Byron Katie’s book “A Mind at Home with Itself” offers much and is well worth the read or listen (like I prefer to do) but I wanted to offer a very short cliff note type blog here of her four questions. These questions are used to really look at what ever is upsetting you. It is a way to dig deeper into the reality of the situation. And to notice how your suffering has so much to do with your thoughts about a situation, rather than the situation itself.

In her book she provides real examples with real people that she walks through the process. It is always helpful to have those real examples to really get a better understanding and be able to use it for yourself. So again, I offer this as a wetting of the appetite for learning more.

The idea is you write down your frustrations about a person, situation, event etc. I wont go into those initial prompts here but things like naming the person and/or thing that is bothering you, why and what you would like to be different to help you feel better. Then you take those statements you wrote down and ask these four questions about each of them. The four questions, to ask yourself in order, are:

1. Is it true?
2. Can I absolutely know that it’s true?
3. How do I react, what happens when I believe that thought?
4. Who would I be without the thought?

We so often project a lot onto others and/or a situation. Our minds work by filling in the unknowns, making assumptions, using the past to fill in the present, regardless of authenticity and real proof, and is basically biased to the familiar and expected. Not to change and different. Because the ego doesn’t like unpredictability or the unknown, it prefers suffering through the known to the possible freedom of a new perspective or reality. 

It is a bit like Brené Brown’s shitty first draft. This is where you write out what is bothering you without editing yourself. The time to really get petty, use childish words and name calling or what ever is authentic to your experience. This is not meant for anyone else’s eyes. It is a first dump. No censoring or editing yet. After those “immature” and “unkind” thoughts are given some space or have a place to express out, then the intense fire behind them will naturally die down and we can then have more access to the heart and gut for assessing or analyzing things. This is where we have more capacity to be honest with our answers to the four questions. My therapist used to ask similar questions in sessions and those did help to be able to get a vantage point from beyond the feeling/belief/statement. 

This can be so powerful if done well. As we shine a light on ourselves, we see more clearly. After all, the only place we have control is within. Where we saw the other person was to blame and wanted to point fingers, we can more easily see things from a more expanded perspective. Just like Jesus stating that when we point a finger at another, there are 3 fingers pointing back at us. There is wisdom in looking at things differently. After all, thinking the same way has probably only given you more of what you don’t want. 

When I sat down to write about a current frustration or recent situation with my partner in order to use Katie’s four questions, I was pleasantly surprised by the outcome.  At first though, resistance. Resistance to letting go of my anger, hurt and beliefs about what happened. Because it felt right! Yet it wasn’t comfortable and really, didn’t make total sense. What I mean is I couldn’t see his logic or how he could possible think what I had said was worth getting so upset about.

Part of us holds onto the righteousness of our anger. Because at first we feel so attached to our assessment and beliefs. We trust that we understood and continue to unpack things with those beliefs because it feels like truth to us.

Those 4 questions that Byron Katie offers open us up to alternatives and pokes holes into our iron clad reasoning. It shows where we are assuming, projecting, or simply misunderstanding the person or situation. 

I wrote out my beliefs and understandings, in other words my reaction to the situation and to my partner in this most recent case. Please note that writing has a power that thought does not. Our mind will convince us so quickly that we don’t even have room for re-assessing, and we wont notice this by just thinking the thoughts over and over. But put it down in writing, and you can easily see some holes, some projections, and perhaps where the other person is mirroring you - meaning actually you are doing/being that way, to the same or more degree! 

So I wrote my statements out onto the page, without editing or censoring. Here is one example I can share… “Doug is sensitive to the negative and goes there quickly, seeing all things relating to a situation that prove his upset without asking questions, or trying a tool he has learned. He shuts down and no amount of love and gentleness shifts it. I have to get angry, sad or upset for him to finally soften.”

First question, is it true? Yes. (seems true to me!)
Second question, Can I absolutely know that it’s true?  No. It is my assessment, but I can’t absolutely know it to be true. 
Third question, How do I react, what happens when I believe that thought? Well I do the same! I assume I know and understand, I assume he is being unreasonable and wrongly seeing things, I see his unwillingness to get to a better place and then I don’t want to either! I feel justified in my anger, after all I tried first! 
Fourth question, Who would I be without the thought? I would be free to ask questions, use reflective listening, maybe a relationship wheel (tool). I would be curious and kind. I would be calm, reflective and seeking understanding - of him and of myself. I’d be my best self!

Wow. I choose that last one! It is how I want my partner to be as well! Or something similar anyway. So if I am not being that, how can I expect it of him?

Try asking those 4 questions of any situation or person you are struggling with. If you can relax, breathe and be honest with yourself, you might just be surprised at your answers. I know I was!

Please let me know if you were able to try this and what your experience was. The more of us that can heal our own lives in both small and large ways, one frustration at a time, the more our world expands in love and joy!

Someone recently recommended to me the book “The Gentle Art of Swedish Death Cleaning. How to Free yourself and Your Family from a Lifetime of Clutter” by Margareta Magnusson. I had never heard of it. So I put a hold on the audio book from my local library.  It came up as ready to listen to just days after the death of my Father-in-law. I wished I had been able to suggest this book to my in-laws prior to his passing.

The author, who was in her 80’s at least when she wrote it back in 2018, is quite funny and prioritizes like I do. Although she is not a fan of hiring help with downsizing! She thinks services like mine are expensive when considering you want to do this slowly with thoughtfulness. So maybe there is one thing we would disagree on.

Not that you need to do it fast without thinking it through. Doing it slowly with a great deal of thoughtfulness is best for sure. AND there are many folks out there that will never take the time to do it that way.  Sometimes, not always I realize, doing something quickly without getting too in your head about it, works quite well. It is my belief, that if you truly need something, it will find it’s way to you. So not giving or throwing things away because “I might need it someday” can fill up your spaces fast. Possibly cost you a lot of money as well. Way more than buying something again down the road should you indeed need it. Especially if you don’t remember you had it or can’t find it and buy it again anyway. 

Her main point is - do you really want to burden your family with ALL your stuff when you die? Obviously we need some stuff. But a house filled to the brim with stuff is an overwhelming and burdensome gift to leave those you love and care about. So thinking of them now is a gift you can give from beyond. 

Have you seen how many storage rental businesses there are around in your community? Americans are BIG consumers! It’s an addiction. And like most addictions, not a healthy one.  We have so much stuff we can’t even store it in our homes that we have to spend money to rent space to store it! Wise? Cheap? No. This is when hiring help is cheaper than not!


We are destroying our health, our lives and our planet - all at the same time - with all our STUFF! The items we keep and the items we throw away every day - plastic being the main thing. But food, clothes etc. The fashion industry has come under great scrutiny about the impact on the earth. And  those companies that sell the clothes who are tossing returned items because it is cheaper than re-stocking them! When will it stop?  Well maybe when we learn something from this Swedish death cleaning woman for a start. 

She suggest decluttering throughout your life, not waiting until you are closer to a likely departure. After all, none of us know when exactly that will be.  Decluttering and donating or gifting (or tossing) sooner rather than later, is just wise and kind. Less to clutter you now, and less work for your family members to have to deal with when your times comes.

I am happy to help you downsize, de-clutter, get organized, to be enjoyed at the time and well into the future! It really is a good feeling to know what you have, be able to find it, and be free of piles of things, duplicates or items spread out everywhere. I bet many of us could get a second kitchen up and running without missing much from our own! Open a drawer or two in your kitchen and if you can’t see what is in there in about 10 seconds, you could benefit from my services. Or the book at least.

It’s imperative that you do what resonates with you - what brings you true joy. What lights you up. Why? Because it heals. You and humanity. Don’t put it off. We need your light, NOW!

If you were to watch an episode of the Netflix show “The Home Edit”, notice the genuine and authentic joy that the two hosts (Clea and Joanna) can’t contain when their client walks into the transformed space. They literally jump and squeal with joy. Those two LOVE what they do (I can totally relate!) What if everyone loved their work THAT much!?  I want to live in that world!

If you want to help create a better world, start with yourself. You can only really control or change you.  Your responsibility toward this desire is to find what brings you joy.  When you can truly be happy (not just putting on a happy face) you increase happiness in the world. Be yourself, shine your light and share joy with humanity. Joy, like a pebble tossed in a pond, ripples out and out and out.

It is also healing. Joyful people are less likely to get sick. Being joyful and feeling good, means less stress, better self care and a more robust immune system. When we are healthy we are then more available and have more energy for our families, friends and community. This is why it is not selfish at all to do what lights you up.

Our bodies try to tell us things, but we don’t always listen. An ailment points to a belief, conscious or unconscious, that is needing attention. When you chose YOU, through joy and happiness, you are more fully embodying your true essence, which can “magically” heal a physical issue. Check out this short but wonderful interview on “The HEAL podcast” with Reverend Micheal Beckwith which gives a wonderful example of this. (link below) 

I ask… What lights you up? What makes you smile so big it is contagious? Do more of that!
​https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEDz9L0jg_o

It’s imperative that you do what resonates with you - what brings you true joy. What lights you up. Why? Because it heals. You and humanity. Don’t put it off. We need your light, NOW!

If you were to watch an episode of the Netflix show “The Home Edit”, notice the genuine and authentic joy that the two hosts (Clea and Joanna) can’t contain when their client walks into the transformed space. They literally jump and squeal with joy. Those two LOVE what they do (I can totally relate!) What if everyone loved their work THAT much!?  I want to live in that world!

If you want to help create a better world, start with yourself. You can only really control or change you.  Your responsibility toward this desire is to find what brings you joy.  When you can truly be happy (not just putting on a happy face) you increase happiness in the world. Be yourself, shine your light and share joy with humanity. Joy, like a pebble tossed in a pond, ripples out and out and out.

It is also healing. Joyful people are less likely to get sick. Being joyful and feeling good, means less stress, better self care and a more robust immune system. When we are healthy we are then more available and have more energy for our families, friends and community. This is why it is not selfish at all to do what lights you up.

Our bodies try to tell us things, but we don’t always listen. An ailment points to a belief, conscious or unconscious, that is needing attention. When you chose YOU, through joy and happiness, you are more fully embodying your true essence, which can “magically” heal a physical issue. Check out this short but wonderful interview on “The HEAL podcast” with Reverend Micheal Beckwith which gives a wonderful example of this. (link below) 

I ask… What lights you up? What makes you smile so big it is contagious? Do more of that!

It’s my dad’s 81st birthday today. Or it would have been. He died last December. My Father-in-law passed away yesterday. He almost made it to 80 - about 3 weeks away. Both were dear to me. They were full of life and fun. Being men however, they didn’t take the best care of themselves. They were both surprised to live as long as they did. Yet I can’t help thinking, they could have lived longer if they had had better tools to care for their mental, emotional and physical health.

The Energy Codes offers better tools. These are not necessarily new tools. But we lost the real healing arts to modern medicine. Not that modern medicine hasn’t saved countless lives. It has. But it ignores critical pieces. All in the name of “science”. Yet quantum science is proving that energy medicine is just as, if not more, important and powerful. (think placebo effect)

The soul speaks to the body and the body speaks to the mind. But the mind is often not listening. When you can tune into your body and your feelings don’t scare you, wonderful things open up. We can re-gain these important missing pieces of our whole self, our whole experience, and improve our health. 
By embodying our experiences, living from our entire system not just the mind, we can move energies through our bodies in a healthy way. Everything is energy. Including you. And when energies get stuck, they can cause inflammation, disease, pain and ultimately suffering. When pushed away, feelings get stuck. They don’t just disappear. We all know this. Yet we were not really taught to properly deal with them, most certainly not to process them at the time they come up. We can gain back ground by learning some simple practices. 
I teach these practices in my work. You can also read the book “The Energy Codes” by Dr. Sue Morter. The audio book is especially great. These practices are doable for anyone. They involve the breath and tuning into your body. Some people live outside their body, so much so that they consider it as simply a way to move their head around. Kind of like a car, no? The body is so much more. And has much wisdom to share.  Gut feelings are a thing. Feeling love in the chest area or a broken heart is not just a concept. We have all experienced this to some degree.
I respect that all beings have a unique life journey. But I came to serve humanity. One of the ways I am doing that is through my work, and the rest is by just being me. Offering me and my light to the world. Being more and more my true self, without apology. In love and joy, not as an excuse for poor or disrespectful behavior. I don’t want to apologize for being me any more. Sometimes we learn quickly and sometimes what is needed is gradually embraced after countless exposure where it was resisted. When will you decide to listen? Is that time now?

There are many ways to get to a better sense of self, health and freedom from suffering. Find a path that resonates with you. But don’t keep putting it off. Eventually it might be too late. This life is all an adventure. It is not meant to be a trudge through the mud. We have been fooled. Find a better path that you enjoy more. And another even better one might present itself after that. 
​
With light, love and abundance, I wish you and all of humanity a joyous revised path!

Not only can I eat the pasta made with Italian flour from Wildly Beloved Foods, these pasta all taste amazing! With so few ingredients, it leads me to believe there is more to the story.  

Everything is made of energy. Everything IS energy. Food give us energy to continue functioning in our day. Thoughts we think vibrate at a frequency that can be measured. Happy or joyful thoughts vibrate at higher frequencies than sad or angry thoughts. Try this. Think a happy thought and notice what you are feeling in your body. Then think an unhappy thought. Again notice what that feels like in the body. Did your energy seem to shift? Thinking about doing something fun gives you energy and gets your feet moving. Think about something you would rather not do or have been avoiding, and it can be hard to get up out of the chair to move toward doing it. Right?

We now know that when animals are traumatized right before they are killed, their meat can be tougher as the adrenaline rushed through their system and stayed there upon death.  And that makes chemical sense. But also, we have all experienced the enhanced enjoyment of eating food made by someone we love or whom loves us, or whom enjoys the act of cooking. And as the saying goes, never eat food prepared by an angry person. The energies of the food, the person handling the food and your own energies at the moment, seem to effect the level of enjoyment. Maybe it should not surprise us that food made with love, joy and passion wouldn’t taste better than food created by machines with no thoughts at all.

Perhaps food made by mechanical means could benefit by the loving intention of employees as the food moves out of the warehouse and into stores to be brought home by consumers to eat. You can bless your food at any point but has been done for hundreds of years by saying a blessing at the beginning of a meal. Maybe there is more value to this practice than we thought. 

You can even share gratitude with it all when it is still sitting in your grocery bag before it gets put away into the kitchen. I was doing this during COVID to ensure all was safe to bring into my home and for my body. But I should not have stopped that practice because really it is always my desire to be safe, healthy and well nourished by the food I eat. 

The owner of Wildly Beloved Foods in my town has a real passion for her pasta and has turned her passion into a thriving business in a very short amount of time. Her ambition and passion got her this far this fast. And, I believe, her love of what she is creating gets literally infused into her pasta. So much so that I notice when I eat it. The word love is even in the company name. Reminds me of Dr. Emoto’s water experiment.  He observed that where varying thoughts were sent by a group to water and then the water was frozen and photographed, the higher frequency thoughts of love came through in the images as beautiful crystalline structures. The thoughts of hate came through as distorted and ugly, sick looking crystals. If the water had been also tasted, would there would have been a difference?

Just a moment of appreciation directed to the food in your shopping bags goes a long way. Sending love to the food you prepare is good to, and if cooking for loved ones, you don’t even have to do more as it is already inherent in the efforts and thoughts (energy). Eating foods from local growers and manufacturers are tastier because they are fresher but also, I believe, simply because loving human hands handled the food during it’s creation. Maybe even purchased directly from them, enhancing it further. The chef coming to your table at a restaurant to ask how the food was, helps both the chef and the customer experience.

As I taste the amazing flavors of local foods, I am in appreciation that my meal is not only sustaining me and the planet, that it is uplifting me in that moment through the delicious taste, aroma, and overall experience of it! That higher vibration I generate ripples out into the world. Slowing down to enjoy and appreciate your food can make a difference in the whole of our human experience. And after all, we are what we eat, right? Choose wisely and share gratitude for it and where it came from. 

What has been your experience around food? Please share below!