Press The Play Button On Your Life!

Few things you should know about me:

• I do not care too much what other people think about me.
• My life is lived on my terms, I set my own pace, tastes and agenda.
• No one, no matter how important they think they are for whatever reason, tells me what to do.
• Drama, complications and other people's business do not interest or engage my attention.
• I love hard, deeply, wastefully and easily but can walk away from anyone or anything in like manner.

After 50 years of learning, the "play" button on my life is permanently pressed. My finger is glued to it.

Hardly ever looking back but when I do, it is merely to see how far I have travelled, my eyes are steadfast on the path. My feet are carefully planted in the footprints of Spirit's. When I do falter, which is often enough, little time is spent berating myself. Usually I laughingly say to myself, "Claudette, you @$%& up there!"

If apologies are required, I quickly make them and move on.

Experience has taught me that the best days of life are the ones that are not paused for anything or anyone. What I have also learned is that others will almost always try to do just that - pause, rewind, stop you in an easy for them sequence.

They are not necessarily malicious nor are their intentions outright evil. People are self-focussed, looking out for Number One and that is not you. With their eyes fixed on their personal wants, needs and desires they just cannot see yours.

Some people have ill intentions for your life. The smile on their faces belies the fact that  there is a knife in their hand, poised to stab you in your back. They must pause and rewind but more so stop your moving forward.

What I have found is, if your life experiences were anything like mine (or 'worse'), there are people who will want to keep you there, caught in those memories, never moving forward without constantly reminding you of your past. Misery loves company, sufferers love group wailing. Like a broken record, they repeat your backstory, demanding to know who you think you are wanting to hit play? Who are you to want to leave the pity party?

Thank heavens for the digital age where there are no needles required to "play" the record of your life.

Play is always an option. In fact, it is the only option if your desire is to:

1. Live in the integrity of who you really are
2. Fulfill your dreams no matter how long you have had them on hold
3. Step up and into the next phase of your development
4. Simply be You

Those are my choices and here is what I do daily:

• I seek audience with my heart each step of MY way
• While I share openly, I decide privately
• I change my mind about anything or regarding any relationship with the intention of finding what is in my best interest first and foremost, then what serves the highest good for all.
• No one can pressure me, subtly or forcefully, to be or do what is against my better judgment. No one.
• Love is always my choice - not of things but of myself and what is loving to others without bonding them or me.

The key to my happiness is pressing the play button on my life AND allowing others to do the same in their lives. Should both of us chose the same "song," we will dance together for as long as the track plays. When it is done, it is done.

You get to choose. Allow yourself to be paused, rewound or stopped by the multitude of opinionated people and detractors in your experience and continue living like an hamster spinning its wheels. You get nowhere.

Hit play and live your life, moving at the pace and in the direction of your own heart's calling. You might see me on the dance-floor if you do!

Need further support choosing? Join my mailing list, drop me a line or visit me on my page and let us go over the playlist together.

Namaste

Claudette

Did you read yesterday's essay on Shaming?

Some photos: pinterest.com

This Culture Of Shame Will End Us All

It is for real. We live, sleep, eat, drink, ingest and exude shame.

Shaming others and ourselves is our favourite past time.

Reality shows are based on shaming and so many lap them up.

Mothers doing what is most natural - breastfeeding their babies - are shamed into covering up.

If you have some curves or fluffs, as my Jamaican Sistahs call their love handles, there is a likelihood that you will be shamed.

Driving around Edmonton this morning, stopping for breakfast and picking up a few items, I see more subtle evidence of shaming. My friend needed to stock up on "smokes," (something that I shame him about in my questioning "do you have to smoke?) he pointed out to me some posters on the corner shop window. They were pictures taken of shoplifters who were caught on camera. "Banned," captioned all the "shameless," hungry and near destitute faces of mainly Aboriginal Canadians.

It is a similar kind of shaming that I notice on the television these last few days as images of Black Americans are captioned "looters," "hoodlums,"  and even "criminals."

Strangely, the practice and culture of shaming does not necessarily point to certain members of our societies.

Ever sat down to watch your tube and an image of "starving children of Africa," with flies about to perch on their eyeballs slowly pans across the screen? Shamed - an entire continent for the greed, neglect and mishandling of public funds by the wealthy bankers, multinational corporations and "First World" governments.

Where are the pictures of those people? How often have you seen the shaming of rogue police officers, employers, government officials who continue to perpetuate the circumstances of shame?

I have been "shamed" for dressing too well, my butt being too noticeable, my legs being as long as they are and for other reasons well beyond my natural control. The colour of my skin, my intelligence and the fact that I am a woman have been reasons or pretext to attempt to shame me.

Being elderly, having a physical disability, or being differently sexually oriented from the majority are ground zero for shaming too many.

When the "shamed" have had enough and feel a need to demonstrate their inability to contain the humiliation and pain any further - the "shamers" notch it up even further. They have the worldly power to do so seeing that they own the media, they are the "law enforcers," they are the government.

What then?

Yesterday, as with everyone else watching even briefly the riots in Baltimore, I saw a shamed woman - doubly so as she was black and her child is a "criminal," a "hooligan" - I saw her demonstrate what we all might consider doing.

Take a stand for change. Be the change that we want to see. End the shaming. Do as President Obama stated, not because of his office - far from it, but because he spoke the only truth that we all, everywhere in this world could heed:

"There are police departments that have to do some soul-searching. I think there are some communities that have to do some soul-searching. But I think we as a country have to do some soul-searching. This is not new. It’s been going on for decades.”

In fact, there are teachers, preachers, soldiers, managers, men, women, shopkeepers, celebrities - you, me - ordinary people, who have to do some soul-searching.

As we grapple yet another decade, through another year, another moment in time with shaming in the forms of racism, classism, sexism, heterosexism, ageism, nationalism, etc let us dig deep, stretch farther and heal.

In love, peace and justice for all,

Namaste

Claudette

A Sexy New World Is Emerging! Yippee!

What is your problem with sex?

Yes, you.

Just about everyone seems to have a problem with sex, even those "doing it," or "having it," constantly. Myself included.

My problem, my current problem, with sex is that I am not getting enough.

Shocked? Do not be.

At 50 years of age, legally married and divorced couple times in the eyes of society, lived and loved in a same sex relationship for 16 years prude, I am not. Highly comfortable now with my sexuality, there is no qualm or fear in me to declare that my sex life sucks right now.

Otherwise, I have no problem with sex. It is not a sin once three provisos that I mentioned in an essay back in September 23, 2014 are met. If not, then it can be a mistake:

1. With the wrong person
2. When participated in at an inopportune time
3. Engaged in exchange for financial or other material benefit

To be in touch with one's sexuality, to be honest about it and who you are sexually can be the most scary venture in a world rammed into a sex-containment bunker by the Church and organised religion in general. Bruce Jenner, is proving that as the new poster boy turning woman of my beloved transgendering community.

Digressing just a bit. Years ago, I had a huge crush on a "transgendering" man. (Forgive me if I am not current with the correct terms - my love is real though). We never got beyond sitting beside each other at a seminar then having lunch together in - of all the places - a church hall! This was no ordinary church. I was a guest presenter at a diversity forum held at a United Church of Canada gathering in Saskatchewan.

As we move into this new age, evolving with The Universe, that is what it will take - no ordinary:

• Faith
• Trust
• People

to ensure that our deepest, most meaningful expression of love is unleashed and unfettered.

Surviving childhood sexual abuse and rape as I have, I know what a challenge it is to find one's true sensual voice. Mine was suffocated and covered, literally and figuratively, for years as those who would have their way with my body sought to silence my screams and protest.

The stifling continued for decades, as my sense of who I am - a sexual being - was barred behind the memories of the violation and my mother's idea of who a woman should be in relating with men.

Only in my 40's the true me started to emerge, after the agonising memories faded, the heartbreak of losing my best friend and lover eased and I finally was able to step into the allness of my femininity and sexuality.

My daughter and I today can have the most casual but deep woman-to-woman conversations about sex and sexuality. This is a gift that has arrived not one minute too soon. I am sure there are thousands if not millions of young people grappling with their sexuality in all its expressions who would greatly benefit from open conversations.

It is my view, as a woman with a past imagining a very different future for all, that the sooner the lesser known, the ordinary Bruce Jenners, Ellen DeGeneres, Samantha Jones, Jason Collins, et al can claim their right to be without fanfare or threat of death, annihilation or isolation - the closer to the most beautiful garden our world will be - varied, diverse, rich in colour and texture. Beautiful!

In the meanwhile, I am here to listen to you should you need unprofessional but caring support as you seek to embrace your sexuality and express yourself sexually. Comment here or private message me through email or Facebook.

Be blessed, be you - beautiful

Four Essentials Of An Expanded Life

"Expansion: the action of becoming larger or more extensive. Synonyms:  growth, increase in size, enlargement, extension, development."

Sometime very early in January, I declared 2015 the year of expansion. This was a deliberate act on my part as, like many others, I used to look at the year in passing and give it a name.

"That was the worse year."

"2006 was a rough year."

"Phew, I'm glad that @#%& year is over!"

Being a person who has come to witness and therefore believe that whatever you consistently focus on becomes one's reality, I decided to set my attention and intention for my year. No longer am I willing to live unconsciously or allow another person or society to determine the progression of my life.

Yesterday I shared with my Facebook friends a picture of my mini vision board. This exercise is very central to my way of living - has been for years now with varying degrees of "success" from everything coming to me as envisioned, easily and effortlessly or everything going exactly opposite to my imagining.

This could be no more true than with my relationships, particularly intimate ones. I remember one New Year's Eve posting a picture of me in a wedding gown, getting married to a gorgeous Bruce Willis looking man. Well, would you believe that I did marry a bald headed guy wearing a lovely gown, tiara and all, surrounded by my best friends and my daughter? Would you believe that two years later it was over?

That was one of if not my most profound lessons on Law of Attraction, visualization and relationships - three in one.

Lesson: The Universe will bring you what you predominantly FEEL as you focus consciously or unconsciously.

I attracted the person I was seeing with my eyes but as my predominate feelings around relationships and marriage were: they do not work, I am not good in them, men are abusive, etc., that is exactly what came with the handsome man.

Having learned my lesson, through that situation and a few more after (my head can be quite tough), I cleaned house and changed my focal point.

I turned to my heart.

Over the next few years, from 2010 to 2014, my focus became love. Yes, I have always loved and wanted relationships that are loving but the challenge was I never really knew the type of loving that would attract to me the life, friendships, family bond and even work that I truly wanted.

Unconditional love was something I had to learn, then walk.

I had encountered Her before and that is how I knew what was missing. This time it would take me to bring her back into my experience. The first step was crucial as I had to unconditionally love me first - for all the places, all the things, all the wrong and all the right that I had been and done.

Twenty-fourteen things started shifting. Come December 31, 2014, as I snuggled with my granddaughter on New Year's Eve, it became clear to me that the new year was my time to enlarge, develop more and extend into Me.

Work, money for my needs, the few stuff that I like and empowering platonic friendships have come and continue to flow. Now it is time expand into a spiritual partnership that befits all that I am.

My core understanding and my experiences have taught me that you get not only what you focus on and talk about most but what:

1. You feel and believe to be true
2. You think you deserve
3. You are ready to accept and embrace
4. You hold lightly

Some of us talk a good talk of poverty, poor health, distress, bad relationships and hatred. I was one of them. Now, and for sometime now, I have been feeling, believing and KNOWING that I deserve only the best as I see it.

I am ready to embrace all that makes my heart sing. Are you? Will this be your expansion year? What are you ready to feel, accept and embrace as yours, and hold lightly?

Feel free to drop me a line, comment here or on my Facebook page if you need some practical tips.

Have a lovely and expanding rest of the day.

Claudette

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This Week's How To: Poison Prevention

TGIF again folks and that means there will be no essay on this blog today, tomorrow or Sunday!

Not to worry. You can always browse our extensive archive and catch up on what you have missed all week while you were busy making money.

How To Remove Poisonous People From Your Life

I have also selected for you the most read essay of the week. Check it out and be sure to leave your feedback.

Do have a great weekend! Looking forward to reconnecting with you all here next week. In the meanwhile, come on over to my coaching page for updates and inspiring posts over the weekend. You can also join my mailing list and receive notice of special offers and personalised conversations.

Please follow by email (to the right of this page) as well as on Twitter.

Enjoy the weekend!

Breaking Bad: A Soul Searching Series

Of the five seasons, I watched three of the critically acclaimed Breaking Bad crime drama.  As is my habit with addictive television series, it took me less than a week to do so.

Almost at the end of season three, I gave up. It was just too much for me. Too dark, too many memories of others that I knew who had followed a similar path.

What does one of television's most successful series have to do with soul searching?

Everything. It was about chemistry, the hallucinating methadone and the heights and depth of the human soul. It was about the path that some of us take in our search for meaning.

Years ago, sometime in 2006, as a chaplain in residence at one of Alberta's leading hospitals I advised my supervisors that I wanted to observe a surgery. Up to that point, no other chaplain in training had done this, even though some of the best surgeons in the land operated in this hospital.

An integral component of our training programme was reflection and we were expected to undertake an exercise that would pull us into the deepest level of contemplation possible. At the end of the chosen exercise, each Resident-Chaplain (and there was only three in the programme at any given time) was to write then present a reflection paper. This was the "Summa" of our journey has trainee chaplains - in my case a full two year journey from internship to residency.

It was a two year search for my soul and I hoped to pinpoint its location in that surgical theatre.

The chief surgeon must have been one of my divinely appointed guides as within minutes of my entering the theatre after extensive prepping, he positioned me on a stool right over the patient's head. My vantage point allowed me to see every incision, movement, grip and stitch each and every member of the team made.

I missed nothing except seeing the patient's soul. For eight long hours I stood there; not peeing, not eating yet not feeling queasy, hungry or faint. The instruments opening the chest cavity did not phase me. I did not pass out seeing the heart tenderly removed and placed to the side while ice cubes were packed into where it would later be returned.

My eyes were peeled looking to catch a glimpse of the soul.

Two days it would take me to physically recover from the excitement and exhaustion of that fateful day. Another week for me to process my feelings with my supervisors and fellow chaplains in our fish bowl.

I cried. I was somewhat bewildered after the fact. I felt honoured by what I was given the privilege to witness (the patient's consent was required for me to have participated) and I was humbled.

My search for the soul came to an end with that experience. Finally I knew without a doubt that the innermost part of me and every human being is not to be seen with the naked eyes.

I went looking for the soul but instead felt it.

Walter White, the main character of Breaking Bad had that experience as well. He thought it was all chemistry, all physical, malleable in a lab (theatre) and all about the money. Having not seen the final episode, I am not sure whether he came to the same understanding as I did, whether what was feeding on his body eventually quenched his thirst for meaning.

With the last stitch and watching as "life" returned to the patient's body, as the blood circulated through his veins again without any mechanical assistance, I knew that my soul and your soul are connected to and flow from a Source well beyond our bodies.

Our heights and our depths are dependent on that unbreakable, invisible yet ever present connection. You do not have to believe in any specific religious or spiritual path or practice to experience the best frequency.

All that is required is to know that you are connected.

Do you?

Share your feelings with me here or on my coaching page and continue to gave a beautifully connected day!

Claudette is the Founder of Daughters of Sheba Foundation and offers practical spiritual support through her coaching services, social media including Twitter and this blog. She lives in Edmonton, Alberta and is a proud Member of www.TheWellnessUniverse.com  

Photo source: pinterest.com  

Earth Day 2015: Temple Of Gratitude

My first real encounter with Earth Day celebrations was the year after our arrival in Canada.

Growing up as I did on the beautiful, luscious and green island of Jamaica, environmental protection was not an issue front and centre of my thoughts. It still is not. Not really.

Maybe that is not a "politically correct" thing for me to admit but I am nothing if not honest. My house has one waste disposal container and everything goes in it. Shame on me! Well, I do not drink pop, consume very little alcoholic beverages and as a rat packer, paper documents are hardly ever disposed. So in my mind, there is very little waste for a recycle container.

Edmonton is not one of the cities in Alberta where recycling is compulsory. Sherwood Park, Saint Albert and Leduc, neigbouring communities to Edmonton, have mandatory programmes and citizens are provided colour coded bins to separate waste. This was the case as well in Toronto and Vaughan in Ontario where I lived for almost two years. In these latter cities, my environmental protective self was turned up. I diligently separated my waste and disposed of them into the "garbage" and "compost" bins. The blue bags (recycle) did not have much of a place even then.

Source: pinterest.com

Compliance is certainly greater when the local authorities fine households for not correctly disposing their waste.  It might be the next move for Edmonton as the city seeks to increase its revenues.

Back in Jamaica, recycling is not the norm granted during my five month and then three week stay recently, I did notice my hostesses separating plastics from regular waste. As an avid gardener, one of my hostesses also separated food waste for use in the family's vegetable plots.

We took the health of our surroundings for granted in Jamaica. Little thought was given to the impact of our daily activities on the environment. This has changed over the years, slowly but changing. Recent news reports about the burning Riverton City dump highlighted how long overdue this change in attitude is and at the highest level of the country.

Change, however, starts internally and individually. My hand is the first to be raised in response to the question, "Who could be more aware and therefore more proactive regarding environmental health issues?"

Every year that we observe Earth Day, I commit myself to at least one further effort towards enhancing my awareness. Last year, my effort was to use only what I knew for sure I could completely consume. This resulted in my learning to cook for one thereby throwing out less food. I also bought only enough clothes that it was humanly possible to wear in each season. Added to that, some of these purchases were from consignment type stores.

Until Edmonton institutes a compulsory recycle programme, I will commit myself to  collecting my kitchen waste in compostable bags. As well, one of my spring/summer projects around my place this year is to "green" my surroundings. I have been doing a fair bit of research on plants that will not only beautify my home but de-pollute it. This article on such plants proved very helpful and only two days ago I potted my first spider plant.

Love really is my religion and it struck me this morning that Earth, as my current home, must be the temple of my gratitude. How we maintain and care for our place of living is testament to our measure of love and our "worship" of all that is divine.

No, environmentalist I may never be but lover I am.

How will you bring to the Temple to show your gratitude moving forward? 

It Doesn't Matter What Anyone Thinks

A recent essay of mine was about angry women and alignment. Two months prior to offering this service to my dear Sistahs, another essay of mine was on the subject of being the best version of yourself.

My affinity to this matter seems really very tight as again in February the essay that I posted was on the same topic. On this occasion, reference was made to my daughter and how she subtly communicated to me that she did not give two hoots what I felt about her choices.

Here we are again on the topic, pulling together all the elements covered so far. Sort of a part four in a series on "Standing In Your Own Power," if I were to give it a title.

"It really does not matter what anyone thinks of you," would be the summation of today's segment. This came to me as I tossed and turned in the wee hours of the morning, woken up by the need to use the facilities and wondering to myself what a sleepover partner would think of this.

"Does it matter?" that sweet but slightly sarcastic voice in my heart asked me.

No, it does not, really. Neither does it matter what anyone thinks about my lifestyle, happily single with competing interests at 50 years of age and in no rush to choose. Who gives a shoot what anyone thinks of my hairstyle (dreadlocks), my sense of style that is so not designer or brand name?

Does it really matter that I much rather solitude or the company of very few friends for even fewer hours than being the centre of attention at a ball? Do I really care what anyone thinks that I made a mash-up breakfast of bok choy, spam and fried dumplings this morning?

Some people will lead or attempt to coerce you into believing that you owe them an explanation about your life or the things and people that make you happy. You do not.

What I have learned after years of jumping through the hoops, taken over the hills people of pleasing and down the valleys of despair is that I owe shit all to no one!

I have paid the price for the joy and soul fulfilling happiness that is now mine! As one of my spiritual teachers put it, you pay the price to come into your true power.

My suggestion to you today dear readers, my wellness tip to take you through this day, is simple:

"It really does not matter what anyone thinks about where you have been, what you have done or how you are living your life today. Ignore their commentary. Do you. Be you. You are on the right path for you, however it may look to anyone. Own your alignment!"

Have a You day!

Namaste

How To Remove Poisonous People From Your Life

In social media land, Mondays are usually dedicated to motivation. What better motivation could there be than to remove poisonous, toxic people from your life?

Recently I have found myself sleeping in more often. This fine Monday morning was another such day. Formerly this was a very rare occurrence. Whether it is my reaching the half century mark or, as I rather believe, it is the freedom that is now mine. One is never sure.

My life really geared up around my 35th birthday. When I turned 41 year, things took a nosedive. Throughout those years, sleep and I were estranged. That would remain the case for almost a decade until recently.

As is often my practice, weekly in fact, during my reflection time my thoughts went to this bout of sleep-iness that I have been experiencing. Assessing the changes in my life circumstances, including my living arrangements, my marital and economic statuses and my career choice at this time, one thing stood out.

Hardly, if any, toxic people are in my immediate circle.

This past week was a bit emotionally perplexing, however, things soon sorted themselves out and what could have been poisonous interactions were detoxified. Reading Heidi Priebe's article earlier this morning was confirmation of my own conclusion about where I am in terms of relationships at this point. The seven markers of toxic and poisonous relationships are nowhere evident in my experience - not anymore.

Here are Priebe's seven types of toxic relationship and how I removed them from my life:

1. "The friend who’s always there when you are down (But disappears as soon as you’re happy)." What did I do? I stopped talking with her. After the last message she sent me that was a complete downer, I stopped messaging, calling or initiating any form of communication. My heart, however, remains open to her and should she ever need me for whatever reason, I will be available to support her. 
2. "The partner whose whole entire world revolves around you." What did I do? I left him. After his last tantrum over my friendships and how isolated he felt from my relationships of 10+ years, so much so that he flung a can at my head, I had the cops escort him out. 
3. "The friend or family member who is always 'Just being realistic.'" What did I do? I thanked her for her realism and went ahead and followed my heart. 
4. "The friend you are constantly comparing yourself to." What did I do? I grew up. 
5. "The partner you’re keeping score with." What did I do? We divorced and now, 25+ years later, have a good friendship. 
6. "The loved one you’re putting ahead of yourself." What did I do? I cut the ties, more like the noose. This was the longest and most difficult poison to remove from my system but it has been the most freeing. 
7. "The relationship you have with yourself." What did I do? I healed my wounds through professional but more spiritual counselling, the unconditional love and support of friends and my own desire to live my best life.

Bottom line in removing toxic relationships or getting out of situations that are corrupting your growth is first knowing what it is that you want from life. By this, I do not mean stuff - at least not necessarily or primarily.

If you have not done so already or if dust is gathering on it, a first step is to create a vision statement for your life.  It can be as simple as: "I want to be happy in all that I do and bring joy to every interaction." What I found was that as I created and fine tuned mine over the years, my boundary setting skills were honed, my tolerance for slow poisoning by so-called friends and supposed loved ones diminished and my acceptance of relationships that only served to curb my living as I craved disappeared.

There are times, more rarely than frequently, that poisonous people like bad gas will secrete into your life. Do not beat up on yourself. I do my best not to when it happens and instead, I step back and see which window I left open for them to have crawled through.

Learning to clean the air, detoxify your life is a daily endeavour. Should you need support as you do quality control of your life, feel free to stop by my coaching page for tips.

Have a great poison free day!

Claudette is the Founder of Daughters of Sheba Foundation and offers practical spiritual support through her coaching services, social media including Twitter and this blog. She lives in Edmonton, Alberta and is a proud Member of www.TheWellnessUniverse.com