The LifeQuake Blog

Part of the process of cycles ending is that as things are deconstructing, your life may look like chaos and crisis. Whether you are married or in a relationship, this can become exponentially stressful. So what do you do to avoid your partner having a contract hit made on your life?

1) Don’t stop exercising just because you’re depressed that you lost your job or work is down.  If you are getting bored with doing the same old routine, try something new. If you’ve been running on the treadmill or at the park, try including yoga twice a week. Not only does it reduce stress but it will in time make your body much more flexible. A flexible body leads to a more flexible mind. A flexible, calm mind is less reactive to your partner, not to mention more attractive than a couch potato body.

2) Reduce your caffeine and sugar intake in a time of stress.  Increase your magnesium intake. Most people living in western civilization are magnesium deficient. It is a critical mineral for our bones for sure, but our nervous system needs it to thrive as well. My colleague, Dr. Hyla Cass, has a wonderful brain formula that I would recommend to people who are in a LifeQuake –CassMD.com.  There are many nutritional supplements that can nourish your adrenals and nervous system so that you are able to adapt more easily to a time of transition. A calm nervous system can minimize the crisis response to this upheaval. You will find yourself less argumentative with your partner if your body is balanced even if the outside looks like total chaos.

3) Meditation or guided visualization can be extremely beneficial to moving through a LifeQuake. This allows you to awaken to the new level of your evolution without tremendous resistance to letting go of the old life.

4) Examine your beliefs about receiving help from your partner. You can’t ask for support, be it financial, emotional, or physical if you aren’t first comfortable with receiving it.

5) Explain to your partner that you need to change the definition and expectations of your relationship. You may need more alone time. If you ask for it, you don’t have to get it by picking a fight and alienating your spouse.

6) When we are in transition, we often feel a loss of identity and self worth.  Find new ways to feel valuable besides your career such as being a more supportive partner. If you have more time now, write little notes to your significant other letting them know how appreciative you are for your relationship and their love for you. Do things for your partner that you didn’t have time to do when you working at a higher capacity.

7) Get out and donate your time to a charity. Giving back to others transforms you from one who is going through a change to one who is a change agent for the world. This level of generosity attracts opportunity to you and moves you into discovering your vocation of destiny. When we are passionate about our work, we are passionate in our relationships. Yes, altruism can be sexy!

Dr. Toni Galardi is a licensed psychotherapist, in practice in Santa Monica, Ca. She can be reached for consultation at 310-712-2600. Her new book, The LifeQuake Phenomenon: How to Thrive (not just survive) in Times of Personal and Global Upheaval

When people are diagnosed with a catastrophic illness, people rally around to support…in the acute stage. However, if that illness cannot be cured with a round of chemo and radiation it is difficult for most people to be supportive for years when the illness becomes chronic and debilitative. So how do you live with the incapacitating pain over many years when many of your friends may have disappeared?
The answer is simple, it’s the solution that is the challenge. You turn it into a LifeQuake. The difference between the chaos and stress one experiences when a crisis hits and the chaos and stress one experiences when you turn it into an awakening to a fuller potential you can be summed up in one word: context. Do you hold the experience in terms of the loss to your life as you have known it or do you choose to interpret this challenge as grace?
Here is one technique for transforming the belief that you have lost your health into taking a stand that out of this experience, you will become healthier:
Envision yourself in radiant health. What I mean by that is that you are happy and are glowing- radiating love like a person does when they are in love. Now, place your hands over your heart and imagine you are using your hands to direct love toward a pet or someone you have deep, positive feelings for. Once your hands start to get warm, direct that same intention of tenderness and unconditional love toward yourself, setting an intention that you are sending healing into your own body. After a few minutes, place your hands over your face, and keep radiating love toward your face.

Whether you have an illness or not, this technique will start to make you radiate and glow. Now go out and spread that energy through your smile to everyone you meet. This has a huge impact on the immune system, your emotions, and the well being of your fellow humans. Altruism takes many forms. When we choose to love ourselves in spite of whatever pain we are experiencing, we move the whole world forward. We assist all of humanity toward a new consciousness in which chaos and upheaval becomes the deconstruction of something that is no longer viable and the reconstruction of a new identity that is based on how much you love, not what you look like, how much money you have in the bank, or how much career clout you have.
Yes, long term illnesses can become the very thing that makes you the most powerful person imaginable.

Dr. Toni Galardi is a licensed psychotherapist, crisis coach, author of The LifeQuake Phenomenon: How to Thrive (not just survive) in Times of Personal and Global Upheaval and survivor of three near fatal experiences.  For personal consultation, she can be reached at 310-712-2600.

Now that the term “Bromance” is showing up in pop culture so prevalently, I found myself asking the question, why? Also, what changes might it bring to heterosexual relationships between men and women? As horrific a plague as AIDS is and has been on the world, perhaps it has changed men and their capacity for intimacy. When gay men started going to funerals as often as they were going to the gym, a change began to take place in the mating habits of homosexual men.
I started to see it in my practice: more gay men searching for relationships with men that had genuine intimacy and partnership. Although there is more tolerance in the male gay culture for non-monogamous relationships, as their friends began dying prematurely, more gay men began to seek a deeper connection than just sex with other men. Now that we are twenty five years down the road and another whole generation has reached adulthood, straight men are evolving and developing a stronger sense of their feminine side. Now, we women have pretty much taken credit for that as we entered the work force into more powerful positions and demanded more of men, thus developing our masculine side too.
Some of that may be true. Straight men have become more feminine as a result of the Feminist Movement but I think that gay men coming out of the closet has also had a huge impact on the relationship needs of straight guys. The prevalence of men raised by single mothers in this generation (a rather new phenomenon) created a void in traditional male modeling for intimacy, not just with women but in their friendships with men as well. Both men and women are searching for lives that contain meaning and purpose. Intimacy in relationships (all relationships) is growing stronger as we become more isolated in this cyberspace definition of friendship. Ashley Montagu’s seminal book, Touching: The Human Significance of the Skin (first published in 1971) showed us many years ago that we need to physically touch each other without sex necessarily as a follow up. It is interesting to note that the hard back release of Touching coincided with the beginning of the Gay Rights Movement and the paperback edition came out in 1986 as the AIDS epidemic in America began to proliferate in the straight world. Coincidence?
Who knew that the group who brought us Michel Angelo, Truman Capote, and Versace would also bring straight men into deeper connection with each other? As a straight woman who believes some straight men are capable of emotional intimacy, I thank you Harvey Milk and every brave gay man who has chosen to openly fight for the right to marry. Whether you know it or not, you are helping us women not just as our fashion consultants and substitute for boyfriends on Saturday night, but also by influencing our future husbands by your stand for marriage.

Dr. Toni Galardi is a licensed psychotherapist who has just published a book called The LifeQuake Phenomeonon. The thrust of her work is to assist people in releasing old beliefs that keep them from living a life that is authentic and joyful.
For more information: go to her website, www. LifeQuake.net or call
310-712-2600 for personal consultation.

Factually, spring is here. Traditionally, it represents the season of change. Unfortunately, this year our country appears to be in frozen emotional paralysis—people aren’t spending money, changing careers, or leaving dead relationships. This month’s column is dedicated to moving out of a winter mentality and the stasis it imposes. Look at it as my version of the stimulus package, one guaranteed to thaw the endless chill, while arousing those emotions in us all that both affirm and support life.

Dear Dr. Toni:
My husband of sixteen years and I have been sleeping in separate bedrooms for about a year. I had an affair two years ago for eight months and it made me realize that I no longer love my husband. I went back to him because we have a fourteen – year old daughter who really loves her father. We went to counseling and it was no use. I am just not in love with my husband anymore. I was planning to tell my daughter but as the economy has worsened, we just can’t afford to get divorced. What should I do—wait three years until we are out of this slump and my daughter graduates?
Georgia in Sedona

Dear Georgia:
First, let me just say that you are not alone in this dilemma. Many people are choosing to stay together for economic reasons right now. You don’t indicate in your letter how your daughter feels about you and her father sleeping in separate bedrooms. Has this been discussed? More importantly, what is the emotional climate in the house? Are you two conducting a cold war or living as amiable roommates? Have you discussed possible alternatives with each other? If you are absolutely certain that you cannot afford to provide two households for yourselves and your child, then I would suggest having a family meeting in which you openly discuss restructuring your marriage and your family.

Be honest with your daughter about the fact that although you are still a family, you and your husband are no longer functioning as husband and wife. Although this may seem obvious, giving her an opportunity to talk about her feelings about the arrangement is a gesture of respect for her as well as role modeling honest communication.

Dear Dr. Toni:
I know that food, drugs, and alcohol are the usual things people can become addicted to but is it possible to be addicted to YouTube? I am bored with my job. It no longer challenges me. I get all my work done, so it doesn’t interfere with my competence or performance and my boss doesn’t care as long as I get the work done. Do I need to be concerned?
Tube Boob

Dear Reader:
The fact that you are asking the question tells me you know something is up here. Addiction has nothing to do with how much we consume or what we consume. The issue is what are you using your addiction to avoid? Arguably, there is some real feeling you are unable to confront. Try this: Go cold turkey. No YouTube for three days. Notice what feelings come up. Write about these feelings in a journal. What are you afraid of that you are not facing? I am not suggesting you leave your job. Just give yourself a chance to address these newly discovered feelings with no judgment about that they mean. To counteract the boredom you described, now take some time to notice what in the course of your day interests you. Jot that down, too. Do this exercise for three days. Is there a connection between the things you do find interesting? They could be a clue to your vocation of destiny. For further information on preparing for change, you might find some useful tools in my blog: LifeQuake.wordpress.com, dated Mar 9-13. I dedicated five articles to this subject. When addictive habits show up at a time when you should be making changes, often the central belief is that change translates as loss; that you will lose your security if you make a change.

However, all addictions, even Internet ones, can be clues to what you are to do next with your career. Perhaps you should be involved in video or film production, for example. Many people who were corporate executives found their calling as recovery counselors after they went into treatment. All addiction has within it the power to create great transformation if we use it as a sign to get treatment and un-thaw the feelings it has numbed out. Embracing our fears both personally and globally will take us out of winter and bring on an “evolutionary spring”.

Dr. Toni Galardi is a licensed psychotherapist, public speaker, and the author of her new book: The LifeQuake Phenomenon: How to Thrive (not just survive) in Times of Personal and Global Upheaval. The LifeQuake Phenomenon can be purchased through her website www.LifeQuake.net or the online bookstores. For those seeking private consultation, she can be reached at 310.712.2600. To submit questions for Ask the LifeQuake™ Doctor, contact Dr. Toni Galardi through DrToni@LifeQuake.net (no period after the Dr).

For the longest time I resisted the whole idea of meeting someone “online.”

I was absolutely convinced that Internet dating attracted married men, guys who couldn’t get a date on their own, or creeps.  Unfortunately, if you’re over forty in Los Angeles, men just don’t notice you in public. Coffee houses, bars, and gyms are the domain of the perky blonde with a hard body and augmented breasts, so what is an attractive, smart, funny middle-aged woman to do in such a crisis?

So, I agreed to try one and only one of the dating sites that at least had a decent reputation. Anthropologically speaking, it has been a fascinating exploration into the courtship rituals of humanity in the time of cyberspace. Before the 90’s, if you met someone through friends or at a social function, if you liked one another, you would go out. If you really enjoyed the date it would lead to another date and then if you still liked each other, eventually you would become an item and perhaps live together or get married.

Now you can meet someone online, have a great conversation with them on the phone, maybe even go out, have a mutually great time and never hear from the guy again. Why? Because you are like a dish at a Swedish smorgasbord. He may have had a great time with you but there are 20 more great dishes to be had so why would he settle for the first course? And now there’s an additional operative. We’re in an economic crisis so men are looking for women as investments the way women used to look at men. If a woman is making great money or has abundant assets, a lot of men who wouldn’t have considered an older woman when they were flush are now making pragmatic choices, so the game is changing.

You might ask, well then why do it and risk finding out the guy you just went out with is married or interested in you monetarily? Because I believe in practical magic – the law of attraction.   Figure out what your five must-haves are and be brave, be purposeful, be intentional and be patient. I believe that if you visualize exactly what you want and you are patient and are willing to keep saying no to guys who don’t have at least five of your must haves, the universe will deliver your request.

And maybe the smorgasbord is like the journey to the Holy Grail. By experiencing lots of different men, you get clearer and clearer about what you do want. And on the journey to the heart, each, if you let them, will change you a little and certainly make a contribution to your understanding that men are just as fragile when it comes to intimacy as we are .

Dr Toni Galardi is the Change Expert and has a new book out to help you overcome the fear of change, The LifeQuake Phenomenon: How To Thrive (not just survive) in Times of Personal and Global Upheaval.

For a lot of years, Los Angeles and South Florida held the joint monopoly on summer clothes in the winter. And then Miami dropped. All those people who migrate south in the winter were mighty disappointed with the extreme temperatures of Florida’s bitter 60 degree weather. God forbid, you might have to wear a sweater and pants.

My father called me from “Boca” (that’s what they call it there). In Boca Raton, where every retired New Yorker goes to play golf, they were hibernating inside. I felt very smug because here In Los Angeles it was 80 degrees and everyone was wearing shorts! I wanted rain. I really wanted rain! And then the rain came… and came and came. And I started to think, maybe this is a good thing for us Angelinos and not just because we need the water conservation.

Winter is a great time for reflection and contemplation. If you turn inward and just sit with yourself for awhile, the imagination can begin to marinate. The best soups I’ve ever made were their tastiest after being frozen for weeks and then defrosted and heated. But just like a great soup, if there isn’t time for it to just let all the ingredients of your psyche come into some kind of relationship in your subconscious, what gets produced is not rich or deep in flavor.

Something else I think is great about all this rain and cold weather is that it is bringing up people’s real emotions. When the sun is shining, it is easy to displace your fears and anxieties on a good game of tennis or golf, for example. 

I created a seven-stage model for helping people overcome the fear of change and it came to me in the dead of winter. Yes, I’m excited about all this rain. I have a strong sense that late April is going to bring a Spring full of possibilities. In the mean time, jot all your inspirations onto paper or even a blog perhaps. And then in Spring, and not until Spring, see if there is a connection between the ideas. You may have a whole new career waiting for you. I teach people to get outside their boxes and risk. So here’s one – in the spirit of Gene Kelly, go outside and sing in the rain. It can do wonders for your creativity!

Dr. Toni Galardi’s new book The LifeQuake Phenomenon is now available to be ordered.

This year I spent Valentine’s Day in the most unusual fashion. A girlfriend of mine had loaned me a series of four DVDs entitled Understanding Women. The speaker is a woman by the name of Allison Armstrong and she has a company dedicated to giving education to men and women about each other for the purpose of promoting partnership. Well, she loaned me these DVDs  four months ago while I was in the midst of finishing the editing of my first book. Needless to say, I forgot about the tapes until my friend called about them three days before Valentine’s Day. I had plans with a friend for a romantic evening at his home, but I thought it might be a great opportunity to watch them with a guy since they are, after all, for guys.

My friend had other ideas, equally unromantic by my lights.  As a member of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences, he had all the movies up for an Oscar, but the movie he wanted to watch was – you ready for this – The Wrestler. Well, I wasn’t interested, to say the least. I offered an alternative – that we watch these DVDs. He hesitantly acquiesced.

I thought for sure he’d watch maybe fifteen minutes and be bored.  I couldn’t have been more wrong. He was captivated by how her explanation of most of what drives men crazy about women is rooted in our evolutionary biology. She explains (with loads of humor) why women need to give you the details when reporting on the day’s events, why women need men to be monogamous, and why a beautiful, educated trim woman is more critical of herself than even the average, overweight, uneducated guy, and much more.

Not only did my friend enjoy the DVD, in the morning he went MIA (missing in action).  When I woke up and went looking for him, I found him in the guest bedroom watching the remaining DVDs!  Separate and apart from the information, I felt enlightened just by the fact that I had underestimated my friend in his capacity to both want to watch The Wrestler and be mesmerized by four hours of a talking head explaining the opposite sex. Which made me think, how much do we underestimate each other in other areas? So, when he asked me to smoke a cigar with him in the Jacuzzi, how could I resist? I’m the Change Expert.  My philosophy is everything not dangerous to do just once, should be done once. Freud may have been right that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and sometimes it’s a great metaphor if you’re a woman, for embracing your inner Al Capone.

Dr. Toni Galardi’s new book on mastering change, The LifeQuake Phenomenon, can be purchased in pre-order from her website, 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.

With more than 500,000 jobs cut in January alone, loss of employment is becoming more common than any of us would like to admit. However, if you look at temporary unemployment as an opportunity rather than a loss, you’re more likely to be back on your feet in no time. Here are five tips for anyone looking to get back to businesses quickly and painlessly:

1) Initiate or maintain a healthy diet. The stress of a loss of income and identity can stimulate a lot of anxiety which is very challenging to the immune system. In times of stress, some people turn to sugar which is the worst culprit for lowering healthy bacteria in your gut and promoting upper respiratory infections. Keeping an exercise routine will increase endorphins which also strengthen the immune system. Feeling physically strong supports mental acuity and well being.

2) Write a first draft of your resume and congratulate yourself on how much you’ve already accomplished. Sometimes the crisis and pain of sudden unemployment triggers an onslaught of feeling inferior to others who still have a job. Remember to celebrate your small achievements along the road to success.

3) Ask yourself if this happened to force you into a new direction. Consider the possibility of creating a business from home. Look at your resume and see if there is something you are skilled in from your past experience and also have a passion for, but didn’t have the guts to risk doing for fear of failure or financial limitations.

4) Volunteer at a non-profit organization while you are either job hunting or creating a new business. An avocation can turn into a vocation. While I was working for a company in downtown Los Angeles, I incurred an on- the- job injury and while I was in rehab, I volunteered at an agency that educated the public on sexual assault issues. An opening occurred for the director position that was paid and I got the job. This led to my decision to go back to school and become a psychotherapist. Sometimes, what appears to be the end of your life is but a fork in the road.

5) Enlist the aid of your community: family and friends. Let them know what you are looking for and give them the opportunity to be of service. With the Internet, we are living in times that are truly six degrees of separation. You never know who knows who. Ask, ask, ask…

With good reason, lately all eyes have been on our President and his much-anticipated stimulus package.  The lion’s share of January was spent on news regarding the creation of a somewhat surprisingly bi-partisan cabinet, including a little controversy on Hilary Clinton and her competition for the Secretary of State position with our new vice-president, Joe Biden. Most of what has been written about the President’s wife had to do with her wardrobe, what she wore to the inaugural, how she needs a stylist, etc.

What has gotten a lot less press is the issue of the First Lady’s own mission – to inspire children to become successful by giving back to their communities. When I read in Slate Magazine how this message to kids to become civically involved because her own road to success and had come from her community involvement in an otherwise, unremarkable middle class childhood I jumped for joy. In the last stage of my LifeQuake model for helping people master change, I talk about how once you are not afraid of change in your own life, the natural extension is to become an agent of change in the world.  When I was writing the last chapter of my book and doing research on altruism (giving selflessly to help others), I was surprised and delighted to discover how much solid research exists. There are so many benefits psychologically, physically, and even financially to being a humanitarian. Our First Lady is definitely a reflection of how “I do good” becomes “I feel good when I do good.”  The President may have a daytime Dream Team in the White House, but I would guess that the woman he sleeps with is making his night time dreams a better reality for us all.

Dr. Toni Galardi’s new book is called The LifeQuake Phenomenon: How to Thrive (not just survive) in Times of Personal and Global Upheaval available on pre-order through her website www.LifeQuake.net.