas until others could see  the world through his eyes and physics could evolve forward into a radical new paradigm that gave birth to quantum physics.

Thank goodness Annie Sullivan kept trying, over and over, against all odds and expectations, to help the deaf and blind child Helen Keller to understand sign language! By doing so, she helped enable Helen Keller to become a beloved writer and lecturer, winner of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, member of the National Women’s Hall of Fame, and the face on Alabama’s 2003 quarter coin.

Make the Leap, Step by Step

What kept them going? Hope? An inner knowing? Love? Inspiration?

Something did, something that helped them transcend all those rejections and failures, and shift into a new and better unexpected outcome. Add this magic into the mix and you no longer have insanity. You have faith, transcendence, and healing.

How about you? What new goal are you currently stretching for, or would like to reach? Do you need encouragement to keep going, to send out a few letters, or try one more time, even if your dream results feel impossibly far away?

Find the faith or a spiritual principle to hang it on. Identify a motive, a higher ideal, a reason why, source of curiosity, a reminder quote, or other fount of inspiration.

For me, I just reread Helen Keller’s story again. Wow. That helped me immensely. Where can you find your magic fairy dust to help you fly over the rainbow?

Yes, as you reach for your goal, it may be wise to learn and refine how you write those letters/teach your pupil/share your vision. But the advice is the same:

To create miracles, connect to the Potential within your dream (not the specifics) and take ordinary actions, over and over, while solidly and unfailingly expecting a surprising result, even a miraculous one.

This is what creates healing.

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas

What has helped you to transcend rejections or overcome old expectations? Share your story and wisdom with us in the comments!

I’ve been searching hard for a good quote about being a strong role model for others. It’s an important role to play. Role models shine their light brightly to help those behind them find their way. They uplift and inspire.

As healers, we need to be great role models for our clients and fans. We must walk in the shoes of our divine Inner Healer. We must care for and support ourselves so we can create as much healing as possible in the world.

That means if you recommend nutritional support, you should take it yourself. If you offer an energy healing technique, you should receive that method of healing from other practitioners yourself. If you are a lawyer, you should have your own legal ducks in a row.

The odd thing is that I discovered many of the celebrities and thinkers we admire do not want to be called role models. Keeping in mind that these are unconfirmed quotes from those junky online quote sites, here is the sort of thing I’m finding. (Do not quote these without confirming their source, just get the gist and be amazed:)

“Making me into a role model is placing too much importance on what I see as a work in progress.” –British musician P. J. Harvey

“I’m no role model.” –American athlete Charles Barkley

“In the right situations, I can try to help and be a role model, but I’m still gonna speak my mind, and if that affects the role-model deal, then too bad.” –American musician Toby Keith

I get their point. They are not perfect and do not want to be held up as such.

But who is perfect?

We seem to have a mistaken idea that role models have to be perfect. I tell clients all the time that I share their struggles, flaws, and regular dips into the dark night of the soul. What I have developed over the years, however, are strategies for catching myself earlier and pulling myself out faster and faster. I’ve also developed practices and mindsets to keep myself from falling down as often or as hard. That is the value of the role model.

What we really admire in our role models is this: they are not perfect, but in some aspect they have developed ways of being that we wish to develop, too. Practical tools, tips, and tricks like this are what we want from our coaches and mentors and role models. Ultimately, and ideal role model knows their flaws and loves themself anyway. They be themselves, their brilliant, fun salves. That creates charisma. That’s what we crave in role models: permission to be ourselves.

If you are a leading person in your field, be comfortable with the fact that you are a role model. Own it. And live it. Be yourself. Do what you admire in others. Look up to yourself. People won’t be able to get enough of you.

If you would like to inspire others, we are here help you walk your path. Our membership program offers the spiritual development and practical action steps to get you where you want to go, faster and easier. Click here for more information.

“I don’t want to be perfect, but I do want to be a role model. My mom always tells me that imperfections equal beauty. All of us are imperfect.”  –American musician Miley Cyrus

“Keep away from people who try to belittle your ambitions. Small people always do that, but the really great make you feel that you, too, can become great.”  –American author Mark Twain

© 2012 Daria Boissonnas

The holidays are in full swing and the thrill of the brand new year is upon us. Here are a few tasks for this week or next to get you in a great position for next year, clear and ready for your best year yet.

Out with the Old

1. File Your Finished Work. Congratulations! Yahoo, you published author, you! Now put those files where you can find them, right now, before they clutter up 2012. Do this in your office with paper files, and on your computer. Create a “2011 Sold Work” folder, and drop your project folders in there. This folder can be filed within your active writing folder, so you will always know where to find previous work.

2. Cull Your Unfinished Writing. Which ones will you let go of? Which projects have you already moved way beyond, with no reason to finish? I love this process! Invariably I find a poem I started or an article idea that I threw into a file and forgot about. You can hang onto the viable ones, and set them up to be finished next year. (See part II of this article for “In with the New”.)

As a writer, I rarely delete writing (you never know), so tuck away the projects you will not pursue  in either your deep-six folder or your future projects (but not right now) folder.

Then mentally and emotionally, let go of them. Create a ceremony if you like. For example, you may want to print an article you are killing, or the outline for a book that’s going bye-bey (double sided, 4 sheets to a page) and symbolically burn them in your fireplace, returning their energy to the Pool of All Possibility.

3. Tidy Up Your Accounting. Make sure you were paid for these projects, resending overdue invoices and giving their recipients a call. Put your invoices and receipts in order for accounting. When my business was small with few expenses, I taped receipts onto paper in a three-ring binder with 12 monthly tabs. Yellow paper held was cash receipts. The bank statements held bank receipts. Blue paper was for travel trips, etc.

Ready for 2012

When you are done with these steps, all your desktops should look beautifully clean. Enjoy getting ready for 2012. Here’s to you and a fabulous one-two. *toast*  ;)

Do you have any other year-end steps you take to prepare for a new year? Share them with us in the comments, below!

Enjoying facebook yesterday, I found this poster. If you can’t see the visual, it says:

“Everything is energy and that’s all there is to it. Match the frequency of the reality you want and you cannot help but get that reality. It can be no other way. This is not philosophy. This is physics.” ~Albert Einstein

Hmmm, Einstein? I doubt it.

Now don’t get me wrong. I love the sentiment. And I have been a huge fan of Einstein’s since high school, when I read his little 1916 book on Relativity (delightful little volume). The man invented the field of theoretical physics and innovated how we view the world.

Einstein looked at the world from a new perspective, one in which things were not fixed and stationery, as western science typically viewed the world.  For instance, western science has said the hardest substance in the world is a diamond, while eastern philosophy names water as the hardest substance because over time it can eat away anything. Though this is changing, Western science has tended to take a snapshot view of things, dissected and frozen in time. (Physiology was such a great step forward from anatomy! )

Einstein moved us into understanding that perspective mattered, that the same thing can be validly, scientifically experienced differently from two viewpoints. It was radical.

So where did this Law of Attraction-sounding quote come from?

Granted, I am a lay person, a mere fan of Einstein and not a scholar. But, sorry, I don’t remember Einstein’s theories on the Law of Attraction. Attributing quotes about magical manifestation and subtle energy to Einstein is, in my opinion, going rawther overboard.

Therefore, I would like to see the source of this quote. Anyone have a footnote? (Please comment with your source. The source of the poster was not mentioned in the post, and I sincerely apologize to anyone who owns the copyright to it, please also comment with your information, too.)

This quote is not in wikiquotes, for instance: http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Albert_einstein.  (But the disputed and misattributed sections of Einstein’s page are enlightening.)

Why Am I Picking on This Quote?

I am not trying to be a party pooper here! On the contrary, I have been a student of energy healing, consciousness, intuition, manifestation and many other “soft subjects” for a decade and a half, if not my whole life.

But I am disturbed that we are relying on a fictional quote to inspire us, when the truth is so much stronger.

Share this inaccurate poster, and this quote can be debunked and used to debunk anything else you stand for, too. Why bother?

We don’t need fictional quotes.

We don’t need to induct Einstein into the New Age to make the New Age valid or “real”.

Einstein did worlds of good exactly as he was. And we can do good exactly the way we are, too. Those who are ready will recognize the truth in this quote, without the Einstein byline at the bottom. Let it go.

A false attribution weakens the quote, weakens your argument, weakens your reputation, and weakens the public opinion of what you are doing.

The truth is so much stronger.

The lesson here is this: check your sources before you post. Even if you LOVE the sentiment, make sure you are accurate. (For example, in my first book, Gift of the Healer, I even use a  quote often misattributed to Einstein, but I note its vague source.)

The Truth is all you need. It is the only thing that sets you free.

The most powerful “cure” for feeling blue, sad, tired or depressed is helping others.

Now, even in the middle of the night, you can be inspired by healing and helping stories. KarmaTube.org offers videos about people who have helped others and overcome their own challenges. It inspires me to stop feeling like I am struggling or feeling sorry for my poor ego and get back on the bike again.

It is not often I come across an outside resource I recommend whole-heartedly, but I urge you to browse the FREE videos at KarmaTube. You can even join to support their mission.

Go here:  http://www.karmatube.org/

Now share your discoveries! In the comments below, please share your favorite video link there, and why it inspired you.

Did you like this KarmaTube? Then enjoy GIA’s FREE inspirational and educational series of audio interviews called “I Am a Healer” — 100 Inspiring Stories of Ordinary People Who are Changing the World and How You Can Too.

“I Am a Healer” — Register here to listen for FREE!

The first step to awakening your masterful Inner Healer is to Know Yourself. It is the oldest spiritual advice on the planet and the most important.

When you know yourself, you know what it is that you love to do that shares your healing gift with the world. You develop a groundedness and centeredness in yourself that pushes negative, draining, harmful energies and events far from you. You develop charisma and confidence. It is easier to love everyone and find miraculous solutions.

Knowing yourself connects you to the Universal Essence we all crave. This Essence or raw Potential is where all healing comes from. Knowing yourself — and holding open that connection to your greater Self as much as possible — opens your healing channels. It allow more healing and more powerful transformations to flow through you.

To be a better healer, that is, to create more permanent positive change in the world: know and love yourself.

Action Step for Healing

Yesterday, at the DreamU Inspirational Speaker conference I’m attending, branding expert Brad Stauffer shared an inspiring video from singer Jessica Andrews, along these lines. Take a listen below.

1. Jessica Andrews lists a few things in the chorous that help her remain anchored or centered in her true Self. What are they? How does she find herself by looking outward into the world? List them out for yourself and consider them.

2. Now list five things that keep you centered and grounded in yourself. Five ways you stay connected to your higher self or true self. They may be very different from Jessica’s, and that’s delightful.

3. For each of these, list two ways you can activate this more or more often.

4. Implement them.

 
You are a powerful healer. As always, I would love to hear what you say in the comments here!

~ Daria’s Wednesday Wisdom column ~

The client called out of the blue. “You have to help me!” he said, “I’ve scheduled an important event and now my astrology says it’s a terrible day where everything will go wrong!”

While some people scoff at astrology, I find that as you step onto your spiritual path and further awaken your healing gifts, you actually become more sensitive to these background energies in the universe. In a sense, your readings can become increasingly accurate (especially with a good practitioner). At some point, you may become fearful of a negative prediction like Mercury retrograde, or a Saturn/Uranus alignment that makes you want to stay in bed all day and wait for next week to arrive.

Here are three key insights you are missing if you are afraid of the big bad astrologer, and how to resolve the problem.

1. As with all intuitive senses, much depends on interpretation.

Of course it helps to have a good reader who can tune into you and the meaning you need to hear in that moment. But even smashingly good intuitives and psychics often interpret the symbols they see through their own filters, and commonly make mistakes not in what they saw but in how they described it. That means there are many other valid interpretations of meaning, on many levels, whatever a reader or astrologer tells you.

This client was looking at a general chart of planetary energies and what they could, generally, mean. That means the astrologer did not customize the prediction to him. So we looked them over. Yes, I said, Saturn is the great teacher who brings lessons. When you are resisting his teachings, you might end up learning the hard way, ouch. Or, Saturn can mean that you will learn something wonderful and new from the event in question!

Uranus is an energy of great change and turnover–out with the old and in with the new. One way of interpreting that energy is that everything will go to heck in a hand basket. Another way is to say that transformation is coming. And I knew my client intended to create transformation with this event in question. He was relieved to hear these other, more specific interpretations, to say the least.

2. Events and forces in your personal spiritual journey may powerfully override astrological or other external forces.

I once had a dream where I was falling in love in a war zone. I was not fighting the war (was too young) and could hear it going on around me. Yet I was sappily, happily falling head over heels. In that moment, the environment of war was not affecting my spiritual journey with my beloved nearly as much as the forces of love and the hormones of youth.

Back to my client. Since I speak to bodies and higher selves, I asked his energy and received the message: “Yes yes yes, go go go! Having this event on that day ranks at a 10 out of 10 for him!” Something in his personal energy wanted that even then, no matter what was happening in the skies.

At this point in his life, the worrisome event represented a new, greater way of operating for him. He was stepping it up, moving forward. He would learn something new from this event and transform not only his own path but his students as well. His specific situation required a different interpretation from the negative general one.

3. There is ALWAYS something positive you can do in “negative” energy.

This is the greatest insight of them all. Don’t sit at home waiting for better energies to arrive next week! Whatever the prediction, there is some way you can turn it into something positive or at least something transformational. You are a natural born healer, and you have the gift to turn anything — anything — a positive way. That is the Gift of the Healer, which I discuss in detail in my book coming out this fall. We each have it.

If you must stay home, why not clean out the closet you’ve been meaning to? If you are going to postpone your event, how can you spin it to your advantage and do something extra with the time? Best of all, how can you stand firm in your intentions and move through the predicted negativity with aplomb and the eternal mind of a student? Even negative energies can have a purging effect when they take you through the darkness and out the other side.

There is ALWAYS something positive you can do in “negative” situations.

And it is your job as a healer to go find them. You can do this.

~ Daria’s Wednesday Wisdom column ~

How can helping others hold you back? More easily and subtly than you think.

When clients come to see me, they are stuck, stuck, stuck. They can feel a healing gift bubbling inside them, but they cannot figure out what it is or how to fully let it out. One of the most common reasons they are stuck, which I just saw again this week, is that these spectacular healers are being held back by the dark side of helping others. This issue stops healing from flowing through you and all you do. It is important to recognize it and root it out.

What does it look like? The dark side of serving, healing and helping others comes in many, many forms. For this client, it was about satisfaction. (“Ah can’t get no…”) It was about making sure everyone around her was satisfied.  Family, friends, teachers, bosses — everyone.

But wait, you say, that sounds nice! It feels great to help each other out. True. And we healers have a natural tendency to nurture, comfort, and support others. We love it!!

Yet it does not help the world when you hold yourself back, when you focus ONLY on what others need, or you burn yourself out pleasing others. This client got stuck and “forgot” about her own needs. She forgot to figure out who she was and what kind of healing she could share with the world. (A hand analysis helped there, too.)

In childhood, we imprint our energy body with inner “rules” or beliefs. The trouble is, not all of these rules are accurate. They were created in the mind of a child. They may have worked when you were 7, or in that one event, but these inner rules can cause big trouble, stuckness, and unhappiness later in life.

You might have a rule that you must help others first, for example, even to the exclusion of caring for yourself. You feel lousy (guilty) when you don’t put others first, but you can burn out when you do. Sound familiar?

We unconsciously follow these inner rules for the rest of our lives (or until we reexamine and rewrite them). I often find that healers, who love love love to help others, almost always carry some kind of set of rules that say it is selfish to support and nurture ourselves and it is proper and even holy to help others.

Yes, it is a sacred duty to help others, but the Golden Rule says “treat your neighbor as yourself”… and that implies that you treat yourself gently and well, FIRST.

Hard though it is to think this way sometimes, the most important person in the world to you is… you. Think of it this way: you have been entrusted by God with the care of a powerful, wonderful human being and healer, a beautiful lightworker who happens to have your name and look exactly like you — oh, it is you!

When you care for yourself, and when YOU feel pleased and satisfied, chances are you will be walking your spiritual path, sharing your healing gifts, fulfilling your life’s purpose, and changing the world for the better. It is from this place of inner satisfaction – NOT from the place of being stuck and tired, but from the place of spiritual fulfillment and an easier happier life — you can help a lot more people to heal.

Take Two Action Steps TODAY to Serve Others Better

How are you nuruturing and supporting you? How are you pleasing you? Right now, take two steps to allow your healing gifts to flow more effectively through you.

1. Identify one area of dissatisfaction in your life. Choose an easy one for fun and a hard one for a nice challenge. Are you sick of that pile of clutter on the kitchen counter? Tired of a friend’s behavior, your own behavior, or a responsibility you don’t like? What eats at you, nags, and wears you down, sometimes with out words — can you identify it?

Write down five ways you could change that today. Then choose one of them and work on resolving it today. If you need an extra day or two, take it, but finish resolving it. Congratulations!!

2. Identify a dream or wish you would enjoy fulfilling. How would you like to help the world? What would you like to improve about your life that would allow you to become more satisfied? Write down (you guessed it) five ways you could move closer to achieving that goal. Decide to do it. Finish the first step today and calendar the rest.

Review your Seven Steps to Awakening (available free with our kit, above) for the complete set of 7 steps to changing any situation in your life. Comment and let me know what was holding you back and how it goes!

~ Daria’s Wednesday Wisdom column ~ This post is an excerpt from Gift of the Healer by Daria Boissonnas, reprinted with permission. (Book is due out by end of 2011 — stay tuned!)

…The leaders and teachers I soon began studying and questioning – the ones producing unlikely miracle after miracle – were healers. Energy healers, in particular. But producing miracles in your life does not require energy healing! You do not even need to believe in energy healing. This gift is much deeper and simpler than that.

Because I first observed this amazing ability in healers, however, I think of it as the Gift of the Healer.

What jumps into your mind when you hear the word healer?

• A nurse or a doctor?
• A massage therapist, minister, or hospice worker?
• How about a lawyer, a scientist, or a talk-show host?
• Have you ever wondered if you were a healer?

In my experience, the word healer conjures up more confusion, discomfort, and even belligerence than it creates warm fuzzies. Even professional healers brush off the term because of the charge it carries and the confusion it triggers. I understand. When I call myself a healer, I know some folks imagine me sticking needles in dolls, hawking fake healing tonics, and dancing naked in the woods.

“Oh, that’s nice,” others say, carefully distancing themselves, “if it works for you.”

It does. Healing has allowed me to embrace possibility in my life. Better yet, it works for anyone who tries it, because we are all healers at our core. For humans, healing comes naturally, and I will show you how, every day, you do exactly what healers do to create extraordinary healing. When you learn to apply those skills mindfully, there is no telling how wonderful your life can become and how much more you can help others.

Many have tried to find a more descriptive term than healer: improvement facilitator, intention holder, possibility opener, paradigm catalyst. These seem forced to me. I like the word healer. It is short and sweet, easy to spell, and commonly used. In my book, that beats contrived phrases by a mile. (And this is my book.)

Healer is an important word with a distinct meaning. It carries power. I suspect many alternative healers avoid it because of the power it carries, but we should not shy away from this power. We cannot. We need all forms of our natural healing power, now more than ever. The world needs it. The world needs you. And you can do this.

You were born a healer.

© 2011 Daria Boissonnas
Note: Blog reprint policy does not apply to this article. Please contact us with requests.

“It is ALWAYS OK to heal.  Healing is not rejecting what was, but shifting into a new way of being that moves beyond what was.  It is always OK to evolve this way spiritually, physically, mentally, in relationships, with your environment, and in your self-relationship.  Always.”

–Daria Boissonnas, The Gift of the Healer (due out late 2011)

Avoid offering your services by your technique’s name(s) unless the vast majority of your clients seek your technique.

While this might work for doctors, acupuncturists and massage therapists, even those practitioners are still likely to get more clients if they also do the following.  (For healers who have learned more than three techniques, definitely do not advertise your services by your laundry list of techniques!  Read why here:  http://giawaken.com/2011/05/techniques1)

Instead, offer your services by the benefits they provide to clients. Most people do not wake up in the morning, smack their foreheads and say, “Gosh I really need a good Transmeridian Energy Clearing Heflapurple Nadissimo Intermatrix Quantum Extravaganza!”  Or whatever your technique is called.  Might as well be that, though — it doesn’t mean anything to new clients.

They are much more likely to wake up and say, “Gosh I’m tired of my pain and misery.”  Or, “I wish there was some way to minimize <my problem>.”

Offer Your Benefits

You offer services on your on your business card, brochure and website.  You want to convey your benefits to potential clients, plus make it easy for people to understand who to refer to you.

To be successful, your offer must immediately convey the benefits of what you do. Your specialty, your target market, and your healing gifts should be apparent. Consider these examples.  In each pair, which draws you in more?

1a. I’m a nutritionist and matrix energy healer.

1b. I help women ease into menopause and love their bodies by balancing their hormones naturally.

2a. I’m a chiropractor and I do Awakening Healing.

2b. I help people who have suffered major physical trauma, like an accident or surgery, to recover more quickly and completely.

3a. I’m a personal trainer.

3b. I help women love living in their bodies!

4a.  I’m an energy healer and spiritual mentor.

4b.  I help highly intuitive folks who are creative to make friends with their powerful gifts and find fulfillment following their calling to heal the world.

Surprisingly, being specific like this does not limit your clientele.  It usually has the opposite effect — it can expand it because people finally understand what you do!

Post your “before” and “after” offering in the comments and I’ll be happy to give you further pointers.

In every moment, you are healing.  Your body tends constantly towards health, repairing, replacing, replenishing.  Your thinking and emotions continuously heal and you move on.  You are a walking and talking bundle of healing!  Once in a while, this process hits a snag, but think of how much healing happens in the meantime!

One fine day, a person just like you is out for a pleasant walk, pondering why you feel a kind of emptiness at the same time you are putting in overwhelming effort into making your life work.  Thus distracted with your struggles, you suddenly find yourself falling into a huge, deep hole!  It is quickly apparent you can’t get out, so you begin to yell for help.

Luckily, a religious leader walks by and hears your pleas.  He writes down a prayer for you and drops it in the hole.

Then the doctor hears you calling and responds: she writes a prescription and drops it in the hole.

You are starting to get a little frantic, since nobody seems to understand your situation or is able to really help you.  But then your friend’s friend Daria walks by.  (That’s me.)

“Help!” you call.  “I’m stuck in this hole and I can’t get out!”

Daria hears you, and she knows exaclty what to do.  She jumps down into the hole with you.

“What did you do that for?!” you sputter. “Now you’re stuck too!”

“Yes, but I’ve been here before and I know the way out.” she says, winking. “Follow me.”

“I mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy.

Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that.  Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”

– Anonymous

“Moooooom! Can you do something for my leg? It hurts!” 

My 15-year-old is in his tuxedo for the band concert, running upstairs for socks.

“What do you mean your leg hurts?” I ask, concerned, following him to the bottom of the stairs.

He turns the corner towards his room.  “I dunno, it’s just been hurting behind my knee and in my leg all day.”

A couple hours earlier, I had returned from a training class for a powerful new form of healing called Awakening Healing.  (Officially I am the first practitioner trained in all of North America so far!)  As my son ducks into his room for the socks, I raise my hands. 

“I’ll try the new thing I just learned, OK?”  I say, focusing on listening to his knee and legs. 

He returns right away and sits at the top of the stairs to put his socks on.  I wonder how much I’ll be able to do before he leaves.  Then I put on my Mom hat and start to wonder why his leg is hurting.

“Um, mom?” he says standing up with two socks on.

“Yeah?” I say, concentrating.

“It doesn’t hurt any more, thanks.”

Mouth open, I step aside as he speeds by me. 

Healing happens in an instant.  How fast we accept the healing results is how fast it “happens” in the physical world.  Kids are excellent at accepting fast healing, until we train them to expect it to take a long time!  Shift back into that childlike acceptance of the world’s abundance by practicing accepting ease and all good and wonderful things flowing to and through you.  Build that muscle, that habit, that mindset.  Healing IS the natural order of things.  It is the highest expression of human consciousness.

To experience the deep relaxation and inner connectedness of Awakening Healing yourself, visit this page: http://GIAwaken.com/AH

“There are no rules for good photographs, there are only good photographs.”

— Ansel Adams

I love this quote because it demonstrates Adams’ mastery. He durn well knows the standard rules of how to make a “good” photo.  And as a master, he knows how to break each one of them and still create a great photo.

Other masterful creatives have told me the same thing.  Last year a well-known makeup artist said she could tell me exactly what to wear to convey whatever message I had, and how to do my makeup.  But if I wore the wrong thing, she could adjust my makeup to “fix” any clothing faux pas.

Are you a master?  Remember that practicing specific methods or exercises only helps you develop skills. The method alone does not make you a master.  Practicing these skills with an open mind and good feedback leads to mastery.

In mastery you bypass other people’s rules and develop your own relationship with outcomes.  You find more ways to get there than you were ever taught.  In mastery, you don’t need your tools or methods or anything.

Eventually, we must let go of the ground to really fly.  For healers and creatives that means practicing until you internalize a method, and then creating the same results — or even better ones — your way.

This is the most powerful way to share the heart of your unique gifts and leave the world a better place.