What is your Wellness Handicap?

Someone asked me the other day when I had started in the wellness industry.  I thought about that and I laughed.  Well, I guess it started in the 60’s and 70’s growing up in a home with no pop, potato chips, or processed foods.   My mother cooked the old fashion way with foods that she bought from the perimeter of the grocery store ( processed foods are in the middle, you know) and she also cooked dinner every day.  We ate at 5:30pm sharp which is when my Dad came home from work and we all ate together!  We visited our grandparents every weekend, we had sitters so my parents could go out dancing, we had chores to do, and we were dragged to Mass every Sunday.    

My parents valued family, friendships, recreation, and spiritual growth.  Of course, these values have helped to shape who I am and helped me to strive for balance in my life but I now realize that the greatest gift that my parents may have given me were ways to manage and nourish my mental and emotional health which may have further implications on my physical health than the lack of junk food in our house.     

Wellness used to be defined as the absence of disease.  We now know that is not true since many diseases can be incubating for years in the body before actual symptoms appear.  Many times when we hear the term “wellness,” we tend to think of it in terms of what we can do for our physical bodies.  We are focused on our weight, exercise, healthy eating habits, etc.  All of these are certainly important but “total wellness” is really how well our life force is flowing through ALL of our subtle energy bodies as well as our physical body.  We can’t be physically healthy if our energy fields are clogged with anger, fear, resentment, guilt, and grief.  I think we can all relate to each of these emotions and provide vivid personal examples.  I know I can!  A book that I recently read and highly recommend is Radical Forgiveness by Colin Tipping.   It helps to explain the powerful connection between our emotions and our physical health and there are suggestions and methods for addressing and dealing with these emotions that affect our health.  In his book, Tipping asserts that up to 80% of cancers are the result of repressed emotions and that depression always precedes cancer.  According to Caroline Myss’s tapes, Why People Don’t Heal, she discusses how the majority of our life force energy is focused on hurts and experiences of the past or worry and planning for the future.  This leaves very little life force energy left to focus on the present which is where all healing occurs.  Sometimes, it takes a major crisis to force us to focus on the “now,” doesn’t it?  Eckert Tolle’s The Power of Now is another wonderful book to stay focused on the present which helps us to stay healthy and balanced. 

My parents took life one day at a time and taught us to value each day and to accept life as it is since there was a purpose to everything even if we did not understand it.  We grew up with a strong sense of family and appreciation for what we had.  Both my parents are gone now but I value them and what they taught me more now than I ever have.  I feel their presence all the time and know that they are still providing guidance.  Heck, they probably helped me write this article!

Use Your Sacred Gift!

Albert Einstein once said, “The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant.  We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”  I couldn’t agree more!  But, I also feel a shift taking place where we are honoring our intuition more and even admitting it! 

The rational mind or left brain helps us to function as humans in society – to get up each day and be productive.  But as Einstein’s quote suggests, we have strayed too far in honoring our rational mind over the intuitive mind and have created an imbalance in our society.  I think he is right on!  Our rational mind is also our ego at work trying to convince us that we are all separate from each other and everything and that we must fight to maintain our independence to survive as individuals, countries, religions, political parties, etc.  I think most of the issues in our world have been created by too much left brain, ego-centric thinking, and we won’t correct them with the same type of thinking that created them in the first place.    

We are striving for balance, however, and not forsaking the left brain.  We need them both to maximize our potential as humans and as a society.  There are huge benefits to developing your right brain.  Have you ever read Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor’s book called, My Stroke of Insight?  Jill was a brain scientist who had a stroke in her early 30’s, knew what was happening to her as she went through the different stages of the stroke, and, luckily, lived to write about.  She describes what occurred as she began to lose the functions of her left brain (rational, analytical, task driven, logical) and was eventually left with only the right brain function (creative, imaginative, wholeness, daydreaming).  She went into a euphoric state – hey, isn’t that what we all want - and couldn’t sense where her body ended and someone else’s started.  From a scientific perspective, everything is energy, including all of us, and that means that we are all connected and not separate at all! 

The other benefit to developing your right brain is that you start to develop your intuition or intuitive mind which allows steers you correctly.  Your intuitive mind knows what is best for you and the more you develop it, the better you will get and the more you will listen to it.  You will start to let it win arguments over your rational mind or “brain chatter”  You know what I mean - the part inside of you that won’t shut up and makes you keep thinking when you would rather not!

Ways To Develop Your Right Brain:
 
Meditatation
Yoga
Listening to or playing music
Dancing
Painting
Doing anything you love where you lose track of time (Not sure my HGTV addiction counts here though)

So, if you were a child that was accused of daydreaming or having too much of an imagination, remember that you were just way ahead of the curve in balancing the two hemispheres of your brain and  were placed on this earth to help balance it.  If you have children that exhibit a lot of right brain activities, encourage them and foster their development.  They might be the Einstein of tomorrow that we will be quoting! 

Intuition – Tuning in for guidance
 
I have had some amazing experiences lately and wanted to share them with you. It is said that we all have the ability to tap into our intuition but it is like anything else - it takes awareness and practice. I am a firm believer in synchronicity and the fact that there are no such things as coincidences or coinkydinks, as my kids used to say!

Experience #1 - I was recently in Greensboro for the Market America convention and was listening to one trainer encourage us to do something different than we had done in the past to get to the next level in our businesses. I bought that and was thinking about a couple of different routes to take. One route was to become an agent to market a tool that helps people become debt free much faster than normal. I believe in being debt free and thought this was a good fit with my background as a CPA . BUT THEN I BREAK 3 PAIRS OF READING GLASSES IN 2 DAYS!!!!! I have several of these cheap readers and I have had them for a while so to break 3 in 2 days left me wondering. In the past, I might have thought, "Oh that is funny," but now I'm thinking, "What am I not SEEING correctly?" I had coffee with my friend, Lupita, and I tell her the story and she says the same thing - "What aren't you seeing correctly?" She tells me to ask for guidance so I do. I go home to take a little cat nap and I ask to be shown guidance on what I am not seeing correctly. Guess what? I wake up and I have my answer - "Trust and stick with your passion, girlfriend, and things will work out beautifully!" So here I am blogging away on my passion - energy and spiritual stuff!!!!!!!!!!!

Experience #2 - I was recently invited to attend a networking group that is being started here in Pittsburgh. I was putting on my makeup (a 5 minute process) and was thinking of something that I was considering bringing up at this meeting. Just as I'm thinking about it, my flat iron falls off the sink??? No one is in this bathroom besides me - at least that I can see! I think, "hmmm, maybe I'm not supposed to mention that at the meeting. I drive to the meeting and just as I'm about to get out of the car, a weird brake light goes on that has never been on before. Again, I think, "hmmm, maybe I am to put the brakes on mentioning this idea?" I decide to not say anything to the group as a whole but I do approach one of the organizers after the meeting and mention to her my idea. She did not warm to it so I now know this is not something that I will pursue with this group. And guess what?  The brake light has not come on since.

I know these kinds of things are happening all the time so would love to hear your stories!!

Peace and Light to all!

Step one in Feng Shui - Decluttering!

Feng Shui is also known as "acupuncture for the home." In acupuncture, the practitioner attempts to clear imbalances and release blockages in your energy meridians (lines of energy within your body) to help your body to heal. This analogy is great because that cluttered hallway is also blocking the flow of energy (chi/life force) through your home as well.

Before we get to any specific Feng Shui recommendations or cures, it is important to deal with the numero uno good Feng Shui inhibitor - clutter! Ugh, we all have it to some degree or another. The important thing is to find a solution that works for you in dealing with it. I'm not trying to address the deep psychological issues that are prevalent on "Buried Alive - Hoarding" shows. This advice is for all of you that just need some useful tips in dealing with it. Below is what has been effective for me.

1. Designate a small amount of time per day or week

Do you often feel that you need to take an entire summer off to deal with it? I have often felt like this. I've discovered that the most effective thing is to designate a small period of time - 10 minutes a day or 30 minutes a week to focus on it. Even just telling yourself that you will only spend 10 minutes - set the timer - will be so effective. Take 2 large bags with you and give 2 to everyone in the household. Use all family members to really make it happen faster. One is for donating and the other is for garbage. Or if you are really ambitious, another for selling. I favor the donating over selling but that is just me. I figure the tax benefit is about equal to what I could sell it for and so much easier than the hassle of Craigslist or Ebay. Unless you have valuable stuff - most of mine isn't! Think about how many bags that you will have at the end of the month for either donating or trashing. Ah, I feel better just visualizing it! Look at each item and decide if you will use it or not and decide quickly. Some people get hung up with clothing. If I haven't worn it in a year, out it goes. I figure someone else could be using it and it opens up space for more things that I like, and of course, more shoes!!!

2. Take pictures of things and save digitally

I saw this idea in a magazine and loved it. Take a picture of that which you don't want to keep in physical form but want to preserve the memory. When my Mom died a few years ago, my two sisters and I had the whole house to go through which was not all that bad since my mother was a great housekeeper and was well organized. She was practicing good feng shui without realizing it. My sister took a picture of the coffeepot onto which my Dad had welded a screwdriver when the handle broke, the large pot lid onto which he had welded a golf ball as a handle and the cake pan that had been used for so many years for our birthday cakes. It was a great gift that now hangs in my kitchen and reminds me of my parents. Another idea is to take a small piece of that childhood blanket and frame it along with the footprints from the hospital. You get the idea.

3. Hire a professional organizer and/or cleaning help

This may sound like a luxury but if you are having trouble with organizing and letting go of things, it is sucking your energy which could be better spent on something else. I have found this to be true in most areas of my life where I can hire professionals. Corporations outsource because they want to focus their energy on specific things so they hire experts for all the other stuff. Why not you for your home or office? It will be money well spent. I have several people that I can refer if you need someone. The national association is NAPO - National Association of Professional Organizers. I have had cleaning help since I first became a working mom 25 years ago. This keeps you on your toes since you have to have the place ready for cleaning which requires a concerted effort at least a few times a month.

4. Store it and decide later

If you are going through an entire house for example, at least put items in those plastic containers and store them somewhere out of sight so that you can decide later. Here is one technique that I love and have used especially for all those electronic cords and chargers that seem to multiply overnight. I gathered them all up and put them in a box and labeled what was in it. If we don't go into the box in the next year, I get to trash or donate the whole box.

Hopefully, these have helped you get started. Your intention is everything so set the intention that you will have a clutter free home or office and you will!  The techniques, time, and motivation will come to you. So get started so we can get on to the fun stuff!

What they don't teach you in school!

I had an interesting experience yesterday when my son, Brian, called from Penn State with accounting questions. He is taking the first accounting course that is required of all business majors. It should actually be required for ALL majors. Luckily, I was able to help him and I enjoyed it immensely. He had very good questions like, "Well, wouldn't a business owner want to put the earnings back into the company when it is new?" Mind you, he is just trying to figure out the two sides of the balance sheet so I didn't want to give him too much info and confuse him. The good news is that he seems to like learning about it so I'll take that!

I have always told my kids that Accounting is a great major even if you don't want to work in the field. There are so many avenues to take. I strongly believe every business owner should have a few courses since the financial aspects of running a business are usually what cause most of them to go under. If a business owner doesn't understand basic accounting and finance principles, how will they know how well or poorly they are doing and even if they delegate to others, how are they going to monitor what they are doing.

Our school systems do a great job of training accountants and other professionals. What I've come to realize is how poorly we are prepared to become financially secure or, better yet, financially independent. Our initial knowledge or financial habits are inherited by our parents. If you see parents with poor financial habits, many times, you will also see their children having the same poor habits or concepts about money. I was lucky my Mother taught me great financial habits early on in life and she inherited those from her immigrant Italian parents. But my parents were employees their whole lives and never understood that to be financially free, you have to own it and you have to have leverage. And by owning, I don't mean everyone that is self-employed. Real business owners understand leverage. You have to leverage something - money, people, or a product. You can't do what most of us do which is trade time for money - work an hour and get paid an hour. This is regardless of whether you are on a salary or not. If you quit what you are doing and do not continue to get paid or earn income from it, you are trading time for money with no leverage. I am a CPA and a CFP with a Masters in Taxation. So, yes, I understood the leveraging of money or investments but not about building a business with leverage. If I wasn't exposed to the concept of leverage in my education, who the heck was???? NO ONE IS. That is because it's not taught in schools! It's only passed down to others by parents who are business owners. It's no wonder that according to the SSA stats, 95% of the population ends up dead, still working, or broke at age 65. It's also no wonder that of the 5% that end up wealthy or financially independent, 75% of those are leveraged business owners.

If you have any questions or would like more information on owning a leveraged business, please contact me at 412-215-6115 or at kimberlybadams@gmail.com

We are Human Beings, Not Human Doings!!

Hi everyone,

I feel pulled back to blogging and the initial pull was to tell you about two people that epitomize the fact that we are human beings and not human doings! Our culture gets so caught up and we are rewarded for what we DO - the mostly left brain activities, versus who we are but we all know people that make us feel like a million bucks, right - regardless of what the heck they DO.

Rita Ambrozic

My first example is one of my former colleagues from Westinghouse days, Rita Ambrozic. Rita was at one point my admin assistant but she was always my friend. This woman was amazing! She bent over backwards to help you. You mentioned to her that you had a dentist appointment scheduled and she would be running down to HR to get you the medical form. She would try to clean out my coffee cup at the end of the day but I would have to grab it from her and slap her hand and tell her that WAS NOT her job. She took the opposite attitude of "that's not my job!" She took on activities way beyond her job description. She was one of the friendliest, warm and caring persons that I know.

Rita passed away about a month ago and the outpouring of friends and family was indicative of who she was. You felt like you were her most favorite person in the whole world when you talked to her because that is how she made you feel. She fought a brave battle against leukemia and I know is in a better place and not in any pain. After she passed away, I sent out a request to her and said, "Rita, you need to leave me a sign that you are fine and happy." My mother had left me a hilarious sign (another posting) so I thought it was the least that Rita could do. I was on the phone with my daughter, Elyse, who is a senior at PSU, and was telling her about Rita's passing. She said, "Mom, you are not going to believe this but I am at Rita's right now having a Rasberry Italian ice - creepy!" I said "It's not creepy at all!!!!! that is my sign!!!!!!!!"

Rita, you are missed by many and I'm sure your family misses you the most. Love you Reeeet!

Angie Bucco

Angie is someone that I recently met. She is a seamstress that lives in Mt. Lebanon and to whom I was referred by a friend. I love to sew and can do it but it's a catch 22 for me. I buy something that is too long (that is always my scenario) and I say to myself, "I can hem those!" Big mistake - because I don't have TIME to do it so the "to mend" pile kept getting higher and higher so I did what any focused, well run corporation would do - I outsourced it :)

Angie runs her business in the gameroom of her home and the minute I get there, I feel like I am in my Grandma Menanno's house. She has 3 sewing machines that look like the kind my Grandmother used where you push this huge petal to make it run (pre-electric models). Angie is Italian and from the same region - Abruzzi - as my grandparents! She even has a picture of Abruzzi on the wall so we examine it and she shows me the exact town from where she and her husband, Tom, emigrated. She tells me about how they just finished canning tomatoes and I can't help but smile because one of the fondest memories is visiting my grandparent's in August and the entire basement floor is covered with tomatoes all in lines categorized for ripeness and size. My grandmother is yelling at my Grandfather for growing so many and now she has to can them all! Angie said, "Oh, yeah, it's a lot of work!"

I try on the pants that she is altering for me and as she does her magic with the pins, we have a great time chatting. Angie is a great conversationalist. She asks me about my kids, my family and I ask her all about hers. We are having a grand time and I am enjoying her company so much. I had been trying to fit in an appointment with her (between all my "doing" activities) viewing it more as a chore than anything but I was so enriched by the experience. She gives me a hug as I leave and I am in such a great mood and thought - Wow, she is another example of "It's not what you do, it's what you are!"

Anyhoo, tell me who fits this category for you!

Here's to being a human being,

Kim

Hi all,

Well, this is my first blog posting! I have been thinking about what to say to start the ball rolling here and thought if I wait much longer, blogs will be old technology! So, here we go.

I created this blog and my personal website www.kimberlyadams.org to help get the word out on how powerful we are and how we can change the direction of our lives by applying time tested success principles. I have been a personal growth and development junkie for many many years but really started to fully implement strategies to attract what I wanted in life after I started my UnFranchise business with Market America. It's training system heavily focuses on goals and understanding the Law of Attraction. Well, I guess I started before then since I have had the picture of owning a business from home and having lots of flexibility for as long as I have been working - 25+ years - ouch!! but it only manifested about 6 years ago when I started my business and then left traditional employment in Fall 2007. If you are interested in understanding more about the Law of Attraction, read Esther and Jerry Hicks "The Law of Attraction" and "Ask and It is Given." They are both awesome reads.

I'll give you my latest Law of Attraction story because it cracks me up. I had a big birthday at the end of May. And I also have been wanting a new car for a while. I was currently driving a bare bones Honda Accord. My husband, Lee, has always been a very basic car guy. He would do the Fred Flintstones thing with his legs if he could. You know, they just need to get you from point A to point B, they depreciate, yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda. BUT, I am into the abundance mentality and realize there is enough for everyone. So I sent a message to the Universe/God a week after my birthday. It went like this, "God, my car can show up any day now and PLEASE make it show up really fast and easy since I don't time to do all that shopping, test driving, etc." Two days later, I am reading the "Chicks 'n Chat" newsletter (great networking group by the way here in Pittsburgh) and there is an ad for a mercedes! I feel compelled to call and I definitely felt like this was my car showing up right on schedule. Well, two days later, I own a mercedes E320 sedan AWD, and have gotten used to it really fast! I figure if that showed up that easy, what else should I ask for AND expect to show up that easy! I have a large list :)

Well, I have to go to talk to my daughter, Elyse. She is currently in China for the summer after finishing up her junior year at Penn State and we use Skype to talk over the internet so she is calling in now.

Please send in your Law of Attraction Story!!!!!!!