To free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves – there lies the great, singular power of self-respect.
~ Joan Didion

Ya gotta set some boundaries to live a good life. (And if you’re a coach/healer/spriritual/service professional, I’m talking to YOU!)

Setting boundaries gives you the ability to say yes to what you want and no to what you don’t want, despite the risk of displeasing others. What a concept, huh? (The irony is the more you try to please others, the less you do. Nobody likes a fake or a doormat.) You’ll automatically upgrade your relationships and improve your life overall.

Weak boundaries disempower you and disrespect those around you. They show up in a number of ways:

* The inability to say no.
* The fear of displeasing someone.
* The tendency to rescue others.
* The expectation of being rescued.
* Not expressing your true feelings.
* Not getting paid what you should.
* Attracting people who take advantage of you.
* Allowing outside opinions to determine your self-worth.
* Feeling like a victim.
* Feeling obligated, indebted.
* Trying to change someone else.

So where do weak boundaries come from?
When we were children, pleasing parents and teachers and friends was necessary to our survival. We needed to learn how to bond, how to read reactions, how to compromise. These are not skills to give up. This is where we learn the empathy and compassion that makes relationship possible.

Problems arise when, as adults, we’re unconsciously ruled by these needs to please, bond, or compromise. We’re operating out of fear more than love. When we’re acting from unconscious impulses we give up our ability to choose responsibly, and we become victims and victimizers.

We all have areas in our lives where our boundaries are nice and strong, and other areas where our boundaries get weaker. (The higher the stakes, the stronger the likelihood is that fear will come in and weaken our boundaries.) The easiest way to check the strength of your boundaries is to ask yourself: “How free do I feel here to say what I feel and to ask for what I want?”

The bottom line is people treat you how you allow them to treat you. If you put up with abuse, you’re abusing yourself. Setting new boundaries is like working with muscles that haven’t been used; they feel awkward and weak at first. You may have some false starts as you learn to play a new game. Keep flexing.

You’ll be tested. If you’re the type who did everything for everybody in the past, those people you taught to rely on you may resent having the rules changed without their consent. You trained them to expect one thing; now you can retrain them to expect something else. Practice consistency.

If you’ve been taken care of all your life and the rules are changed on you… ouch! You get to grow up fast. You’ll feel better on the other side, knowing you can take care of yourself.

Eventually, as your boundaries get stronger, the negative charge around these changes goes away. What used to be a fight becomes the way things are naturally. It’s effortless.

Take a look at your current life.
Where are your boundaries strongest?
Where are they weakest? Why?
What small step can you take to be more honest and authentic in that area of your life?

When setting boundaries in any area of your life, you’ll increase your self confidence. You’ll attract better relationships. You’ll enjoy more respect and success, and your life will rock.

“You do not belong to you. You belong to the universe.”
Buckminster Fuller

Every one is looking for their purpose. Must have a purpose! A story I often hear from motivational speakers is the story of Alice in Wonderland and Cheshire Cat. Alice stands at a crossroads and asks the cat which path she should take. He asks “Where are you going?” She says she doesn’t know. “Well then, it doesn’t really matter which path you take.”

People treat this story like it’s so profound, as if it’s evidence that you should know where you’re going. You MUST know where you’re going! Really?

I have a different take. It doesn’t really matter! It’s nice to know where you’re going. It’s far more pleasant to have a clear direction, but the odds are you’ll be getting lost along the way. Your life has its purpose, and this purpose expresses itself as you meander. The act of finding intermediary goals and getting into action will put you on the path of your larger purpose.

The only thing more painful than not knowing your life purpose is beating yourself up for not knowing your life purpose.

Even worse than that is to have personal development people telling you that you have to have a life purpose. Of course your life has purpose, whether you see it or not.

Let’s cut the crap.

Your primary job in life: be happy. Happiness is not for the faint of heart. I’m not talking an “I got a Kindle!” happiness (though I’ll take it if you got it). What is the quality of happiness that doesn’t depend on changing circumstances?

If you can learn to be happy, then you will be a model and a teacher for others to be happy. And they will be models and teachers for others to be happy. If we could all be Buddhas for happiness and fulfillment, abundance and prosperity, imagine the possibilities for the world. It doesn’t really matter if you get an MBA or paint flower pots. Where is your joy? What brings you your true abundance and prosperity? That is your purpose.

Goals and accomplishments are important. They give our lives direction, support us in our happiness. Like a finger that points to the moon but isn’t the moon itself, our goals point to something bigger: our desire to be fully realized, loved, valued, happy beings. The big cheese.

What do you desire? What would it take for you to be fully happy?

Notice what naysayer thoughts pop into your head when you think about getting your dreams fulfilled. We’ll call those thoughts your gremlins. Things to know about gremlins:

* Your gremlins show up when you care about something, so their presence can be a good clue that you’re on the right track.

* Gremlins represent a point of view, not THE TRUTH.

* If what they say doesn’t empower you, say “Thank you for sharing.” (Then give your gremlins a pat on the head and some apple juice and graham crackers–quiets them down. Sit him in a corner. Go back to your life. Repeat as necessary.)

Scary Gremlin Monster

Get back to what you love. Pursue goals. Pay attention to clues from the universe. That’s how you live on purpose. And tell those seminar leaders to fuck off.

“Gremlin-Taming® is a specific method developed by Rick Carson and
described in his seminal work, Taming Your Gremlin® © 1983 Richard D.
Carson. For more information on Gremlin-Taming, and professional
trainings in the Gremlin-Taming Method, contact The Gremlin Taming
Institute (www.tamingyourgremlin.com or 1-800-253-9269).”

It takes a lot of courage to release the familiar and seemingly secure, to embrace the new. But there is no real security in what is no longer meaningful. There is more security in the adventurous and exciting, for in movement there is life, and in change there is power.
~ Alan Cohen

Would you like to create fast change? Here’s how: make space for what you want!

When life coaching clients are stuck and not manifesting abundance and prosperity, I have them take a look at what they’re tolerating in their lives. What do they put up with that drains their energy? Where are they settling?

We all have tolerations: those people, things, or habits that drain our energy, dim our life enjoyment. It could be a messy desk, or a critical relative, or not taking care of your health. We may have become so accustomed to certain tolerations that we feel that’s just the way life is. We don’t think we have a choice. We feel powerless, and that sense of powerlessness bleeds into other areas of our lives.

Every time you settle, you are telling the universe that “this is good enough,” and you are telling yourself, “I don’t deserve better.” If that’s your message, of course you’ll keep getting more of the same! When you’re life is full of settling, you aren’t leaving room for what you really want.

To help you identify where you may be settling, take a look at this life wheel below. Pick the wedges that represent areas of your life you find the least satisfying. What could you eliminate from each wedge to make more room?

Paying attention to what you are ready to eliminate is key. Maybe you’re ready for a big change. Don’t beat yourself up if you’re not. I recommend starting small. A little goes a long way. The smallest changes build your energy and confidence, and give you a platform for the next change.

Try giving old clothes away to Good Will. Or clearing your desk. Or spending less time with a critical friend. When you clear something up in one area of your life, you’ve created energetic space that will impact the rest of your life. My clients have won awards, received money out of the blue, attracted new business and found soul mates after they stopped settling in other areas of their lives. When in doubt, clean your house.

I’ve come to believe that creating space is one of the fastest keys to attraction. Saying no to what no longer serves you will build your confidence and energy.

Sometimes when you make a big change, the universe will test you by sending you more of the same (same type of client, same type of job, same type of relationship) to see if you’re serious. For instance, as soon as I decided to be a life coach instead of an actress, I was offered half a dozen acting jobs for which I didn’t have to audition. I got to see how firm I was in my choice. Was I sure I didn’t want to be an actress? Yes! I only wanted to coach.

Hold out for what you really want. If you don’t already have a wish list of things you want to manifest, create one now. Then you’ll recognize the granting of your wishes when they appear.

What is Financial Alchemy? Here’s what I shared in an interview Steven McCrory did with me for Magical Blend Magazine a while back:

Morgana: what is Financial Alchemy?
Financial Alchemy is the transformation of your relationship with money, and when your inner relationship with money changes, you see the outward results in your life.

What do you mean by relationship with money?
Your relationship with money is as real and dynamic as your relationship with another human being. If you were to say to your wife, “I don’t trust you. You’re going to leave me. You’re the reason I can’t do what I want with my life. You are responsible for war and suffering. You are the root of all evil,” how would that impact your relationship?

Not well.
What if she said those things about you?

I’d feel terrible.
Would you want to stick around someone who said those things?

Probably not.
Exactly. And those are things we say to money all the time. Why would money want to stick around? We push it away with beliefs we may not even know we have. If something is evil and keeps you from happiness, of course you’re going to protect yourself and push it away.

I understand the pushing it away part. Could you explain what you mean about money wanting to stick around?
This is the Alchemy part, the change in the relationship. I make money a person. Making money into a person you want to have a relationship—as opposed to this villain you have to have in your life—creates an emotional resonance instead of an intellectual exercise. And money can speak to you, tell you what you need to do to create a better relationship. It’s magical.

How did you come up with Financial Alchemy?
My own experience. Where else do things come from? For the longest time I struggled with money. As a coach I was helping people sell films and book television series and realize their dreams. But I was uncomfortable talking about my fees and asking to be paid. Can you imagine? Actually I find this dynamic is very common among caring, spiritual, service oriented people. Especially women. Before anything could change, I had to look at my internal relationship with money. I took a look at negative beliefs and experiences I hadn’t thought about in many years. Family members stopped talking to each other for decades because of money. I was embarrassed to live in a two-story home when my friends lived in apartments. I was afraid of being called spoiled, of not being liked. No wonder I pushed money away! I had formed this idea that money got in the way of love. Given a choice, I choose love! If my negative ideas about money became a person, I think my money person would be a big, scary, violent biker who didn’t bathe. Ick. That was my old money. This relationship had to go. So I fired the biker, and I thought about who I would like to have a relationship with. Who would I love to receive from? Meet my new money: a tall, dark, handsome man who wears an elegant tux, carries a bouquet of red roses, and woos me. He loves me, and I want to make this relationship work!

Sounds like me.
You’re married.

Yes I am. What happened when you changed your money guy?
That very month strangers started calling me out of the blue and hiring me. Within six months I had added thirty new clients and started a waiting list and group coaching to handle the overflow.

Wow. Do you have any other success stories?
Every time I do a seminar I get phone calls from attendees with miraculous stories of jobs and contracts and checks coming in that they didn’t expect. The biggest windfall that I heard of was a twenty thousand dollar contract. [note to readers: my current record is $87,000 within a few hours of our first session.] I’ve posted some of the letters on my website at www.howtobeamoneymagnet.com. My own income jumped from $900 to $5000 in one month. I was amazed.

Just by changing your relationship with money?
The key is to keep the conversation with money going. Money isn’t going to rescue you, but money will be your partner. How can you be a better partner to money? What actions can you take to make the relationship better? Action is what makes change real. Keep asking money how I can make the relationship better. I see money as a spiritual teacher who challenges us to be more creative and courageous than we were being. Money is just a metaphor for the universe itself. You can fight the universe or you can seek to learn from it and love it. Especially when it’s challenging. That’s money.

How is your approach different from other prosperity programs?
Nobody else has made money a person. It’s a lot easier to do what needs to be done when you’re in love. I clearly bring a lot more feminine energy to a subject that tends to be very masculine. I think we need both the masculine “doing” energy and the mystery of feminine magic. Abundance and prosperity come from unexpected places…

How do people get Financial Alchemy?
Go to www.howtobeamoneymagnet.com. You can sign up for the next seminar or order a CD. If you only get one thing, I recommend getting the workbook “Financial Alchemy: Twelve Months of Magic and Manifestation.” It’s a combination of Financial Alchemy and my secret system for manifesting all of my goals for the last three years. I use it every day. I know you’ve had great results with it too. Everything’s available at www.howtobeamoneymagnet.com. Remember, your abundance and prosperity serve the world!

This was my response to a coach who was struggling with a client who refused to connect with her emotions in coaching, a client who believed emotions belong in “therapy” instead.

Here’s what I wrote:

There are different styles and different opinions on what we define as “coaching”.

The International Coaches Federation says:
“Professional coaches provide an ongoing partnership designed to help clients produce fulfilling results in their personal and professional lives. Coaches help people improve their performances and enhance the quality of their lives.

Coaches are trained to listen, to observe and to customize their approach to individual client needs. They seek to elicit solutions and strategies from the client; they believe the client is naturally creative and resourceful. The coach’s job is to provide support to enhance the skills, resources, and creativity that the client already has.”

Your clients isn’t wrong in her expectations: ICF doesn’t say a word about emotions. She could probably find a coach out there who only works superficially (not a good coach). Her expectations don’t match your approach. She needs to be educated without making her wrong. I recommend you have a conversation with her about how you work, and why you use your approach.

Here’s an example. I received a great email response from a listener to one of my Financial Alchemy teleclasses. The writer wanted to know why she had to go “down the well” if she already knew her limiting beliefs.

The first step of Financial Alchemy coaching is to take a client down the rabbit hole, much farther than they knew was there. This may look counterintuitive–isn’t the point of the process to reconnect clients to the abundance and prosperity of the universe? We have to create POLARITY. The first step of Alchemy is “negridio,” the blackening. It works.

Stuff may show up here around child abuse or other hurts, just by digging into negative memories of money. It’s all related. (For those of you who are freaking out right now and thinking I’m overstepping my role as a coach, my clients are creative, resourceful, and whole. I’m very careful to tune into clients who are not well, and to steer them to something other than coaching. I’ve coached this process hundreds and hundreds of times, and I’ve never had a problem.)

Here’s my “why” for dragging my clients down the well in the beginning, insisting that they set aside every positive thought they have about Money: I’m firing up there neurology for change. Einstein said, “We cannot solve problems with the same consciousness which created them.” Information comes to us and new neurological connections are created during heightened states of emotional excitement. This is NLP talk for why we do process coaching.

Here’s a quick and easy HOW for getting a client out of her head. I do this a lot with professional women in traditionally masculine fields–lawyers, accountants, CPAs. I ask my client to stand with her feet spread as wide as her shoulders, and to bend her knees and rock at her pelvis, as if she were hula dancing. “Speak from your hips,” I’ll say.

There are a few reasons this works–I learned this from a coach who spoke at my local PCMA chapter. She has a book on “Four Energies.” I’m taking clients who are stuck in fire (Just do it!) energy into water (give and take) energy. There’s a whole area of somatic coaching that uses body wisdom.

I suspect your client wants more from coaching than she’s allowing herself, but the last thing you want to do is push when she resists.

thou shalt not hear, see, nor speak any negative vibrations

So there’s this movie that purports to share the biggest secret of the ages, carefully hidden until now, blah blah blah. Don’t get me wrong–this is an immensely uplifting, feel good movie. It has value. And it’s also full of crap. What exactly is their “secret”? It’s not like Think and Grow Rich or The Power of Positive Thinking, or The Law of Attraction have been kept hidden by some cabal of powerful business men. None of this is new, and none of it’s a secret. In fact these are the titles of immensely popular and influential books over the last century.

So what’s the secret?

Esther Hicks found hers and teaches through the voice of Abraham. Wayne Dyer found his and he teaches the Power of Intention. Byron Katie found hers and teaches The Work. I found mine, and I teach Financial Alchemy.

But even these aren’t the secret.

Cause you can do everything “right”–the mantras, the meditations, the visioning, the vibrations, the positive thinking–and not see a change in your circumstances. You’re still waiting for that abundance and prosperity you’ve been promised. Give yourself a break. You’re not doing it wrong. You’re not less worthy. There’s nothing wrong with your vision board. You’re just where you are. Right now. We all take a turn in that dark night of the soul.

“Be a light unto yourself,” the Buddha taught. Take all these teachings in, and take them all with a grain of salt. There’s an old Irish adage that says you have to do your own growing, no matter how tall your grandfather is. Nobody else’s law is your law, not even the Law of Attraction.

I believe in a strong Tendency of Attraction. Don’t get me wrong–I’m all about attraction. I think about something and a few days later it shows up. But a law of attraction? Like always attracts like? Not really:

Twenty four years ago, I was in rapturous love for the first time. I was getting straight A’s and awards in high school. And I had just come home from my first trip to Europe. It was a very high vibration time. Until I was hit by a car, went into a coma, and came out with a serious brain injury that destroyed my life for a few years. I had to let go of everything I knew about spirituality at that time just to survive. In this instance, at least, like did not attract like.

While I may quibble with the Law of Attraction, I choose to believe in a Law of the Highest Good: everything happens for the highest good. Everything. You just have to survive it first.

So what really is “the secret”?

Sure, there’s more and more evidence of a connection between mind and matter. There’s a connection between you and the universe itself. “As above so below” is the first law of Alchemy. How you access and express those connections is unique to you. You have to find it yourself.

What you discover will probably look A LOT like what other people have been saying for the last 10,000 years, but it’s different when it comes from you.

Other stuff will look very different and may be even more important. It’s your contribution. In fact this may be what you’re here to teach so others can discover their own secret.

Every personal discovery changes history forever.

We all have to reinvent the wheel at some level for ourselves. I cannot presume to have your answers, only suggestions. The finger the teacher points at the moon is not the moon itself. That’s the only “law” there is.