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November 30, 2009

Holiday Treat at the Center

On Sunday, December 6 at 1PM there will be a special event at the Center. It has NOTHING to do with fertility - at least not specifically! It has everything to do with remembering who you really are and reclaiming your center and deepest well being. READ MORE!

We come into this world as beautiful spheres of light and, over time, many of us adopt belief systems which block our access to the divine, leaving much of our potential untapped. Divine Warriors are humans who recognize their divine inheritance and work to manifest the divine in our world.
Divine Warrior Training Circles provide the opportunity to live into our divine inheritance in shared sacred space. The facilitator invokes sacred space by infusing the space with Source energy and holding the intention for healing. Participants gather in circle around an altar and are introduced to the process and a brief description of the topic for the session. After a heart-centering meditation, each participant spends our time together in quiet contemplation and self-reflection, discovering the wisdom residing within. The gathering ends with a closing circle where participants are invited but not required to share insights. Divine Warrior Training Circles are designed to assist individuals to expand or discard limiting beliefs and to celebrate our common origin in the divine.

And about the author/facilitator:

Tom Capshew is singing his hearts song. He works with individuals, organizations, groups and communities to unleash their potential. In his work, he brings to bear extensive training and experience in law, social work and spirituality. Tom lovingly and masterfully expands the possibilities of the lives he touches through speaking, writing, training and healing.



This workshop is free and Tom will be available to sign his book if you choose to buy one! What a great, great gift! Bring your friends and enjoy this afternoon of bliss. (If you can't make this event, Tom will be at Mimosa Books on Gilman, off of State, on Saturday afternoon from 1-4PM. Or, at the Chakra House on Lakeside for a brief and signing from 6-7on Friday evening.

Let's launch the season with hope and inspiration and reconnection with the sacred in life.

November 17, 2009

Now you can find the Center on its own facebook page!

November 5, 2009

Cultivating Gratitude

When life is topsy turvy, it is difficult to dredge up feelings of gratitude and appreciation for your life. And yet, the willingness to do that is sometimes the very key that brings relief to the anxiety and despair and offers us Space inside to breathe when it has felt as though there was none.

The holidays are often one of the most challenging times of the year for people experiencing fertility issues. Babies are everywhere. Every event is about children and cute outfits and who is pregnant. Perhaps the only way to cope is to carry with us a heart full of gratitude about our own lives: not what we don't have, but what we do. Not what hasn't come to us yet, but what has. And not what we want, and what isn't fair, but what has been fulfilled and what blessings have been ours in abundance.

It is easy to say those words for me, you are right. I do have my daughter. My dream did come true. I know how the fertility challenged mind can think and therefore cause us to feel. But I must tell you that although I have been blessed with a daughter after being told I likely never would be, that didn't sew up my life in a pretty red bow forever.

The past two years have offered me another life challenge to grow through, and it too has brought me to my knees in grief and despair, fear and overwhelm. After longing for a baby, and creating a family, I went through leaving my marriage and breaking apart the life I had tried to make wonderful for my incredible daughter to feel safe, loved, nurtured and whole. Then came the econmic downturn we have all been walking through, just when I am suddenly on my own, a single mom. It was so hard to find moments where I could actually feel gratitude during that. And when I thought of my daughter, and how blessed I feel for having her in my life, the main thing I felt was guilt.

Life is not easy sometimes. Our lessons are greuling and they leave us locked in a very small space of pain and self absorption. We aren't bad for being there, or selfish, or wrong. We are in survival, and we have little choice in the moments that have us by the short hairs. Our only possible recourse is to continue, day by day, minute by minute and second by second, to pray for the willingness to cultivate gratitude.

A favorite exercise of mine is to sit down every morning and make a list of five things I have to be grateful for when I don't believe I really have any left. And I can't use the same ones twice. So, while the first day, my best shot may be; I have arms, legs, eyes, hair, fingers, by the next day I remember my best friend, by the day after that the sun, the day after that, the many people I am blessed to have around me, and the day after that...you get the idea. After a week of doing this every day, you will, I promise, be able to sincerely sit at your Thanksgiving table and express deep gratitude for your life just just as it is right now!That doesn't mean at all you don't long for a baby, just that you know what you do have in and around you is precious. And from that space, miracles can happen.

August 22, 2009

Getting Healthy

Here's hoping your summer has been so filled with fun in the sun and time with people you love that your fertility journey took a back seat. If not, you have that blissful month of September to get out and enjoy; a time when there aren't babies and young children filling the parks and beaches everyday. People are back at work, kids are back in school and for those of us experiencing fertility issues it is safe to go out in the street again.

As a way to launch the fall in a positive way and get a jump on making it through the holiday season this year no matter what happens, why not go back to school yourself? I don't mean enroll in school, unless that is a dream you have, but more that you take time to learn more about how you can improve your health, well-being and relationships so that not only your fertility but your mind and emotional health improve. Each area your life is as important to the success of your journey as your ovary and uterus...not to mention those contributing swimmers!

Get clear about the nutrition that is right for you. Learn some relaxation strategies. Develop stronger communication skills or get some help with healthier relationship dynamics if your marriage is feeling the stress of this process. Take an art or craft class to unwind your mind and a yoga class to unwind your body as well. In general, remind yourself that you are far, far more than a person who "Can't have a baby." First of all you absolutely can have a baby and will...you just don't know for sure how that will happen yet...emphasis on YET! Secondly, remember who you were before you had been trying to conceive for ___ months? A multi-dimensional person with myriad interests and lots of friends? You remember her, don't you? Or him? Get back to that person again. Pull out his or her history in your mind and take them out to play again.
Yes, the obsession will return sometimes. The sadness will arise. But as you restore your health and sense of self, you will have more resilience and be able to bounce back. Give yourself a shot in the arm starting RIGHT NOW by getting a book you have wanted to read or seeing a movie you really love. Then make a plan to do something else that makes you feel good, and something else, and something else. And then finally, take a leap and change some things about your diet, your lifestyle, your time commitments. You get the idea.

Your best defense against this hard-to-deal-with life passage is health - mind, body and spirit - and the only way to get there is with a team of support and the daily reminder that it will happen one day and one step at a time! BREATHE!

June 2, 2009

That Spring Thing

Yes, I know. The bellies are everywhere and so are the strollers. Signs with balloons abound in every suburban neighborhood announcing "Sheila's Baby Shower!" or "It's a GIRL!" Inside our adult brain we know that none of these is a slap to our face. Our younger, more ego-centric brain just isn't so sure.

It is so easy to feel victimized by this issue, and yet when we "go there" we give up even more of our power, more of our potential to identify the path and choices that will serve us in reaching our dream.

Feeling sorry for ourselves through this journey is natural. It makes great sense. And, at different stages on the path is likely to arise again and again. Here is the BUT you likely heard coming: We can only find our way to freedom and success by giving ourselves over to the "pity pot" as it is so frequently described for a designated amount of time. Then, we must lovingly reach for our inner strength and proclaim, once again, that we value our inner wisdom, we trust our inner guidance and that we will promise ourselves to pursue this experience from a place of proactive self-empowerment. Yes, we will indeed research, but we won't limit our research to the medical data. We will pursue information that will support our hearts and our WHOLE bodies. We will investigate the role of the thyroid, the pituitary, our adrenals and cortisol levels. We will pay attention to our minds and our feelings and emotions. We will ask ourselves daily, "Am I responding to this with wisdom or reacting from my fear?"

Is this easy? No. But, and this I promise you, the end result, no matter what it is (And I profoundly hope the end result is YOUR name on a sign with balloons next Spring!) will be gentler and far more acceptable when you have been truly present and well cared about by YOU throughout the journey.