FLOW, GROW CREATE from your heart in 2009

“....I feel strongly that what is ‘falling apart’ in our world is the natural consequence of something overwhelmingly evolutionary. Something that is calling us to cease our reliance on the irrelevant and the unreal. To drop the old consciousness of fear that drove us into separation from our true natures and separation from each other. The impulse is clear: Drop what blocks you from revealing more Light and more Love, connecting with others, and acting from your heart.” Christiane Schull

In 2009....FLOW, GROW, CREATE....from your heart !

From 2008 and the Year of New Beginnings to 2009 and the Year of the Heart!

The Holiday Season is upon us ...and we are coming to the close of 2008. 2008 was a ‘1’ (2+8=10=1+0=1) year of ‘New Beginnings’ as I wrote at the start of last year on this blog (January 2nd/2008). It was a year of letting go, of completions, new starts, shedding of old patterns and habits, looking at fear and letting it go, a year of expansion, clarity, integrity, truth and freedom. I am touched by all the changes in my life, all the growth, all the new awareness I have gained. I am moved by where I am in my own heart now – freed from old emotional shackles, self-doubt and judgment — a place I could not have conceived of and a journey I did not know I would take at the start of 2008. I am mostly humbled by my greater ability to navigate the tides of ‘not knowing what is next’.

I have learned from the magnificent Howard Wills* to speak a simple daily prayer: ‘God, Lead me, guide me, direct me.’ And, from my friend and healer Jin Quan*, to live ‘ in the wonder of uncertainty.’ And from the brilliant healer and protégé of Howard Wills, Laurie Goldstein*, to free myself of old energetic patterns and be far far far more compassionate to myself and others.

I am moved by all the ways I am reaching out to others more and sharing my experience with strangers. I do not have to walk this ground, alone. I know I know nothing and that I am here to learn everything. As I wrote a few months ago on my blog, I am on a need-to-know basis with the universe. When I need to know something, the universe lets me know. It is in the unknown — the sea of Infinite Possibility – that the magic of our destiny lies.

I am touched by the changes on the political scene, joyous about the arrival of the eloquent humanity of President-Elect Barack Obama and of all the changes on the economic scene that are causing us all to come together into pools of love, unity, sharing, support – and creativity - like never before. We are being called to be who we have come here to be — fully creatively expressed, now, without delay. I hear the voice of an ancient wise one ringing in my ears, ‘it is time, Child, it is time.’

And so, I have actually begun to call the so-called ‘Recession’ -- the ‘Expression’ -- a powerful opportunity to express who we really are and to choose big Creative dreams that pull us forward, grow us beyond our comfort zones (yeah baby!) and allow us to acknowledge our fears – breathe -and move through them anyway. Fears are just desires disguised, remember that. In the hero’s journey, every great life or story, has a great adversary or opponent. Our greatest adversary is often our greatest ally — because of how it causes us to grow and evolve.

We are here at the threshold of 2009 —- the year that some are calling, The Year of the Heart - and it is truly a new day. May it be a year of celebration as we all learn to step out into our full creative power and manifest our highest intentions. I am excited for us all. I recently returned from a trip to London, England – my birthplace – and I have to say it was an awakening. London — in the midst of one of the greatest economic downturns – is a city of great expansive energy, joy and opportunity. Yes, there are many people who speak fearfully — but I saw and felt only opportunity.

You can read of my adventures in London on this blog . I led The Prosperity Circle in London to great success — a great joy and a dream come true. It has been my dream for many years to be in London and bring my work there. I will be back there in the New Year — with bells on! I have many creative plans for 2009 — and much to share.

Upcoming Events: I will be speaking to First Tuesday (LA) women’s group on the evening of January 6th on the Power of Breathwork and on Cultivating a Prosperity Consciousness; I will be leading The Prosperity Circle at Agape in Culver City on Sat evening January 10th, 2009 for the LGBT group and The Prosperity Circle at a private home on the Westside (LA) on January 13th (7:30pm). I will also be leading a day long workshop in early January on Completing the Past and Launching Your Creative Life in 2009 and I will also be re-launching ‘Create Your New Love Story workshop’ — please stay tuned. I will be in Toronto, Canada from Dec 21st through 31st and will be available for personal coaching and rebirthing sessions and The Prosperity Circle.

I have launched – in partnership with The Garden – a new gathering called ‘Inspirational Lives, Inspirational Stories’ , designed to feature and celebrate anyone with an inspirational story to tell of triumph over adversity and contribution on a local or global level. If you are an author or speaker with an amazing story to share – please contact me. Our launching event was on Sunday Dec 14th and featured the motivational speaker and producer-storyteller, Fauna Hodel (www.onedayshelldarken.com) and her fascinating story. Our next event will be in February. Stay tuned. If interested in attending any of these events, please email me christiane@christianeschull.com or call 310-592-0943.

As I meditated this morning, my eyes fell on the beautiful words of one of my favorite writers, Daphne Rose Kingma. I believe her words are a perfect reminder of the truth — that the best comes to us in life when we stay open and’ AVAILABLE to the MYSTERY’. I share her words with you in the hope that you receive all the gifts you dream of, and all the unexpected gifts of good fortune the universe longs to give you as you open your heart....and make yourself available to the mystery......! Yes! Yes! Yes! Love! Love! Love!

Infinite Love love love, Light, appreciation and gratitude to all!
May you be blessed with Peace, Love, Joy and Abundance this holiday season!
May you Give and Receive with great Joy and Fearlessness!

Christiane Schull www.christianeschull.com; www.theprosperitycircle.blogspot.com – cell :310-592-0943.

***My recommendations for healers: Howard Wills (www.howardwills.com); Jin Quan in the Marina: 714-883-5433; and Laurie Goldstein: 310-729-5542. Avail yourself of their wonderful work!


‘BE AVAILABLE TO THE MYSTERY’
@ from The Book of Love, by Daphne Rose Kingma


“Love of the heart and soul is mysterious. It takes chances. It believes in miracles. It is breath, movement, magic, music, the evanescent moment, the blissful surprise.
To be available to the mystery means that you are open, expectant, waiting – continually poised on tiptoe, prepared to be illumined – not locked in your own
expectations of how you think it should happen. In life and in love, this means living free, with your mind set loose from its gears, not
endlessly chattering inside, ‘but it has to be this way’ or ‘I thought it was going to be that way.’ Our own ideas, those tidy little constructions of the intellect and psyche, just serve to limit our
reality, shut down the possibilities, create a universe only as rarified as the busy minds that invent it…..

When we set out to prove our presumptions, we scotch our chances of falling toward the miraculous. That’s because being available to
the mystery means being willing to believe that something more or different – something we literally cannot imagine – could be lying in
wait for us. Indeed when you surrender, you may step into an experience so huge and splendid and grand, that, truly, you may feel as if you have stepped right out of this world.
Yet miracles, await us at every corner. To be available to the mystery…therefore, is to be willing to be surprised. To be open to the miraculous is at last to be bountifully blessed. It is to move with
grace, as you sweetly conduct your life from the mountains of the mind to the rivers of the heart.”


Love love love !
Yes yes yes!
Www.christianeschull.com

INDULGE IN THE POSITIVE! ACCEPT EVERY INVITATION OUTSIDE YOUR COMFORT ZONE!

Indulge in the positive
Feast on gratitude
Have a double scoop of trust
Be generous with forgiveness
Be sweet
Expect to be delighted
Follow the GOOD energy
Drop your pictures
Put an 'S' in front of H O W
And ask God to 'SHOW' you what's next
Let go with excitement -- you are clearing the way for so much more
Be certain of your abundance, your worth, your destiny
Take big bold action
Neutralize the negative - don't give it any time
Set an intention to experience joy no matter what
Book a flight to JOY
Accept every invitation outside your comfort zone
Evolve! Grow! It isn't supposed to look like yesterday!
Set high expansive intentions
Everyday is a new day
Every moment a new creative moment
Be willing to live in a space of not knowing...
then you get to discover everything....
Smile
Breathe
Relax
Enjoy
Indulge the positive!
Life is JOY!

copyright@Christiane Schull

..."These Things no Longer Matter"

My 5 year old nephew has a favorite song. He sings it to me in the morning at breakfast. He sings it to me at night on the occasions when I tuck him into bed. He sings it to me any old time. It is perhaps the sweetest song I have ever heard.

“Look in the mirror what do you see? I am very different from you. Look in the mirror, I see it too. You are very different from me. But if we look at Jesus these things no longer matter. For the presence of God is here. Inside, my heart is aching to be close to God and you. Together as we sing this song we can make a dream come true.”

Mumbai & Putting Grit in Your Gratitude

As I sat down to write a blog post on gratitude a few days before the US Thanksgiving day holiday, I was troubled by a feeling of hesitation. I couldn't write a thing. I thought maybe the day had to unfold for the muse to strike. But the day came and went and I felt as dry in the inspiration department as a dry stick. What was up with me? I had plenty to feel grateful for! Why couldn't I write? I trust my intuition and something kept telling me to delay. Delay. Do not write. Do not write about gratitude. I felt sick to my stomach. Nauseous. Agitated. I ended up pushing through my resistance and writing something. I didn't like it. It felt forced. I took it down.

When I picked up The Guardian the next morning at my favorite Starbucks in Earl's Court, the anxiety and stomach churning of the last few days suddenly made sense. There it was in black and white - the Mumbai tragedy. I read the story backwards and forwards and then glued myself to the TV. If I'd had trouble writing about gratitude before this, it was impossible for me to write about it now. The events in Mumbai had taken the wind out of my sails.

I spent the entire next day on a kind of inner pause....in numb speechlessness. My brother's Indian nanny called home and spoke to many friends in Mumbai. A friend of mine in the United States told me about a friend of his who was a member of the group that lost the man from Virginia and his daughter.

When my little niece asked me what was wrong, I mumbled something about terrorists. My younger nephew looked at me and said, 'What is a tehwwowist?' I looked at his thoughtful, innocent face and paused. What could I say? He could see me struggling to find an appropriate answer. I thought of all the things I could say. But nothing I could say felt right. Everything I would have said would have been said from judgment and fear. And what would have been the good of adding more of that to the world? I couldn't muster an inspired answer. Within a few moments, my nephew was on to other things. But I was in search of an answer.

When I turned on CNN, I was mesmerized by two different interviews with hostages who had escaped. They said they wanted to return to Mumbai to let the people of Mumbai know they are loved and that they did not deserve this tragedy. It was an extraordinary expression of gratitude and appreciation at a time when anger, resentment, fear and outrage would have been entirely understandable.

Listening to these two men I realized that their gratitude had grit in it and love - the grit of having faced death and survived and love for life, their life, all life.

I realized if my nephew asked me now, I would have an answer for him. The terrorists I would tell him are just an extreme example of people who have forgotten that love and gratitude are the most powerful forces on earth. I would tell him there are days when I forget it too.

Why Getting Lost is Sometimes A Divine Delivery

When Claudia and I boarded the tube (English for 'subway'), we boarded the wrong one. Quel surprise! We were looking for 'Westminster' so that we could make a second visit to Westminster Abbey ( the first time we arrived at closing time). But we couldn't find the location anywhere on the map. We were lost, again. Getting lost is a genius way of discovering a city. I get lost all the time in L.A. and I live there. The genius is that I always seem to need to be in the very place the following week that I got lost in the week before. Getting lost is never lost on me.

Once we got our bearings, and got back on the right tube, Claudia looked at me cheekily, as the tube glided to a stop at Notting Hill Gate, and said, 'We could go to the Portobello Market." With that, we jumped off the train and headed on an entirely different adventure.

Portobello Market is famous for its fabulous boutiques and shops of vintage this and vintage that, as well as its restaurants and bakeries and pubs. One of our stops at the end of our day, was a store filled with Indonesian, Tibetan and Indian masks, beads and Buddha sculptures as well as other religious icons. The shopkeeper buzzed us in the door and within seconds, the man asked us where we were from. Soon, it was clear that this entire day had been divinely orchestrated to deliver us to this shop. The shopkeeper turned out to be best friends with a man Claudia met 32 years ago at a party in Malibu, California, a man she knew had later moved to England. For the next 15 minutes they shared stories of friends and experiences. Then he picked up the phone and called their mutual friend. Claudia spoke with him and he invited her out to dinner.

Claudia called me moments ago to say that they had driven around in his car through the streets of London. He pointed out Sting's favorite pub, a place he often hangs out, and some of his favorite haunts. They went to dinner at a low key little joint and had a great meal. They talked of the past, of their children -- and they talked about where they were now. I cannot help but feel that something in that conversation was waiting 32 years to happen. For me, the meeting was confirmation of the magic and utter serendipity of life. Life can be exquisite if you let the Divine run the show.

The London Economy, A Bathroom Misadventure and a Lesson in humility and gratitude

I had dinner Saturday night in London, at my brother's home, with a bevy of family and friends. It was set to be an informal, casual affair. And it would have been a delightful evening -- though I expect utterly forgettable in the scheme of things had it not been for an unexpected bathroom misadventure.

The economy was on everyone's mind that night and we chatted back and forth comparing tales from the UK, US and Canada. There were two UK lawyers at the table, and one Canadian real estate entrepreneur and his girlfriend and their stories, Claudia, an American artist, myself and the children. The talk was about the hundreds upon hundreds of layoffs and all the other losses big and small. Everything was doom and gloomier. I got up to go to the bathroom - as much for a change of scene as anything. The nearest bathroom near our dinner table was a small 'powder room' . Once in, I had trouble locking the door. Once I tried to get out, I couldn't. I jiggled the lock but it would not budge. I tried pushing and pulling on the door - to no avail. I waited, tried again. Nothing. Tried again, no luck. The door was shut tight like a clam.

I stared at the door a while weighing my options. It struck me that this was exactly what people were feeling in the current economy -- faint, clausterphobic, even a bit panicky. I'd gotten off the London tube earlier that day because it felt like a narrow and confining sausage. Now I was facing another experience in confinement. I started rapping gently on the door - politely calling out for help. My cries for help fell on deaf ears. Nobody came. The irony of the experience did not escape me. The talk at the table was about the near-calamity of the economy and how there was no easy exit and there I was trapped in the bathroom.

After a few seconds, my generally optimistic and appreciative state of mind dissolved into abject panic. I began to shout - 'Hey! Hello! ' and my rapping took on the tenor of insistent open-handed hammering. My oldest nephew came running and said, 'Christiane, are you locked in?' Within a few seconds, he got me out of there with a little jiggling on the outside handle.

Just as we returned to the table and sat down, Jim, the Canadia real estate developer and entrepreneur left the table and headed for the bathroom. I thought about warning Jim but then decided I didn't know him well enough and that his vast accomplishments made him perfectly capable of mastering the loo.

Moments passed and I heard the sound of a jiggling door. The other guests at the table were deep in conversation, talking loudly, laughing, generally oblivious and unconcerned. I was the only adult - having suffered the recent indignity of being stuck in the bathroom - with her ear tuned to the happenings down the hall. The jiggling did not sound promising.

My niece and nephew jumped to their feet first and ran down the hall. "Jim, are you okay? Are you locked in?" I could hear the children peppering the closed door with their concern. And I could hear nothing of Jim. Concerned, I got up from the table and headed out to help.

When I got to the bathroom door, the children were jiggling the door handle.I pressed my face to the door and spoke loudly. 'Jim, do you need help? Are you trying to get out?'

There was silence from inside the loo. I thought back to Jim's conversation earlier in the evening and how he had told us that Canadians were faring better than their UK and US counterparts because Canadians were always a tad more conservative or boring in their financial dealings. Everyone chimed in at once about how lovely boring suddenly sounded.

After a few more moments of silence, there came a calm squeek of curious bewilderment and then a polite stream of words as if Jim had been calmly assembling his chosen words from a box of scrabble letters . 'Ahhh....Nooooo, I am not... trying.... to get out and I ...don't... think(!) I need any help.' The children and I looked at each other in shock realizing the error of our ways. He wasn't locked in at all! We had just disturbed an unsuspecting Canadian in the bathroom.

Seconds later, Jim returned to the table. I leaned into him trying to explain that I had been locked in the bathroom moments before and was afraid he had suffered the same fate. As he looked at me unable to disguise a wide grin, dinner conversation ceased. Everyone turned to look at Jim. The air was pregnant with glee -- everyone could feel it.

"I thought I could steal away discreetly....unnoticed," said Jim, enjoying his sudden non-boring notoriety. ".... then I hear children's voices asking if I'm okay in there... then an adult's voice," Jim throws an eyebrow-askew look my way and continues on, ".... asking if I need help getting out of the bathroom and if I was trying to get out. No, I said, I don't need any help..and I am not trying to get out!"

Hysterical laughter and folly ensued. My youngest nephew piped up with one more question. "Were you caught with your pants ....or your underpants...down?" The room exploded in windy gails of laughter.

Jim, the Canadian entrepreneur, had taught us all a good lesson in how to get out of the bathroom -- or out of the perception that you can't get out of the bathroom, especially when it is not locked and everyone else thinks it is. Adopt calm, boring, certainty that you will get out. And have a sense of humour about it. Jim seemed to know what the rest of us at the table had forgotten. If you think you're trapped, you are. If you think you're not, you're not. Getting caught with your proverbial pants down - whatever the cause - doesn't have to be the disaster we think it is. It can become an opportunity to practice humility, adopt humor, and count your blessings.