Jack Canfield’s Healing Recipe

One of my favorite gifts I received is a book from my best girl friend in August 1997. I was leaving Vancouver, British Columbia, to move to California. She gave me the book Chicken Soup for the Woman’s Soul … 101 Stories to Open the Hearts and Rekindle the Spirits of Women.

I was hooked on Jack Canfield’s approach to sharing inspiration and wisdom with the world. You ask just about anyone, “When you hear about or think of Jack Canfield, what comes to mind?”, the famous Chicken Soup series almost always comes to mind. Most of us have read Chicken Soup books at some point in time to soothe our souls. The heartwarming stories collected from around the world have made us feel we are not alone in our sorrow and have helped us smile despite the odds at others’ triumphs over adversity and fate. The Chicken Soup series is, however, just one of the ways in which Jack Canfield has attempted to make a difference.

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What Is NLP?

There has been quite a bit of talk and more training opportunities for the skill of Neurolinguistic Programming, more commonly known as NLP. The name itself reveals the philosophy of Neurolinguistic Programming: our neurological system controls how our minds and bodies function, linguistics or language determines how we interact with people, and programming refers to our conditioning and behavior. NLP is based on the interplay between our mind, language and behavior.

The healing approach helps people manage and alter their conscious and subconscious actions as well as thoughts so they can manage their life better. NLP’s main focus is understanding how an individual thinks and reacts in various situations. Unlike several other healing approaches, NLP deals with the present rather than the past.

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Economic Stress

Over the past several months the media has inundated us with fear-based and negative reports about the state of the national and global economies. Because of my line of work as a life coach, I’m in a position to work with clients who are struggling with decisions regarding how to best address both their financial, physical, and emotional well-being.



Making decisions regarding these two important facets of your well-being can be difficult because we so often tend to put our financial security first. And the truth is that we must address our financial solvency and stability by paying bills and setting aside money for the future. But I also believe strongly in balancing our physical and emotional well-being as well because if we ignore those facets of our life we run the risk of hindering or entirely halting our forward movement.

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Examining Immaturity

The Changing Concepts of Immaturity

What is age, if nothing but a number! Or so the “18 till I die” generation believes. There was a time when the word immaturity had only negative connotations attached to it; now, however, immaturity is a term which we have come to be secretly proud of! After all, being immature gives us the right to stay a commitment-phobic single, make impulsive decisions, and behave like we are 18 when we are actually pushing 30. Immaturity allows us to stretch our adolescent years for as long as we want. It makes us feel young!

Why Has the Concept of Immaturity Changed?

So what has made us change our concept of immaturity? Perhaps it has to do with our present-day obsession with holding on to youth. An entire industry has grown around the human desire to stay young; whether it’s by botox, cosmetic surgeries, or anti-wrinkle creams, we want to look and feel young for as long as possible. The new age “immature” lifestyle is perhaps another manifestation of this desire...

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What's in a name?

This posting is one in which I would like to express and air my discontent regarding an issue I seem to be facing and most certainly am having challenges with. What’s in a name? It amazes me how engrained society is with names and how it is assumed and expected the wife will take the husband’s last name. More women marry later and therefore are creating an individual identity for themselves with their maiden names in business and social networks. Before Jerry and I got married envelopes were addressed to Mr. Jerry Artache and Ms. Karen Kleinwort then when Jerry and I got married everyone, business associates, family and friends, who were told I kept my maiden name got all twisted and nervous about how to address envelopes and packages now. Nothing changes regarding mailings; the government now just sees us as one entity instead of two separate individuals. The government has no question as to how to address mailings to us but society in general goes into a frenzy of ‘what now!’ When packages, cards or letters arrive I am always surprised at how people jump into the peer pressure and general society rules when addressing these communications. So to set the record straight; if you would like to send something to us you can address it to one of the following – Mr. Jerry Artache and Ms. Karen Kleinwort; Mr. Artache and Ms. Kleinwort; or The Artache & Kleinwort Family. Whenever I see an envelope addressed to Mr. & Mrs. Artache or Mr. & Mrs. Jerry Artache the hairs on the back of my neck stand up and I have to take some really deep breathes to let go of the feelings my identity is slipping away. My issue … most definitely it is my issue and is one I keep working on but my individual identity is really important to me so it is one which will most likely I will work on till my last breathe in this life journey. I know my husband takes issue when something gets mailed to ‘The Kleinwort Family’ which happens from company’s who are trying to get me to buy or try their baby products. Why? Because as the man of the house it has been engrained in him that his last name is the name of the house and so everyone should just already know that but company’s only know me as my name so they are therefore jumping to the conclusion that Kleinwort is my married name and therefore the name of the household. I do my best to intercept these types of mailings because I know and understand his feelings.

Now that we have a child with a hyphenated last name I am beginning to see the frenzy swirling out of control, hair loss is on a rise and all sorts of different labels being used. When it came to naming our son the first name was easy where we came into the challenge is what would his last name be? I kept my maiden name which was already adding confusion and we settled, Jerry conceded actually – thank you honey!, to have Caden use a hyphenated last name … Artache-Kleinwort. With this added to the mix people are extra confused regarding how to send mailings. So to make life simple and everyone happy just send things to “The Artache & Kleinwort Family”; want to send something just to Caden, address it to “Caden Artache-Kleinwort,” to me? “Karen Kleinwort,” Jerry? “Jerry Artache.” Does that make things simple? Or is it still confusing?

Alright enough purging, the questions of naming I believe really come down to labels and titles for us, so what is in a name? I personally believe names are so important because society in 1st world countries tie everything about us as individuals to these labels and until recently (in respect to the calendar year timeline being 2008) women had no rights and therefore their identity was tied to that of their husbands. But now in the 21st century is it really not too much of a stretch to believe more women will want to keep their individual identities. At what point or under what circumstances would it be for the husband to take the wife’s name? I would definitely be interested in hearing other people’s thoughts on this topic.

Thanks for listening. Until next time … embrace your inner wisdom!

Namaste,
Karen

Happy New Year - Change is a comin'

Happy New Year ... Between vacation, Christmas, New Years, and my computer crashing twice within a two week period I am finally back up and blogging.

I'll keep it short today, just wanted to post a note to wish everyone all the best of prosperity, love and peace in 2008.

Much love and gratitude ... embrace your inner wisdom!

Karen

Welcome

Hey ... it is the Summer Solstice today and what a great way to celebrate by starting something new and completely different. I am new to blogging and haven't really thought of myself as a blogger but this morning I was hit with the inspiration to become one. As I was sitting drinking my morning coffee while working on the website of my new company I received this, I guess the best word to describe it is inspiration. Ironically I still have not even read any other blogs to see what people are writing about and discussing but I trust my intuition that starting this blog is something which will be good for all those which are drawn to read, comment, and share.

My intention is to post four or five times a week to share my experiences of starting my own business - Therapy in Transition. Oh I grew up in a family owned business so being in business is not new and I started a non-profit organization called Sponsor a Teacher Program which ironically and surprisingly has been a long time in the making; but this organization my husband and I are starting is really about me embracing my own personal growth experience while truly allowing my passion for helping others to shine through without allowing fear to enter into the race of finding success.

I hope by sharing my experiences of starting my own business that those individuals which read my blog will enjoy it, learn something, and be willing to share it.

Embrace your inner wisdom!

Until next time, I'm in gratitude for all you do.

Karen