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Winter 2009-10
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Winter 2009-10
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ur newsletter will promote principles of personal success for women. These ideas will illustrate success in the working world, in interpersonal relationships, and in developing self esteem and confidence. Each member will bring special knowledge about attaining personal goals and adding a sense of discovery and excitement to women's lives.
"What you know through your intuition is, clearly, 'a message from the interior' - your interior - and just because it comes from within - you trust it more, perhaps, than you might if you had read it or heard it somewhere else."
"Don't you find it interesting that we have to 'learn' to trust our intuition? Intuition is that knowing that comes directly to us without facts or proof. Studies tell us it is a melding of past experiences, sensory inputs, knowledge, skills, and training coupled with an inner knowing - all on an unconscious level and at lightning speed."
"Look, intuition is fine. It'll tell you when someone's off track, when they're hurting, when they've stopped being truly engaged in your conversation. Heed those warnings. But intuition, in my experience, isn't enough to inspire you to brilliance!"
"The Divine Feminine, denigrated and denied for centuries, saw women's intuition as dangerous, weak, destructive and counterproductive. Trusting feminine intuition, or the 'inner knowing' of truth, posed a threat to masculine power, as the call of feminine intuition is for justice. Feminine energy insists on life. "
" I wasn't certain where the message was coming from. Perhaps it was from my inner voice. Perhaps it was from an outside messenger. Wherever it was coming from, I had never heard such a definitive, strong communication like that before, and decided that I had to pay attention to it."
Carol Akright, CFP, continues her private practice in financial advisory work and in the educational division of her business, FUNDING YOUR DREAMS, LLC.
She also continues traveling abroad aboard Princess Cruise Lines to on a wide range of life enrichment topics, running triathaolons, and long-distance biking. Carol can be reached at (505) 897-1970, or by writing to .
Lenann McGookey Gardner is recently back from work in Australia, with a side trip to New Zealand. She reports there's no recession in her office; she's just been booked in the Netherlands, as well as for a big program in Southeastern Washington State that will keep her busy well into next year. "This, plus growth in our business at Sandia National Labs, adds up to our being very busy," Lenann says.
Jane Blume helped New Mexico Special Olympics publicize its first-ever OVER THE EDGE fundraiser on September 24-25, during which 57 media people, VIPs and community volunteers rappelled down the 16-story, 230-ft. New Mexico Bank & Trust Building in downtown Albuquerque. This unusual event attracted considerable media attention and grossed over $63,000 in an uncertain economy. Jane says she was able to raise over $2,500 from 94 contributors to support her rappel.
The front page of the Desert Sky Communications website has an image of Jane rappelling on Media/VIP Day. The photo was taken by the Albuquerque Journal to illustrate its September 25th Metro Section front-page story about OVER THE EDGE, "Charitable Descent." With this rappel, Jane has earned a new nickname from some friends and associates: Spiderwoman.
Jane's rappelling adventure is also mentioned in a book by Mary Lou Dobbs, "Repotting Yourself - Financial-Emotional-Spiritual Flow," which will be published by O Books in March of 2010.
This spring, she earned a certification in kinesionics and worked once more with the Albuquerque Folk Festival, publicizing the Festival's expansion from one day to two. Attendance and revenues rose at least 18%.
Arguably the most important event of the year was the April 7th birth of Jane's first grandchild, a beautiful baby girl named Lorelai Phoebe Oliveira Blume. The ecstatic parents are son Arthur and daughter-in-law Paula.
"INTUITION: MESSAGES FROM THE INTERIOR"
know you've all had a 'gut' feeling about something, or a 'flash of genius' that gives you a solution to a problem. Perhaps you awaken from a night's sleep, and some brand new idea comes to mind - something that gets you very excited These are all evidence of your intuition at work.
The American College Dictionary describes intuition as: "direct perception of truths, facts, etc. (received) independently of any reasoning process." Also, it denotes "an immediate cognition of an object or truth not inferred or determined by a previous cognition." My favorite definition is "pure, untaught, non-inferential knowledge."
The word "pure" is part of the essence of intuition. By that I mean that when your intuition tells you something, you know it to be true, as surely as the sun rises every morning. This knowledge is not clouded by doubt or worry about its source. You just know it is valid information.
'Untaught' means that you didn't go anywhere outside yourself for the information.
What you know through your intuition is, clearly, "a message from the interior" - your interior - and just because it comes from within - you trust it more, perhaps, than you might if you had read it or heard it somewhere else. 'Noninferential' considers that this idea is new, fresh - not even suggested by some other piece of knowledge that you already have.
So, the importance of listening to your intuition - and to what it is telling you - is that you can trust yourself to have the answers to whatever concerns you. You may need to learn more about the steps of a solution to a problem, or you may want to compare the intuited ideas to other information you already have, but, for the most part, your intuition is an inner guide that you can trust to tell you what you want to know - about yourself, about experiences you are having, about other people, and about decisions you may need to make. You can trust YOU - and this is the most valuable source of knowledge you can ever rely on - especially for important life issues you face.
I will share with you that I have been struggling with some life changes that I think I want to make, but which definitely will change my everyday world. It is about expanding my financial education business way beyond what I have done before.
Yes, I've done seminars that teach financial information - early on as a way to meet and obtain new clients - beginning some twenty-five years ago. Later, I developed a lecture series as a vehicle to speak aboard cruise ships and travel the world, which I have been doing for the past seven years. As we start the second decade of our new century, in 2010, I want to do more teaching - using the Internet and information marketing, writing e-books, doing financial coaching and consulting - essentially becoming an international, financial educator and motivational speaker.
You might ask, what is the struggle about, or what are my concerns? Well, it's hard to do this kind of teaching within the confines of my industry's federal regulations - regulations made even stricter by the Madoff-type scandals that have left the regulatory agencies that monitor financial professionals reeling. They've increasingly tightened up on anything that is said to anyone about their money, even in a teaching format. There is a resistance to any written material on the Internet by broker-dealers or their representatives, of which I am one, and so, it's becoming clearer and clearer that either I help set new standards of education in the industry, or I have to leave the broker/dealer environment to one day have my career dream.
I don't want to do that, but if I listen to my intuition to expand into educating more of the public than I can work with one on one as clients, then this direction I am heading is really where I want to go.
Another challenge for me is that learning how to market on the Internet is learning a whole new business - with all kinds of technical jargon and parameters - and new marketing techniques I've never tried before. It is taking on a third career (my first two being broadcast journalism for 11 years, followed by the quarter century that I've worked as a financial advisor and investment manager).
Yet, my gut tells me I'm excited. The excitement I feel when I do a teleclass or webinar or speak before large groups is really fun. I know there are, literally, millions of people who need and want the information I can share, and my heart, mind, and soul are leading me to finding new ways to do more of that - to reach thousands, perhaps millions, of new customers/clients/students.
So, as I'm putting spreadsheets together to figure out the financial prospects of this work, sometimes my practical head wants to say, "Oh, Carol, this is too much to take on. Suze Orman has the platform anyway - maybe there is no need for another woman financial expert out there. Many people would think you're going to retire soon - so why start a new aspect of your business?" But deep down, within, I am so energized, so convinced that I have a greater audience to serve, that I don't want to NOT go in this direction.
I don't want to look back later and say, "Oh, I should have gone ahead and done that."
Sometimes fear of change, fear of loss or failure, play a role in curbing our intuitive instincts. I ask myself, "What if this costs me more than I make? What if I get so busy, I won't have time for family and friends? What if I don't find my niche, my audience, and I'll be speaking to a small group of loyal contacts - not the world?"
Still, I hear about people launching multi-million dollar enterprises from information marketing - with internet marketing being the main vehicle that helps them get the viral message out there more quickly. I think, "What if I sold a $10 e-book to 100,000 people on line - and they downloaded my knowledge and really got benefit from it? That gross revenue of $1 million dollars would offer another income stream for me and my family - a passive income stream: i.e. write it once, and sell it many times - making money while I sleep!
Here is more proof of our intuition working on our behalf:
I just took a Life Languages test from the Life Languages Institute*, and I discovered that my two main communication styles are that of: # 1, a Responder, and # 2, an Influencer.
As a Responder, I naturally am sensitive to people, wanting them to be happy, and I have an intuitive ability to perceive when individuals are up or down, sad or happy, worried or at peace. When dealing with the public, I am motivated to create excellent customer service. I have passion to pursue what interests me, and the ability to be quite imaginative and creative as I do so. I am a peacemaker, and that makes me a good negotiator or mediator. I trust in the basic goodness of people, and I have the ability to nurture others through the warmth of my personality. I approach life, people, and circumstances with my feelings and intuition.
As an Influencer, I am naturally optimistic, relational, enthusiastic, and verbal. I have an instinctive and intuitive ability to understand others, sum up a situation, and know what to say. My optimistic nature makes me solution-oriented, automatically looking for positive solutions to problems. I make decisions easily and quickly. I like to give advice.
I am interested in personal growth and development and am a natural networker, and enjoy bringing groups of people together. My major desire is to encourage others, motivating them to feel better, do better, and become all they can be.
As I read these descriptions, it makes sense that I want to expand more into public speaking, leading seminars, motivating individuals to fund their life dreams. It makes sense that I enjoy both the one-on-one career of advising people about their money and also reaching out to larger groups to share my knowledge and financial expertise.
So, what I've been feeling intuitively flows from my basic nature and my language styles of communicating with others. You, too, have natural tendencies, guided by your intuition. So, while I'm facing challenges with changes I want to make, I feel more and more certain of the direction I want to go. This will be true for you - the more you listen to what your inner voice tells you is the right path, the right decision, the right action for you.
Just writing this article brings me to having more conviction that I need to listen to my voice from within - my interior message. I feel better about embracing change, expanding my career to encompass more educational opportunities, and finding the way to fund this career dream I've been nurturing for several years.
I hope you, too, will start to look for more messages from the interior. Think of them as spirit guides that want you to be the best you can be, the happiest you can be, and the most of yourself that you can be. I look forward to seeing the results of doing this in my own life. Let us know how you do in the coming months - taking a stand for your intuition.
*For more information on the Life Languages Profile go to www.lifelanguages.com/entry/mentor
hese days, with all the popular books and training being offered on how to find and use your intuition, with all the people who call themselves Intuitives being called upon professionally for consultations, and with the acceptance of the almost counter-cultural idea that intuition or the gut is the only way to make decisions, one would think that trusting our intuition would be easy.
More often, we are learning that many of our greatest thinkers and inventors such as Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, and others first had an intuitive idea, and then did the experimenting and scientific inquiry to prove the idea and bring it to fruition - "dual processing" today's researchers call it.
Don't you find it interesting that we have to "learn" to trust our intuition? Intuition is that knowing that comes directly to us without facts or proof. Studies tell us it is a melding of past experiences, sensory inputs, knowledge, skills, and training coupled with an inner knowing - all on an unconscious level and at lightning speed.
In coaching, we are taught to listen to all the nuances of a client's voice: speed, affect, energy, phrasing, changes in pitch, the said and the unsaid, plus many other cues. From this and our own experiences we get "inklings" - those intuitive hits that help us ask the key questions that can open up the client's awareness, perhaps changing his or her perceptions in such a way that significant, desired changes can be made.
For me, it was difficult learning to trust my intuition and ask that key question that was so fitting for that particular time. Perhaps that came from my science training that taught me to rely only on what could be observed, measured, tested, proven, and able to be replicated by others under similar conditions. Perhaps it was my concern for the client that I wasn't inserting my own thoughts, feelings, or expectations in their process.
Yet, I'm inclined to believe that in our world of science and technology, we all have been conditioned to trust what is seen and distrust that which is occult or hidden from the conscious observation.
Did that word "occult" cause you pause? Did it create a feeling that magic or "woo-woo" was being inserted into our conversation? Did the slight discomfort put a big question mark about what I was saying - perhaps even a questioning of my veracity? That is the conditioning about which I'm speaking. Both directly and indirectly, we've been taught not to trust anything that isn't evident or provable. Add to that the fact that we all have personal experiences when trusting our gut level intuition helped avert disaster and others that led to disaster. Yet these can be part of the unconscious knowing that becomes our intuition of the future.
Yes, it is difficult to develop trust in something when the outcome can seem unpredictably and randomly variable. I'm inclined to use a phrase not coined by Ronald Reagan but used frequently by him, "Trust but verify." This seems to be the path of scientists and inventors, diplomats, and crime scene investigators. Trust that we can have knowledge come unbidden at the speed of light, and trust that it could possibly be exactly right on the mark at precisely the perfect time. And also verify. Use our other resources. Reflect on the favorable outcomes when we trusted our intuition - both the yes and the no messages.
We are remarkable beings capable of taking in and processing millions of bits of information - all at the sub- or unconscious levels and all at the speed of light. What if we could accept that both the yin and the yang, the unconscious and conscious, the science and the intuitive, work together to yield the most satisfying results for our lives. Rather than setting them in opposition, I suggest we see them as a collaborative pair that enrich our decision-making and help us to create the more satisfying life we want to live. The trust that needs to come is not with our intuition but with our selves.
Is "Trusting Your Intuition" Enough?
You know, those people who, no matter what you say, will disagree with you. Just on principle. But when it comes to intuition, I'm a contrarian. Here's why:
The conventional wisdom appears to be, "We're women. We're intuitive. We just need to trust our intuition." But my experience is that a lot of women use intuition as an excuse!
"Did you prepare for this meeting?" I'll ask, and they'll respond, "Well, my intuition tells me that ..."
That's another way of saying, "No, I didn't prepare."
I teach selling for a living. I ask people to prepare for sales conversations, to have questions ready to go about topics likely to be interesting to their contacts. And I ask them to know what's going on in those people's organizations, and be ready to talk about them and their situation, rather than talking about the products and services offered for sale.
But, of course, people are more comfortable talking about their products and services. Let's not get onto that shaky ground of trying to understand another person! So they go in unprepared, ME-focused, talking at people, tossing out their best "bait" and trying to catch a new client.
That's a low-percentage success rate approach to selling!
Look, intuition is fine. It'll tell you when someone's off track, when they're hurting, when they've stopped being truly engaged in your conversation. Heed those warnings. But intuition, in my experience, isn't enough to inspire you to brilliance!
Maybe it's intuition-plus-preparation we're looking for. Or preparation-plus-intuition - that's even better. When you're prepared you're more likely to experience your intuition kicking in!
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Dr. Gail Carr Feldman, an original contributor to Defining Women, returns as a guest columnist for this issue. She is a clinical psychologist, award-winning author, coach and popular public speaker. She has appeared on radio and television programs across the country, including Larry King Live. Her current passion is resilience psychology, creativity, and women in midlife. Gail's next workshop, Midlife Crash Course: From Crisis to Creative Wellness, will be given in San Diego in December, and her fifth book by the same name is in New York awaiting publication. Gail would love to talk to you about speaking to your organization, about coaching, or about the varieties of therapeutic hypnosis. Call her at 505-833-4356 or visit her website at: www.gailfeldman.com, or contact her through email at . |
ultiple challenges confront women in the transitional time of midlife, which now covers, not just one but three decades. In our forties, fifties and sixties, we must say goodbye to our youth, and if that were not hard enough, get to know the dark, frightening faces of chronic illness, injury, accidents, addiction, mental illness, divorce, financial loss and death. For the first time in history we find ourselves caring for four generations - our elderly parents, our children, our grandchildren, and at the bottom of the list, ourselves. For millions of women, tired and spent, the sacred feminine journey through midlife is called "depression."
In my Midlife Crash Course workshops, I've named it, "discovering wisdom." And the way to wisdom is through intuition.
Reframing midlife as the "heroine's journey" allows us to honor each experience on the "Road of Trials," every descent into the "Underworld" of our emotions as a necessary component of growing wisdom, our intuition guiding us every step of the way. The Divine Feminine, denigrated and denied for centuries, saw women's intuition as dangerous, weak, destructive and counterproductive. Trusting feminine intuition, or the "inner knowing" of truth, posed a threat to masculine power, as the call of feminine intuition is for justice. Feminine energy insists on life.
When the news came to Job and his wife that all ten of their children had been killed, Job became withdrawn and devout, but his wife screamed from her grief, "curse God and die!" She's nameless and dropped from the story. I've bestowed on her the name, Sophia, the goddess of wisdom, as she led the way through the feelings of grief, from anger to acceptance, and transformed their lives from loss to the abundance of love. We're told that all of their possessions, including their children, were restored and that Job learned to see his daughters as "the most beautiful women in the land."
Demeter, the Greek Goddess of the earth, took on Zeus himself after her daughter, Persephone, was raped and abducted into the underworld by Hades. She refused to allow crops and food to grow until Zeus directed Hades to return Persephone to her mother. Reunited with love, richness was restored to the earth. Studies of successful women confirm that they, Like Sophia, use "creative aggression" in furthering their goals. Creative aggression means speaking out, taking a stand, defending opinions, formulating goals and taking steps necessary to move forward in life.
We must trust our intuition about having and making peace with our deep sadness, our anger and outrage over human suffering, including our own.
We must choose to see intuition as an opportunity to be with our feelings and open our hearts in compassion - forgiving our inability to right the wrongs of the past, and loving ourselves and others as never before. Divine feminine intuition brings us to the center of our being where we live in ongoing renewal, creativity and empowerment.
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Jane Blume, editor/publisher of our Defining Women newsletter, celebrates 43 years of professional work in communications this year. Jane founded Desert Sky Communications in 1989 to help businesses, non-profit organizations and individual entrepreneurs "get the right messages to the right audiences." Desert Sky's services include public relations, marketing and advertising strategies and execution; writing and editing; corporate identity; photography; facilitation; and innovative radio programs. For more information, call Jane at (505) 294-1976, email to or visit www.desertskycommunications.com. |
bout a decade ago, I was producing a special program for our local public TV station called a "Reverse Press Conference," which featured a panel of community leaders questioning a panel of news media types about how they do their jobs. On the morning before the live evening telecast, I woke up to hear a loud voice saying in my head, "Jane! Better get ready! One of the panelists might not show up."
I wasn't certain where the message was coming from. Perhaps it was from my inner voice. Perhaps it was from an outside messenger. Wherever it was coming from, I had never heard such a definitive, strong communication like that before, and decided that I had to pay attention to it. "Just in case," I drafted two - three questions to ask the media panel, and made sure to put on an outfit that would look appropriate on television.
The panelists started arriving at the TV station one hour before the 7 p.m. airtime. By 6:15, I noticed that one of the community leaders had not yet arrived. 6:20... 6:25... 6:30... and the community leader was still missing. At 6:35, realizing that the panelist was apparently a no-show, I went into the ladies' room to freshen my makeup and hair-do.
At 6:45, I walked onto the set and told the producer/host that we were short one panelist. "Can you go on the air?" she asked.
Later, when I asked myself why I heeded that morning message, I realized that I did so because it was so powerful, and because I remembered that if (what I perceived to be) my inner voice told me something - and I ignored it - negative results would ensue. It has happened time and time again.
I also recognize that accumulating a great deal of experience - in my personal and professional lives - has increased my capacity to "receive" - and then "act." It happened this fall, when I was engaged to help Special Olympics New Mexico publicize its first-ever OVER THE EDGE fundraiser, which entailed convincing news media people and community volunteers to agree to rappel down a 16-story, 230-ft. building in downtown Albuquerque - and to raise a minimum of $1,000 each for the privilege!
At our first publicity meeting back in June I opened my mouth, and before I knew it, I became the first media or community person to volunteer to go OVER THE EDGE. Why did I say I would do it? After all, I'm a widowed, first-time grandmother of "a certain age." And I'm not exactly athletically inclined. But ever since my husband, Phil, died two years ago, I have been looking for opportunities to embrace life, not flee from it.
My intuition told me to say "yes." And the "yes" led to a flash of inspiration (intuition?) when I wrote the news release about the fundraiser. As I sat at my computer trying to think of a story angle that the news media would pay attention to, I quickly realized that I should probably focus on the variety of people who were rappelling.
And so, the first sentence of the news release began with the words, "A 66-year-old, widowed new grandmother..." I will not bore you with excruciating detail, but the bottom line is that the news media did pay attention - and although it wasn't my plan, my own rappel became the focus of some of the stories. (Please visit the front page of my company's website, www.desertskycommunications.com)
Perhaps it's not surprising that OVER THE EDGE attracted such widespread attention. Ever since Phil passed away, I have been listening even more - not less. I've realized that I have to make the time to "tune in" (if you will) to receive whatever messages come from both inside of me, and apparently from external sources - and the best time to "receive" seems to be the early morning, after I wake up, or when I'm relaxing in the bathtub at night.
Aside from the publicity for OVER THE EDGE, the benefits have been considerable: my intuition has helped me say "yes" to that bright, 30-year old PR guy who approached me and said he wanted to work with me... to that delightful couple who volunteered to catalog Phil's extensive tool collection ... to that talented woodworking professional who rang the bell and ended up refurbishing my inner vestibule door... and to the service manager of an auto repair shop, who was giving me an estimate about new brakes and - in the process - discovered a fractured (and potentially very dangerous) tire rim.
I'm looking forward to reaping additional benefits as time goes on.
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