At one point, I thought it was not okay or acceptable to feel angry.

I hid it, suppressed it, ignored it.

The furthest I would go was to say to my kids with clenched lips, “Mommy’s upset.”

And that would be the end of that (I thought).

***

What I didn’t realize was that anger is part of the rainbow of emotions that make up our rich tapestry of experiences.

It’s okay - important even - to admit that we are not above anger.

I once met an elder named HawkMoon. He said with a glint in his eye, “I can meet the most pious, serene and peaceful of individuals who think it’s below them to feel anger. Within a minute, I can reveal what they’ve been denying.”

I thought about that a lot because, at that point, I didn’t allow myself to admit to feeling angry. Ever.

Around that time, I went to a healer before I really knew about healers. She told me that I plugged into the Universal Grid through anger.

I had no idea what she was...

We’ll get to my obsession in a moment. But first, I have a conundrum that I’m going to share with you.

I keep all my supplements in a very handy supplement briefcase of sorts. (Because, yes, I’m a nerd. Of the ultra-health variety.)

Anyways, last week there was a mishap in my briefcase. One of the pungent fish oil capsules burst and coated many (if not most) of my L-Lysine capsules.

My question is this: can we wash supplements???

PS - I already know the answer is no because they will melt/disintegrate but I just had to put it out there because now they all taste like fish oil. Ewww!

Lunchtime has become a game of camouflaging L-Lysine capsules that taste like fish. At least someday they’ll be gone. There are an awful lot of them though…

Alrighty, now that I’ve shared my first-world problem (is that expression still okay to use? I'm not sure...) with you, let’s move on to my current obsession.

My Fall-Flavoured Current Obsession (and it's...

Back when I was writing my book (Not Your Mama’s Self-Care Guide) a few years ago, I was on the fence about whether I should self-publish or go with the more traditional publishing route. 

To help make the decision, I purchased a course on how to do the latter. In the end, I didn’t go with either option - instead my daughter, Zoe, and I started on our own publishing company which I hadn’t even considered at the time. Life is so fascinating.

Anyway, when I was doing the step-by-step process in the course on how to get your book published, one of the assignments was an “About the Author” section.

I had the ridiculous idea to write out an interview with David Letterman. It was so outlandish that a part of me wanted to dismiss it immediately. Then another voice popped in and said, “Why not just go with it?” After all, it sounded interesting and fun.

So, that’s what I did. I wrote a fake interview with David Letterman. I never ended up...

Lots of exciting news these days. Last week I shared about my upcoming retreat in Panama next spring. 

And now this week… Ta dah! After just a few short years, my new book is ready!

It’s called Not Your Mama’s Self-Care Guide (because she probably had none so you should read this).

I wrote this book a few years back and had the inner guidance to sit on it for awhile. 

(Yep, that’s what I’ve been doing in my spare time - sitting on a book. It’s a little awkward, to say the least.)

Now, for whatever reason, I’m ready to get it out there and I’m trusting that the people who will benefit from reading it are ready too. 

Check out this cover - it makes me laugh every time I look at it.

What’s it about?  (you might ask)

It’s a practical and humourous guide to implementing strategic self-care that moves the needle, mostly from the inside out so that high-achieving women can be productive and peaceful at the...

Around 10 years ago, I knew that I wanted to facilitate retreats. Such major transformation had happened for me when I went on retreats that I felt a deep longing to create that for others. 

Just one little itty-bitty thing got in the way. 

Fear.

To get my feet wet, I hosted a few local retreats and those were fantastic. Rave reviews, in fact. (From everyone except for one woman. She left early. The other participants said they wished they could have beaten her up - so I think that was a her-thing and not a me-thing. Within three months, I was fully recovered from that experience.)

I knew I wanted to go bigger. 

So I booked a retreat in Costa Rica. Put down $1000 deposit (which was more like $8757 Canadian). Felt terrified. 

And then I told exactly no one. Apparently the fear of rejection was greater than the fear of losing $1000/$8757. 

Time went by and I grew some more courage. 

Next up… Hawaii. I decided to go big or go home. I booked 2...

Ah… fear. So sneaky. So pervasive. And yet, so useful and informative. 

When it boils down to it, there are two main experiences we humans can have - love or fear. 

Every emotional/vibrational experience that doesn’t feel so great has its roots in fear. And every emotional experience that feels great is a form of love. 

Actually, it’s all love because ultimately, that’s all there is, but fear is a great clarifier. It shows us where we have an opportunity to grow and integrate. 

Love tends to propel us forward into expansion. Fear tends to contract us and hold us back where things are familiar. 

If you feel stuck, stagnant, overwhelmed or even on the brink of a breakthrough, it’s worth taking a good look at fear to see how it’s showing up. 

Here are some sneaky ways that fear might be lurking in your life:

Fear of what others will think of you

This version of fear is quite hilarious. For example, I’ve been...

Not too long ago, I had the realization that if something exciting or good was about to happen or was on the horizon, I would tone down the associated good feelings just in case it didn’t work out.

Why would we postpone feeling good?

I discovered that I had been protecting myself from disappointment. Like pretty much any human being, I’ve felt disappointed countless times and at a certain point, I guess part of me just decided it hurt too much. A protective mechanism inadvertently got installed that suppressed my initial good feelings so that I wouldn’t feel too disappointed if things didn’t pan out. 

Can you see the flaws in this approach? They became glaringly obvious to me.  

Flaw #1

We can get into the habit of suppressing feeling joy, anticipation, excitement, hope, delight and all the other great vibrations we want to experience more often. It doesn’t make much sense to tamp down feeling awesome for fear of not feeling awesome...

And here we are at the end of August. Does that make you shake your head in amazement/bewilderment too?

Since we’re approaching a transition (summer to fall and all that goes with that), I thought I would share with you a review that I did with Paul and the kids when we finished up the West Coast Trail. 

I was curious about what they’d discovered about themselves along the way so I devised a brief q&a that we did while we waited for a sushi dinner once we were back in civilization.

A good review is always valuable to gather information about how you’re showing up in life, reflect on it and then move forward in an informed way. It’s powerful to pause before venturing forth into the next day/week/adventure. 

Here are the questions we journaled about. Maybe you’d like to use them for yourself and/or your family as you move into the new season.

Question 1: What did you notice about yourself?

The reflection here is to get curious about how you...

A quick little reminder and invitation for this month's 9D Breathwork session coming up soon. It’s called the Origin and it’s one powerful journey. You’ll get your energy moving which means awakening your inner healer, accessing your creative flow, letting go of what no longer serves and unifying with the real you (the really powerful, loving and courageous one). Click here for details.

If you’ve been following along, you’ll know that the last few posts have been about backpacking on the West Coast Trail. In keeping with the backpacking theme but departing from the WCT, I have some great ideas to share with you about clearing stuff out. 

Which doesn’t seem to be related. 

But it is in a roundabout way because we were supposed to go on another backpacking trek last week, this time in Jasper. 

Sadly, our trip got cancelled due to wildfires - sending some love out to all the people of Jasper. It’s such a gorgeous place and I...

Do you have an injury or some sort of chronic issue in your body?

If yes, do you see it as a problem to be fixed or something that’s wrong that needs to be solved?

If yes, that’s a pretty common worldview so not to worry.

What if injuries were something different? What if they were a prelude to a whole system upgrade where your vibration increases as long as you know the right steps to take?

While hiking the West Coast Trail this summer, I had a moment where I wasn’t fully present and so I slipped and fell with my big backpack on. An older version of me would have seen this as a disaster and a reason to be really hard on myself. 

The newer version of me knew something different was on the horizon. 

I made a short video to explain the rest because, otherwise, you would have had to read a novel-length passage (plus I was wearing pigtails the day I made the video which I thought were super cute and deserved to be shared). 

Click here to find out more...