Your Dreams Are Always Coming True

[singlepic id=348 w=320 h=240 float=center] There are a few things I remember always knowing about myself, ever since I was three years old. I remember being in the back seat of the car, when I was three, hearing my parents and brother talking about someone getting into "Harvard". Something about that word rang in my ears. I asked what "Harvard" was. I don't remember what they answered, but I do remember thinking, "Someday I'm going to go there."

I let it go for the next fourteen or so years. And then I ended up going there for college.

At some other point in time, I remember falling in love with the sound of the French language. I loved learning a foreign language which enabled me to speak elegantly, fluidly, gracefully. It contrasted so much with the angular lines and frantic tempo of the Chinese dialects I heard in my family. And, like music, it was a doorway to a secret world that expanded my ability to understand others and express myself in a different way. I remember thinking, "Someday I'll study at the Sorbonne." It seemed like a throwaway thought at the time, but I remembered it. And I ended up doing just that, as a scholarship winner for six weeks during the summer between high school and college.

Six years ago I defrosted another set of childhood dreams. For as long as I can remember I have pictured myself living in California. I was fascinated with what it symbolized, and with the images of it in my mind. The sunshine, the ocean, and the ideas of freedom and innovation appealed to me inexplicably.

I also wanted to "be like my violin teacher" since the first moment I saw her when I was three years old. At the time, the image of a solitary woman walking into a room, commanding the respect of hundreds without raising her voice or raising a hand, was something that captivated me. To boot, she wore three-inch stiletto heels every day and a perfectly coordinated suit ensemble, with pantyhose, makeup, and perfect hair. Seeing her at least twice a week and sometimes every day of the week for fourteen years, I can count on one hand the number of times I saw her wear pants instead of a skirt or dress. Somehow she represented an exciting set of possibilities, so different from the other women in my life.

These were the images I carried with me to California to start my own violin school in 2004.

My dreams came true.

I became that image of "perfection" that I held in my mind as a necessary part of the package. Even though in my heart I intended for my school not to have the political in-fighting, favoritism, and vicious competitiveness among parents that was a constant undercurrent in my teacher's school, knowing what I didn't want was only a first step. I was swept away by the strong tide of other people's definitions of what success should look like. I knew this, and I observed with frustration all the things that were missing from my school despite its outward appearance of success, but I didn't quite have the awareness to envision and declare what I *did* want.

When I finally began to wake up to what I did want to bring into my life, there was a growing clarity that I needed to walk away and create something new.

The gift of walking away was creating the space for me to recognize that my dreams are always coming true.

What you are believing in each moment - with or without knowing you believe it - becomes the reality you create, moment by moment.

I've begun to get a lot more conscious and aware and specific about what I'm believing. I recognize that once I am able to see and clearly state a belief, and then truly let go of it (as my life has shown me time and time again), I can rest in the peace of knowing that all of my dreams are already coming true.

My life has shown me that I am truly blessed in every moment, and no experience is ever wasted.

On my "bucket list" of dreams are the following items, mundane and otherwise:

• work as a barista in a coffee shop (a dream since high school)
• teach yoga or do yoga outdoors every day
• live in a tropical place
• work on a farm
• produce a Broadway-style musical, write a movie screenplay, or write for a character-driven television drama
• play music in a movie soundtrack
• sleep in a tent on a beach (OK, that was inspired by my friend Mary B)
• write books (yes, plural, and not the kind that are glorified pamphlets...at least one of them will be a memoir, and another will be a tell-all fictionalized account of my adventures teaching violin to kids of Silicon Valley elite, a la "Nanny Diaries")
• be a spiritual teacher
• be a healing artist
• be an inspirational speaker
• dance and sing and be free

I smile, knowing that all of these dreams are already coming true right now. There is such peace in knowing that the only thing I need to do is allow.

What dreams of yours are already coming true?

Photo, used under a Creative Commons license, by Kai Yan, Joseph Wong

Creating Your Vision for 2011

What's your theme for the new year?

I've never been a New Year's Resolution person, but every year on December 31, I take time to reflect on the previous year and write down what I remember. I focus on things like what I learned, how I grew, and the events that were most meaningful for me.

This past year was a particularly abundant year of growth and change for me. Last December 31, I finally felt clear and took the step of writing a letter to the thirty families in my violin school, announcing to them that within two weeks, the school would come to an end. While I had no idea what would unfold as a result of that action, I was absolutely clear about my intention of letting go in order to move into the next phase of my life and accept whatever it would bring me.

It was an act of trust. My self-proclaimed commitment, or theme, for 2010, was to live from my Core of Peace. To experience life, perhaps for the first time, from a new, unfamiliar place called Peace.

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This year, as the end of 2010 approaches, I face another opportunity to grow in my trust. I realized, slowly over the past several months, that it was time to face letting go again. This time it was letting go of a lease that no longer makes sense for the business and life I am creating. It took me an entire year of holding on, experimenting and playing, believing that I would "make it work", and avoiding the dread of everything I was making it mean to let go.

And now I am in a place of clarity again. The feeling in my body is freedom, expansiveness, lightness. The energy in my body is purposeful and focused. And from this place, I am taking the actions - those mundane steps that my mind had made to be so unpleasant through its thoughts  - that are necessary to create the physical space that is reflected in my mind and body.

After months of dragging, feeling heavy, dreading what I had to do, I have spent the past two days steadily working my way through those previously dreaded actions.

And you know what? They are not so dreadful after all!

In fact, when approached with clear energy and a feeling of purpose, they have no negative or positive charge whatsoever. They are just items that get done. And what remains is the pure joy of SPACE.

Letting go of material items has always been a challenge for me. It's beyond my current comfort zone. It doesn't energize me to clean or organize or think about the arrangement of physical items. But in the past year, life has handed me these opportunities to exercise that muscle, little by little. And to experience the reward of the empty space left behind...a reward I had never truly experienced before, because I was simply too afraid to allow it.

So as the current year comes to a close, and I watch items move out of my life and into the hands of those who joyfully accept them and need them in theirs, I am able to create a vision for my new year.

In 2011, my theme is Creativity and Expression. I took some time to create the following vision board for Who I Am and How I Feel While I Express My Creativity in 2011.

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While I was previously skeptical of the vision board process, I now cherish the opportunity to take in these images and read the affirmations each time I turn on my computer. I recognize the value of small, frequent doses of inspiration as I create my life one step at a time.

So, do you have a theme for 2011? Are you curious what would happen if you created one?

Here are some great resources for creating your own vision board, not just for the new year, but any time you're in the mood for taking a look at a new horizon.

Christine Kane's blog post on How To Make A Vision Board>>

Oprah.com's Dream Board tool (you must create an Oprah.com account to access the tool)>>

And here's my video blog from my office on the day my clarity came through>>

CHOICE: Your Daily Dose of Sanity #1

[singlepic id=345 w=320 h=240 float=center] Today, my online course, "12 Days of Holiday Sanity" begins.

As the holidays approach, are you feeling more and more peace, joy, and love? Or are you feeling more and more frazzled, with a longer and longer list of things to do?

If you want to experience twelve daily doses of inspiration and clarity to help you find your own source of sanity this holiday season, and learn some tools to bring into the next year, sign up here>>

Below, I'm sharing the first lesson from this course with you as a gift to remember this holiday season, and throughout the year as you encounter the feeling of so many things "to do". If you enroll in the course, you'll also see a video and be able to download the worksheet for today's lesson. Each day for the next 12 days, you'll receive a new lesson. All lessons will appear on a password-protected website, which you'll have access to after the course is finished.

Enjoy!

♥

Daily Dose of Sanity #1: CHOICE

I invite you to go to a mirror, and say to yourself, "I always have a choice." Or take out your journal or a piece of paper, and write, "I always have a choice." Feel what it feels like for those words to come through you, either through the vibration of your voice, or through the coordinated actions of your hand writing on paper.

There are two different energies to this affirmation, "I always have a choice."

1. Energy of Empowerment. There is power in taking responsibility for YOUR choices, and only your choices. There is relief in knowing that you ONLY have responsibility for your choices, not the ones made by other people, no matter how much they love you or how much authority they have in your mind. Connect with your own power to choose.

2. Energy of Gentleness and Kindness. There is also a softness in the recognition that no matter what situation you find yourself in, no matter how far you have gone down one path, no matter what choices you have made in the past, you have the opportunity to make another choice. As long as you are alive and breathing, every new breath gives you a fresh opportunity to forgive yourself and choose again. Connect with your own gentleness and kindness toward yourself, and make another choice.

Throughout this course, you will be exploring various aspects of CHOICE. You will be creating opportunities to make new choices, and also observing the unconscious choices you're already making. All of it is designed to help you honor yourself more deeply through the choices you can always make, in each moment.

And now...an activity!

Here's an activity to help you with a common source of overwhelm, not only at the holidays but throughout the year: our "To Do" lists.

Download the worksheet (upper right corner of this page) and follow along. You should probably set aside 15 to 30 minutes for this exercise, again choosing a quiet space where you won't be interrupted.

• Choose a timeframe for your "Have To Do" list (today, this week, this holiday season, or whenever). It doesn't matter what timeframe you choose! Anything will work.
• First, write down all the activities you think you have to do. Just let all your ideas come out, without editing or thinking too much about them.
• Now, take a few deep breaths and return to each item on the list, starting with the ones you feel most reluctant about, or are maybe even dreading.
• Ask yourself, "Is it true?" Do you really "have to" do this? Write down the "Yes" or "No" answer that comes to mind first.
• Then ask, "Why?" What are you believing that makes you think you "have to" do this? I've provided an example in the worksheet to help you see what I mean by this. Write down all the thoughts that come to mind, without editing.
• Next, take a breath, close your eyes and imagine yourself in vivid detail, actually doing the task as you described it. Picture the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures associated with the task. How does it feel in your body? Write this down.
• When you have completed these steps for each of the activities on your list, move on the final column of the worksheet: CHOICE.
• Martha Beck has a clever way to remember the choices you can make on a typical "To Do" list: the 3 B's.
  • Bag It - Eliminate the task from your list. You may find, after completing this exercise, that your "Have To Do" list is actually much shorter than you originally thought. What a relief! You don't have to do everything you think! Give yourself the tremendous gift of choosing NOT to do some things.
  • Better It - For those items that you really have to do, you can make choices that will improve your experience of the task. HOW to better it is up to you. A good place to start is to think of a treat you can give yourself as a reward for completing the task, or to do the activity with a person who brings you positive energy, or even to change the location to someplace that makes you feel peaceful and joyful. You'd be surprised at how even a small, seemingly simple positive change can completely transform your experience of a mundane task. I've given you an example in the worksheet, but here's where your creativity can really serve you!
  • Barter It - Sometimes a task needs to get done, but you don't necessarily have to be the one who does it. Consider hiring someone to do it. Or trading with a friend who enjoys the task more than you do, and could use your help in another area where your strengths and joys are utilized.

Take a look at your list of choices! Acknowledge yourself for creating each and every one of these new choices.

Not only have you created a new way to experience your list of "have to do" activities, you have exercised an important muscle that you can continue to practice and use to create joy and peace throughout the new year: CHOICE.

♥

Liked this post? Want to learn more? Sign up for "12 Days of Holiday Sanity" online course"...it starts TODAY, December 13th! Register here>>

Photo credit: Thom Watson, used under a Creative Commons License

Creating New Rituals: Honor Your Whole Self

I had an Energy Release Ritual this morning. Spur of the moment, totally unplanned, but absolutely inspired. I've been reading a few mind-body healing books ever since attending Dr. Mitchell Gaynor's workshop at CIIS this weekend. Dr. Gaynor is an integrative oncologist based at Cornell Medical Center in New York City and is the embodiment of physician-healer, embracing all of his life experiences and learning from diverse traditions in order to create healing partnerships with his patients.

I don't see myself working with disease, but still find myself fascinated by healing stories. Disease is merely one form of communication, through the vehicle of our bodies, to help us become more aware of ourselves. Some people experience healing through a financial crisis, or a job loss, or the death of a loved one. Any time our expectations about life are challenged or even shattered, we are being handed the gift of an opportunity to heal and grow.

Somehow this morning I was inspired to let go of some of the energies that I am still carrying and am no longer in need of. I knew that I wanted to have a total body experience of this letting go - not just writing it, or saying it, but experiencing it with all of my senses.

I created an altar, which incorporated items representing the five elements - earth, fire, air, water, and ether.

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I also included a symbol of inner peace, which to me is beautifully exemplified in the image of the Buddha.

I turned on music. Two types of background music seemed appropriate for what I was about to do. The first: fiery, warrior music. I imagined drums beating and war cries. I scoured my CD collection and came up with the Brave Heart soundtrack. Perfect!

The second, for the calmer, more healing part of the ritual: healing harp sounds by Diana Stork, a Bay Area healing musician.

I then created small pieces of paper with words to express the different qualities and energies I would honor during the ritual. One group was everything I wanted to embrace about who I am, in this moment:

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The next group was everything I wanted to release. All the old energies I have learned from, I am grateful for, and I am ready to let go of:

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I held a vision of honoring each of these old energies, thanking it for bringing its lessons into my life, and then letting it go, into a flame.

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I started just listening to the music, and invoking the power of the four directions: North, South, East, and West. As I turned my body toward each direction in space, I spoke aloud an invocation, honoring the significance of each of the directions in connecting to nature and the earth.

As the drums beat on the track from Brave Heart, I felt my own strength and calm building within.

I then used my Tibetan Singing Bowl to connect with the Divine Energy within me, my completeness as I am in this moment. As I chanted "Om" and listened and connected with this energy, it was effortless to make a beautiful continuous sound with the bowl, my voice, and my breath. I felt whole.

Next I spoke out loud each of the qualities I choose to embrace in my life in this moment, as I become who I am becoming, as I heal and create my future from this moment. I breathed into the qualities that I know I already possess, that are always there to be expressed when I access them through the openness of a calm mind and relaxed body.

Finally I began to look at each item in the old energies pile. One by one, I spoke aloud, "I honor you, I thank you for your lessons, and I let you go," before putting each slip of paper into the flame.

I could feel the power of watching the words on paper transform, through fire, into air and ether. I could smell the smoke as I breathed in.

The warrior music still played, giving me strength and a constant rhythm with which to keep releasing. After each paper went into the glass jar, I sounded a chime, symbolizing the merging of that quality with the ether, and my own release.

I sat and watched the papers burn, breathing in the smoky air until I had to open a window.

And I emerged with a sense of commitment and clarity. I felt that I had honored myself at many levels, and that I had a sensory experience of letting go of the energies that I no longer to need to carry. They were never mine to begin with. I had just chosen to carry them as if they belonged to me.

I've begun to appreciate the value of rituals, not only in groups, as they were typically performed in indigenous traditional cultures, but for individuals. As I build strength and trust in myself, and choose to honor all of who I am in my life, rituals help me ground into my own commitments, even as I venture into the world.

What rituals will you create to honor yourself this holiday season, or in the coming new year?

You can listen to a recording of the entire ritual here>>

Does your December feel like a race to the end of the year?

For most of the years of my adult life, the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas has felt like a race.

"A race to where?" you might ask.

Great question!

Instead of racing through your list of "to do"s, try something new this holiday. Try adding some restorative practices to your days, and checking in with yourself to ensure that you are sharing and giving your best self to the people you care most about.

Don't know what restores you?

Well, here's a great place to start: STOP.

Yes, that's right. STOP doing for even one whole minute each day. For those of us who thrive on the thrill of accomplishment, fitting in, doing more, working harder, and making things look good, this might be as big of a challenge as anything you've put on your "to do" list.

That's why you need to do it now. STOP.

Just sit still with yourself for ONE ENTIRE MINUTE each day, and watch what happens. Feel everything that comes up. Feel your resistance. Feel your annoyance. Feel your jitters. Feel your desire to be anywhere but right here, right now.

Give yourself this gift every day during the month of December, and you'll be on your way to being able to give to others what they truly desire - your full presence and peace with yourself.

Want more inspiration and instructions on how to create restorative practices and restore sanity to your holiday season? Enroll in my online course starting December 13th. Register here>>

How does it FEEL to celebrate?

I've never really been good at celebrating my birthday. There are a few birthdays in my life that I remember - one was my 6th birthday when I had a party at my house with my favorite girls from second grade, complete with musical chairs, Bozo buckets, a violin serenade by my brother, and hand-selected party favors for each guest. Another was my sophomore year in college, when my roommate totally surprised me by inviting over half a dozen or so of my best friends, who arrived with cake, balloons, and songs to sing. Yet another was in my twenties, when my brother procured tickets to see Itzhak Perlman and the Minnesota Orchestra, and my parents came into town to join us.

But when it has come to my really knowing how to celebrate myself, and knowing what I really have wanted to do on my birthday, I've mostly come up blank.

Now I know that it's because I have been more focused on what it LOOKS like to celebrate than how it FEELS to celebrate.

What Celebrating Looks Like

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In our image-obsessed culture, we can easily be led to believe that what we SHOW about our lives - how we make things appear - is actually more important than how we FEEL about our selves as we live our lives.

Even the lyrics to popular songs teach young girls what it means to "party in the USA" - "Welcome to the land of fame, excess, whoa am I gonna fit in?".

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Because feelings are often difficult to express in words, or not accurately captured by images, or perhaps don't match up with the social pressure to perform and please, I have (perhaps like you) defaulted to suppressing the feelings, not bothering to connect with them, and making choices based on what will make me LOOK like I'm doing fine.

I did this without being conscious of it. It happened slowly, in small steps, over time, like any changes do.

How To Learn What Celebrating Feels Like

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When I have been in relationships, I have felt particularly pressured to celebrate in a way that LOOKS a certain way, to demonstrate a certain level of happiness or to do something that would reflect where I "should be" at a particular time in my life.

It's a lot easier to produce a celebration that LOOKS a certain way, because you can go to any store and find cards, decorations, party invitations, gift wrap, and other accessories that create a celebratory LOOK. You can get dressed a certain way, go to a certain place, and think that it's going to make you FEEL like you've celebrated.

But I've found that in order to celebrate your soul, to acknowledge what you really want, you've got to stop.

You need to slow down, rest, and create space in your life. You need to breathe deeply.

You need to relax your whole body, even the places and muscles you never knew you had.

You need to get to a place of inner silence, where you can become an observer of your thoughts rather than attached to them as who you are.

You need to know what peace FEELS like first.

And if you've had the courage to trust enough to do all that, you will automatically experience the spontaneous positive feelings that I just call "joy".

These feelings have nothing to do with how things LOOK. They are not dependent on conditions or circumstances. They are what is already there, at your core, without your having to do anything.

It turns out that a true celebration is when you can finally connect with that place in your core that does not need you to do anything at all.

So what did I do this past weekend for my birthday?

I slept until I felt like waking up. (I already do this most days, so I rarely feel sleep-deprived anymore, and I even more rarely feel guilty for "sleeping in".)

I savored a breakfast made for me by Rocket Man (that's the pseudonym on this blog for my partner who is such a compassionate witness as I learn to love myself). And by that I mean I noticed the fluffiness of the pancakes, I amused myself with the juiciness of the blueberries, and I allowed myself to eat two strips of bacon without a single voice of self-criticism in my head.

I then spoke out loud a thought that had popped into my head earlier that morning. "How about going to Napa?" No plans, no reservations, no idea where we were going, no agenda for what had to happen. We just decided to go.

While I looked up directions and addresses of restaurants, Rocket Man was looking up places to play music later in the evening. I didn't know it at the time. I thought he was just surfing on Facebook again.

Little did I know I would experience two things I never thought were simultaneously possible: doing exactly what I wanted, and not having to figure it all out on my own!

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After eating a delicious meal at Cindy Pawlcyn's Mustards Grill, we headed up the Valley to Calistoga to scope out a potential retreat site for my new offerings in 2011. (Stay tuned for more excitement on that front!)

We then came back to Pacifica, where at the Chit Chat Cafe, a monthly open mic was happening. The Chit Chat Cafe sits directly on the Pacific Ocean, at the back corner of a small shopping center. It's a small local hangout, with a selection of coffee drinks, baked goods, a couple of wines, and a few computers sitting at the back wall.

As of the last two weeks, I had been following a calling to sign myself up at my weekly open mic to share a bit of sound healing magic. It had occurred to me when I first started coming to open mic that a participatory music experience would be perfect. But I wanted to fit in and find my place first. To become comfortable as a violinist in this brand new setting, before giving people reasons to look at me funny.

Each of the now three times I've done this at open mic, I have been pleasantly surprised, not by the crowd's response or feedback, but by how it makes me FEEL to offer it. My fears of being "looked at funny" have been replaced with a deeper connection to who I really am, and what I can really offer in this world, if I only would step up and try.

So perhaps it's fitting that on my birthday, I stepped up to the mic at Chit Chat Cafe, and shared a few sentences about how, after many years of being trained as a performer and someone who's supposed to know more than other people, I've come to be interested in the healing power of sound and music to connect me to people .

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And then it was just "Ah".

The openness of harmonious sound. The togetherness of wordless interaction. The infinite possibilities of vibrational connection.

No need for further explanation beyond the sound. The energy in the room was palpable, because we had taken that moment to come together and focus our energies on just one sound....the one we were creating in that moment.

When it came time for me to play with Rocket Man, we already felt part of something larger than ourselves. The space was prepared for us - first with a day of celebration, and then with the intention to be who we are, sharing what we love, in this room full of people.

Our sound was unamplified and therefore intimate. Both of our songs transcended labels, categories, and time. No one cared who wrote them, where they came from, or when they were first performed. For one evening, all that mattered was the moment we shared with the people in that room.

The kinds of interactions we had with people after that performance were unlike any other we've experienced so far as a band. The last time I remember such a heartfelt connnection with an audience was when I was a teenager on a concert tour in Moscow, too young to put words on the wordlessness of musical communication, and too distracted by the hard work of "doing it right" to realize that I was touching my life's work already.

This birthday was a celebration of my growing ability to trust how I FEEL and my constant practice of letting go of how things LOOK.

Will you ever know what it FEELS like for you to celebrate yourself? It is my greatest wish for you in your lifetime.

Restorative Practice #5: Do One Thing At A Time

Have you ever tried actually doing one thing at a time? I've found that it takes a tremendous amount of trust - an amount I often don't have - to truly do one thing at a time.

Somehow my brain prefers that high-anxiety mode of doing many things at once, having many irons in the fire, keeping many options open, so to speak. But the reality of that mode is nothing ever gets done, and I never feel totally complete. In other words, I set myself up to prove the belief that underlies this kind of behavior: "I am not enough."

To turn this behavior around, I first choose a new thought to believe: "I am complete, as I am, in this moment."

At first, I repeat it as a mantra that sounds ridiculous because my brain has never practiced focusing attention on all the ways that I am, in fact, complete, as I am, in this moment. I have trained my brain, for many years and quite intensively, to find all the ways that "I am not enough" - all the ways that I "should be" doing more than what I am doing right now.

But since I have made the choice to be and do in a different way, to connect with a different energy as the source of my actions, I keep repeating that mantra. I allow myself some stillness and some time to find one example of how I am really complete, as I am, in this moment. I find some gentleness toward myself as I learn a new way. I remember that I am like a toddler, about to take my first steps, and joyfully falling and getting up more times than I will be able to count.

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I choose something to do, in this moment, which gives me the feeling in my body of being complete as I am. These days, it is a hike. I get to move my body, deepen my breath, and bring my senses in contact with nature - the sky, the cool air, the silence.

Yesterday I happened to shoot two videos - one before my hike, and one after. I think you'll see a visible difference in my face, or at least sense a different energy from me, in the two videos. Plus, in the second video I leave you with two questions to ask yourself about your own restorative practices.

Enjoy!

BEFORE:

AFTER: