coach up!

Posted on August 22, 2015 by Cynthia G.

I gave a talk about executive coaching this week to a group of nonprofit professionals and it was crazy cool! Nonprofit execs work too many hours with too few resources, and practically no strategic support. I want to change that. This means helping nonprofit leaders be more successful — and more fulfilled. Yum!

Important note: 1) transformative change is AMAZING, and, 2) success comes with a price. Stepping into your power can be a radical act, but it can also be a thrill-ride, so if you sign on with a coach, buckle up, baby! On the other hand, if you’re sort of meh about becoming a shinier, brighter version of you, do not, under any circumstances, engage a coach. You won’t like it, not one bit.

ONE SIZE FITS ALL

WARNING! Do Not hire a coach, if you are:

Unprepared to experience transformational growth
Unwilling to invest the time and energy to achieve it
Not open to considering new perspectives
Unwilling to experience fulfillment
Unprepared for honest feedback, as your coach will often goad you

Now get out there and get on with your fabulous life!

relax, baby!

Posted on August 17, 2015 by Cynthia G.

One of the greatest gifts you get from yoga is that it gives you permission to relax, to really really let everything go as you sink into a yummy pool of bliss. What’s not to love! At the gym where I practice yoga we end our sessions with a sweet period of savasna. Most times, I grab a towel to drape over my eyes because I can’t truly relax under florescent lights. What could be better than relaxing after a healthy workout. . .unless it’s being bathed in the sweet fragrance of lavender blossoms?

Our friends at Oregon Plum Brand have developed an aromatherapy eye pillow filled with a blend of lavender and flax seeds and are offering it for a limited time to our WordPress friends. Be one of the first 25 people to order an Oregon Plum all-natural lavender eye pillow, and get a deep discount on your purchase! Bonus: these make a great gift — get a jump on your holiday shopping and give the gift of relaxation. Click here to order.

Namaste!

write now

Posted on July 20, 2015 by Cynthia G.

It was the most amazing, powerful, insightful, fabulous Yoga and Creative Journaling Workshop for Women, well, ever! We got your Crow, your Eagle, your Down Dog. Plus, we got your expository writing to not only knock off any proverbial socks, but to actually take you to that place you’ve always wanted to go but didn’t quite know the way. Yeah, it was like that. And just to prove it, here is a little creative journaling sample: I

n my tribe I am loved, appreciated, and seen. There is no apology no room for shame, for what-ifs, if-onlys, no be seen not heards. This is a party palace, baby! This is where I am the celebrated and the celebration. I am the fireworks and the parade! But wait — is this the same as hunkering down with syrupy sychophants? Oh, no my dear. My tribe both supports me and calls me on my philosophical slight of hand, my fancy emotional tap-dancy work. My tribe loves music and animals and sustainable living. It appreciates beauty, even the most imperfect beauty. This is a tribe of passion and compassion. This tribe has good taste and isn’t afraid to use it. Oh, Tribe of my dreams, I would climb into your mouth and sleep in the shadow of your teeth. I would brush your hair 100 strokes before tucking you in for the night. I would make you hot chocolate from scratch with baby marshmallows for breakfast and I would cut all the crusts off of every piece of toast in the world for you. My tribe speaks like a Windigo from Love Medicine. My tribe has eyes so deep you could drown in them. Namaste, peeps! — Cynthia G.

suspended in blue

Posted on July 1, 2015 by Cynthia G.

When I meditate, the big things fall into perspective. When I sit and let my body relax, I can feel my bones and muscles, my blood and tissue, letting go of all the big ideas, the big worries, the Big Bad (as Buffy would say). My breath deepens, my shoulders drop. I would like to say that I let my worries go but it is really the other way around. When I fall into the sweet relaxation that mediation opens in me, worries let me go and my consciousness expands and rises up into the sky like a soap bubble. From that high-deep place the “big things” that occupy so much of my waking life seem as small as marbles in the dust and I wonder how they ever seemed important at all.

It took a couple of whole-day meditation retreats to reach this place. I like to think that I have meditated for years, but now I realize, I dabbled. I would do it when the timing was right or the moon was aligned or if I had not hit the snooze button and rose naturally, and meditation was a yummy doorway between dreaming and awake. But I never did it for more than 20 minutes. Tops.

I began attending a weekly Satsang in Napa and got to practice 30 minutes sessions. They were challenging, but I got the hang of it. Then, I did a couple of full day retreats at Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Woodacre. These took a little more concentration, a little more physical discipline. I struggled at first, but when I stopped efforting so much. . .and when I forgot to try, it happened. The world and everything in it (including me) simply expanded and I found my mind floating in a sparkling pool of iridescent blue. I call this feeling Suspended in the Blue and it is completely, utterly, and deeply delicious. I won’t pretend that I get there every time, but now that I know how, it has become an unfolding, and I appreciate the practice as much as the experience.

Big worries? Meh. I breathe in, I breathe out. Everything else is optional.

a gift for fiction

Posted on June 10, 2015 by Cynthia G.

“Your story, that story that keeps replaying, the interaction of your expectations and what happens, the narrative, the disappoinments and the way you process it. . .it’s all invented.

“Ambien, the popular sleep aid, doesn’t actually help people sleep much more. No, the reason it works is that it’s an amnesiac. Ambien makes your forget that you didn’t get a good night’s sleep.

“. . .[our story] it’s all invented. It’s still real, the pain is real, the frustration is real, but the story that’s causing it all is something we made up, and something we can change. The pain is real, and so is a path to changing it.”

–Seth Godin

The thing is, what is your story? What is the thing you repeat to everyone who will listen, about that thing that happened to you. The Course in Miracles says that we are all operating under a shared illusion and the fact that it’s shared, doesn’t make it any more real.

So what about it, cookie? What is your story? For goodness sake, make it a good one!

be::free

Posted on May 31, 2015 by Cynthia G.

“There are three problems with freedom: Things often don’t turn out precisely the way we hope. Resolution takes too long. And we might fail. And so, when it’s our turn, we take a pass. It’s far more reliable to stay where we are than it is to leap, to jump to a new place different from the one we’re in. But there’s an alternative. The alternative is to assume yes [and] no. To bet on failure [and] not failure. To realize that there’s a third state, the state of no knowing, of not landing, of not yet.

Not everything has to be okay.

Perhaps it might be better for everything to be moving. Moving forward, with generosity. Moving forward, with a willingness to live with the tension. Moving forward, learning as you go. The person who fails the most, wins.”

–Seth Godin, What To Do When It’s Your Turn (and it’s aways your turn)

peace of mind

Posted on May 25, 2015 by Cynthia G.

So there I was, planning my big, fat fundraiser, and I knew what I had to do. I’ve been doing this long enough to know that all the planning, all the wheeling, dealing, and organizational faits accompli, take a toll on body and mind. And so, into every event strategy, I insert one very important task: the post-event treat. Sometimes its a spa treatment. Sometimes it’s a couple of days away. This time, it was both. I booked myself into a yoga retreat in the breathtakingly beautiful Sierra foothills. I meditated three times a day, walked, breathed, and did a little yoga. Now I’m all calm and ready to take on a whole new adventure. PS: the event was a huge success!

fluffy clouds of goodness

Posted on January 28, 2015 by Cynthia G.

Ah, Janauary. The month of new beginings: new excerise dreams, new diets. The new year begins with so many good intentions. . .and then the Goddess laughs and tosses a wrench in the works. Well, what else is there to do but soldier on? If the worst thing that happens to your new diet is lunch at a French bistro, start counting your blessings, my dear. That’s what our friend the Fundraising Strategist did.

READ MORE HERE.

read me

Posted on January 22, 2015 by Cynthia G.

::REVIEW::

Set in 17^th century Amsterdam, The Miniaturist is the story of young Nella, a country girl possessing an important name and no fortune, newly married to Johannes Brandt, a wealthy Amsterdam merchant. After a short introduction and even shorter courtship, Nella is quickly married to Brandt before he vanishes back to the city to conduct his important business, leaving his bride behind to follow him when she will.

With little beside an address to go by, Nella arrives in Amsterdam and finds Brandt’s grand manor in the best part of town, but she does not find her husband. Instead, she finds Brandt’s formidable sister, Marin, who is head of the household and manager of Brandt’s business affairs. There is the fiercely loyal household cook, maid, and chief snoop, Cornelia, who was rescued from an orphanage. There is also Brandt’s valet, Otto, a slave acquired on a trip to the East Indies, then freed and employed by Brandt himself. Nella takes her established place in her husband’s home and begins to discover the secrets that form the heartbeat of her new family.

Brandt is formidable and handsome, a respected member of Amsterdam’s merchant class and leader in the Dutch East Indian Company. His business interests keep him far from home, and so do appetites that in Calvinist Amsterdam put the family squarely on a path of destruction. But he is generous and kind to Nella. As a wedding gift and to keep her occupied in her newly elevated role of married lady, Brandt presents Nella with a model replica of his house and instructs her to fill it as she will. Resourceful Nella discovers a miniaturist in the city who provides her with exquisitely detailed replicas to furnish her small house. Before long however, Nella discovers that the miniatures, which begin to arrive without having been commissioned, form premonitions of household events. Mysteries stack up. Increasingly, Nella feels herself being watched, and she herself begins to listen at keyholes. She feels as if she is working out a puzzle. No one will tell her the truth – or at least not all of it.

Austere Marin wears modest dresses of black wool. . .lined with ermine and silk. She is educated and vicious as a hawk, a grown woman who chooses spinsterhood over marriage for the freedom that it affords her. But surely there are lovers? No one seems to know for certain; or if they do, they are not talking.

In accordance with her very dignified position, Nella is introduced to Amsterdam society to great interest, the child-bride of the great Johannes Brandt. She is given an allowance and complete freedom to navigate the city at will. She learns the city’s sophisticated social customs of and grows into her position as a married lady. In the end, Nella grows up quickly and manages to save herself, if not the Brandts.

The Miniaturist has all the appeal of an historical romance, except the romance is found in all the most unexpected places. As a pager-turner, The Miniaturist can’t be beat.

Cynthia G.

grace everywhere

Posted on January 17, 2015 by Cynthia G.

The other night while eating Chinese and reading the winter issue of Ploughshares I discovered Lance Larson and his astonishing “Sad Jar of Atoms.” I tumbled into a rabbit hole of language love that I haven’t felt since my first reading of Louise Erdrich’s Last Report of the Miracles from Little No Horse. This is true love. Deep love. Crush love.

“Life is a jar of maybe, of who knows, whereby we grow older and bones turn brittle as hope. Some jars live along time, like sea turtles, like Benjamin Franklin, a jar of genius filled with Poor Richard and flirting in French. . .”

Lance Larson, poet genius, poet laureate of Utah, I love you. I want to hold your prose babies in my prayerful hands. I am lost in cadence and find myself in a place where words are texture and all sound is a dazzle . . all because of your “Sad Jar of Atoms.”

Thank you for your Byronic reference. Thank you for “a jar made of sizzle and cordite.” Thank you for your “river and the eye of a bird.”