In my last post, I talked about my realization that I’d not been approaching my business in a way that’s congruent with who I am – and that was a big problem.

photo credit: Denis Collette…!!!

I’m working (behind the scenes so far) on re-imagining how I talk about and share what I do and make. In the mean time, an opportunity has come up, and I want to share my excitement about it with you.

Maybe it’ll be useful for some of you as well, or maybe you’ll just help me be excited either way is fine.

I’ve known about Mark Silver and The Heart of Business for a while now, and I’d enjoyed some of his stuff, but it didn’t click with me.  I wasn’t ready.

Mark is a Sufi, a practitioner of mystical Islam.  He approaches business as a mystic.  To me, this is very cool.

So, not that long ago, I was struggling how to find a right price to charge for something,  I remembered Havi having written about using a wacky resonant pricing exercise that she adapted from Mark’s work.  So I decided to try it.  I downloaded the exercise from Mark’s post and tried it – it just felt right.  In fact it felt wonderful.  It also introduced me to

The Remembrance

A simple, Sufi practice which is the basis of much of what Mark teaches.  I’m not going to explain the practice here, if you are drawn to know more about it check out Mark’s Getting To The Core workbook, which you get free when you sign up for his newsletter (which I love.)

This practice has been the perfect gift for me at the perfect time, Mark calls it “having tea time with the Divine,” which as strange as it sounds, is really right on.

In fact I’m doing Mark’s Remembrance Challenge right now and loving it – it’s just perfect for me, where I am right now.  Though I’m certainly doing it imperfectly.  (It’s also free on his site if you’re interested)

The Sacred Invitation

I ran across this page on The Heart of Business and signed up for the “No More Square Wheels” teleclass Mark was offering as a free preview class for his 6 week Momentum program.  I was “sure” that I wasn’t going to take the class.  Money is tight right now, it just didn’t seem like an option.  But I wanted to learn what I could from the preview call, which I expected to be mostly content, and a little pitch at the end.

I didn’t know it at the time, but that page was a sacred invitation to me to take the next step into myself and my business.

You see, the call was yesterday – and it just blew me out of the water.  I sat and listened, and felt as Mark would pause, and just breathe as I let what he said sink in, and he felt into what he was called to say next.  (at least that’s how it felt to me…)

He wasn’t talking about a class

He was talking about an entirely new (to me) approach to what business is, what it means, and how to do it.

It felt so right to me.  Exactly what I needed to create the business and life that I feel called to.

And let me be clear I was not “sold” anything – the “pitch” Mark gave was simply an explanation of what the course covers and how it works.  That was really it.

I knew, though, long before that point, that this was what my heart was calling for.

But like I said, I knew I couldn’t afford the class now.  Then I told my Dad about it, and he very graciously agreed to pay for it as a gift.

I am so thankful that I’m now enrolled in this class, and I’m bouncing off the walls excited about it.

And by the way, you can listen to the recording of the “No More Square Wheels” call by clicking here.

So why am I writing this post?  Because my heart is singing with excitement about this and I needed to share it.

Have you ever had something resonate with you like this?  Are you thinking about taking this class?  I’d love to hear about it in the comments.

Every three minutes there is a new diagnosis of invasive breast cancer.

Every 13 minutes someone dies from breast cancer.

More than 180,000 people, women and men, will be diagnosed with breast cancer in the US this year alone.

This has got to stop!

It’s time for all of us to step up, and do what ever we can to end breast cancer.

This whole train of thought was started a couple of days ago, when I got an e-mail from a dear friend by the name of Andrea Berman. We’ve been friends since college, and she’s a very cool person and a geek to boot. Andrea sent me an e-mail because she has committed to participate in this year’s Avon Walk for Breast  Cancer. She’s going to walk close to 40 miles in a weekend. It’s up to us to support her with our donations.

Please go to her Avon Walk for Breast Cancer personal site and donate whatever you can right now.

But there is more than not that we can do, as connected people on the Internet, we can blog and tweaked and Facebook and stumble and digg and whatever else you can think of to make sure that every one we are connected to knows about this challenge, and the commitment that we are making to help solve it.

Just to provide a little extra incentive, if you make a donation of any amount, and let me know in the comments of this post that you’ve done it, I’ll send you a link to a special meditation video that I’ve created. This 12 minute video uses my Binaural Journeys technology combining binaural beats, binaural drumming, natural sound and music to guide you effortlessly into a state of creative relaxation. The visuals in this program are amazing photographs of spectacular tropical flowers. As the imagery takes you into the miniature world of the flower, the binaural audio track guides you into yourself.

Just remember, the only way to get this video is to make a donation through Andrea’s page, and then let me know about it in the comments here. Of course, this is on the honor system, and there is no need to say how much you’ve given, what’s important is that every one of us give.

I’ve never been one for New Year’s resolutions. They seem to have a shelf life of about 10 minutes, and thereby are not all that useful. In fact the very specific kind of goal setting that is often recommended has rarely proved useful for me. Instead, I ask myself what do I want? And who do I want to be? And how is what I’m doing right now supportive or not supportive to the first two questions?

This is something I do on an ongoing basis, and that has worked very well for me. I feel like I’m coming to a point in my development where more concrete goals, particularly around business may prove useful, but I do tend to work intuitively and haven’t felt called to do that yet.

So with that in mind, you can imagine that I was interested, but not terminally excited when I first read a blog post by Hayden Tompkins about How To Rock 2010. (Let me stop here and say that Hayden’s blog Through the Illusion is awesome and very worth reading.)

It did take me a little bit off guard when Hayden, as she often does, put her own spin on the ideas. She talked about choosing a word for the year. A word that would serve as a navigation point for the year. Her word this year is “dance,” if you want to know why you’ll have to read her post.

I casually tossed around in my mind what my word might be, if I were to come up with one, and didn’t really get anywhere. Then I read a post by Erica Douglas called 2010 Goals; 2010 #themeword; Big Announcement! (If you’re at all interested in business, particularly business online, Erica’s blog is a must read. I know this post is starting to sound like a blog pitch fest, but I really love what both of these amazing women write.)

In her post, Erica talks about starting the #themeword meme in 2007, the concept is very similar to Hayden’s. I thought this was interesting, but since I had already decided that I didn’t need such a thing, I noted that and moved on. Except that my unconscious or higher self or muse or whatever or whoever seemed to disagree. I don’t remember exactly when, but it popped into my head (and landed there with a significant amount of force) that my #themeword for 2010 is Freedom. I like this roll around in my head for a while, but the more I thought about it the more right it feels.

For me 2010 is about creating freedom

Freedom for myself; financially, from a job that I’ve mastered and I’m ready to pass on, and most importantly from my own limiting beliefs and programming.

This year is also about helping other people create freedom for themselves through my Binaural Journeys guided meditation audios. It’s interesting, I didn’t realize that that’s what I was doing when I set out to create audio programs that combined guided meditation, binaural beats, binaural drumming and music. I just knew that I had felt inspired to create programs of this sort, so I did. But, in thinking about my #themeword, Freedom, I realized that Binaural Journeys are really tools for people to use in creating their own freedom.

I am truly excited about the year to come.

So, what’s your #themeword?

I’m excited to announce a new project.  I’m creating guided meditation audio programs I’m calling Binaural Journeys.

These journeys combine Binaural Beats, Binaural Drumming, music, natural sounds and guided meditation to take you very deeply into relaxation and trance, even if you have no previous meditation experience. All you have to do is listen through headphones, and let my voice, and the sounds guide you.

Headphones are important to this, the binaural technologies require feeding specific sounds in to each ear.

I am making a series of videos about the technologies and creation of the Binaural Journeys programs.

The first video which I’m including here is an introduction to, and explanation of binaural beats, what they are and how they work

You can download my Journey of Relaxation for free by going to http://binauraljourneys.com