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...

Recently, a client told me she was worried about taking the time to rest that she needed because her spouse was doing a lot of work. She didn’t want it to be unfair. And, she’s not the only client to share this sort of concern with me. 

Ladies. We need to talk. 

To be proficient at Slacker Magic, you’ll need to shift your focus from other people to your own rest. Which means you’ll need to turn your attention to your own body, the sensory signals it’s sending, and the messages it’s subtly (or not so subtly) sharing. 

Which also means you’ll need to allow yourself to shift your attention to YOU. 

If this feels hard, it’s totally understandable. Culture trains us to focus on others and to pay less attention to our voices and needs. You might feel like a jerk at first for allowing yourself to listen to your internal signals and take action around them. 

The payoff, though, is huge. As...

I’ve discovered that Slacker Magic comes with its own vocabulary. 

Need some rest? Haven’t spent enough time restoring your body and spirit lately? 

If so, it’s time for some slothing. 

Notice you’re pressuring yourself too much and trying to make something turn out “just right?” And now you’re exhausted and don’t even want to do whatever it is anymore? 

It might be better to go ahead and slackerize that project. 

Here are the official definitions:

Slothing

Adjective

1. Resting your body in a delightful manner, guilt-free.
2. Slowing down your pace to match what actually works for your body. 

Slackerize

Verb

1. To take a project or plan and remove perfectionist elements, stripping it down to something doable and possibly even fun.

If you’re overwhelmed, tired, or not feeling great, maybe it’s time to shift into Slacker Magic mode and start applying these new words...

Mind-Body Coach Training

In 2010, Mind-Body Coach Training was born. Since then, I’ve trained nearly a hundred coaches in the Anamsong Method™, a system of mind-body tools to help people reconnect with inner wisdom and recover their natural energy, creativity, and magic.

Uma Sanghvi,one of my Endorsed Mind-Body Coaches, completed the training in 2016 and is doing incredibly helpful work for people who want to overcome anxiety and reclaim joy. In this interview with Uma, you’ll hear about the evolution of my own healing journey, the spiritual and magical aspects of mind-body magic, and simple ways to bring new awareness to your own mind-body healing journey. I hope you enjoy!

Watch the Interview Here

Speaking of mind-body coaching, the 2019 Mind-Body Magic Coach Training is opening for registration in March. Got questions? Send away!

Learn more about Uma Sanghvi here.

by Endorsed Coach, Meryl Feldman

Dr. John Sarno revolutionized the medical field with his radical approaches to healing back pain and other physical ailments.  He coined the term TMS, tension myostitis syndrome, to describe a circulatory constriction in blood vessels that results in pain in the body.  This is also know as Mind-body syndrome. To sum up what Dr. Sarno wrote (“The Mindbody Prescription”) and taught for over 30+ years is that the brain will cut off blood/oxygen flow to different parts of the body in order to distract the individual from recognizing and feeling emotions that they are trying to avoid.

This lack of blood/oxygen flow is the direct cause of pain. In order to get relief from the pain, a person will go running around to different doctors and googling the internet to get answers and diagnosis for help with pain relief, when the healing is within their reach and within their own body.

They just need to feel to heal.

This...

If you want to heal interstitial cystitis using a mind-body approach, then this blog post is for you! If you’ve read any of my previous blog posts, or joined the Kindness Community for some help around healing, then you might already know the basic steps in the mind-body healing process. I’ll review them here for you:

1. Ask yourself what you are feeling emotionally throughout the day any time you feel afraid or upset by symptoms. Allow yourself a few minutes to feel any emotions related to the symptoms themselves, then focus on other stressors in your life. What ELSE is stressing you out, besides the symptoms? What was going on today before you started worrying about symptoms? The non-pain-related stressors are the real issues that need to be dealt with, faced, and felt. It’s the mind’s tendency to suppress emotion and avoid feeling around the “real stuff” that causes a mind-body syndrome to perpetuate.
2. Give yourself some space to journal...

By Endorsed Mind-Body Coach Gail Kenny

It was the late 1980s, I was 28 years old, and I already had an eight year history with chronic pelvic pain.  My symptoms included persistent pain in my lower right abdomen, chronic vaginal soreness, and urinary urgency.  I was seeing an MD who was a specialist in Candidiasis.  She had been treating me for over a year with the drugs Nystatin, Tylenol and Codeine, and a diet.  I wasn’t getting any better.  I had been treated for endometriosis several years prior and I thought the pain was coming from my right ovary.  The pain got worse when I was on my period or ovulating.

One day I asked my doctor if I could have my right ovary removed in order to stop the pain.  

Her response was to refer me to a homeopathic physician and to a healer.   The homeopath gave me some weird treatments like drinking vinegar.  The healer waved his hands over me and told me my pain had to do...

One of the hardest parts of a mind-body healing journey usually looks like this:

1. Discover amazing resources like The Mindbody Prescription by John Sarno, M.D or When the Body Says No by Gabor Mate, M.D.
2. Feel hope for the first time in forever.
3. Dig in and try to apply mind-body healing to your situation.
4. Feel some skepticism, but do it anyway.
5. Start feeling emotions rise up into your awareness.
6. Feel a little nervous about this emotion stuff, and worry that the pain hasn’t gone away yet.
7. Start worrying that you’re doing it wrong, because now you feel emotions AND pain.
8. Have a wee freak-out.

When you start down the path of allowing and feeling emotions in order to let your body release tension and pain, you might feel very optimistic. You can see how this could work. You’re excited to try it. However, the mind always pictures the healing process as a linear, improve day-by-day experience. When the actual healing process sets in, the mind usually...

Trying to be good all the time? 

In my early twenties, I was new to the self-help genre and had spent most of my formative years trying to be an excellent violinist. When I picked up John Sarno’s The Mindbody Prescription, the personality profile he described fairly smacked me in the face. Perfectionism? Trying to be good all the time? Feeling responsible for everything? I just thought that was how one should live life!

He made me see, however, that the extreme pain I was experiencing from vulvodynia was talking to me. It was time to take stock and change how I was treating myself.

Thus began my self-awareness journey, in which I started to peel back layer after layer of beliefs, patterns, and perceptions, always working to know my true self more and more. The more I did this, the better I felt, in body, mind, and spirit.

Every year of this ongoing journey, I feel more aligned with myself, more confident, stronger, and just – happier.

Except for a few days...