The LifeQuake Blog

When Barack Obama got elected as our president, everyone was expecting great change to come to America and I said then, it would depend on us as a mass consciousness, not one man or his administration or even a democratic congress. We are a nation that predominantly fears change if it means we have to disrupt the familiarity of our own lives. We want the world to change and keep our creature comforts in place. Statistically, we know that as the economy is shrinking, addiction is skyrocketing. The first inpatient facility devoted to internet addiction opened recently and that is just one of the many ways people are using external substances to distract themselves from making radical internal changes.

If you really want to see the health care issue resolved, clean up your own health habits. Instead of thinking you need a new job, come up with a new idea People who come to me seeking my advice as a career coach, get panicked over sending hundreds of resumes out and getting nowhere. I cannot tell you how many times I have assisted a client in thinking outside the box as to how to make more money and live even better than when they were working for someone else. Itis common to want to reach for the comfort ( there is that word again) of a paycheck beleiving you have to get a job right away to handle your nut. Six months pass and no job and you’re even worse off. Now you’re depressed and defeated and have no creative energy to consider another way to begin your next career chapter.
Here are some tips for career change in tough economic times:
1) begin the day ( before moving into action) with your eyes closed by visualizing yourself working in an environment where you are happy. you dont need big details right now: just your three must haves like: Here is an affirmation from the Depression era of the 1930′s that people used to have financial breakthroughs when everyone else was buying into the economy: “I am doing joyous work in a joyous way.I give joyous service for joyous pay.”
2) expect success and watch your mind so when self defeating statements begin, you can simply witness them and choose to let them go.

3) Set an intention for looking for evidence that your life is changing in a positive direction. A smile from a stranger, an extra bagel given to you by the guy behind the counter, finding a quarter on the sidewalk. It starts with little pieces of grace and gets bigger as you notice more of that than you do what is lacking in your life.

4) Before you go to sleep at night, scan the day for moments when you felt enthusiasm. write it down. then ask your unconscious to bring you a dream that guides you toward your next step. Many famous inventors and scientists discovered the solutions to problems in a dream. When you awaken, write down anything you remember, even if it doesn’t make sense yet. Set an intention for your mind to be open to new ideas throughout the day. A great idea may come from over hearing a conversation in line at the local coffee house.

5) Count your blessings three times over the course of the day. In the middle east, they stop and pray five times a day, well there is something to be said by this.

Look for signs of change. Autumn is just around the corner!

Dr. Toni Galardi is a career coach, columnist and author of her new book, The LifeQuake Phenomenon: How to Thrive ( not just survive) in Times of Personal and Global Upheaval

Last night I was watching an old documentary of Judy Garland. One of the narrators who had once been head of CBS commented that she was the greatest entertainer of the twentieth century. She had exceptional abilities as a singer, dancer, and actor. The narrator also made the observation that her vulnerability is what endeared her to an audience. She held nothing back. Her interpretation of a song had such heart and she also let it all hang out in television interviews as well. She told the truth, her truth of course, as a great raconteur, but she didn’t craft a story just to make herself look good. She didn’t hide and people loved her for it, and yet “she could hit a song like a guy, with the command that Sinatra brought to his music.”

I thought about this as I heard Berry Gordy refer to Michael Jackson as being the greatest entertainer that ever lived. Two people who were loved by their fans, their family and friends, and had long time drug addiction issues. Although Michael was extremely vulnerable inside, he wore a mask, literally and figuratively. He hid so much of himself and as he got older, the secrets got bigger, and the addiction more pervasive.

What gave both of their performances on stage such power was in part ( at least on the emotional level) that vulnerability. The greatest performance artists of our time have it and few escaped addiction. The paradox of what it takes to reach an audience and what it costs you (if you are that vulnerable) is tremendous. Being in the spotlight with all eyes on you with the public’s incredibly ridiculous projections contrast so greatly with how the individual who is a “sensitive” feels on the inside. To be an icon who the public can identify with requires access to the little guy inside and yet this child part has no coping skills for the demand of always being on display. Alcohol, pills, and heavy narcotics become the way that this child part finds to shut out the world and all its expectations.

I think that the deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett ( another highly sensitive star who had once had some addiction issues) are shining the light on addiction, but they pose another cautionary lesson. To be a leader whether that is in the entertainment business, politics, religious institutions, or corporate America is to bring your authentic self to the people. The evolution of our consciousness is demanding that all “the masks and gloves” be ripped off of anyone in the public eye who purports to be one thing and keeps another shame ridden self deep in the cellar of the subconscious. Although we are seeing this “uncovery” through people like Jackson, Ted Haggart, and Governor Sanford, we too are being called to step out of the shadows.

Every human being has a part of themselves that is the child, that is vulnerable and scared at times. It is time for us all, not just our leaders, to attend to that child. To listen without judgement to its fears rather than sedating or numbing out its cries. When we invoke within ourselves a good parent to take care of the child, authenticity comes easier and so do boundaries. When the child part of us is not abandoned by us through substance abuse, food, and a myriad of distractions such as internet addictions, we can handle the judgements of the world and give the child what it really needs: love from the self not fleeting adulation from others. And to be a good parent means to say to the child: “loving you sometimes means telling you no.” “No, you can’t spend more than you have, eat more than you need to be healthy, or sacrifice sleep to get more done in a day.

I have great hope for America. We have come far since the days of Bill Clinton who did not trust himself or the people to come clean with his addictions. In the few months since he has been in office, Barack Obama has taken full responsibility for mistakes made. A perfect president? Far from it. However, I do think he is more authentic than anyone we’ve seen in office yet so it is for us to take our masks off first to ourselves and peer into our own deepest shadow and let the world see us: good, bad, and ugly. Every time you allow vulnerability without shame, every time you allow vulnerability through self deprecating humor, you stand for a healed relationship with your emotions and you provide a leadership to whomever is listening to you: your children, your community, your co-workers. This is the key to America’s recovery.

Thanks to reality tv, everyone wants overnight celebrity driven success. Andy Warhol said prophetically, eventually, everyone would be famous for 15 minutes. What if we stopped seeking the spotlight and replaced it with our inner light? It could be the key to feeling strong through vulnerability. If what we are seeking is to give the world our light, our full potential self, there is no need to buffer ourselves with addictive substances because there would be no disparity between what shines through you and what is you. This is the real stardom…

Dr. Toni Galardi is a licensed psychotherapist and author of her new book The LifeQuake Phenomenon: How to Thrive ( not just survive) in Times of Personal and Global Upheaval

I notice that on mornings that I don’t start the day with meditation, my thinking process is so much more rigid. It seems to be like dominos.  If I jump out of bed and begin by moving fast, it revs my nervous system. In a hyper state, my mind seems to think in more negative terms. The more wired I am, the poorer my food choices are, the less good fuel I have for my brain and the less agile my mind is in handling unexpected challenges or crises.

When I start the day by breathing into my diaphragm and opening myself to get more oxygen into my body, I find that my mind expands and creative ideas come pouring in. When I get up from a sitting posture, I’m more centered, moving more slowly, and the choices I make for my breakfast are more nourishing.  I then find myself to be more present, focused, and loving with my friends and clients.  I then am more prone to use meditation tools in my coaching.  I also am a much better problem solver and able to change course in my schedule if need be more easily.

As I was watching President Obama’s address last night to the bi-partisan room, I couldn’t help but think, if  the various factions of our government could only meditate together, we could make a huge leap in thinking outside the box together.  Perhaps each of us citizens meditating could be like a good virus that infects us all with peace and then change in our own lives might not be that hard after all and the last domino becomes all of humanity.  Just from meditating for five minutes a day…

Dr. Toni Galardi  is a crisis management coach  and psychotherapist. Her new book on adapting to change  The LIfeQuake Phenomenon: How to Thrive (not just survive) in Times of Personal and Global Change is now available through her website http: www.LifeQuake.net.

Connections have been made between the challenges facing this administration and that of Roosevelt’s because many think another Depression is imminent and that the stimulus package is another New Deal of sorts.

The state of our economic affairs is quite different than in the 1930’s, mostly because we are now a global economy. Ok, so everyone knows that. But here’s the thing: we are heading into a time of great economic correction. It is the only way America (and so goes the world) will get itself back to the essential values this country was built on. It doesn’t matter if an orangutan was our president (and, arguably, we did have one in the oval office for eight years) now if he could inspire hope in all of us. There is a higher order being called for in this economic LifeQuake– our evolution. What President Obama and President Roosevelt have in common is their genuine optimism, powerful oratory and likeability by the American people.

FDR had a very difficult second term and yet we re-elected him again and then again because he kept people’s hope afloat. Despite his affluent background, the common man could relate to him and not in the way of being the guy you want to have a beer with, but the patrician father you want leading your country. Obama has that and we are going to need that. We are heading for darker days but we need to remember that all growth takes place in darkness: a fetus in a mother’s womb, mushrooms deep in the earth, and the grizzly bear in his winter cave. So, as we enter this winter cycle, we must remember Spring will emerge, but we must let the old cycle and old ideas about what prosperity is die first. Human beings do not change overnight. This incubation may require a long winter. Thank God we have a young President. In the age of climatic challenges, terrorism on our soil,  AND economic challenges, Roosevelt would never have survived a first term.

It is 73 days until the inauguration.

What I find interesting about this election is that the key concept that both candidates campaigned on was who was going to bring change to America and yet we are a country that, for the most part, fears change.

Take a poll. Ask a dozen people on the street what feeling gets evoked when they think about making personal changes? Two will most probably say they get excited. Five will probably say they feel a low level of anxiety and then another five will admit to all out panic.

So what is at the bottom of this fear and how will it play out in the coming months?

For most of us, the fear of change involves the fear of loss. And, more specifically at this time, economic loss. In conversations with certain wealthy friends, most of whom voted for McCain, the fear is that their taxes will go up and the country will go red.

It is funny how the party that is associated with the color red is accusing the opposing party who they say are communist of ‘going red’. The color red has sure changed its interpretation in American politics. Red used to mean commie or socialist. Now it’s the blue people who are being accused of wanting a socialist state by the very people who refer to themselves as part of the red states.

We’re a very confused bunch here in America. But I digress.

Getting back to this fear of loss, I think what we most fear right now is the fear of the unknown. Anyone who has a brain in his head knows that one man cannot fix the economic crisis we are in. One man cannot stop climatic catastrophes. And one man cannot appropriate funds to fix the decaying and in some places dangerously decaying physical infrastructure of our country’s roads, dams, and bridges.

So we will resort to what we have always used to exact change: CRISIS. What we need to prepare for in America in the next 73 days is an ability to adapt to crisis-driven change. As the LifeQuakes unfold in the coming years, those who will thrive will have strong ‘emotional retrofitting’ to see opportunity where others see loss. Like a house that has appropriate retrofitting, in spite of the earth beneath it erupting, it can bend and adapt to the movement without being destroyed. It is my sincere hope that when my book comes out in early ’09, The LifeQuake Phenomenon: Your Definitive Roadmap Through Seismic Change, it can provide a useful tool box for building a mobile yet grounded inner foundation while we move toward the future on a road that is fraught with fault lines.

So how do the red and blue states come together to support effective change? Well, if you merge the two colors they become the color purple. Perhaps the first step in preparing for this next administration is to bring the color purple back in vogue. Milton Erickson, the psychologist who pioneered modern day hypnosis was color blind except for the color purple. Maybe, we all need to see the world through the prism of the color purple and develop some color blindness so that we do see each other as part of a whole, the Wholy Self called humanity.

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Tomorrow I will be traveling 125 miles to vote.

I have been on a kind of self-imposed sabbatical the past six months so that I could finish editing my book The LifeQuake Phenomenon: Your Definitive Roadmap Through Seismic Change, which is on its way to my publisher as I write this.

Now, you might say that’s a lot of effort for nothing given the fact that I am voting for Barack Obama and the electoral votes in California already go to him. Besides the fact that I have voted in every presidential election since I was nineteen, there is something else.

Today, the day before the election, while I was meditating I felt a tremendous energy shift coming onto the planet. Change is definitely in the air! Big, humungous changes are coming. And I don’t mean just that we may be electing our first black president. Our country I predict, is going to go through such massive changes over the next five to seven years that we will not be recognizable on the other side.

It will be tempting for people to perceive what is coming as doom and gloom: a recession or depression, climactic catastrophes, government fraud exposures, and more disasters in the decaying infrastructure of our highways, dams, and bridges.

However, believe it or not, we will rise like the phoenix bird out of the ashes. This rebirth will take us to a higher vision of who we can be. As we collectively restructure our lives and spend our energy on what really matters – each other – a great ascension will take place in America and we will lead the world from a humbler place that brings inclusiveness of all nations.

There is a long road ahead and Barack Obama, if he is elected, has a perilous if not downright dangerous role to play as our leader. I reach out to any and all who are reading this to surround our next president in light tomorrow night. Supporting whoever becomes president with good intentions has the power to support change that will evolve us all as a people.

The world is watching, America!