The LifeQuake Blog

Saving money will surely be high on the scale of 2009 New Year’s resolutions, as will the typical plans to quit smoking, eat healthier and start exercising. When we barge into the New Year, with all of its fresh to-do lists and desires to make changes cold turkey, it’s vital to have a plan of action. If you’re having a hard time complying with your own resolutions, I have some advice for you.

It is vital to clearly define your goals in order to see them come to fruition in 2009. I have compiled five tips for sticking to your New Year’s resolutions, which include: 

1. education
2. self-awareness
3. setting goals
4. taking action
5. celebrating success

I will be explaining these steps on KUSI’s “Good Morning San Diego” this morning. Check back later today for video from the segment, which will explain these tips in greater detail.

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.

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.

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!

As I was sitting at my favorite café reading my newspaper, the Italian owner shared with me that he was going to Italy for the first time in two years to celebrate his 40th birthday. I had just been reading of how the economic earthquake on Wall Street had started to reverberate in Europe. I asked him to report back when he returns on what the political climate is there and how they feel about us.

But he already knew.

He launched into a rant about what a super power America once was and now we are seen as lacking leadership and judgment. I know that since Bush was elected, we have steadily lost credibility with our European allies so this is no revelation, but perhaps there is another way to look at this.

Consistent with my LifeQuake™ philosophy – inside chaos lies the possibility of emerging a new system or structure – I speculate:

What happens here, so goes the world in some fashion. Imagine if we did have a financial LifeQuake™ here and used it as an opportunity to make life a bit more simple…

What if people figured out that eating high calorie low nutrition fast food was not the way to go as a steady diet, given the cumulative cost? What if we spent more time with our family at home watching a DVD instead of blowing $60 for a movie at the mall? And mostly, what if we discovered that what we need versus what we want is to focus more on giving than getting? Sounds utopian, right?

But, if it is true that the American value system has permeated European culture, than maybe what it means to be the leader of the free world is to step out of greed and show the world that we can best be represented by someone who doesn’t have 12 houses and whose skin color is more representative of most of the world. No matter who becomes President of the United States in November, we are going into difficult economic times.

So, let’s lead by example and use the metaphor of Autumn to shed the dead leaves in our own lives and get back to what is essential. True, winter is coming, but if we sow the seeds of the original values this country was built on – equality for all, freedom, and humanitarianism – Spring in a few years could be a garden where flowers occupying the same soil are blooming in many different colors!

I urge each of you that is experiencing the economic crisis to, instead, experience a LifeQuake™. Wake up and smell the opportunity! For more tips, visit my website at www.LifeQuake.net or email me at DrToni@LifeQuake.net.

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“The times they are a-changin’.” Looking back now, Bob Dylan’s lyric is remarkable for its sense of understatement. Not only are the times a-changin,’ but they are doing so with increased speed, greater force, and deeper magnitude. Look at the world we live in—for most of us, there is a constant demand to learn new technology just to live and work at the most basic level. Travel has become a security-driven nightmare, and climactic changes are arguably reaching startling levels. Is there an aspect of your life that isn’t subject to wholesale change with all its attendant chaos? Given the current state of things, I find chaos a relevant topic, one worth examining more fully.

In ancient Greek mythology, chaos was the primordial womb from which the first gods and goddesses were born. Gaia, the first deity, emerged from this dark void space. Symbolically, she would come to represent Mother Earth, the very stuff from which we evolved. So, in a manner of speaking, you could say that chaos is in our DNA. In the world of quantum physics, once organisms reach their maximum structural potential they burst into chaos, only to reorganize at a higher level. A more readily visible example of this actually comes by way of the cycle of the four seasons: things that come to life in the spring flourish in the summer, only to die in the autumn. After falling to the ground, they decompose, fertilizing the very ground they came from. Yet when cycles end in our lives and things start to deconstruct, we resist the change and resultant chaos, even though it is every bit a natural part of life as the passing seasons.

So, what is the impact of that resistance? More importantly, how is it manifesting for you?

Well, maybe you’ve recently noticed a distinct shift in the nature of your relationships with others. Or perhaps you’ve become aware of a loss of passion and fire in your life, a feeling that, come to think of it, has been around a lot longer than you care to remember. Even more difficult, maybe what you’ve been feeling lately isn’t even that discernible, you might say it’s like a spiritual itch you can’t quite scratch.

These can all be early signs of what I call a LifeQuake™.

Hi, my name is Dr. Toni Galardi. I coined the term ‘LifeQuake’ to describe a phenomenon I have witnessed in both the lives of my clients and seminar attendees, as well as in my own personal life. I began to see symptoms that looked like clinical depression, anxiety, and addiction issues but were actually paradoxical signs of spiritual awakening – an awakening to a life led by your intuition with a career that’s a calling not just a job.

So, what exactly is a LifeQuake, and how does it show up? If we see ourselves as microcosms of the planet, then we too each have a core encased in layers. Your Wholy Self is in your core being, the highest manifestation of the person you really are. However, it is typically buried under layers made up of societal programs, familial indoctrination, and even religious beliefs, which keeps it from reaching full expression at the surface of your consciousness. When your Wholy Self stirs, your core starts to rumble, softly at first, but if left unattended, it does so with ever-deepening intensity. If you resist that intensification by ignoring it, pressure builds in the fault lines of your psyche. As in an earthquake, so it goes with a LifeQuake—the longer the quaking, the more devastating the fallout. When left to reach its most intense level of resistance, the tremors within you will bring catastrophe into your life from which there is no retreat—now you have to change, like it or not.

Can you relate to this? write to me about your experiences.