Ask the LifeQuake Doctor

Dear Dr. Toni:

I have been an international educational consultant for nine years. As you can imagine, in the last few months, many industries have been adversely affected by the economy. The university that funds us has dropped our program. At first, I wasn’t worried. I am 65 years old and I have a very impressive and diversified portfolio. I figured this was a sign that I should begin looking at retirement. That was until last week. I lost a couple hundred thousand dollars when “Wall Street quaked,” as they said. I am now dazed and confused as to what to do. Who is going to hire someone at my age now that I have to keep working?
Georgina

Dear Georgina:

First of all, my heart goes out to you. This last month has been devastating for many people. Before you can receive any intuitive guidance on your next step, I would encourage you to do some bodywork. Treat yourself to a massage. While he/she is working on you, think about the recent events and allow yourself to breathe into the place or places where there is pain and trauma around your financial losses. As you keep breathing and focusing on the body parts where there is pain, now envision a pink or green light entering into those places. Keep opening and receiving until you experience peace. Now ask to be shown a new way of looking at your circumstances so that you are no longer resisting what already is. The new perception may come right away or as a revelation when you are going about your day. Allow yourself to experience a miracle out of this seeming crisis. Perhaps your soul did not want you to retire. Perhaps there is a new vocation waiting for you. You just may need to slow down enough to see what synchronicities are trying to guide you to Act Three of your “life play.”

One of my clients who was also a consultant had a similar situation occur. She was laid off from her corporate job and had to go to traffic school on a speeding ticket. Throughout the day at traffic school, her comments clearly displayed her excellent communication skills and great sense of humor. Having mentioned her forced retirement, the owner of the school approached her to consider becoming a traffic school instructor. Through our work together, she promised herself she would look at all “divine coincidences” as a sign and not reject anything because it didn’t fit her picture.

This client had been a theater producer at one time and remembered a phrase from show business that says, “you have to play New Haven before you’re ready for Broadway.” For years she had been told she should become a public speaker. She realized that although working as a traffic school instructor was not going to adequately cover her bills, it was still giving her the practice she needed to hone her public speaking skills to become, as she calls herself, “a spiritual lounge act.”
So Georgina, when crisis hits and your ego wants to scream, This is terrible! You’re going to end up a bag lady! hold the intention that inside this experience lies something amazing for you. Train your mind to look for the gifts that this experience holds.

Ask The LifeQuake Doctor

Dear Dr. Toni:

I was laid off from my job last month and I am a single parent with two children. Christmas is coming and I feel like a failure because not only have I not been able to find another job but there is very little money I can spare for Christmas. What do I tell my kids? Christmas is a time for giving and I have very little to give them.

Distraught in Santa Monica

Dear Distraught:

I’m sure it is cold comfort to know that many people are in the same boat you’re in this Christmas but consider this: If Christmas is about giving, why not teach your children what the true spirit of giving is all about? I would recommend that you do some research and see where you and your kids could be allowed to come in and volunteer your time. Miracles get created when we become expansive. You don’t mention what your skills are or what you were doing professionally in your work but sometimes a door becomes closed like your last job, so that another can open. We cant’ see opportunity though if we collapse into fear. Stepping into an altruistic spirit and extending yourself to those less fortunate will expand your awareness and your gratitude for what you do have. In that expanded state, what I call divine coincidences can occur. Through volunteering your time, you may meet someone who provides a career opportunity or simply by feeling so good from giving your time, you attract a professional opening from another direction.

Studies have shown that humanitarianism not only lifts depression but it increases T cells. This of course strengthens the immune system. Well, can you think of any time of year when we could more use help to our immune system? Between the sugar consumption, the stress of traffic and trying to shop economically, it is no wonder that flues and colds proliferate. So, checkout the Los Angeles Mission, the Sunlight Mission that is in Santa Monica, volunteer services at hospitals that have pediatric wings and The Salvation Army. This is a great time of year to clean out closets and donate toys, clothes, and anything else that is accumulating dust and not being used. St. Vincent De Paul, Salvation Army, The Red Cross all take donations. You can make this a fun project if you take your kids with you to make the donations. One of my clients was complaining about the accumulation of toys they had in the garage. I suggested he go through them with their four - year old son and let him be a part of the process. Initially, he rejected the idea, saying that his son wouldn’t part with even the things he wasn’t playing with anymore. I suggested that maybe he had underestimated him. As it turned out, not only did the boy give his dad a bunch of his toys, he wanted to go with him and meet the kids they were giving the stuff to!

Another way to create a few extra dollars for Christmas is a garage sale. One man’s trash is another man treasure! And you might find amazing buys by going to thrift stores and consignment shops for Christmas gifts yourself. While we are on the subject of gift giving, another creative idea might be for you to suggest to your children that they think of something they want that you can’t buy that is more like a service you could each do for one another. Then create a coupon book. For example, Mom will make your favorite meal, you can have 5 extra hours of television or computer game time. If you can’t afford to take the whole family to the movies anymore, rent a couple DVD’s and make gourmet popcorn with different seasonings tailored to each kids palate. I would definitely suggest renting “It’s A Wonderful Life” this year. Get out the board games and play together instead of sitting in front of your respective computers in separate rooms.

Teach your kids how to cook or bake holiday treats as gifts for friends. There is an opportunity for you to spend more time together during this time. A dear friend of mine lost her home in a divorce and she and her two kids had to share a two - bedroom apartment and she swears they grew much closer over the three years they were there.

I would offer to all of you my readers to challenge yourself to make this holiday season the one you remember having felt the greatest spirit running through your heart and out into the world! We have so much to be thankful for.

To submit questions for Ask the LifeQuake™ Doctor, contact Dr. Toni Galardi through DrToni@LifeQuake.net (no period after the Dr). For those seeking private consultation, Dr. Toni can be reached at 310-712-2600, 619-819-6400 or through her website, www.LifeQuake.net

The LifeQuake™ Rx for the Real Bailout

“Bail out.”

Webster defines this two ways: “To obtain someone’s release” and “to post security.”

Recently, a client came back to see me who had bailed her parents out by taking care of them both physically and financially for several months. The net effect of this was that she had practically bankrupted herself physically, emotionally and financially.

This got me to thinking: what does it mean to “post security or obtain someone else’s release” at the expense of your own and how prevalent is this as a sort of national personality tendency in the U.S.? I mean, after all, the Statue of Liberty’s mission statement (if she had one) set us up over 100 years ago to be pretty co-dependent, don’t you think?

Listen to these words – “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Aren’t we Americans constantly bailing out somebody in the world?

So what would it mean if we made a daily practice of bailing out ourselves?

Now, I don’t mean just eating right and actually using your gym membership. I mean what would it mean to actually check into your gut when someone asks you for a favor? What would it mean to check in with your heart when the school wants you to volunteer one more time when you are already overscheduled at work and church? What would it mean to check in with your bank account when your kids want to go out to eat and it’s Friday and you don’t want to cook anyway?

If the quantum physicists are correct and everything that happens to one effects the whole, then when we abandon ourselves to peer pressure, or guilt from our kids, there is a kind of emotional bankruptcy that translates into a national phenomenon. It is a well known fact that we are a sleep deprived nation so what is the effect of borrowing from the night and putting ourselves into long term energy debt? Is this a metaphor for the energy shortage of gas and fuel?

So my prescription for us all if we want to stop being forced to bail out the Wall Street titans is to stop overextending ourselves in our own lives first. That Reagan slogan for youth drug prevention - “ Just say no” - is fitting as we go into another recession. Say no to your kids, say no to your boss’ 70 hour work week demand, but, most importantly, say no to the voice in your head that is constantly pushing you to do more, more, more. Perhaps the gift inside this economic LifeQuake™ is that in cutting back our expenses, we’ll gear down the hyperactivity and actually be more present to life. I’m sure our nervous systems will be eternally grateful. And then maybe, just maybe we’ll get more sleep too…

To learn more tips and techniques, visit www.lifequake.net or email me at DrToni@lifequake.net.