Ethos...

... so, you thought you arrived at your beliefs about life, all by yourself, eh?

... and you thought you were free?

The Wonders of Modern Technology...

...allow me to offer consultations via the phone and the internet...

I've been doing more and more consultations for people using FB messaging, Google and Yahoo IM, Skype etc...

Kinda weird but also really, really gratifying as not having a face-to-face encounter doesn't seem to make any difference to the quality of the "reading"...

In fact, for myself I feel better about not having the client in front of me, or on the phone... I don't have any facial expressions, body language, tone of voice to go on, so I'm sure that the information I'm delivering to that person is coming "untainted" by my own filters, perceptions, assumptions and expectations...

Of course, I can't give you breath sessions over the phone or internet, but I can do life/spiritual coaching sessions, readings and distance healings, for anyone, anywhere in the world...

And if you live in or near Seattle, I'll come to you to facilitate a breath session... or teach a class on identifying and removing core beliefs that are holding you back... or facilitate meditation and spiritual development groups...

Here's what some people say about my work...

"Sahila did a reading for me via FB chat.   We connected well as if we were in the same room.   She has a special gift and has helped me tremendously with the reading.   Sahila was able to help me see how my childhood is affecting how I deal with issues now as an adult.   From this reading I had with Sahila, I will be able to move forward and change some things about my life so I will find peace.   The reading was amazing because Sahila could see things in my life that I never shared with her.  I am recommending her to my friends so they can have a reading as well." 

- Camille Y

"While walking my dogs I had the misfortune of slipping in a bit of mud and landing hard with my right leg forced unnaturally up beside my hip and my left leg forced out at an odd angle.  Immediately, I knew I was hurt, but not beyond getting up.  I managed to get inside, but realised I had a soft tissue injury.   As the day grew, the pain grew.   I did, eventually, take some Ibuprofen, but thought to self, when you wake up this is really going to hurt.   After speaking to Sahila about my injury, she offered to do some reiki work on my behalf.  I was more than interested, as the pain, even with the Ibuprofen, was substantial.   After a good night's sleep and her work, I awakened today to find little to no pain in the leg.  Frankly I was shocked.   Sahila made the difference.   My job involves standing all day, and still, little pain, especially compared to yesterday.   Thank you Sahila!"

- Brighid M

"Oh my, we had a wonderful service!  It was heart opening.  Sahila, you brought us amazing, beautiful messages.  I hope you will come back and speak for us again. Warmly..." 

- Diana Piermattei, Swedenborgian Church, Puget Sound

"Sahila ChangeBringer has offered meditation, breathwork classes and Sunday morning messages as a guest presenter for worship service at Interfaith Community Church.  Sahila has a warm, loving and inviting presence balanced with the fire of change and transformation - for the greater good.  We are fortunate to have such an authentic and powerful healer in our midst.  I wholeheartedly recommend Sahila's classes and workshops for those desiring to create a new expansive reality for themselves, their families and the world.  It is truly possible.  Now is the time!" 

- Rev. Karen Lindquist, Seattle, 

co-founder Interfaith Community Church

"I have participated with Sahila in several group settings. She effectively uses mind-body processes to help people move towards wholeness. I have been impressed by her ability to intuitively determine where the group needs to go." 

- Anita M

"The circle talk was focused and substantive, even while it was adaptive to the individuals.  Sahila is very balanced between being warm and supportive, while also willing and able to push buttons.  Authentic." 

- Colin B

"A very surprising and wonderful experience.  Thank you!" 

- Kim H

"Kind, caring, trusting, very professional" 

- Susan P

"Core belief worksheet helped discover where these come from.  (Sahila was) very clear, helpful.  Great drawing out your inner needs, thoughts, work to be done, etc" 

- Cindy MacD

"Breathing with Sahila changed my life.   I did breath work with Sahila for several months and after each session, I felt like all the stresses in my life had been offloaded and I could go back into the world with a clear mind.  Our sessions together were great. Sahila has a wealth of life knowledge so by talking with her and breathing I was able to shift my thinking about my family, myself and my life path and really become OK with who I AM which allowed me to let others be who they are....it is so freeing!  Sahila is an amazing person and anyone who works with her will be better for it."

- Michelle H

"I have done breath work with Sahila years ago in Australia and have learnt so much about staying in the present moment and observing myself doing me.  I am only sad that she is overseas and we do not have instant access to this amazing teacher and healer!"

- Bronwyn H (Australia)

"The 2 hour group breathe with Sahila brought me the understanding and insight of the importance of breath work.  The week following my breathe I felt more energized, more connected to my body, and felt like I had undergone a great detox!   It has brought awareness of daily breathing to the forefront and I look forward to my next breathe session."

- Carrie 

"I visited Sahila on two occasions for a 90 minute "breathe".  I was having intense anxiety and many maladies associated with it.  I found her studio to feel safe and inviting.  I felt completely at ease and relaxed.  Sahila was very professional as well as empathetic and caring.  I came away feeling far better, more grounded and able to find the peace within me.  Thank you Sahila."

- Barb B

"I have done small group breathe work and private sessions with Sahila.   She quickly put me at ease with her humor and caring manner.  I found her to be very supportive and knowledgeable.  She brings a wide variety of experience and knowledge to her work which she readily shares." 

- Candy M 

Contact me here, or by email at Sahila@metamind-spirit.com if you want to ask questions or make an appointment...

Namaste

Sahila

 

Judging A Book By Its Cover...

We all do it...

We've made up our minds about a person, a situation, an event, a thing based solely on outward appearances...

And we miss so much of the richness life has to offer us by this short-sightedness...

For example...

I did a bit of self-promotion on Facebook today, putting up links to my two websites - 

www.metamind-creative.com and www.metamind-spirit.com ...

If you click on the links, you'll notice that I've used Comic Sans for the font on both...

I got an immediate response from a Facebook connection.   In addition to a private message, she posted the following in public:

SZ: If someone you know just put up a new website promoting their business services....and it's done in Comic Sans, what do you tell them? (My heart stopped when I saw it.)
 

EAS: I would suggest - gently - that perhaps that particular font isn't the most professional-looking. I love that font, it's my favorite for personal correspondence. But definitely a no-no if one wishes to have their business taken seriously.
 

ETB: LOL! Politely suggest to them that it's not really a professional font. What else can you do?
 

DD:  www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/20/comic-sans-strikes-again_n_653035.html

SZ:  Brilliant, DD! Loved that link.   I had to tell her the truth because I like her and I know no one will ever hire her based on her website. I glanced at it for ONE SECOND, gasped and clicked off as if I'd seen the most offensive thing in the world. That was my honest reaction. I did tell her Comic Sans' only appropriate use is for a birthday party invitation for a kid under 5.  EAS, why, oh why, do you "love that font?" Doesn't it scream "immature" to you?

EAS: Hehe... you say "immature", I say "free-spirited". Hence my only using it for personal stuff. ;)  The link was awesome, too. Yet another example of inappropriate font usage. ;)

MY RESPONSE:

Sahila ChangeBringer: I want to thank you SZ for your feedback, and you're not the first person who has had that reaction, and been good enough (really, I appreciate the honesty and courage) to let me know what they think.

            I use the font DELIBERATELY... One of the ideas I work with, with my mainstream and 'other' clients, is that our beliefs shape our reality... and those beliefs are often based on ideas that might once have had value but are for the most part obsolete... and judging someone as "professional" or "immature" by the font they use is one of these cases...

            I sometimes facilitate workshops (where none of the participants have met me before), turning up in the scruffiest, oldest clothes I can find...

            I don't try to establish my credibility... I don't really introduce myself, we don't do the round of 'feel good' warm-up stuff, we just get straight into the hard stuff...

            I do it to move people out of their comfort zone, to take them off balance and to get them to recognise their own limited perceptions and how they respond when things are presented in ways other than the 'norm' or 'the professional'....

            And at the end, I explain what I was doing and why I was doing it... and I ask them to notice their response... It's very eye-opening...

            How much do we each clutter and filter our perceptions about life and people based on how it/they 'appear' to us? Do I only have credibility if I present myself in a certain way?

            How do you judge a beggar on the street? Do you judge him as a 'loser' by his clothes, or can you see past that outward appearance and be open, listen to the wisdom of his experience/life journey?

I've seen the most 'professional' looking people do the most unkind things, and not be good at their jobs...

I've seen the poorest, most 'unattractive' people give and give of their love,  possessions, practicality, common sense and hard physical labour until you would think there was nothing left to give, and then they'd give some more...

I've read the most wonderful words in tattered, humbly bound and  plainly typeset books...

... and the most vapid claptrap in lavish, high quality production tomes...

You can't tell a book by its cover...

Miracles Do Happen!

I've been making arrangements for us to move out of this house - calling service providers to have my name taken off utility accounts etc...

And while I was making the second call this morning, one of my housemates came up from downstairs and asked to talk...

When I was finished with the call, he said he just wanted to see if we could get to the place where we could have an amicable conversation and ending of this experience...

He said he was sorry for all that had happened and for it having gotten so weird and horrible and out of control, and he acknowledged that his family had been dishing up crap... 

He said his mother had not been herself really since her last illness and that this would never have happened if she had been well...

(I didn't know her very well then, so haven't had prior experience to judge her behaviour, and to give me the insight to make extra allowances)...

WOW...

I thanked him for his courage in opening the dialogue; I know it was not easy for him because I have been wondering how to get back to some sort of civility and respect myself and had not found the way to open the door...

We are still going to move - my housemate's final journey is not something we are part of.   Her son confirmed that he had told her I have gifts to share with her on that journey; he said she seems not open to receiving them at this time...

But at least moving out of here will not be a completely tense and horrid experience, filled with guilt, resentment and regret...

And maybe now I can let go of the long-held belief (lie) that all conflict is always my fault because I'm such an unreasonable, difficult human being!!!

 

Grief & Roses...

It was complete synchronicity that I wrote yesterday about feminine beauty past and present, using photos of French model Isabelle Caro to exemplify how far the pendulum has swung into the realms of unhealthy and horrible...

I didn't even know her name, or the names of the other young women pictured.

And today I read the headlines that she had died (in November)... At the age of 28, after a 15-year journey through the hell of anorexia...

Synchronicity?   Was I "tuned in" to other energy fields and picking up what was going on in her life?

Whatever, I feel sad for Isabelle in what she must have endured... and sad that an artificial world, the creation mostly of men, enabled her in that torturous and tortuous travail...

These roses are for Isabelle and all the women - young and old - who have felt so unloved and unaccepted/unacceptable that they fought their minds, bodies and spirits to become someone/something else...

 

Christmas Un-Wrapped...

All you ever wanted to know (or not!) about the origins of Christmas:

 

Hope - Fact or Delusion?

Hope is like a road in the country; there was never a road, but when many people walk on it, the road comes into existence.  

~Lin Yutang (1895– 1976), Chinese writer, translator and inventor

"Hope never abandons you, you abandon it."

- George Weinberg

 

"When you believe in something, that's when it's real...

We're all dreaming together..."

- Ashmol Williamson in the film Opal Dream

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Hope is patience with the lamp lit." - Tertullian

 

But... can hope become real without action?

 

 

Black Friday Special: The Story of Stuff...

Here in the US, there's a day called Black Friday... and no, it's not called that because it's a Friday the 13th...

It's the Friday after Thanksgiving, when Americans are urged, encouraged, enticed, manipulated, pressured to go on an orgy of spending (using money they don't have) so that retail receipts/profits can go into the "black"... and it marks the lead-up to the gross excess that is Christmas here...

 

It appears few people question why we would need all this "stuff".   Does it add to our quality of life, does it fulfill us, does it fill a hole in our lives, in our selves, in our souls?

Now here's something you might like to know about the origins, creation and final destination of all that "stuff"...

Will this make a difference to your choices this year?

 

Wake Up Already...

I'm working on two posts - one on racism in education and one on "rules are for fools" ... and it's heavy going ...

And I'm wandering around amongst my contacts and their networks and blogs and the web generally, watching, listening, reading what's going on in Seattle, in this country, in the world ... and I just want to SCREAM:

WAKE UP ALREADY... 

YOU'RE LIVING AN ILLUSION...

YOU'RE WIRED INTO

THE MATRIX...

W A K E    U P!!!

How can people not be awake and aware?

The signs are all around us - 

the controllers don't even try to hide it now...

Maybe they're awake 
but are choosing to stay enslaved?

Why?   Why would anyone choose slavery?

People are dying, the planet is dying - 
all in the name of power, control and profit...

And we're letting it happen...

What would this world look like

if we all woke up and rebelled?

What if we all unplugged ourselves
and stepped out of the Matrix?

None are more hopelessly enslaved 

than those who falsely believe they are free. 


Knowing is not enough; we must apply. 

Willing is not enough; we must do.

 

- Johann Wolfgang von Goethe - 

 

And then I think - what if I'm the one who's crazy?

If I'm the only one who sees this?

 

First, Do No Harm....

My spiritual practice is based on the tenet: First,  Do No Harm and John Wesley said:
 

"Do all the good you can,
By all the means you can,
In all the ways you can,
In all the places you can,
At all the times you can,
To all the people you can,
As long as ever you can."

~John Wesley (1703 –1791) Church of England cleric & theologian, Methodist movement founder
 

Does education, and education "deform", first "do no harm"?

I have been thinking about that more and more, since I wrote the letter to my child's teacher, principal and school community, withdrawing him from standardised testing and relieving them of any responsibility and liability for his academic achievement.

As the weeks have gone by, and I've processed the 100% positive feedback I have received on the stand I am taking, and I look at my son as we go to school everyday, I wonder - withdrawing him from testing - is that enough?

There are so many ways in which we don't honour our children as free human beings, and it seems to me the worst is yet to come - in some respects we are going back in time to much darker, almost feudal days...

Merit Pay Turns Children Into Workers

In many ways, I share some of Alfie Kohn's thoughts on education. 

Learning is a lifelong activity – it doesn’t just happen in the time period between 5 – 17 years of age, within the confines of school walls.   I don’t think the purpose of educating for life is to learn academics...  I think the purpose is to turn out a well rounded, balanced, confident, happy, fulfilled individual - physically, intellectually, socially, emotionally, spiritually and to develop all the talents you were born with, not just the intellect, so that you can contribute the best of yourself to your community...

But School = Prison for many kids, something they have to do, that they don’t have a say in...

Do any of us think abut how we would feel if someone came up to us and said:

“For the next 13 years or so, you will do this for five days of the week, whether you like it or not... You don’t get any say in how you spend the day or who you spend it with... 

You will stand when we say so, sit when we say so, talk when we say so, write when we say so, read when we say so, eat when we say so, exercise when we say so, do art (if you're lucky) when we say so... 

You will spend at least five hours of your day in this fashion and you may - if we choose - have up to one hour to be somewhat free and unrestrained - but even then, if you don’t obey us and do exactly as we instruct, in the manner we instruct, you will have that free time rescinded...”

And kids are supposed to believe this is all in their best interests, that the pay-off  (good job, a safe place in society, relationships, happiness, a house - and a mortgage to go with your student debt - and a generous retirement  before slipping into the night-time of death) is worth it and there is something wrong with them if they can’t or won’t conform, or enjoy it, or do their best …

I see the current model as a confining, controlling one of indoctrination into/moulding for the system and it physically hurts me inside (a twisting of the gut) to see my son being changed/restricted every day... 

So, each day I am dithering about his continued participation in formal schooling....

I want freedom for him - freedom for us all... But is that my projection, coming from deep within, my own rejection of, revolt against the dynamic of power and control...   

And am I gambling with his future if I take him out and let him 'educate', ‘unschool’ himself in something like a Sudbury model school, or even at home... (Or am I just preparing him for a different world, one that will come when this system finally collapses, as it surely will?)...

And I wonder, if that is how it is for me, how must it be for teachers who are being forced by their masters to put children through what most of them must know is not real 'education'?   I wonder how they stand there day after day jumping through the hoops a sick society is putting in front of them?

And that is not a criticism - truly... I know that place; I have been in a place where I was asked/expected to do things that I knew intellectually, morally, spiritually were not "for the highest good".   I couldn’t justify it, couldn’t find a good enough reason worth the pay-off and I had to lay it all on the line to stay in personal integrity... 

I am guessing many teachers face that dilemma daily...

My son's teacher is a fine teacher, who is used to mustering and employing all her talents (artistic, dramatic, musical) in the business of teaching her class whether that be in math, language arts, whatever...

But she is being compelled by her principal and the district to teach to the test, in content and form - worksheets, worksheets and more worksheets, formatted exactly as kids will find them on the tests including multiple choice answers with bubbles to fill in...  

It's killing her - the internal conflict and stress is literally making her sick... 

And it's killing me to see my son struggle with boredom in that...

It’s turning him off - now he says “school is boring, math is boring, too much sitting, too much writing, it’s too hard, I don’t get enough time to just read (currently his completely favourite activity), there’s not enough time to eat lunch, recess is too short”...

My son is not unique - this is happening to hundreds of thousands of kids - we are killing their spirit/creativity/curiosity/enthusiasm... I think that's a crime - which is why I do what I do against education deform...

But stopping education deform is not enough;   what was happening in classrooms before education deform wasn’t good either.   

If I know the system is broken and I don’t agree with the values of the system, and the system won't let me change it (but will let others with money change it as they see fit, in ways that I think will harm all children), what do I, as a parent, do?   

What does a teacher do?

I want to know what we as a people do, when the system is so broken it can’t be fixed?  

How do we get our world to a place where we really nurture/educate our children in a holistic way…

Do you do the best you can within the bad system, or create something outside the system?