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

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).

People are not sleeping well these days. My clients complain about it, my friends complain about it, and even my parents complain about it. As a former insomniac, I thought I should give some tips in today’s blog about how to resolve this important issue. Lack of sleep ages the body like no other lifestyle factor.  It lowers the immune system and interferes with the REM sleep phase which is so important to dreaming (even if you don’t remember dreaming, dreaming is essential to health). Lack of sleep is also the number one cause of auto accidents, and it retards one’s ability to adapt to daily stress.

Here are some tips that work for me:
1) Force yourself to turn off the TV and computer at least one hour before bed.
2) Go to sleep at the same time every night and wake up at relatively the same time every morning, even on weekends.
3) Listen to soothing music and read books or magazines that are not disturbing but are uplifting.
4)  Do some kind of cardio work-out at least five days a week earlier in the day.
5) Eat complex carbohydrates like rice, pasta, or potatoes at dinner. It increases serotonin, the chemical that calms the brain.
6) I have found for me, one milligram of melatonin one half hour before bed really helps. Some people find taking tryptophan, an amino acid promotes sleep naturally.
7) Scan the day you just completed. Take note of what your emotional state was at every point in the day.  Now using your awareness, scan your body from head to toe. Wherever there is pain, breathe into it until you start to feel it release a little.
8) Count your blessings instead of sheep as you drift off to dream land…

As a change expert and crisis management consultant, I am often asked by journalists, “Is what is going on with Wall Street, a LifeQuake? ”  My answer is always the same: “It depends.”

In September, as I was finishing the final edits on my book, the newspaper headline read,  “Wall Street Quakes!” and I thought, oh, it has begun. For some people, the stock market crashing meant the end of their life savings, for some, the end of a dream to retire, and for others it meant a crossroads.

A LifeQuake is not a mere crisis but an awakening to a new level of consciousness that can come from a crisis.
So for some, who use this crisis to learn how to adapt to change on the spin of a dime, the stock market going up and down can be a lot like our emotions over the course of the day. Do you react to every event that you didn’t expect from fear or do you respond with the attitude that somewhere in this upheaval there is good? If we declare that no matter what happens, we are always winning, it doesn’t matter how the outer events unfold, you will experience your life as a winner. On the other hand, if your happiness is dependent on the DOW instead of the other Dow spelled “ Tao” that teaches us all that peace and security is always available, then your life and your inner state will always be like its own personal stock market: a rollercoaster.

Further, you will get trapped in seeing Wall Street as your Holy Grail instead of discovering the purpose of all this chaos – to know you are safe and secure no matter how life shows up and that love is all that really matters.  As someone who has lost everything a couple times over, I can tell you from personal experience that this economic crisis can take us from loss to liberation.

Dr. Toni Galardi is a licensed psychotherapist and the author of her new book, The LifeQuake Phenomenon: How To Thrive (not just survive) in Times of Personal and Global Upheaval. To order her new book or read her blog, go to www.LifeQuake.net.

The first step in learning how to stop worrying begins with prevention so that you don’t have to do an unnecessary first step in having to undo the habit to begin with. Even if you come from a long line of worriers and have a propensity toward the behavior you can still enlist habits that will minimize the tendency to begin with. So begin with looking at your health habits and set an intention for sticking to a balanced diet.

Eliminate highly caffeinated drinks (coffee, black tea, and red bull) that will heighten anxiety if you are in a highly stressed circumstance. Sugar also intensifies the nervous system and causes mood swings. It is important that if you are going through a LifeQuake or are prone to worry, that you make sure you eat a balanced diet of protein, complex carbohydrates, and healthy fats. When people cut out complex “carbs” as a way of losing weight it reduces serotonin, the neurotransmitter that keeps us calm, so by making sure that you eat brown rice, sweet potatoes, and whole grain pasta, you will keep your brain well balanced.

Another very important health habit that helps to prevent or reduce worrying is getting eight hours sleep a night. If you make it a habit of not watching the news or any television programs that have a violent or negative emotional tone in the evening and you spend thirty minutes decompressing before getting into bed (taking an Epson Salt bath, reading books with an uplifting message, meditation,etc) you will find that your nervous system will allow you to sleep more easily through the night.

3) If you are awakened by worrisome thoughts, get out of bed. Go into another room and sit in a comfortable chair. Bring your awareness to your breath. Now, scan your body and notice where you are feeling anxious. Is it in your chest, your throat, your head, etc? Bring your breath to the place you are holding the fear and ask to be shown a symbol for the feeling. For example, it might be a broken down shopping cart.  Ask the symbol, what is it afraid of? The answer might be – of being homeless or of not being able to buy food for your kids, etc
When I work with clients, sometimes they don’t know why they are worried. Scanning your body for where you are housing the worry and asking for a symbol makes it easier to get an answer. Our subconscious mind operates symbolically more than with words which is why our dreams are fraught with symbols.

Once you have a sense of what you are really afraid of, ask for a symbol that represents peace and trust. Trust is the antidote for worry. You cant worry and trust at the same time.  So, say the symbol for trust is an open hand. Imagine the open hand replacing the broken down shopping cart in your body. Breathe into it and then place it inside your heart with your intention.

Now ask your heart for one message that will help resolve your fear. For example, if your worry is that you are going to lose your job, now that you have brought calm into your body, ask your heart what action step do you need to take on this issue. Should you be pro-active in looking at other career options right now, for example. People often sense months in advance that they might be in for a big career change but instead of taking action they put their head in the sand and hope the tsunami isn’t going to hit them.

Another tip for dealing with worry is from my book The LifeQuake Phenomenon: How to Thrive (not just survive) in Times of Personal and Global Upheaval. I call it Name that Fear. Make a list of five things you are worried about. Do the exercise above with breathing into where you are storing the fear. Now exaggerate the feeling. Make it even bigger. Tell yourself to worry even more about the issue. Give yourself permission to really intensify the feeling. The feeling will lessen simply by you giving it permission to get even bigger.  Now next to the list of five things you are worried about, put your pen in your non-dominant writing hand and write a solution to the worry. By placing your pen in its non-dominant hand, you open the brain to more expansive options.

 Some of our worries about moving into transition for example may come from childhood and we need to go back to the original experience and relive it with the feeling of safety. Think about all the times you have succeeded at things you were at first worried about. Now ask yourself, How old you were when you first started the pattern of worrying? Bring the successful adult you back to the first experience you had of being in a new situation where it was a traumatizing or painful event.
For example, see the six year old you at school for the first time. Imagine the adult you being with the six – year – old child protecting him or her from harm.

Surround yourself with positive people who think expansively and creatively and remain trusting even at times of uncertainty. Worry is infectious but so is happiness so if you tend to be a “worry wart”, stay away from negative people as much as possible.

And lastly, learn how to meditate. There are countless books on meditation techniques on the market and if that proves too difficult, go to my website, www.LifeQuake.net/products and buy The LifeQuake Method CD. There are guided meditations that can help break the worry habit and if all that fails, there is always PASTA!

In yesterday’s blog I gave a technique that can assist you in preparing for change. Transforming the misperception that change means loss is the first step in recognizing when it is time to make a change. Once you have changed this core belief into one that allows you to embrace change as gain, you can then proceed to step 2.

Step 2 involves observation. Observe everything you experience in your life all day long in terms of the emotions they trigger. The first stage that begins the onset of a LifeQuake (the chaos that comes with your soul awakening to its next level of evolution) is boredom. When a cycle of our lives is closing and we cannot grow any longer in the form that it is in (ie. relationship, career, health habits, etc.), the first symptom that shows up is boredom. On the emotional tone scale, ecstasy is at the top, despair is at the bottom, and boredom is in the middle.  Boredom is considered a transition emotion. If you begin to assess what you are bored with as well as what interests you now, (instead of trying to artificially stimulate excitement through sex, drugs or alcohol for example), there are clues to your next destiny.

By observing where your emotions move up the emotional tone scale from boredom to let’s say, mild interest you can see what is beginning to enliven you now.  When I work with a client either by phone or in person, I always suggest doing this exercise for three weeks. Keep a tape recorder or pad of paper with you and quickly make a note of billboards you are drawn to, colors that attract you now, television programs, movies, conversations that you found particularly compelling, etc. Next to the description of what you were interested in, note the specific feeling it evoked.

After three weeks of observing what interests you in your life now, enlist the aid of a friend or coach to assess what connects the dots of your interests and write a paragraph describing a kind of vocation or lifestyle that would most enliven you now. Place it on your desk and spend five minutes a day envisioning yourself inside the life that best represents some or all of the elements most common to the theme you discovered when you connected the dots of your interests. You don’t have to know specific details such as the career that most expresses what gives your life meaning. It is enough to envision a kind of environment you want to work or live in, such as with a team of people or outdoors in nature and then allow the feeling you want to have inside that career or relationship to emerge and feel it with every fiber of your being, for five minutes.  Although it may seem far away, ‘the visionary life” cannot be had until you dare to dream it.  In the next blog, I will discuss how to acknowledge and dignify the dying of the life you are still in that is coming to an end.

Dr. Toni Galardi, better known as “The LifeQuake Doctor” is a change expert, psychotherapist, and columnist. Her new book The LifeQuake Phenomenon: How to Thrive (not just survive )in Times of Personal and Global Upheaval is now available through online publishers and through her website www.LifeQuake.net.

I hate networking groups. I’m one of those who can easily get up in front of a room full of people and speak for a whole day on a topic. I shine on camera and love radio interviews, but put me in a room where I have to tell you from my chair inside the room in 30 seconds what I do as a therapist and I start to shake, literally.  I usually fold my hands in front of me (bad body language) so the crowd (who are all looking at me when I stand up to introduce myself) won’t notice the tremor.  When I’m talking about something I’m passionate about, I can talk for hours, such as “how to anticipate change is coming”. Talking about myself is a little more complicated.

My biggest problem is describing what I do in thirty seconds.

There are those who are hypnotherapists and what they do is easy to describe: they help people lose weight, quit smoking, or manage stress better. There are those who are career coaches and, well, that is pretty obvious. There are those who work strictly with relationship issues. And there are those who help people make big transitions in their lives.

And then there’s me. I do all of the above and a few other things like dream interpretation and guided imagery as well. On the credential level, I’m a licensed psychotherapist and sometimes going deep into the subconscious realms is appropriate. Sometimes, what is being called for is pragmatic problem solving, and I am also called in to work with CEOs occasionally to consult on their business. 

And just when I was getting the hang of describing all the many hats I wear, a new one appeared with the release of my first book: “Crisis Management Expert.” I have been working in the field of crisis intervention for 25 years and have given interviews to the media on this subject for awhile now, but it wasn’t something I announced. They just came to me when they needed me.

I liked it in the old days (the ancient 80’s) when it was enough of a credential being a psychotherapist and all I had to say was “ I help people overcome their fear of change and reduce the need for crisis as a motivator.” Heh, maybe that’s the sound bite. Just forget all the labels. Hmm-Thirty seconds may start to seem like a long time.

Dr. Toni Galardi has just released her first book, The LifeQuake Phenomenon: How to thrive (not just survive) in These Times of Personal and Global Upheaval, which can be purchased through her website at http://www.LifeQuake.net.

There is no doubt that we are in challenging times.

Being a good parent requires so much more of the typical American mom and dad than in any other previous generation. With both parents working at some point in a child’s life in most households, there is a lot to juggle. Women have a fraction of the testosterone that men have and yet are expected to perform at both work and home at very high levels. When we empty out of testosterone, we start using adrenal fluid and this is what causes adrenal exhaustion, immune deficiency and life burnout.

So here are some tips for the whole family in coping with daily stress and hopefully preventing catastrophic illness. 

1. This is the building block tip so really take this one in: get at least 7 hours sleep a night. sleep is what rebuilds the cells of the body and allows you to cope with sudden changes and daily responsibilities.
2. Eat breakfast and include some kind of protein, vegetable or animal based. if your body does not have fuel to burn, it burns away at muscle mass. Your blood sugar being stable allows you to handle whatever comes your way more efficiently.
3. Stay hydrated. Our bodies are evolving and the human species are needing more water than they once did. The more coffee, tea, or carbonated drinks you have, your body becomes dehydrated and you require even more water.
4. Making sure you balance everyone’s time on the computer with cardio-vascular exercise. Studies have shown that the whole world is becoming more obese because we are using machines that once required manual labor and even rural farm areas around the world are getting fatter. Exercise is one of the best ways to de-stress by increasing endorphins and reducing global warming. According to the New York Times, May 2008, obese people consume 18% more food than normal weight people and use transportation that requires gas more often than those who ride their bikes or walk to get around.
5. It is important to pay attention to signs of stress in your family. Do you notice a family member becoming more impatient, flying off the handle at the least little thing. Are your children eating more than usual and gaining weight? Is your husband or wife drinking having an extra glass or two of wine every night? Are your children’s grades dropping suddenly? are you or your spouse working longer hours? If you see these signs, it is important to address it lovingly before it becomes a crisis.
6. There is an old adage, the family that prays together, stays together. I think there is an extrapolation of truth here. Setting aside time every night, even if it is only fifteen minutes, to connect with each other is important to the strength and cohesiveness of a family. Children who know their parents are taking the time to just sit with them and go over the day, feel more secure in meeting the challenges of school and peer pressure.
7. Evaluating how many activities everyone is involved in. Children whose lives are over committed can get stressed out from not having enough down time and that goes for parents too.

In summary, the simpler your lifestyle, the better it is for everyone in the family’s mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual well being.

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.

Who’d a thunk it.

The Academy Awards has become a humanitarian event. There was a real change, a real transformation in the focus of the Oscar. Everyone was so generous to their fellow actors and crew. I couldn’t help but think that the feeling in the country under our present leadership has trickled down to even the most egocentrically-oriented industry in the world: show business.  

Say what you will about our president’s first one hundred days, but he is a gracious, generous human being and his influence  showed on the night of all nights in Hollywood.

Something else was interesting as well.

With the change in the date of the Academy Awards in recent years to February, this was the first time that the holiest day in the Hindu calendar began while the Awards were being celebrated in Hollywood. The first new moon in February always kicks off Shivaratri. How ironic it was that the film Slum Dog Millionaire would win in a landslide of awards on this most auspicious night.

Further history was made on Oscar night when an award winner Jai Ho who won for Best Song, uttering what is considered the most powerful word in India, “Om.” 

Yes, there is a transformation occurring in America, but like a benevolent computer virus, this good will is traveling very fast across the globe. It just goes to show you that in our economic recession, we could learn a thing or two from the Indians across the ocean. The power of not having much in material possessions can develop the spirit and tenacity to never give up. The brown skinned people are getting their due.

Yes, change is coming to America and what happens here happens everywhere!

Dr. Toni Galardi has written a book dedicated to assisting people in overcoming the fear of change in their own lives so that their greatest destiny can unfold. The book,The LifeQuake Phenomenon:How to Thrive (not just survive) in Times of Personal and Global Upheavalis now available atwww.LifeQuake.net