My favorite present came from my aunt when I was nine. It was a magic wand.

She sewed a big purple star, decorated it with sparkly sequins, attached it to a metal stick, and added a purple ribbon. 

I made a lot of magic with that thing. 

When I was a kid, the world was alive with the potential of magic.

That’s why Harry Potter was a sensation: we love magic. We know, even as adults, in some part of our being, that magic is real. 

We can feel it in our bones. It’s exciting. And a little scary. (Can I really make magic happen? What if I suck at it?)

We read about the Law of Attraction and mind-body connection and feel a mix of doubt and hope. Or, we dive in and go for it, but wonder if we’ll ever really master it. 

We want the freaking magic! (Because, seriously! There has to be a better way than grinding through the slog! And, there is.)

To me, magic is not fluffy unicorns floating over sparkly rainbows. (Though I admit unicorns are pretty cool.)...

Everyone’s jumping off the hustle bus to get things done, and talking about working differently. Even the business coaches who definitely hustle are now playing it cool and talking about not hustling. Why? Because it’s the new thang. 

This new trend in the coaching-biz world is great; it means there’s less social pressure to overwork and create burnout. Round of applause for that! 

But, there’s one problem: 

Our culture has drilled into us since childhood that achievement and accomplishment = self-worth and awesomeness. That productivity is king and leads to coaching business success. 

So, when you sit down to work on your business, it’s pretty darn hard to ignore that ingrained way of being. 

Your mind wants to be hard on you. It wants to pressure you to ignore your inner guidance and just push forward through fatigue or mind-fog to get things done. It wants to judge you if you don’t get everything on your to-do list...

You’re sitting in your office, staring at a blank screen, and waiting for the muse to hit. You’re hoping for some brilliant blog copy, a fun social media post, or a stellar program idea to miraculously appear in your consciousness. 

On those days when the magic isn’t flowing, your mind is likely to start attacking you with the critical, pressure-filled, perfectionism voice. It brings out yucky old phrases like: 

“You’re not a good enough _______ (writer, coach, etc.)”

“Who are you to make a program or write a post about _______; you don’t know enough.”

“So-and-so already writes/coaches about this; your ideas aren’t good enough.”

“You don’t have a clear enough niche; no one is going to read this post.”

And on and on and on. 

It’s common in the coaching world to talk about limiting beliefs, negative thoughts, and self-judgment. The only problem is a lot of the techniques we...

I was talking to my Mind-Body Magic Community Members about social media this week, and something important came up: wasting time. Specifically, wasting time creating and writing social media content. 

Many of the coaches in the community weren’t a fan of wasting time writing social media content (defined as writing content that “didn’t work”).

I’ve also seen this idea that we’re “wasting time” in several of the bazillion ads I get in my feed about running a coaching business.

This is a typical scarcity tactic: It’s designed to make you feel a little yucky about everything you just did for your business so that you’ll buy the thing so-and-so is selling to make your business better. 

In the coaching and entrepreneur world, we call this a bro marketing tactic. In other words, it makes you feel not-so-great so that you’ll want to buy something to fix the issue. 

It makes me feel a little barfy just...

I was driving, grumbling at traffic, when I heard extreme screaming from the backseat. 

Being a mom, I took this pretty much in stride and only almost rear-ended the car in front of me instead of actually crashing. 

Luckily, nobody was being murdered; my daughter had just spilled a bottle of water on herself. Her shorts and the seat were soaked.

I thought things would be fine.  

They were not fine.

This was Defcon-245, red-alert, serious emergency time. WET SHORTS. Worst thing ever. Lots of crying.

I get it; wet shorts suck. Especially if you have to wear them in your fun parkour class for an hour. 

However, I also know that life is going to dish out some serious discomfort for my girl over the next many years. There’s no getting around it. 

So, I gave her a choice. 1. Go to parkour class and have fun, but with wet shorts. 2. No fun parkour class, but we go home and get dry shorts. 

Then I told her I really thought she could handle the wet...

In writing this post, I’m pretty sure I’m letting everyone in on a secret. Though I seem somewhat conventional on the outside, I’m really not. I’ve been called responsible and a goody-two-shoes, and I’ll own a little of that. However, my heart is most rebellious. 

Once, when I was ten, I painted the legs of our back deck pink. Needless to say, my dad wasn’t that thrilled. In my defense, I didn’t set out to do anything wrong. I was simply carried away by the beauty of the pink paint, and I’d run out of surfaces upon which to explore using it. 

Though I’m no longer ten, I’ve retained much of that creative, rebellious spirit. When my heart longs to explore something, I follow it. 

I’m not really a fan of most rules. Especially cultural rules that constrain the creative spirit. I take heed of rules that create safety, but the rest? Well. Rules were made to be broken, right?

On...

I’ve been waiting for my new last name to appear for several months. I knew inner wisdom and magic would deliver it, but I was getting antsy and wanted to force it to appear. But, like so many creative things, it simply would not be forced. 

The idea of a new last name came to me when the divorce mediator asked if I would be returning to my maiden name. I’d been working through the divorce process for several months, which entailed feeling lots of emotions, facing fears, and starting my new life after twenty years of marriage. 

Suddenly I knew that I wouldn’t be returning to my maiden name. I could feel something bubbling up inside; it felt strangely like joy, which I hadn’t felt in a while. 

I would find a new last name, and it would represent my alignment with my spirit. It would be the name I bestowed upon myself after years and years of curiously discovering who I am. It would be a reclamation of myself. A way to use my voice and be true to...

Oh, fellow empathic souls! These are painful times for our hearts.

There is so much going on in our world lately. When it comes to racism, I know I still have a ton to learn. My focus for the last few years has been to figure out what I can do in myself, my community, my work, and my family to, albeit very imperfectly, advocate for and listen to those without white privilege.

The work is slow-going sometimes and real, deep, progress takes time. I’ve made mistakes and I know I’ll continue to mess up every step of the way. True change is very messy.

I notice that my mind has a lot of stories about how I should be doing more, faster, better at this work. I hate when personal crises slow me down.

And, sure, that’s always true. There’s always more to do. More to learn. More to face and become aware of.

And, I also know that anything I do that involves discomfort or fear requires lots of self-compassion. Self-compassion makes me show up and do better....

Do you want mental and emotional support as we navigate through the COVID-19 pandemic, the shutdowns, and the economic shifts?

My being and my business are feeling the call to serve at this time.

The mind-body tools I use with my clients are made for crises, and I am here to help you wade through the emotions, the fears, and the stress so that you can find bits of respite in the chaos.

Join me on Friday, March 20 for a free online videoconference event I’m calling The Sacred Spirit Circle.

During The Sacred Spirit Circle event, I’ll share mind-body tools for tough times, take you into a healing and relaxing guided meditation, and also coach and support as many people as possible.

This is a safe, sacred space to feel emotions, be heard, allow things to flow, and connect with others in a kind, warm atmosphere. 

Bring your fears, stresses, and concerns and we’ll tackle them with the big guns; mind-body tools that really help your body...