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Stop! Don't Have That Affair!

If you’ve been with me for a while, you know that I was a divorce attorney for over 20 years in Omaha, Nebraska. Now, and for the past 16 years, I’ve been working with couples to help them stay together and have fantastic relationships.
In all these years of working with couples, I can tell you that the most destructive (but easiest to avoid) problem is cheating. It can ruin everything and it can be almost impossible to come back from.
Watch my 6 minute video – it might change your life and save your relationship.

If this issue has been haunting you, I first want to say that I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry for your pain, hurt and anguish. But I also want to tell you that there’s hope. I know it. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen the healing take place and people come out the other end.
We’re all human. We all make mistakes, and sometimes the mistakes are more vicious and horrendous than we think we can bear, but you can bear it. You can make it through it.
If your partner has cheated, you’re at a crossroads. You need to decide what you are going to do. I urge you to get help with this. This is one of the most critical times in your life, and the decisions that you make now will be affecting you (and your family) for the rest of your life.
What do you truly want? What do you need? Now is the time to really be looking for your own healing as well as the healing of the relationship.
Certainly, a retreat (where you immerse yourself in your healing) is the best choice. What makes our retreats so unique and special is that they are customized for each couple and the sessions are all private, not in groups.
We spend a lot of time talking to each of you separately before you come to Sedona to uncover all of the issues that need to be healed. We then custom design the retreat for exactly what the two of you need.
During your retreat, you’ll work in private one-on-one (or two-on-one) sessions. We have over 40 practitioners, many of whom have over 20 years of experience working with couples.
The privacy of the sessions is so key. Many people don’t feel comfortable in a group setting and they don’t want to talk about their most private issues in front of a bunch of strangers.
There is also a strange dynamic that can sometimes happen in group settings where the group seems to “take the side” of one person, identifying one as the “good guy” and the other as the “bad guy,” and the other person can feel ganged up on. That doesn’t help the healing!
The privacy of the one-on-one sessions and the skills of our practitioners truly create a space where both parties feel safe.
We have helped hundreds and hundreds of people come through this difficult time and come out the other side. Give us a call, we can help. Or click below to speak with one of our Retreat Guides:

If you’ve been with me for a while, then you know that I was a divorce attorney for 20 years in Omaha, Nebraska.
And since 2002, I’ve had Sedona Soul Adventures where we work with individuals and couples, and many of the couples we work with are on the verge of divorce.

So I’ve been working with couples since 1979 and I can tell you that one of the most destructive things that can happen to a relationship is infidelity. I’m sure that sounds pretty obvious, but I think in our world today, I don’t hear very many people saying what I’m going to say to you today, which is: Stop! Don’t have that affair.
When I was a divorce attorney that was an all too common theme, and now with Sedona Soul Adventures, it’s something that we see over and over again, and if this is something that is happening in your life, I want to ask you to stop and really think about what you’re doing.
You really need to know that once an affair happens, nothing will ever be the same again. Are you willing to risk your entire life for this, because that’s what happens. You’re risking Your marriage. Your children. Your peace of mind.
You’re even risking your Financial well-being because divorce and its aftermath are very expensive.
But the biggest thing you’re risking is the trust that you have with your partner. And once that trust is broken, it’s really difficult to put it back together.
We had a couple here a few weeks ago who were here as a result of the wife having had an affair 10 years ago. 10 years ago! They had done a lot of therapy, but they just could never get past this. She hadn’t been unfaithful again for 10 years, but that wasn’t enough. Once that trust is broken, it’s just so difficult.
When they came to us, we were their last ditch attempt at saving their marriage. In fact, he had already moved out and filed divorce papers. What we discovered really surprised us and them. We figured out that the problem here was about control. I’ll call them Linda and Mike, but that’s not their real names. Linda grew up in a family where her father was in the military, so he was very rigid and controlling. She was looking for a way to get out from under all that control, found Mike when they were both 19, she got pregnant and they both felt they had to get married.
Not surprisingly, it turned out that Mike was even more controlling than her father. And Mike admitted that not only was he controlling, but he was also very critical of her. Ten years into the marriage, after all the controlling and criticism, she had an affair. They could both see that this wasn’t the result of her not loving Mike, it had to do with her trying to finally break free from all the control and all the criticism she had had her entire life. When Mike got that, it just shifted everything. He was able to finally forgive her and even more importantly, she was finally able to forgive herself.

After their final session, they decided they wanted to do a recommitment ceremony. We did that with them on Oak Creek, it was so beautiful and we all talked about how incredible it was that just the week before Mike had filed for divorce.
Their marriage was saved but look at all the years of pain and suffering they both endured. Don’t do that. Don’t do it to your family. Don’t do it to yourself.

I hope this video makes you feel a little happier and if it did, please like, share the video with your friends and subscribe to our channel.
And if you want a more direct path to getting and staying happy – then go to SedonaRetreatGuide.com and get your complimentary copy of The Sedona Guide to Couples Retreats today.
Or if you’d like to talk to someone about doing a retreat that’s custom designed for you call us at 928/204-5988.
You can have the life AND the relationship you want – I know it.

Is your body hurting?

One of the hardest things to do in life is to deal with physical pain. But there are things you can do that can make a huge difference, in conjunction with what you are doing already. Listen to my 10 minute video:

In this video, I talk about Louise Hay and Norman Cousins, who prescribe using forgiveness, love, and laughter (and both lived 30-40 years after their initial fatal diagnoses).
If you think that might be the right prescription for you, come to Sedona to do a retreat. We’ll speak with you, digging deep. Then we’ll custom design a retreat to bring you into the vibration where healing can take place.
During your retreat, you’ll work one-on-one with the Master Practitioners of Sedona (we have over 50!), who will take you from where you are to where you want to be.
We’re not a medical facility, but we are great at dealing with the emotional and spiritual underpinnings that I believe are involved in much pain and illness. Call us today at (928) 204-5988 or click below and we’ll call you:

In the last video I spoke with you about how when I finally “got it,” that there was nothing wrong with my body, I dropped 40 pounds in less than 5 weeks without diet or exercise – and that was over 10 years ago. If you didn’t see that video, go look for it, because that is so completely powerful and I want you to have it.
Today I want to talk to you about using these same principles for your body if you have pain or illness, because these principles have worked for so many people. Because when you can figure out how to flip that switch, the results can be almost unbelievable.
Please understand that I’m NOT saying don’t go to the doctor and stay home and just try to feel good. What I am talking about here is you doing whatever is necessary to start shifting how you’re feeling about it, how you’re talking about it, and how you’re thinking about it.
Let’s talk again about why these principles work.
Everything is energy. Quantum Physics has proven that everything is energy.
You are creating your reality in every moment (whether you believe it or not).
You are sending out energy and vibrations in every moment.
Thoughts are things. Quantum Physics is proving that even focusing your attention on something changes it.
When we think about something, we get more of it.
If we’re worried about something, we bring it faster.
If we’re excited about something, we bring it faster.
What we fight gets bigger and bigger because we are pouring more and more energy into whatever it is that we are fighting.
What we resist persists.
So I’m talking to you here about how to start doing things to drop your resistance.

There are many people who have had significant decreases in their symptoms by utilizing these principles. Norman Cousins, who wrote the book “Anatomy of an Illness,” was diagnosed with serious heart disease and a rare form of arthritis that was incredibly painful. He was told by his doctors that he realistically had only one year to live. As he documents in his book (which was also made into a movie starring Ed Asner), he went on a regimen of massive doses of Vitamin C and what he called a “Prescription of positive attitude, love, faith, hope, and laughter” by watching Marx Brothers movies.

In his book he said, “I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep.”
He lived to be 75 years old – 36 years beyond his first deadly diagnosis!

Louise Hay, who wrote “You Can Heal Your Life” and “Heal Your Body,” was diagnosed in 1978 with cervical cancer, which she was told was incurable and terminal. She believed her cancer was the result of the anger and resentment she was holding from being physically abused by her stepfather and raped when she was only 15. She became pregnant from the rape and was forced to give up her baby daughter at age 16.
She went on a regimen of forgiveness and she lived another 40 years after being told her cancer was terminal. She passed away last year at the age of 90. She believed from her own experience that “All disease comes from a state of unforgiveness.”
In “Heal Your Body” she says, “I find that when we really love and accept and approve of ourselves exactly as we are, then everything in life works.”
This is exactly what I’m talking about. I believe that when we hate what’s going on with our bodies, we just add to the energy of what we hate and as Quantum Physics has shown us, it gets bigger and bigger. I know it’s true for weight, where we literally get bigger and bigger… that’s exactly what happened for me, when I hated my body, it just got bigger and bigger. When I started really loving my body, that’s when everything shifted for me.
I had a woman who went on the Egypt trip with me many years ago. I didn’t realize it at the time, she didn’t tell me about it, but she had been diagnosed with a very aggressive form of breast cancer and she was scheduled to have surgery right after we got back from the trip. While we were on the trip, we were talking about these principles, but again, she didn’t tell me what was going on with her.

When our group had our special private time in the Great Pyramid, in the Queen’s Chamber, we did a special ceremony of releasing. She told me later that she just released everything up to God. She stopped asking to be cured, she released her fear, she released the anger and judgment that had consumed her. She said she felt this peace just settle over her and she also felt a tingling in her breast.
When we got back she went to the doctor for her pre-op exam and they couldn’t find the lump. They did an x-ray, and this mass that had been the size of a golf ball was gone. She told the doctor what had happened in the Great Pyramid and of course, he said that couldn’t possibly be what had happened and he said her previous x-rays must have been incorrect. But she had had 3 sets of x-rays, she and the doctor and nurses had all felt the lump. He didn’t want to believe it, but she certainly knew what had happened. The best part was, she was 82 years old when all this happened and she lived another 10 years.
Louise Hay also said, “Every thought we think is creating our future.”
If that’s true, and I believe it is, then what thoughts are you thinking?
Use some of the other processes that I’ve given you in these videos, like “Change Your Story, Change Your Life.”
Stop talking about this pain or illness that you hate, and start loving your body.
Watch the video on Affirmations again. Louise Hay was a huge believer in affirmations, in fact, her books contain specific affirmations for specific illnesses.
She was also a big believer in Meditation.
Again, I’m not saying to only do affirmations and meditation and hope that this New Age stuff will work. Do everything: go to your doctor, take your medications, eat right, do everything you possibly can to feel better, that’s what it’s all about.
Louise Hay also said, “Love is the great miracle cure. Loving ourselves works miracles in our lives.”
Are you ready for a miracle? If you’re ready for one, that’s the energy that can allow it to come in.

The Easiest (and Only Way) to Lose Weight

I would diet and lose weight before the holidays and then during the holidays I would let myself eat and drink, and I would always gain it all back… and more. Sound familiar?

I sometimes still can’t believe I looked like this when I first started coming to Sedona.

Watch this video to hear about how I dropped 40 pounds in 5 weeks without diet or exercise. Learning how to love your body and dropping the resistance is truly the only diet that works!

Lately, I’ve been talking to you in my videos about a way of living your life, a way of being that can transform every area of your life, the concept of approaching everything from the knowing and the energy that Nothing is Wrong. And there’s almost no place where you can have more dramatic shifts with this than with your body, especially with weight. This area of my life was the one that took me so long to figure out and I spent so much time, energy, money, and heartache over hating my body – not so much hating it, as wanting it to be different.

I struggled with my weight my entire life. This is how I looked in 1999 when I first started coming to Sedona. But when I finally really got this – when I got it that nothing is wrong with my body, when I figured out how to flip that switch — I released over 40 pounds in less than 5 weeks without diet or exercise, and that was almost 10 years ago.

My struggles with weight started very young. I was a dancer starting from the age of 3. I never had a dancer’s body, I was never tall and thin, and I have a very vivid memory of my body being criticized when I was 8 years old. I was put on my first diet when I was 12, even though when I look at pictures of myself back then, I wasn’t fat. In high school, my hormones started really kicking in, my father’s alcoholism really started kicking in, and I can see now that I was doing a lot of emotional eating. I gained 10 pounds in high school and I was on that yo-yo constantly after that.
I have done everything – I’ve done every diet out there, I’ve gone vegan, I’ve gone raw, I’ve done Weight Watchers, NutriSystem, the Stillman Diet, the Dolly Parton Diet, the grape diet, I’ve bought every piece of exercise equipment, sold it and bought more. I’ve had personal trainers, I’ve had times in my life where I worked out every single day. I always would lose weight as long as I was starving myself and exercising like a maniac, but then the minute I would even think about eating “regular” food again, I would gain it all back and more. Does that sound familiar?
Everything changed about 10 years ago. I was in the process of trying to really incorporate all these ideas that I’m talking to you about. I believed them in my head, but that wasn’t really enough. And then something happened, that really changed my life. I got into an argument with my then husband, I went home, started crying, got into bed, my body started vibrating to the point where I could not move… and as I laid there, I suddenly heard this voice in my head saying over and over again “there’s nothing wrong with you, there’s nothing wrong with you, there’s nothing wrong with you,” and then it was showing me how in every area of my life, that Nothing is Wrong and the first thing that I was being shown is that there is Nothing Wrong with my body, which at that point was pretty hard to swallow (pardon the pun), because I was 40 pounds overweight. I looked like that picture I showed you.
I was suddenly just filled with this knowing that there was nothing wrong with my body and that the problem was my resistance to everything. I got out of bed and I made the decision, “I’m done.” “I’m just going to stop.” I was on a diet at the time and I just made the decision “I’m done.” This has to stop. The obsession had to stop. I threw up my hands. I gave in. I surrendered. I decided to stop all dieting, stop thinking about food all of the time, and stop the obsessive exercising.
And I started eating what I wanted. I would check in with my body, and I would eat whatever I felt like eating. Sometimes that would be something that other people would define as “healthy,” like a green smoothie. Sometimes it would be an In ‘n Out cheeseburger and, of course, fries and a chocolate shake! I started to find that it seemed like I was fuller faster. I ate until I wasn’t hungry and very often left food on my plate because I was satisfied.

I stopped the crazy exercising. I did still go on hikes with my dog, but that was because I just loved being out in nature in Sedona, and I loved hiking with my dog.
Suddenly, 5 weeks later I went shopping for jeans and went for a size 14 — and they were way too big. At first I thought it was the brand. To my utter amazement, I was a size 6!
I went home and weighed myself and saw that I had dropped 40 pounds.
The key is Loving Your Body.
Not wanting so desperately for your body to be different.
It’s such a paradox. The minute I stopped going crazy about everything is when everything shifted.
So let’s recap what we know so far from the other videos
Everything is energy.
You are creating your reality in every moment (whether you believe it or not).
You are sending out energy and vibrations in every moment.
Thoughts are things. Quantum Physics is proving that even focusing attention on something changes it.
When we think about something, we get more of it.
If we’re worried about something, we bring it faster.
If we’re excited about something, we bring it faster.
What we resist persists.
What we fight gets bigger and bigger because we are pouring more and more energy into whatever it is that we are fighting.
Our physical bodies are the most perfect and precise examples of this energy in action.
So let’s talk about what you can start doing right now to move into this shift, to flip that switch.

Stop telling yourself that something is wrong with your body. Stop talking about it, stop talking about how fattening food is, and stop discussing it with your friends and everyone else. My God, do you realize how much we talk about how much we hate our bodies and talk about food, and how fattening everything is, and how this is not healthy, and that’s not healthy, and no matter what I do, I can’t lose weight? Stop talking about it! You’re simply reinforcing it and making it more and more difficult. Instead, talk about the things that you like or appreciate about your body.
Start checking in with your body to discover what it really wants to eat and examine your thoughts about what you are about to eat. If you think that something is going to make you gain weight, then it will. So don’t eat it. If you want to lose weight, then eat something that you think will make you lose weight. You will start to see shifts happen as you do this. It’s quite remarkable, and it starts to become fun to play with it.

Start putting yourself in the mindset of feeling good about your body. Stop telling yourself that you hate your body or that you need to lose weight or that you want it to be different. Start actively and consciously loving your body.
I hope I’m conveying the power of what can happen when you start loving your body. When I hated my body, I could go on every diet in the world and lose weight, but because I always thought and felt of myself as fat, the weight always came back. When I finally shifted that, everything changed. It can for you too.
I hope this video makes you feel a little happier and if it did, please like, share the video with your friends and subscribe to our channel.
And If you want a more direct path to getting and staying happy – then go to SedonaRetreatGuide.com and get your complimentary copy of The Sedona Guide to Couples Retreats today.
Or if you’d like to talk to someone about doing a retreat that’s custom designed for you call us at 928/204-5988.
You can have the life AND the relationship you want – I know it.

How to use The Gateway of Gratitude to change your life

I hope this helped, and if you got value from this video, please like, share the video and subscribe to our channel.

Why is Gratitude so powerful?
Gratitude brings us into a higher energetic vibration.
When we are feeling negative emotions – anger, frustration, jealousy – we are vibrating at a much lower frequency and worse, we are attracting to ourselves exactly what we don’t want and bringing in more and more of it. Experiencing true gratitude is one of the easiest and fastest ways to bring yourself back into a higher and faster energetic vibration that will then attract everything you DO want into your life. This is what I call the Gateway of Gratitude — the process of utilizing Gratitude as a doorway or portal to bring yourself into alignment with what you want:

Love
Abundance
Vibrant Health
Spiritual Connection

What do you want? Do you want your relationship to be more loving, more expansive, more fulfilling? Do you have a situation with a friend, a co-worker or a mate that is causing you to stay in disconnection? Are you having a health challenge?
Use the Gateway of Gratitude to change it around and to bring in exactly what you want. More love, more abundance, a healthy body. This simple process can literally work miracles in your life!
Here’s the process:
For the next 30 days, take 3 minutes (that’s all!) each morning and write 5 things that you are truly grateful for about the person or the situation. For example, if you are having difficulties in your relationship, write 5 things you truly appreciate about the other person. It must be things that are true for you. So, if it’s something about your mate it could be:

I love his/her beautiful blue eyes.
I love that he/she likes dogs.
I love that he/she is good at his job.
I love that he has things that he enjoys, like baseball.
I love that he/she loves our children.

You can also write about things in your life that you are grateful for. The easiest way into the Gateway of Gratitude is to be thankful for what you already have, for what is. And there are many, many things in your life to be grateful for: the sun is shining, the earth is spinning on its axis, you are alive, you are breathing.
After you have written down your 5 things, take just a moment to close your eyes, take a deep breath and truly FEEL the gratitude for this person or situation. The more you can infuse emotion into the process, the faster you will move into the Gateway of Gratitude. If you find you can’t muster the feeling, it’s okay, just breathe and let it go. As you move more and more into the process, it will start to come. Don’t force it.
You can repeat things you have written again, especially towards the end of the 30 days. Just make sure you are writing things you truly believe.
Don’t tell the other person (or anyone else for that matter) that you are doing this. The magic lies in what you will start to see happening in just a short time — as little as 3 days!
To begin, get yourself a little spiral notebook, a new one that you can pick up for 50¢ at Walgreens. Of course, you can get a fancy journal, but all you need is a new book for this new life you are creating. I prefer a small spiral notebook because you can easily carry it around with you and write down more “Attitudes of Gratitude” as you think of them during the day. It’s also wonderful throughout the process to go back and read what you have written in the prior days and to watch how your Gratitude and appreciation continue to deepen.
There also seems to be something more powerful about actually writing the “High 5” in your own handwriting, rather than typing it on a computer. You are infusing your own self, your own energy into the process.
The key is consistency. Go into the Gateway of Gratitude every single day for 30 days with no interruption. Taking only 3 minutes is a good way to get yourself to do it every day, so that you are not spending a lot of time.
When you have another issue that comes up, start another 30 day process. Or better still, use the process consistently each day to bring yourself into connection.
I have used this process in my own life and with my coaching clients for years. My favorite results (and the most typical) are when my client will say something like, “It’s so amazing. My husband has suddenly become so much more loving. Nothing has changed, except that I’ve been doing this process.”
I had a coaching client a few years ago who contacted me because she knew I had Sedona Soul Adventures and she knew I had been a divorce attorney for 20 years, and she wanted me to coach her through her divorce. We started the coaching with me asking her why she wanted a divorce. Everything she was telling me seemed rather minor, certainly not enough to break up a family over. I started talking to her about the things she actually like about her husband. I had her start a Gratitude Journal that day.
What had started out as a 2 year divorce coaching process (because that’s how long her lawyer told her it was going to take) ended in 60 days. She started the Gratitude journal about her husband and everything switched around – her husband became more loving, more attentive, more caring, they started having great sex again…everything switched around and that was over 5 years ago.
We use this with people in our retreats here in Sedona and I have seen people change relationships, heal their bodies, create more abundance, create better relationships with their children – every area of your life can be transformed using this simple, but powerful process.

I hope this video makes you feel a little happier and if it did, please like, share the video with your friends and subscribe to our channel.
And If you want a more direct path to getting and staying happy – then go to SedonaRetreatGuide.com and get your complimentary copy of The Sedona Guide to Couples Retreats today.
Or if you’d like to talk to someone about doing a retreat that’s custom designed for you call us at 928/204-5988.
You can have the life AND the relationship you want – I know it.

How To Meditate

Download the Releasing Stress meditation here…and start meditating!

I hope this helped, and if you got value from this video, please like, share the video and subscribe to our channel.

Mindfulness Meditation
Mindfulness Meditation is one of the simplest meditation techniques. Sit on the floor or in a chair with your back straight, close your eyes and simply focus on your breath.

Notice your breath going in, notice your breath going out. Thoughts will come into your head, just allow them to come in and go out without judging them, just notice them. Once you start doing this, you can start bringing mindfulness into all parts of your everyday life, being fully present and aware of what you’re doing, and not reacting or being judgmental about what’s happening.

Body Scan Meditation
If you find that your mind is too active for the Mindfulness Meditation, you may want to try a Body Scan Meditation. With this one, also sit on the floor or in a chair with your back straight. Start breathing deeply, close your eyes and then bring your attention to your body and how it feels. You can then start at the feet and move up the different body parts and notice how they feel – tight or soft, heavy or light. Some people do a variation of this and go through each body part, tightening each part and then allowing it to relax, so they actually feel the difference between the tension and the relaxation.

Mantra Meditation
Another very effective meditation technique is the Mantra Meditation and again, this works great if you have what they call a Monkey Mind that won’t stop chattering. With a Mantra Meditation, start as always, sitting on the floor or in a chair with your back straight. Start breathing deeply, close your eyes and then say a mantra or word over and over again. Some people use the word “Om,” some people use the word “love.” Finding a word that has deep meaning for you can quiet your mind and bring you into higher vibrations.

Guided Meditation
This is one where you are led through a guided imagery or visualization. Most people use these as recordings and it’s interesting because when you use headphones, depending on the type of recording you have, you can actually be syncing the right and left hemispheres of the brain. Guided Meditations are great because they replace the chatter in your head and they can be designed for accomplishing specific goals, like reducing stress, losing weight, learning faster… the range is almost unlimited.

Find something that appeals to you and just start, that’s the most important thing, just start!
And two more things.

I’ve talked about sitting on the floor or in a chair. That’s how most teachers recommend you do it. I don’t recommend lying down and I don’t recommend doing it in bed. When you lie down in bed, your brain immediately thinks, “It’s time to sleep!” and you’ll fall asleep. So unless you’re doing a meditation to help you sleep better, sit up straight on the floor or in a chair. This also helps to bring your chakras into alignment.

Why You Should Be Meditating As If Your Life Depends On It – Because It Does

I’m talking with you today about why you should be meditating as if your life depends on it – Because it does.
Definitely the most important process that you can be doing, the one that has been scientifically proven over and over again to be incredibly beneficial, is meditation. And the more scientists study this, the more incredible they are finding meditation to be.
Here is a partial list of some of the Emotional Benefits of Meditation:

Stress
Anxiety
Worry
Depression
Addiction
Overcome self-limiting beliefs, habits, fears, and phobias
Feel more happy, confident, inspired, and motivated

Then there are all the Physical Benefits of Meditation:

Strengthen immune system
Better sleep
Increased longevity
Boost vitality
Feel more energized and rejuvenated

Then there are all the Psychological Benefits of Meditation:

Boost learning ability, memory, and concentration
Enhance your intuition, creativity, and ability to succeed
Access the subconscious
Move brainwave patterns into most advanced states
Achieve the mindset to attract and manifest the life you want

So the bottom line is that if you want to be happier, healthier, have more abundance, possibly live longer, be more intelligent, run faster, jump higher… I mean really, meditation is the thing that does it all.
I have so many people who say to me, “Debra, I’ve tried meditating and it just doesn’t work for me. My mind is going a mile a minute, I can’t make it stop.” Well the thing is, if that’s what’s been happening for you, then that’s EXACTLY why you should be meditating.
So let’s back up and let me talk for a moment about what’s really happening when you meditate…
On one level, you are re-training your brain. You are quieting your mind, you are becoming present – what some people call mindfulness – and when you start really doing it, you are connecting with the energy and the vibrations of the Universe – of All That IS. You are syncing the right and left hemispheres of the brain and accessing deep layers of the unconscious.
You are in the flow and little by little, you start to see how things start flowing in your life.
I have someone who came to do a Soul Adventures retreat, then on one of our trips, and then she decided to do coaching with me. I kept trying to get her to do meditation and she wouldn’t do it. I was able to get her to do a lot of the other processes that I talk about in my book and then with the coaching, pretty much every area of her life just got fantastically better. Her work, her relationship with her husband and with her kids, and she was able to really start manifesting the things she wanted in her life. Then a few months ago, her intuition started really opening up and I started talking to her for the umpteenth time about doing meditation and how that would make that happen even more quickly. Literally this past week I spoke with her and she said to me, “The meditation has changed everything.” Before she was able to make things happen by thinking about them and the sheer force of her will and working really hard, and that was pretty good. But now, she simply thinks about something and it starts to happen. She was telling me that before something would happen that she didn’t like and she would get upset about it. She said, “I know you keep saying in the book that Nothing is Wrong, but I couldn’t quite get there.”
Suddenly in the past few months with the meditation, everything is different. She said that in the past month, she noticed that her business wasn’t making as much money as it had in the past quarter. She just noticed it, she didn’t get upset about it. She noticed it and then during her meditations she was going into the energy of bringing in more abundance. Within 3 days, 3 clients came to her seemingly “out of the blue.”
She did a remodel in her home and when it was finished, she had to move a very large, heavy piece of furniture in her house. That day during her meditation she had the thought of wouldn’t it be wonderful if these 2 guys who are friends of her son but don’t know each other and both are big football players to come to the house and move the piece of furniture? Again, out of the blue, these 2 guys who are friends of her son but don’t know each other, showed up at her house at the same time and were happy to do the moving for her.
She had promised her husband that she would pay for the remodel out of her own money because he didn’t want to go through the hassle of it and then it took much longer and cost much more than what she had originally planned. Isn’t that what always happens? Suddenly, she received money out of the blue from an account she had forgotten about and it came at the exact same time the remodel was finished. So it was perfect that the remodel took as long as it did. It wasn’t late, it was perfect. And the money showed up right on time.
Can you see the flow operating here? When we’re in the flow, things just keep getting easier and easier.
When we spoke, she said things were good before, but the meditation has just kicked everything into hyperdrive.
Did you know that Jerry Seinfeld meditates? I listened to him talking about it on a podcast. When he was in college, he saw a flyer for a Transcendental Meditation class – he took it and to this day, he meditates every day. He was saying he credits it for a large part of his creativity and his success.
So I hope I’ve convinced you that meditating is something you should be doing. In my next video I’m going to talk about How to Meditate, so I hope you’ll stay tuned.

How to Use Affirmations to Bring in What You Want

Today I’m talking with you about How to use Affirmations to bring in what you want.
In these series of videos, I’m talking about concepts from my book, The Journey to Happy– How Embracing the Concept that Nothing is Wrong Can Transform Your Life, processes that you can start using right now to get happy and stay happy.
Affirmations have been around for many, many years and I will tell you they can be tremendously powerful when used properly – and the key is to use them properly.
Over the past few years, I’ve become fascinated with brain chemistry, specifically with how our brains can be changed. The science of this is changing so rapidly. Up until the last decade or so, scientists thought that the makeup and functionality of our brains were fairly static. Now, they’re finding that our brains have an incredible amount of what they call Plasticity.
Perhaps what’s even more amazing, is that we’ve discovered that the brain can be changed with something as simple as using Affirmations.
What are affirmations? Affirmations are Positive Messages that are Used Repetitively to alter the way we think (and therefore feel) about something. They can be written, spoken, or thought. Examples of an Affirmation are:
“I have everything I need to be completely happy and successful.”
“I love and adore my husband, he loves and adores me, and we are gloriously happy.”
When we recite Affirmations, Hormones are released that rewire our brains. It’s exercising for your brain much like you would exercise your body! Affirmations trigger the release of feel-good hormones that actually cause the brain to form clusters of Positive thought neurons.
They operate as a kind of pattern interrupt. They can reverse negative thinking and negative emotions.
Here are three critical things to keep in mind as you practice Affirmations:

Affirmations must be positive statements

Write “I love my husband!” as opposed to “We aren’t going to have anymore fights.” The Universe doesn’t hear a negative. When hearing, “We aren’t going to have any more fights,” the Universe receives, “Fights. Okay, send them more fights!”

Make it a personal statement

Use “I” when referring to yourself or “we” when referring to a couple so that the Universe knows that you’re not talking about someone else.

Write Affirmations in the present tense

This is probably one of the biggest things — Many people make the mistake of writing Affirmations in the future tense, e.g., “Someday I’ll have a nice house.” Instead, write “I have a beautiful home,” as if it were already exactly as you want it.
In addition to that, keep the following critical steps in mind:

Feel good while you’re doing it. If it doesn’t feel good, stop doing it.
Make it as specific as possible without feeling like you are making it up.
You need to believe that there is at least a kernel of Truth in what you’re saying.

Affirmations work because you’re establishing a direct connection with the energy of the Universe. However, if you don’t actually believe what you’re writing or saying, you can do more harm than good, because you’re increasing the energy of what you don’t want.
For example, if you feel like you hate your spouse, your relationship is horrible, and you feel unloved and misunderstood, the moment you write an affirmation such as “I love and adore my husband, he loves and adores me, and we are gloriously happy,” your subconscious mind will rebel against the lie and you’ll begin to think, “We’re NOT gloriously happy, we’re completely miserable, and I wish he would just drop off the face of the Earth!” These thoughts perpetuate feelings of anger, frustration, bitterness, and hopelessness.
Instead, use an Affirmation that is leading to where you want to be. For example, “There is a part of me that loves my husband. There is a part of my husband that loves me. We are connecting with the love that we have for each other.”
Or, if you’re deeply in debt and you want more money, if you start out with an affirmation that says “I have 10 million dollars,” your mind is going to immediately go into the opposite energy. Try something like, “My life is growing more and more abundant every day,” and see how that feels and how things start to change.
Find a statement that has at least a kernel of truth in it and make it as specific as you can without being false. If you start to feel bad while you’re writing it, that emotion is telling you that this is not the correct Affirmation. Keep trying until you find one that feels true, real, specific, and hopeful. This can bring you into the energy of connection really fast. And when you’re in the energy of connection, everything is possible.
A number of years ago, I was producing a spiritual workshop and I was talking to lots of people trying to get them to co-sponsor it with me. I started writing the affirmation, “Everyone I talk with is very interested in what I have to say.” Within just a few weeks, I got more sponsors than I had even hoped for — but the other thing I started seeing, was that I was suddenly getting a whole lot of attention from men that was unwanted because I was in a happy relationship. I realized I had to make the affirmation more specific because it was working too well!
I hope this video makes you feel a little happier and if it did, please like, share the video with your friends and subscribe to our channel.
And If you want a more direct path to getting and staying happy – then go to SedonaRetreatGuide.com and get your complimentary copy of The Sedona Guide to Couples Retreats today.
Or if you’d like to talk to someone about doing a retreat that’s custom designed for you call us at 928/204-5988.
You can have the life AND the relationship you want – I know it.

3 New Reasons Why You Shouldn't Get a Divorce

I don’t know if you know this about me, but I was a divorce attorney for 20 years in Omaha, Nebraska. And now for the past 16 years, I’ve been helping couples stay together through Sedona Soul Adventures, which is a lot more fun and satisfying.
So I’ve seen this up close and personal for over 36 years and I can tell you — if there’s any possibility that you can turn your relationship around, PLEASE DO IT!
You know all the usual reasons why not to get a divorce, but today, watch my video on 3 New Reasons Why You Shouldn’t Get a Divorce. It’s just 8 minutes and it might really help.
Or if you know of someone who’s struggling with this right now, please forward it on to them.

I hope this helped, and if you got value from this video, please like, share the video and subscribe to our channel.

If you feel like there might be a glimmer of hope for your relationship, please do something about it. Think about coming to Sedona to do a Couples Retreat. After 16 years and thousands of people, I’m still amazed at what happens. If you’d like to have one of our Retreat Guides call you, please click below.

Or if you’d prefer, call us toll-free at 1-877-204-3664 (US and Canada). For our friends outside the US and Canada call 01 928-204-5988 or click here and one of our Retreat Guides will call you.
They’ll connect with you (or both of you, if it’s a couples retreat) in deep conversation. Then they’ll custom design the perfect retreat for you, working with our Master Practitioners here in beautiful, mystical Sedona.
Would you like to speak to someone today? We’re even open on Sundays, because we’re here for you.

You probably already know all the obvious reasons why not to get a divorce. Divorce is simply devastating in so many ways – it’s devastating for the children, emotionally and psychologically. It’s devastating for the people going through the divorce, both emotionally and psychologically.
It’s also devastating financially. Studies show that both parties lose so much financially when they get a divorce, and that’s especially true for women. Just the cost of a divorce is devastating – studies based on census figures show that the cost of the average divorce in the U.S. is a mind blowing $53,000.

I’m going talk with you today about some things about divorce that you maybe haven’t thought about before.
The first one is: Things are just never the same.
Everyone’s life just gets completely up-ended when a divorce happens. Children suddenly have two homes rather than one home, and it usually doesn’t ever really feel like home again.

The worst is things like holidays. The time gets split up, there’s usually hard feelings on both sides, and sometimes there’s lots of fighting and arguing.
The kids are never with their parents again. They’re always going to be with dad and this other person that they will probably never feel as completely close to as they do with their mother. Ditto for their mother’s boyfriend or new husband. It’s just never going to feel the same again.
The next is: You may die sooner.
A study published in The Journal of Health and Social Behavior found that divorced or widowed people have 20% more chronic health conditions (such as heart disease, diabetes, and cancer) than people who are married. Loneliness can be a killer and I believe it makes you age faster.
And: You’re probably going to end up with another person with the same or similar problems.
In the twenty years that I was doing divorces, it was amazing to me as I looked back to realize the number of people for whom I did 3 divorces. And the even more amazing thing, was that what I saw was that these people kept marrying the same person over and over again, they just had a different name.
Because the real problem is at the heart of this – we are connecting with people because of the Soul Lessons they bring to us. Our partners are a mirror for us and particularly, for our Woundings. We bring people into our lives to heal our wounds. We don’t know that consciously, but I believe this with all my heart.
If we’re insecure, if we think we’re not worthy of love, we’ll bring someone in who won’t love us completely. If we don’t trust ourselves, we’ll bring in someone we can’t trust. Those wounds will keep showing up until they’re healed.
I have seen that over and over again, both in my law practice and in my work with Sedona Soul Adventures.
We just had a couple here last year and this was completely true for them. They had both been married and divorced before, and they were ready to get divorced again. When they came to us they both said “I can’t believe it, I’ve married someone who’s exactly like my ex.”
We dug deeper and discovered that for the husband, he had parents who were never satisfied with him, he always felt like he wasn’t enough. After a few years with his first wife, he felt unloved and unhappy because she was always complaining and telling him he wasn’t good enough in all kinds of different ways – as a person, as a provider, as a father. When he met his second wife she seemed to be head over heels in love with him, but again, within a few years, the same kind of problems were coming up. For different reasons, but he felt again as though he wasn’t enough.
For the wife, it showed up a little differently. From the time she was a little girl, she put up what she called a “False Front” because she thought being who she was wouldn’t be good enough. She had actually been married twice before and each time it was her belief that once her husbands really got to know the “real” her, that the marriage ended.
So both of them had the issues of “I’m not enough” and “I’m not loveable.”
We did separate sessions with them of clearing out that gunk and filling that hole of “I’m not enough.” After this work, they both reported feeling like they loved themselves for the first time in their lives. With that feeling of self love, they literally saw the other person with different eyes. They both had this huge compassion for each other because they realized for the first time, that they both had the same issue, it was just showing up in a different way for each of them. They realized how much they truly loved each other.
We sent them home with new tools and I just heard from them recently. It’s been a year and they both feel like their spouse is their biggest cheerleader. She said to me, “I didn’t realize that because I didn’t truly love myself, I really had no love to give to someone else. I’m so glad we didn’t get a divorce, I would have just kept doing this over and over.”
If you are thinking about getting a divorce, I literally want to beg you to reconsider it one more time. Think about all the reasons we’ve talked about and then really ask yourself, “How is my partner being my mirror?”
If there is something you really can’t stand about your partner, is there any of that in you? If you feel like you’re not loved, do you truly love yourself?
Are there some things you can do to save your marriage? If so, for the sake of your children, for the sake of your family, but mostly for the sake of you, please think about it one more time.
And if you feel like there might be a glimmer of hope, please do something about it. Think about coming to Sedona to do a Couples Retreat. After 16 years and thousands of people, I’m still amazed at what happens.
Go to SedonaRetreatGuide.com and get your complimentary copy of The Sedona Guide to Couples Retreats today.
Or even better, call us at 928/204-5988 to talk to someone about doing a retreat that’s custom designed for exactly what the two of you need.
You can have the life AND the relationship you want – I know it.

Our 1 Year Wedding Anniversary is Today!

If you’re one of my faithful readers who’s been with me for a long time, you will probably be as surprised as I am to realize that today is my one year wedding anniversary. This year has gone by so quickly, it’s been astonishing.
We’ve had an amazing year:

The wedding was so much fun! All 5 of my brothers and sisters came from all over the country, and Richard’s only brother came from Texas, which was so wonderful.
We had a celebration that included so many of our friends and family, as well as all of the staff and practitioners of Sedona Soul Adventures.
We’ve done some amazing travel: scuba diving in Grand Cayman, our official honeymoon in Spain and Paris, our group trips to Egypt and Peru, and then in June, we went on another amazing adventure, one week in Iceland and then on to another week in Paris (we would both go to Paris every six months if we could). We’ve gone to Austin to visit his 91-year old(!) dad and brother three times, and last weekend we went to Omaha where I used to live, to attend a wedding. It was so great to connect with old friends and have them meet my wonderful husband.

One of the most fun things that’s happened in the past year has been Richard’s involvement with Sedona Soul Adventures. Once we got married, he got to see up close and personal and behind the scenes for how everything works. He is still in awe of what happens here (as am I). A few months after the wedding, he announced to me that he wanted to help with SSA and for us to be able to use his incredible knowledge and background of working in Silicon Valley for over 30 years. Richard has become an incredible consultant to SSA, helping me so much with new and innovative ideas so that we can touch more and more lives. He is truly a partner and that is so exciting.
And, of course, along with all the wonderfulness, has come the “period of adjustment.” 😊

It’s so funny because the minute we met, Richard had an astrology reading done, I had two astrology readings done (one Western astrology, one Vedic astrology) and they both pretty much said the same thing. Here’s what the Vedic astrologer said in her brief encapsulation:
“It looks mostly good. He hasn’t had the easiest time in relationships and he could be a little challenging (impatient/rigid/moody/stubborn/sensitive), but he also looks SUPER charming and fun, and like he should be good guy.
I can totally see why you’re intrigued. Your compatibility is unusually high. I was taught that when it’s as good as yours is, it’s worth checking out – that the people are glad for the time they had together, no matter the outcome.”
The Western astrology reading also said we were super compatible, but that there would be an impatience and butting of heads that would happen.
Boy, have those both been true! I love Richard so much, but when he goes into that stubborn thing of his, it’s really hard! And I’m an Eight on the Enneagram (more on that later, if you don’t know what I mean), so my stubbornness also gets activated. Two strong, stubborn people can have some difficulty trying to live together on a day-to-day basis!
And then there’s just all the stuff that happens when you’re coming together (especially at our age), plus, we had both been married before (which means baggage), he completely uprooted his life to move to Sedona, he doesn’t like how I organize things, etc., etc. You know how it goes.
So what did we do about it? We did what I tell everyone else to do: we did sessions with some of our practitioners. We did an Enneagram session, which helped so much in understanding how our Styles fit together and the optimum ways for us to communicate with each other. We did a Couples session that is based on the 10 Love Languages (not 5) and is also based on your Vedic astrology, so it’s very accurate and specific to your exact situation. We did another Couples session designed to move out energy and resentments from the past and the present, and another one to literally bring us back into heart coherence and love (and learned how to keep on coming back there).
It’s still so amazing to me that even after all the sessions I’ve done, all the writing I’ve done, all the advice I’ve given to other people, to discover that there are still some parts of my old wounds that needed to come up for healing. My whole life I’ve dealt with the wound of “I’m not good enough” and because I’m not good enough, “I’m not lovable.” I’ve done so much work around this and I truly feel that I love myself. So imagine my surprise when I discovered that I was telling myself the lie of, “If he really loved me, he would do everything the way I want him to and he would never argue with me or be stubborn with me.” Wow! Good luck with that one! That unhealed part of me was trying to tell me that he doesn’t really love me.
When I look at that rationally, I know it’s not true, and I don’t even want someone who would do everything the way I want them to and never argue with me. I want a man! I want someone to stand up to me and stand up for me.
It was in one of those sessions that two of my practitioners, Ron and his wife Denny, showed us the photo of this famous sculpture from Burning Man that depicts two adults turning away from each other, while the little boy and the little girl inside of them is desperately reaching out for love. I did a newsletter about this a few months ago and it’s just so telling for what is going on inside every relationship. Every pain, every argument, every hassle, every disagreement is really just a cry for love. It’s the old wounds wanting to come up for complete healing. When we can remember that, we can always come back to love.
So that’s been the huge lesson I’ve learned this year. How to keep coming back to love, over and over again.
It’s pretty delicious and I highly recommend it! If you and your partner are not doing that, please come to Sedona and do something about it. Life is too short to be in a relationship that’s not loving, happy, blissful, and juicy. The juice is where all the fun is!
If you don’t have a partner in your life right now and you want one, again, come to Sedona! We can help! I made the decision two years ago that I wanted someone in my life again, I realized that my old wounds were preventing that from happening, so I did a mini Soul Adventure around it and Richard showed up, literally three weeks later! I love how this stuff works!
Connect with us, speak with one of our Retreat Guides. They’ll speak with both of you and really get an idea of what’s going on and where you want to be. Then they’ll custom design a retreat designed to remove the blocks and gunk that are holding you back, keeping you stuck in the past or holding on to old resentments, and bring you back into connection with yourself and with each other.

Tapping – It can heal almost anything!

Tapping is so amazing. It’s simply tapping different points on your body with the tips of your fingers. It’s based on Chinese medicine and it really works! People have used Tapping for all of these things:

Reducing stress
Reducing pain
Eliminating fears and phobias
Boosting energy
Headaches
Coping with emotional problems such as low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety
Improving athletic performance
Improving sleep
Weight loss

In this week’s video, I teach you everything you need to know so that you can start using Tapping as a healing tool right now.

hope this helped, and if you got value from this video, please like, share the video and subscribe to our channel.

The purpose of Tapping is to get you back into the place where you love yourself just the way you are. If you’re finding that to be a daunting task and that you need some additional help, please connect with us — we can can help. Click below to speak with one of our Retreat Guides:

In this series of videos, I’m talking about concepts from my book The Journey to Happy– How Embracing the Concept that Nothing is wrong can transform your life.
I hope you’ve been following along with these videos about the concept of Nothing is Wrong, because that will make all this make a lot more sense.
To recap, it’s not what’s happening to us that is causing most of the problems in our lives, it’s our reactions and responses to what’s happening…
How we’re thinking about it
How we’re talking about it
How we’re feeling about it
What I’ve found is that the more I drop my resistance, the more I am able to go with the flow, the happier I am and the more things have happened that are almost miraculous.
It’s a shift out of the energy of “Everything is Wrong” and into the energy of “Nothing is Wrong” that changed everything in my life.
The question is, how can you do that? How can you flip that switch?
I’m going to talk to you today about Tapping, because Tapping is another tool that you can use that is absolutely phenomenal for flipping that switch.
Tapping comes in a number of different forms and it has been around for many, many years. It is the very simple process of tapping with your fingers on different parts of your body.
Different people will give you different ideas about why tapping works. I believe that it is related to the energetic meridians that flow through our bodies. This idea has been used for thousands of years in Chinese medicine.
When you tap, stuck energy starts to move.
A psychologist who studied acupuncture popularized Tapping in the United States. He had his patients to tap different acupuncture points with astounding results in alleviating fears and phobias. One of his early patients had almost drowned as a child and for years was terrified of going into the water. After one tapping session, her fear was gone.
Tapping has now been used for all kinds of issues:

Reducing stress
Reducing pain
Boosting energy
Headaches
Coping with emotional problems such as low self-esteem, depression, and anxiety
Improving athletic performance
Improving sleep
Weight loss

When I do tapping, it just makes me feel good.
If you would like to read all about it, there are thousands of websites and books on the subject. Suffice it to say, it’s easy and it works. I’m giving you the basic information you need to know so that you can start using this powerful tool in your life right now.
There is long form and short form – we will do both.
1. Identify the precise issue
What exactly is blocking you from your happiness? I will tell you that after all of these years of working with people, I have found that almost everyone has some sort of issue or fear that maybe they’re not good enough. It shows up in different ways, but that’s the underlying thought, so we’ll use that as the issue.
From that we come up with our tapping statement – so for this let’s identify it as: “I’m not good enough.”
2. Check in and rate your level of dissatisfaction
Close your eyes and check in with yourself. Rate how you feel about this issue on a scale of 0-10, with zero representing no dissatisfaction or upset, and ten representing that this really bothers you, or you feel like you’re wasting your life. Make a note of that number so you can compare it to how you feel when you complete the tapping.
3. Start Tapping
You will tap in nine places. Here’s the Tapping Points Illustration:

First, at the karate chop point, tap and as you tap, say 3 times: “Even though I’m not good enough, I deeply and profoundly love, accept, and respect myself just the way I am.”
Then you move to your Eyebrow – from the end of the eyebrow toward your nose.

As you say the words, focus on how badly this makes you feel.
That may sound counter-intuitive, but this is a time to wallow in how “wrong” everything is so that the energy can be brought up and moved. Get into that emotion as much as you can. This is an amazing process for clearing out the energy.
Continue to tap…

Eyebrow – in the opposite direction away from the nose.
Under the eyes where you feel the bone.
Under the nose.
The chin where there is a crease.
At the collarbone (the knot at the end of the collar bone toward the center of your body – marked on the illustration as the “sore spot”).
Heart chakra – on the breastbone in the middle of your chest.
Under your arm – where the bra would be if you wear a bra. Tap on just one side.

4. Complete the Tapping and check in
When you are complete, check in to see how you feel. On a scale of zero to ten, where are you now?
Your goal is to get to zero or 2, many people get there after doing just one round. If you are at 1 or 2 usually within 24 hours, you will be down to zero.
5. Have other issues come up?
Very often, as you are tapping, some other issue might come up. For example, the thought may come up, “I’m not a nice person.” That’s a separate issue. So do another round on that.
As more and more issues come up, tap through each one. Give yourself the time that you need to tap through these issues as they come up. Do an entire round for each issue.
There is also the Short Form of Tapping…
At least three times each day (when I wake up, once during the day, and before bed) I tap the karate chop point and say three times, “I deeply and profoundly love, accept, and respect myself just the way I am.” It is incredibly powerful.
If I’m in the middle of a meeting and I’m not feeling great about what’s going on, I’ll go into the bathroom and do the tapping. I’ve seen things literally shift before my eyes by doing this.
The objective of this process is to release you from the energy of what’s bothering you and to move you back into the energy of excited expectation. This will work on any kind of issue.
We teach tapping on a very deep level in our retreats. We teach couples to use it when they’re starting to have an argument and it’s miraculous! My husband and I use that all the time. We’ve had clients who have had amazing weight loss who credit it to the tapping. They haven’t changed their diet and exercise, they’ve changed how they feel about their body and that’s what made all the difference!
Start using the tapping – it works!
I hope this helped, and if you got value from this video, please like, share the video and subscribe to our channel.
And If you want a more direct path to getting happy – then go to SedonaRetreatGuide.com and get your complimentary copy of The Sedona Guide to Spiritual Retreats today.
Or better still, call us at (928) 204-5988.
You can have the life AND the relationship you want – I know it.

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