Life is not always as predictable as we want it to be. These past few days have been interesting to say the least, and the word “interesting” doesn’t even scratch the surface in reality. A friend of mine was scheduled for surgery on her foot this morning. She won’t be able to walk for at least 6 weeks and recovery will be a long and tedious road for her. She has a lovely dog who just happens to be my dog’s best friend. Her dog sitting arrangements didn’t pan out the way she wanted them to, and I unexpectedly volunteered to be the back-up plan in case of anything unforeseen. Having two one-year old dogs is like having two-year olds running around without their diapers on, with nothing on mind other than to rip apart their toys. In other words, they constantly have to be watched because they are getting into everything. And yet they are a great joy and bring so many smiles.

After dropping off my friend at the hospital to have her surgery, I got on the freeway where I soon saw 4 police cars on the side of the road. I saw a pick-up truck in the ditch in the bushes and a body on the side of the road on a stretcher, covered in white plastics (it’s raining today). This person didn’t make it.

How fast does life pass by! Perhaps this person was just on the way for lunch or to run an errand. Whatever the case, people will be called to be informed that their loved one will not be coming home tonight, or any other night for that matter.

And there I was complaining about the uncomfortable appointment I was going to. Seeing this dead body on the side of the road brought me back to the harsh reality – life is fleeting indeed.

I’d like to recommend you go see the movie called “The Bucket List.” At first I thought it was a comedy, and in a way it is because it made the audience laugh and smile, that’s for sure. However, the laughs and smiles didn’t come from funny stories as much as they came from the truth of how fleeting life truly is.

Live life to the fullest, now and always, no matter where you’re heading. You never know if your next ride is your last…

Many blessings to you and your loved ones.

Today my puppy is 1 year old – happy birthday, Nikko!

It was a great moment when I drove to see him for the first time. He was 12 weeks old and part of my wish was that the owners would know his birthday and that he didn’t have a name. What are the odds of that when a puppy is already 12 weeks old? Yet there I was kneeling down for the first time to meet him, it was love at first sight. J They did know his birthday, January 23rd and he did NOT have a name. It was meant to be.

Why was this so important to me?

There are over 2600 words making up the English alphabet, yet this is a Universe created entirely on mathematical systems, yet there are only 10 numbers (9 really). Based on someone’s birth date, first and last name, a trained numerologist can pretty accurately give a forecast of that person’s life purpose and the person’s actual path, conflicts and blessings. It’s quite amazing really.

Giving a name to a dog based on his birthday may be a bit drastic. But when you know that my would-have-been son’s name was to be Nikko, then it makes great sense. My ex-husband and I never had a second child, but we would have named him Nicholas, Nikko for short. With this nameless bundle of joy coming along I felt doubly blessed.

I know that this entire Universe is made up of sounds. Sounds can heal, and they can also destroy and distort. The sound of a name either gels with the soul’s purpose or it reeks havoc. I only know of two cultures that name their unborn based on the vibrations of the sound. One is a tribe in East Africa. The other is the Native American culture. For the most part, listening to the sounds of words has become a lost art, to the detriment of our society. The cost is lack of health and chaos. It doesn’t have to be this way.

Numerology is a simple system that allows for anyone to learn more about themselves and their birth path. The best place for training and reports I found here at: http://www.kabalarians.com/.

Denis Waitley - “Touch is the magic wand of intimacy. Love is keeping in touch.”

A study was conducted to see how “every-day touching” ties in with a culture’s overall life expectancy and that of its population's overall health. People were studied in various cafes and meeting places around the world to see how many times people touched each other either deliberately by giving hugs or holding hands or “by habit” with just a brush on the arm or a hand on the shoulder, a handshake or a kiss on the cheek. Some of the countries were the US (New York), England (London), Norway, France (Paris), Brazil, Costa Rica, Italy and others. It was found that people in “warmer” countries and closer to the equator, were touching each other many more times, which also coincided with a much higher life expectancy rate.

Almost everyone knows that an abandoned infant who does not get touched and held and cuddled with will develop abnormally or even die if not touched at all. Touch is a means to show love, a way of regenerating not only your own battery but also the person you touch.

Living without hugs and someone to hold (a lot or at least from time to time) can also cause us to get physically sick.

There is no substitution for a touch or a hug from a loved one. However, many live life as singles or are estranged from their spouse, leaving you witwhout the importance of daily hugging.

1. If there is no one in your life for you to hug once in a while, a great alternative is to get a massage from time to time. The mere touch of another human can do wonders for anyone. If money is an issue you may want to visit a massage school where level 1 and level 2 massage therapists charge a fraction of a regular certified massage therapist.

2. Getting a manicure and pedicure can also help.

3. And if you really want to help not only yourself but especially someone else, visit a nursing home or a convalescent hospital and ask the nurse’s station which patient is no longer receiving any visitors. Go spend some time with that person, read them a book while holding their hand. You may just give them the greatest gift!

Here’s to a huggable and healthy you…

Franklin Roosevelt said: “Freedom from fear, freedom from want, freedom of speech, freedom of religion; Deprive man of all these freedoms and he dies – deprive him of part of them and a part of him withers.”

To that I might add that if a person’s health is deteriorating, he’s been stripped of just about anything that may bring the want and desire to even live on. I remember being so ill and feeling so sick most of my days and nights that I could care less what I looked like, what impressions I made to others, what was to come of me in life, I just didn’t have an ounce of life left in me that would give me enough strength to even care. Yes, at first I felt guilty for not having enough strength to cook a good dinner for my husband and for not having the strength to read a book to my child. After a while the guilt left because crawling to the bathroom became the highlight of my day.

Yes, when you’re feeling that sick and life seems to be zapped from your body – how can you truly let that light in you shine through you and radiate and touch others?

It seems like an impossibility!

And yet here I am, more than a decade later to tell you about it, to encourage you not to give up but to find healing from within. You’ve been given everything you ever needed to live a glorious and happy life. We are told that the kingdom of heaven is within. Yet we teach children that heaven is “up there” by pointing to the sky. It truly is within and that’s the only place you need to look for answers on how to heal. The best part is, you don’t even have to do the healing yourself, your amazing body was created to heal itself, all you have to do is tap into that light energy and allow it to start the healing process once again.

For me personally I realized that I was so sick because I was running from my true purpose. And in a way I was running away from my calling just like Jonah was running from God in the other direction. Disobedience caused him (and many others) lots of grief. And in the end he had to go about his purpose anyway. We only have two directions to run towards: one is towards the light and the other towards the darkness. I didn’t feel at first that I was running towards the darkness, in fact I felt as though I was stagnant or suspended in slow motion. I just felt like life was unfair. Once I admitted that there is a purpose out there for me and that I had not experienced or fulfilled it as of yet, and I agreed to go after it no matter what, only then was I shown one little step at a time towards the healing process. It was a slow process that took 4 years all together. Don't dispair, just get started by being willing.

Seek and you shall find. We were promised that and the promise holds true for everyone! Just remember that you don't need to seek “out there” but “in here.” You are all-wise, all-knowing and your body is here to be your greatest ally.

Here is to your healing, your well-being and your purpose!

Welcome back to this last part of “getting out of depression.” This is by no means the end-all and cure-all advice to depression. Everyone experiences depression in different ways and because our egos have a tendency to react to life’s trauma we find ourselves in various different places. What works for some may not work for others. It’s also important to note that I was never diagnosed with a mental illness and was never medicated for depression. If you take medication for depression, make sure you double check with your therapist or doctor before undertaking any new tactics against depression.

Remember that this is my journey I am willingly sharing with you, in the hopes that some of you may find courage and power from within to start believing in yourselves again.

I was feeling just about the lowest I had ever felt in my life. Ill, debilitated and with little hope for a full recovery. With only my mind working from time to time, I was forced to stay in bed. This over a 4 year period.

You may have heard that people who have given up one sensory ability such as hearing or seeing, develop increased abilities in other departments. I have a friend who has been deaf since she was one year old. Today all someone needs to do is slightly knock on the window by her entrance door and no matter where she is inside her house, she can feel the vibration of the fingernail tapping on the window on her body. It’s quite amazing.

When I felt as though I had nothing left but my mind, it was my mind that developed to heights I never knew possible. I remember it being frustrating because I had all these ideas and wishes bubble to the surface within me, yet I was housing inside a body that was about to let go and die. It was utterly frustrating.

One day I just agreed to my death. I gave in and I let go. It was then when I threw in the towels, threw up my hands and was willing to “slaughter the child within” that a new flame of inspiration was ignited.

“What am I so afraid of?” I asked myself.

Dying was inevitable and obviously in front of me. I was not afraid of dying anymore, it seemed to have become my early lot. But what IF I was not dying and there WAS indeed a way out from this lion’s den? What would I be afraid of then? If I were to continue to live, what were my fears?

What are your fears today?

Here is the first thing I did, a little trick that may take a guts, and if you can muster up the courage to do this exercise and then tackle these things one by one, your life will change for the better without a doubt.

1. First make a list of all your fears.
2. Then number them with your worst and all-time biggest fear being number one.
3. Make a decision to tackle each fear one by one, until that three-headed monster has been conquered.
4. Then immerse yourself in your fear until you love the thing you once fear most.

I personally decided to tackle the first three biggest fears together at the same time rather than picking some of the smaller fears at the end of the list. It took me 1 year to overcome these three fears and then a miracle happened!

My all time biggest fear was public speaking. I had attempted to start two businesses before where speaking was necessary – I utterly failed because I would have rather crawled up and died somewhere than to get up in front of a crowd.

My second biggest fear was to leave my husband and become a statistic, a single mom with a child who was disappointed in her mom that she didn’t “stick it out to the end.” I was afraid to break my promise “until death do us part” and to feel like a failure for the rest of my life because I broke that promise.

My third fear was to fly in an airplane. Yes, I know it sounds strange or funny to those of you who fly a lot or go on vacation a lot. There was a time in my younger years where I wanted to become a flight attendant. Once my daughter was born, however, this desire parted and instead turned into fear. I also had a couple of bad experiences and I’m still surprised the plane didn’t go down or shatter to pieces during those experiences. Not pleasant and definitely fear-inducing.

I gave myself 2 years to overcome these fears. I not only overcame them, but I learned to LOVE their opposites. Once I decided to tackle the fear of public speaking by signing up at a local Toastmaster’s chapter I started to slowly but surely be more at ease with the fact that public speaking may just be my calling. And it was and it is. Today I am asked to speak at new-thought churches, I taught at the Learning Annex for over 3 years, I give radio interviews and I spoke with Robert Kyiosaki in front of 1,500 people. Who would have known my biggest fear would become my all-time biggest love?

Overcoming the fear of flying in an airplane was easier than overcoming the fear of public speaking, yet they were intertwined. I decided to book 8 airplane rides in the first 12 month period. My first flight was one hour away, my second flight two hours, and so on. Remember my end-all goal was to love to fly and the only way I could do this was to either find a happy reason at the end of the trip or to meet great people along the way. I did both. By the 6th plane ride my fear had disappeared and turned into excitement instead.

And last but not least, overcoming the fear of hurting my husband and my daughter, leaving him and breaking my promise “until death do us part.” This was a big one because it seemed to have the biggest, most unknown consequences and affected not just me and my husband, it affected my daughter. I knew what I had in my dead marriage (which was nothing), and no matter how dead it was it was all I knew and it was all I seemed to have gotten from my parents (nothing). Going out there into the unknown was frightening and scary. My goal was to part as best friends at least. And we did. We let each other go in peace and with much love in our hearts and we were truly best friends the day he moved out. In fact, we went shopping together for a new place for him and I helped him move that infamous day. We continued having dinner once a week as a family and in many ways he became my best friend only after he moved out. Today I have been divorced almost four years and they are by far some of the happiest four years of my life. Sometimes I wonder what I was so scared of.

Nelson Mandela gave a speech in 1994 that says the following: “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.”

The biggest miracle happened once I learned to LOVE these three biggest fears. Remember there was an entire list of fears that I still needed to tackle? Once these first three fears had been tackled I went back to the list of fears, only to realize that all of the other fears now looked like little pebbles. They were not even fears anymore! I was free and empowered by simply approaching my three biggest fears. All else fell away automatically.

I’d like to encourage you to look at your fears, tackle them and to turn them into love instead. Start by making a list of all your fears, then decide which fear(s) you want to tackle first. Take action by learning to love the fears, because you may be surprised like I was and discover that your fears turn out to be part of your purpose here on earth!

Here is to your success…

There I was, laying on my death bed, waiting to die of lymphoma, barely able to crawl to the bathroom, stuck in a marriage that had rotted away a long time ago, and trapped in a deteriorating body that seemed to have given up on wanting to live. My spirits had come to an acceptance that my physical life had come to an end; my little 2 year old daughter would not remember her mommy as she was growing up – I was forced to come to peace with that, and I did. I remembered to have said: “Until death do us part,” and I was about to bring glory to that promise and there was a sense of peace, in a sick kind of way.

I asked one last question: “Was this really what my life was all about?”

And suddenly it hit me. I don’t know how and why, and it doesn’t matter. The answer came in form of a little flicker, as if a little pilot light was re-ignited if you will. Suddenly I just knew that this was not all my life was to be about. I had missed my purpose and I was not done yet, in fact, I was far from being done and the road ahead of me was still a long one.

A new sense of desire emerged. A desire was born to “find out” and “inquire” about life. I was determined to ask questions and even more determined to get answers. And I got them. The more I asked, the more answers I was given. The more answers I was given the clearer life’s directions became. Simply glorious!

There I was almost without a breath left in my body, and yet suddenly this big tomb stone had suddenly started to roll away from the entrance to my grave, even though it seemed as though I didn’t do a thing. What was different this time? I had been begging and pleading for a better life, why now?

For the first time I realized that I was willing to give up everything, even my life. I stopped fighting against the goads by being a Human Doing and fell into a state of BEING instead. It was there in that silent and lonely grave that I realized the most important lesson of all: The true blessings of all don’t come from things we are doing, are capable or willing of doing, they come from a place of complete surrender, a place of utter allowance to be guided to true blessings by the divine.

It’s as if the light behind the door to my heavens was shining so bright, it was enough to re-ignite my pilot light so I could find the will to live and finish what I had agreed to come and do. Whatever that was, whatever that meant.

This is my first and most important step in getting closer to true blessings, no matter where you are in life:

Be open to the fact that your duty may not have anything to do with what you are currently doing, no matter your situation.

Then simply agree to be aligned with your true reason for being here, to be shown the way, to let divine plan be shown to you.

Then buckle your seat belts, Dorothy, because Kansas will never be the same.

The easiest and fastest way to get in touch with these blessings is to silence your mind, you body, and to go within – to meditate. That is truly where all the great minds of all times have fished for their inspirations on what to do, how to do it, with whom to do it and when to do it. It has worked for me, it will work for you.

The most tempting step is to tell the Universe exactly how you want those changes to come about. This simply won’t work. The HOW is not your business; your business is to surrender, to be willing, to allow and to follow your inner promptings – that’s it.

Pay attention to what is being shown to you because changes will come to you in strange and unexplainable ways. Remember, it’s part of the agreement to be shown your divine role in this great theater called life.

Once you’re back on your feet there are many things you can DO, once you’ve agreed to first BE the human being you’ve come to be.

I will share with you my “to-do” tactics as I was led them to do, which undoubtedly changed my life 180 degrees in multiple different and exiting directions, and they will help you too.

Stay tuned for the last segment of this article series, part 3.

Looking out the window early this morning it was evident that the world in the San Francisco Bay Area has returned to “normal.” At least on the outside it looked that way. Traffic was backed up bumper to bumper by 6:15 a.m. and as I was taking my puppy out for his morning Nature call, people were walking to their cars to head off to work.

I was heading off to work at the suicide prevention hotline, where life for most callers continues to be anything but normal. Most people are under the impression that the holidays are a trigger for suicidal people and yet statistically the closer we get to Spring time is the most crucial time for most. It’s when everyone seems to break free from the cold weather and wake up from the hibernation stage that lonely and depressed people tend to do the opposite: fall deeper into a stage of sadness.

Callers are plagued by severe depressions usually ranging from loss of a marriage, lack of health or declining health, financial trouble and so on. There is one common thread amongst our callers: the overwhelming and overshadowing feeling of loneliness. No one seems to care. No one seems to understand. No one can relate. There is no one to call. No one calls them. Add to that mix declining health with a grim hope for improvement and possibly a spouse or partner who is now seeing someone else and we are dealing with a recipe for disaster.

Having been at a place where I felt devastated about having to wait for a diagnosis of lymphoma and putting my thoughts together for my Last Will, I can empathize with most people who are in a similar position. Feeling stuck in a marriage that seemed like a true prison to me and was unhealthy for both of us but not knowing or seeing that I had a way out adds to my understanding of people who are finding themselves in the same place.

I realized that everything seemed to have been taken from me by some unknown force (and yet there was no one to blame): my happiness, my marriage, my health, even my days were numbered. I had hit rock bottom. I had nothing else to lose…

It was during this time that I had an inkling of hope, a flash of “aha!” popped into my mind: “What if I missed something?” "What if there WAS a way out and I had just missed it?" I did miss something, the most important thing of all – my purpose, the very reasons for which I have come to be here. I did not know what that purpose was at that very moment, I just knew that I was unique (just like everyone else) and that I had come to create something that was reserved for me only. I didn't know what it was yet, but I trusted that it would be shown to me in due time. All I needed to know right then was that there was more than what meets the eye.

A new desire emerged.

Note: I was never diagnosed with a mental illness and this post and any other of my posts are not meant to be substitution for medical advice.

So what did I do and how did I overcome my illness and change my life?

Stay tuned for Part 2 of this post where I share with you simple strategies that helped me recover once and for all and turn my life around to be the happy and living the successful life that I am living today. I am exited to share with you some tips that may just help some amazing people out there find hope for themselves.

A while back the Learning Annex asked me to teach another class on how to overcome procrastination. I remember thinking it weird that anyone who procrastinated would sign up for a procrastination class. Wouldn’t they just procrastinate signing up?

For those of you who have studied the art of setting goals, you may have discovered that most goals are never achieved and only 3 weeks after New Year’s day all resolutions are out the window. Why does this happen?

The reasons are endless; some delay goals, some forget about them, others change them and so on. The main reasons are different for each person; a faster explanation may be as follows: Most people are putting too many goals on their list and aim too high and then try to attempt the path on their own and without support. In addition, most people are too hard with themselves and at the slightest inkling of what feels like failure, they throw it all away. To add to this misery most people have a tendency to share their ambitious goals with those that have no business of knowing about them in the first place, because it’s as if they are just waiting in the bushes to pounce out and say: “Ha! I knew you couldn’t do it.”

There has to be a solution to changing our lives for the better – what is it?

First, go inside for wisdom and all answers. No, I’m not joking. We’re all different about how we look at goals and what they mean to us. One individual may have nightmares just thinking about a test, to another a test can be his greatest motivation to studying. For me personally the tighter a deadline and the harder the task, the more excited I get to achieving the goal. To others a deadline may be the most frightening thing ever.

For example, the most common New Year’s resolution of losing that holiday weight, or perhaps that of several holidays ago. No matter where you look you’ll find articles about how to lose that weight and what diet fad is new in Hollywood. In my humble opinion wanting to lose weight is the most useless and stupid New Year’s Resolution there is. It is cruel and rigid on your body, not realistic, causes overwhelm and is a pure path on putting your body straight behind bars. Prisons are meant to be broken out of, especially after those first 3 weeks in January are over and all New Year’s Resolutions have lost their appeal.

Perhaps trying this will work for you this year: Your goal this year is to always feel GREAT and to feel FIT.

Think about this, if you have one goal in mind and that is to feel great and fit, you have just stripped your scale of its rights. On the other hand, if you make it your goals to lose x-number of pounds then your scale becomes your say-all, your ruler, your king, your measuring stick, your boss. Instead let’s keep in mind that our bodies care for only the following; bodies want to feel cared for, fed with real food, satisfaction is a must, loved, caressed, hugged, paid attention to and used for what it was intended to (to move you around).

Are you getting it?


Order your body to take care of the weight loss part automatically. It was first created to work for you at its optimal capacity. The only thing you have to do is to pay attention to it, to listen to it, to love it and not to treat it right. Once your body feels that you are cooperating by showing it respect, it has no choice but to give you the same in return by bringing out the most gorgeous king or queen that you are already.

So this year make only one New Year’s Resolution: Respect yourself and your body, love yourself and your body, pay attention to your Soul’s wisdom instead of other people. Believe that you are protected by divine order. And the doors which open easiest for you in 2008 are the ones you are meant to walk through.

By the time you get to the end of 2008 and if you have faithfully held to this one desire, you will be in ecstasy, joy and amazement at how easy things fell into place for you this year. It’s pure magic indeed.

Wishing you a phenomenal year!