TAKE ME TO: Events & Workshops | Guest Article
Our Upcoming Trips at a Glance | Post a comment!
Dear Friends,
WHAT’S NEW?
Ladies – last call for my upcoming: Empower + Enlighten Women’s Retreat Yucatan, Mexico – Nov 9-16th.
This journey is an invitation, from me to you — an opportunity to explore the quality of what you put forth in the world. The lightness + luminosity of your own audacious projection of love + creativity. And, if you’re looking for a chance to escape the ordinary + step into a life of awesomeness — this is the program for you.
Blessings and love, Sheri Rosenthal
Connect with me: Email | Facebook | LinkedIn | Twitter
EVENTS, WEBINARS, VIDEO-CLASSES & NEW PROGRAMS!
Unconditional Love in Action: Siem Reap, Cambodia
Jan 22-Feb 1st, 2014
LAST CALL – almost full!!!
Join New Thought Minister Rev. David Ault for a profoundly heart-opening spiritual journey of service to Siem Reap, Cambodia – home of the incredible ancient temples of Angkor Wat. To open oneself deeply, to risk feeling the suffering of others, and to wish to relieve that suffering – is the definition of compassion and the cultivation of the Buddha within us. As Gandhi once said: The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.
Volunteer travel is a powerful experience – you risk coming home with a clearer vision of what you want in life, a deeper sense of self-realization, and clarity about who you are and your purpose in life!
We’ll have the opportunity to explore the amazing temple complex at Angkor Wat – or at least a part of it (it’s huge!). Our home away from home in Cambodia is the Siddharta Boutique Hotel. It has a large saltwater pool in a tropical garden, and a restaurant with views over the Cambodian countryside to watch unforgettable sunsets. All breakfasts are included in this itinerary and one dinner, along with tours of the temples, daily Sangha (gathering) with David Ault, a traditional Khmer dinner & show, helping in the schools with the children and in creating new wells, and so much more.
Trip cost: $1699 USD per person double occupancy. Details for Cambodia here!
GUEST ARTICLE
THE BUCKET LIST
Life has a funny way of running past us if we let it. Monday arrives and off to work we go. We eat lunch around noon, then back to work, then time to go home. While traveling home, day dreams creep in and our imagination is off to the races with “what could have been” or “what could be.” At home, our loved ones need tending to and dinner has to get under way. Bedtime comes too fast. Then we get up the next day and do it all over again.
What happens to those dreams? Are they meant to stay in our imagination, or are they the voice of our heart’s desire speaking to us, calling us to get living? We were curious, so we began an experiment a few years ago to watch what we did with our day dreams. We realized a change was called for, and we figured out how to get out of our own way. We invite you to follow our experiment…Luca and Laura
There are so many things the two of us wanted to do in life. They kept piling up, so a while ago, we decided to create a “bucket list.” Funny thing is, our virtual bucket got heavier and heavier, and seemed to become more of a guilt list. 🙁
When we realized this, we started looking at what our bucket list really was. It seemed that as the list filled, the things we wanted to do in life were put more and more on hold until some-day. Perhaps, when some-day arrived, we would rush to do all those things before our impending demise. Something was seriously off with this approach!
We began to see that it was easy for us to put off our dreams in favor of our day to day tasks. After all, they needed to be done – they were more pressing, right? Since we did these tasks all the time, they happened without much thought or effort.
There it was! Everything, all the day-to-day tasks in life had equal priority, and they took top priority over our dreams.
Thoughts like: “There isn’t enough time to do it all – we’re too busy” “We can’t afford it” “What if we fail?” filled our heads.
Sound familiar? They were very familiar to us, these beliefs popped right up like the voices in our heads were on some kind of automatic-play mode. We realized that beliefs like these became the material that formed the bucket that held our dreams.
To be even more accurate: the bucket was where we put our dreams on hold. The beliefs of “we can’t” or “we shouldn’t” created a container so hardened, fixed, true that even if we tried to do something on our bucket list, it felt like we had to go against ourselves to do it!
What a realization. It pushed us to search deeper. Why are we doing this? Is there a root underlying these beliefs? If you guessed YES, you’re correct. But that’s only part of it: as it turns out, to pull up the root that was keeping our dreams out of our reality, we had to work it free it in three steps.
The first step was to identify that something was amiss: really see it and then call it out. Although this seems like common sense, it’s often difficult to articulate. In going deeper into why we kept the bucket (and its contents) so firmly in place, we quickly identified that we were a bit afraid to alter our daily routine and take a leap. The fear was easy to recognize because we felt it. Our next questions were: What held this fear in place? and What made us so invested in it? The answer was justification.
We found that we used justification to make ourselves feel better about the choices we made that went against our heart’s desires, our dreams. What’s more, we noticed that as we got better at justifying, it became an even more subtle and tricky tool we used against ourselves. Creating our bucket list, which started off as a way to imagine what we wanted to create or where we wanted to go, became the way that we put-off making our dreams a reality.
We finally asked ourselves: “How long do we want to continue doing this dance?”
This question lead us to step two: choosing to move beyond limiting beliefs. If we identified that we were afraid of living our dreams because ___________ (fill in the blank), and we saw that we justified this fear so that we didn’t feel so badly about going against our heart’s desires, then what we needed next was to choose to move through those fears, and in doing so, remove their power over us. (Same goes for you too.)
But then we found ourselves saying: “We know, we’ll prioritize the items on our bucket list, and we’ll do the most important one first. We’ll do it right after we ______ (again, fill the blank).” The longer we sat and pondered how to approach our bucket list, the more evident it became that we had moved into yet another justification loop.
We justified not choosing to do anything on the bucket list because this or that had to happen first, or must occur in an order of importance. Nonsense! We saw the trap we were falling back into, and scrapped that game fast!
Instantly we realized that we had a choice to make: continue this madness, or start living our life by living our dreams. We chose to not listen to our fears or the justification of our fears, and instead, chose to put one dream immediately into action.
And there it was, the third step: taking action!
We decided to move past our fear of change, the fear of the unknown. As we felt our anxiety building and the old justifications starting to rise, and we knew we needed another tool. Perhaps we needed to shift our point of view? The only way we knew to shift our point of view was to double back around to where we felt the anxiety begin, and see where we made a fearful interpretation. We a took a deep breath and admitted to ourselves (out loud!) that we didn’t know what was next.
What if we changed our point of view, so instead of interpreting the sensation as fear, we perceived it as exhilaration? At that point, we knew what we were feeling was actually not fear, but the courage and excitement of an explorer, an athlete, or a hero embarking on a new adventure or a new chapter in life!
Our “just-do-it” mind set (thanks, Nike!) became a whole body experience as we acted on our dreams. And guess what? We stepped back and realized that we felt more empowered, encouraged, and lighter. We were leading our lives instead of our fears leading us.
We wouldn’t say that this was easy at first, but as we kept on, it got easier. With each new action, we gained confidence, and grew in our courage to take the next action. Our “justifications” turned into “trustifications.”
We found the formula for making our heart’s desires reality:
Heart’s Desire = identification + choice + action!
Today, laughing, we often ask ourselves: “Why did we wait so long to live the dreams of our life?” Our answer is: “It doesn’t really matter, we’re doing it now!” So come on! What’s holding YOU back? If we can do it, then so can you!
Blessings & Love, Luca & Laura
Co-founders of One Community Programs
If you want to explore birthing your dreams and a new you and visit the stunning sacred ruins of Peru (all the lovely pictures above are from Peru) – I highly recommend signing up for Luca + Laura’s upcoming DREAM YOU 2.0 PERU – April 22–May 1, 2014.
For over 25 years Laura Pirie has drawn from extensive training in Environmental Design & Awareness, Elemental & Energy Healing, and Indigenous Traditions to work with individuals, groups and communities. She shares energy awareness, movement, healing and insight with those on a path to creating lives built from their innate wisdom, passion & purpose.
Luca DiMatteo has studied healing traditions for over 25 years, and for the past 9 years has been in leadership roles on retreats to Italy, Ireland, Peru, England and Mexico. Luca uses his keen ability to “See” that which is not visible, his nurturing, compassionate nature, sense of humor, and his gifts as a healer to support others on their path of discovery.
~NOURISHING NOVEMBER RETREATS~
The Enlighten + Empower Women’s Retreat
Uxmal, Yucatan
Trip Leaders: Sheri Rosenthal + Rev Frankie Timmers
November 9-16th, 2013
~HEART-WARMING JANUARY ADVENTURES~
Unconditional Love in Action: Volunteer Journey to Siem Reap, Cambodia
Trip Leader: Rev David Ault
Jan 22-Feb 1st, 2014
~MAGICAL MARCH SOJOURNS~
Mystics, Oracles & Shamans of Ladakh
Ladakh, India
Trip Leader: Lisa Tully
Mar 6-19th, 2014
The Enliven + Energize Women’s Retreat
Maui, Hawaii – EARLY BIRD SPECIAL ENDS NOV 1st!
Trip Leaders: Sheri Rosenthal and Deborah Kagan
March 18-23rd, 2014
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Want to see our whole line-up for the upcoming year?
Visit our Trips at a Glance page.
